Chapter 3

But at length the trying passage was almost accomplished. Only Sir Ernest Scrivener remained in peril.

Unconsciously Ralph removed his fingers from his lips. Inexperienced as a climber, Sir Ernest imagined this to be a signal that the danger was now over.

"I say," he began.

It was enough. In an instant the whole line of _seracs_ toppled from their bases and thundered down upon him. Ralph did not hesitate. The man was his most deadly enemy, but--he was Lady Margaret's cousin. Ralph sprang to the rope; it snapped like thread between his fingers.

With a cry of despair Sir Ernest vanished in the roaring avalanche of ice and snow. Throwing a quick reassuring smile to Lady Margaret, Ralph joined his hands above his head and dived unflinchingly after him.

(_To be concluded in our next._)

* * * * *

Illustration: _Golfer_ (_playing his second round in the day_). "INTO THIS BEASTLY BUNKER AGAIN, CADDIE!"

_Caddie._ "NO, S'. THIS IS THE ONE YOU MISSED THIS MORNING."

* * * * *

THE WISER CHOICE.

[A weekly paper points out that letters of proposal should be carefully timed to arrive in the evening, that being the sentimental time of the day when acceptance is most likely.]

Good Sir, your directions are all very fine, But, when I propose by the pen trick, I shall look for a temper to tolerate mine, And mine is distinctly eccentric; If she, in the morning, is likely to grouse, If her breakfast demeanour is surly, There would not be room for us both in the house; I'm peevish myself when it's early.

So rather I'd have her most critical mood Prevail at the time of my wooing; I'd like to be sure that the girl understood Exactly the thing she was doing. I feel in my heart it were better for me To double the risk of rejection, In order (if haply accepted) to be A calm and cold-blooded selection.

Let my letter arrive when the day at its start Provokes a malevolent feeling; Her answer may puncture a hole in my heart, But Time is an expert at healing; And that will be better than learning too late, At the end of the honeymoon season, That the lady had only consented to mate In an hour that was bad for her reason.

* * * * *

From a concert programme at Brighton:--

"Parsifal. Tannhaeuser. Walkuere. Gotterdaemmerung. Siegfried. Tristan and Isolde. Requiem for 3 cellos and orchestra."

The last item does not surprise us.

* * * * *

"ANSTRUTHER.--Comf. roofs, 2 beds, 25th July on; sea view."--_Glasgow Herald._

The fresh air craze is spreading.

* * * * *

MNEMONICS.

For reasons of economy we get all our household requisites from Moggridge's Stores in the Tottenham Court Road, where we have a deposit account. Joan once worked out that by shopping in this manner we saved ninepence-halfpenny every time we spent one pound four and fivepence (her arithmetic cannot cope with percentages), besides having our goods delivered at the door by a motor van. This is a distinct score off our neighbours, who have to be content with theirs being brought round by a boy on a kind of three-wheeled Black-Maria.

We are not on the telephone at home, so it is my part of the arrangement to ring up Moggridge's when I arrive at my office, and order what we want; that is, whenever I remember. But unfortunately I own the most impossible of head-pieces. It's all right to look at from the outside, but inside the valves leak, or else the taps run. Consequently it generally ends in Joan's writing a note when I return home in the evening. Thus I was not altogether surprised when, one morning after breakfast, Joan asked me to repeat her orders. I did so. "That's not what I said!" cried Joan. "That's only what you _thought_ I said. I did not even mention smoked salmon. Now listen while I tell you again; or, better still, write it down on a piece of paper."

"That's no good," I said. "I always lose the paper. But go on with the list; I've got a very good idea."

"Two pounds of Mocha coffee," she began.

I picked up two coffee beans from the tray--Joan self-grinds and self-makes the coffee every morning--and placed them amongst the loose change in my trouser pocket.

"Fourteen pounds of best loaf sugar," she went on.

I drew my handkerchief from my sleeve, tied a small lump of sugar in a corner of it, and then placed it inside my hat.

"Why put it in your hat?" asked Joan.

"Because," I answered, "I may not have occasion to draw my handkerchief from its usual place, whereas I always _have_ to take my hat off."

"How will you remember the quantity?".

"Well, fourteen pounds make one stone, don't they? Before I remember the hard thing is a piece of sugar I shall think it's a stone."

Joan sniffed contemptuously.

"Then there's my ring," she continued, "the diamond and sapphire one that I left for resetting. The estimate they promised has not come, and besides there's the----"

"Hold on a minute!" I cried. "Just tie a piece of cotton round my married finger."

She did so. Then she went on:

"The drawing-room clock should have been sent home, cleaned, last Friday. They haven't sent it."

"Perhaps they expected it to _run down_," I suggested.

Joan bore up wonderfully, and merely said, "Well--do something. Put the sardines in your pocket-book, or the marmalade in your gloves."

"Those," I said, "are not, strictly speaking, mnemonics for sending home cleaned clocks. They would be all right for a picnic tea-basket, but not for the thing in question. Everything I have done up to the present is suggestive of what I have to remember," and I turned my watch round in my pocket so that it faced outwards.

"I see," said Joan. "Now, what's the cotton round your finger for?"

"Smoked sa--, that is to say, coff--, I mean the estimate for your ring," I answered. "Is there anything else?"

"Another box of stationery like the last--the crinkly paper, you know. They've got our die."

I tore a strip from the newspaper, crinkled it carefully and put it away in my cigarette-case. A minute later I was on my way to the railway-station.

A keen head-wind was blowing, causing my eyes to water and the tears to flow unbidden. I explored my sleeve for my handkerchief. It was not there. I could not possibly go to town without one, so I hastened home again. Joan was at the window as I ran up.

"What is it?" she cried.

"My handkerchief!" I gasped. "I've forgotten----"

"Fourteen pounds of best loaf sugar!" called out Joan. "It's in your hat."

As I hurried once more in the direction of the station I withdrew the handkerchief from my hat and wiped my streaming eyes. The operation over, I placed the handkerchief in my sleeve. I heard the whistle of a train in the distance and instinctively took out my watch. It was right-about-face in my pocket, and I lost a good half-second in getting it into the correct position for time-telling. It was nine-seventeen. I had just one minute in which to do the quarter-mile; but my _forte_ is the egg-and-spoon race, and I missed the train handsomely.

There was an interval of twenty minutes before the next one was due, so I thought I would have a cigarette. I opened my case, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. I picked it up and glanced at it. On one side I read that "... knocked out Submarine Snooks in the ninth round after a hotly--contested ..." while on the other side I saw that "... condition offers the gravest anxiety to his numerous friends and ..." I threw the paper away, for it did not interest me, and walked up to the bookstall to select a magazine. I had to remove my left glove in order to get at my money, and in pulling it off I noticed a shred of cotton come away with it. This meant an inside seam gone somewhere; and they were new gloves, too. I threw a coin to the paper-boy, and two small round objects like boot-buttons rolled on to the platform. Shortly afterwards the train strolled up.

At the office I was so busy all day, arranging about the shipment of a steam-crane to Siam (I am a commission-agent), that it was not until I was seated in the train, going home in the evening, that I vaguely remembered that I had forgotten something. I grew more and more uneasy, and, with the idea of distracting my thoughts from an unpleasant channel, I picked up an evening paper from underneath the opposite seat. At some quite recent period it had obviously contained nourishment of an oleaginous nature, but, though soiled, it was still legible. The very first paragraph which I read served to remind me of Joan's forgotten orders; but it brought me, nevertheless, an unholy joy, for it ran: "The funeral of the late Mr. Jeremiah Moggridge, founder and managing director of the mammoth stores which bear his name, took place this afternoon. As a mark of respect the premises were closed for business throughout the day."

So it would have been futile to ring them up in any case. I was saved!

On reaching home the first thing Joan said to me was--

"Did you order those things from Moggridge's?"

I didn't say anything. I merely handed her the evening paper and indicated the saving clause. Joan read it through. Then she said--

"Yes, I _thought_ you'd mess it all up in spite of your ichneumonics, or whatever you call them; and so after lunch I went to the call-office and ordered the things myself."

"But Moggridge's was closed--didn't you read?"

"Yes," replied Joan; "but, next time you forget, don't try to establish an _alibi_ with yesterday's evening paper."

* * * * *

Our private telephone will be fixed by next week. I forget how much Joan reckons we shall save by it.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Rev. Brown._ "I'M AFRAID, MY DEAR YOUNG LADY, I KNOW VERY LITTLE OF AGRICULTURAL MATTERS; IN FACT I DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MANGEL AND A WURZEL."

* * * * *

THE PASSING OF THE COW.

[_The Soya bean, grown in Japan, Korea and Manchuria, is said to provide a perfect substitute for milk._]

_Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe_: All mortal flesh is grass, Mown down by Time at the appointed hour; And in the world of speed The noblest Arab steed Yields, O Combustion, to thy pent-up power.

On Youth of ardent aim No more _Mazeppa's_ fame Or TURPIN'S feats exert their ancient spell; NAPIER and WOLSELEY stand No more for war's command, But only steel and rubber, oil and smell.

Where once men safely strode Along the open road, A sinister and stertorous machine Exhales its acrid breath And deals impartial death To all the dwellers on the village green.

And now, O gentle cow, Man's foster-mother, thou, Must tread the fatal path the horse hath trod, Since scientists have found That milk and cream abound Within the compass of an Eastern pod.

No more shall we behold, As in the days of old, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea; Or Mary, mid the foam, Calling her cattle home, Across the sands, the perilous sands o' Dee.

Mourn, Alderney, and mourn, O maiden all forlorn, The cow with crumpled horn that filled thy pail; Mourn, damsels, mourn and sigh Who can no more reply, "I'm going a milking" to the curious male.

Mourn too, for ye shall feel The change at every meal, Ye minions of the hearthrug; be not mute, Ye Persians, topaz-eyed, When mistresses provide This miserable Soya substitute.

In legendary lore The cow was wont to soar With Daedalean art above the moon; But ah! the cardboard cows That by the railroad browse To no elopement prompt the modern spoon.

On earth men owned thy sway From Lapland to Cathay; In heaven the Milky Way thy might confessed: Weaklings we saw become Strong, thanks to thee and rum, And Punch of all ingredients found milk best.

But, heedless of a debt He never should forget, Ungrateful man is planning to replace By vegetable aid The kindly service paid By your mild-natured and sweet-breathing race.

Yet, ere the Soya boom Achieves the dairy's doom, And rude bean-crushers oust the homely churn, Let one unworthy scribe Salute the vaccine tribe And lay his wreath upon their funeral urn.

* * * * *

The Trippers.

"The native inhabitants produce all manner of curios, the great majority of which appear to command a ready sale among the visitors, crude and commonplace as these frequently are."--_Bulawayo Chronicle._

They are; but, bless their hearts, they seem to enjoy themselves.

* * * * *

"EXETER.--Young Cook-General, willing to learn; small family, no children; no basement. No religion preferred."

_Western Morning News._

She forgot to add "No meals to serve."

* * * * *

MY GIRL CADDIE.

As a matter of fact she was my gardener's chauffeur-son's girl. The junior parent having been living chiefly on my garden or in my kitchen, and now being at the end of his resources, it was suggested that I should give his Amy a job. The proposal came from my wife, who had been victualling Amy's mother and Amy's baby sister for some weeks. An illuminating correspondence in the Press had done the rest.

For her first appointment at the tee Amy was nearly twenty minutes late, and when she arrived it was in a mauve skirt, green stockings, an ochre sporting coat and a hat which had once been my wife's. Seen against the background of the native boy caddies, Amy might have been described as picturesque.

"Mother says," said Amy, as we introduced ourselves--"Mother says she's sorry you should be kep', but baby's used to going off, me rocking 'im, and she was that busy, it being the day what she mostly washes."

"Very well, Amy," I said, realising the situation, "we must do better next time. The gentleman I was to play would not wait; but perhaps, if we just went round together, you could get an idea of your--your duties."

Amy accepted my suggestion and my bag of clubs with an abstracted sniff. She seemed to be more closely engaged in retorting by manual signals to the distant provocations of her male rivals.

"Now, Amy," I reminded her gently, "you must learn how to make a tee."

Amy turned reluctantly and stared over my bent back at the Miss Galbraiths, who were just starting for the ladies' course.

"First of all," I began more firmly, "you take a pinch of sand from this box--so." Tee-making is not my forte, and I was painfully conscious that I worked under the critical gaze of fully twenty expert eyes.

"If you please," said Amy in a brighter mood, "mother says I'll want some things to clean up the sticks with."

I rose from my knees with a cricked back, but I had my Purple Spot neatly balanced on a really creditable mound.

"We shall come to that presently, Amy," I explained. "When I have finished playing you can take the clubs and make them nice and bright with emery-paper."

Amy did not take this proposal encouragingly.

"Mother says I should want some turps," she informed me, "and brickdus' and some whitin' to finish, and some methelay. She says she don't 'old with the way Jimmy Baines and the rest of 'em does it. Mother says the sticks should be cleaned proper, as they oughter be. She says she'd 'ave give me the things, only she ain't got any, and I was to ask if it was convenience to you to spare me the money to go to the village and get 'em. Then she'd show me 'ow."

I had discovered my driver behind Amy's back and was preparing to get away, but these views of Amy's mother were so complete an innovation that I paused. On the verge of a first drive I had never in my life stopped to consider the ethics of golf-club cleaning. Why had not Amy a pocket and a rag of sand-paper like resourceful Jimmy Baines? I don't remember to have ever read anything on the niceties of the art of scouring clubs. It is a subject on which the writers of golfing articles--prolific enough, as Heaven knows, about other and more negligible aspects of the game--seem to have adopted an attitude of studied reticence.

"Look here, Amy," I said rather severely, "you really must not talk. You must remember you are here to carry my clubs, not to tell me about your mother. My iron clubs must be cleaned precisely as they always have been cleaned. That is entirely your department of the game, and you must stand at least three yards further away or I shall probably kill you." Then I drove, sliced hideously, and landed in long grass a hundred yards to the right.

Some premonition of feminine detachment prompted me to keep my eyes rigidly on the tuft which concealed my ball, as I strode forward. But half-way I turned. I _felt_ Amy was not with me. She was standing precisely where I had left her, her hat off, her pink tongue stuck out in the direction of the caddies' shed.

"Amy!" I shouted, and the sound of my voice had an indescribably incongruous and humiliating echo. "Amy, come here at once; how dare----"

Amy came ambling across the fairway, hat in hand, my bag of clubs left where she had deposited them upside down in the tee-box for greater freedom in responding with gestures of defiance to the chaff of the enemy.

"Now look here," I said as Amy stood wonderingly before me; "I am very, very disappointed in you--very, very angry. You wanted to earn your living, I understood?"

Amy's brows darkened but her lips were slightly tremulous.

"Mother won't let me go into the laundry," she said sulkily, "'cos father says I'm not sperienced enough, and Jimmy Baines give me 'is cheek, so I give it 'im back."

Thus we stood surveying the situation, my girl-caddie and I. There seemed at the moment only one sane way of ending it.

"Very well, Amy," I said dispassionately, "you had better run home and tell your mother--tell your mother to come up to the house after dinner, if there's anything she needs."

Amy resigned her position without a murmur; but before she went she extracted two paintless, weary-looking golf-balls from the pocket of her mauve skirt and offered me them for sixpence.

* * * * *

THE COTTAGE.

I know a wood on the top of a hill, Hyacinth-carpeted March till May, Where nights are wonderful, soft and still, And a deep-sea twilight hangs all day; The loving labour of fairy hands Has made it heavenly fine to see, And just outside it the cottage stands, The cottage that doesn't belong to me. A cottage, mind, And I'm sure you'd find It was damp and dirty and very confined; Oh, quite an ordinary keeper's cottage That doesn't belong to me.

Creatures people the wood at night; Peaceable animals come and play; Pan's own pipes, if you hear aright, Charm you on as you go your way; And all the Arcady folk of yore Make songs of the days that used to be, Which carry perhaps to the cottage door, The cottage that doesn't belong to me. But it's miles from town And it's tumble-down, And the woodwork's done and the slates are brown; No one could really live in the cottage That doesn't belong to me.

Fair be the towns by the river-side, Maidenhead, Richmond, Henley, Kew, Crammed with cottages far and wide, The thing for people like me and you; But I think of the haunting forest-lights And a path that wanders from tree to tree, Where the man of the cottage might walk o' nights, The cottage that doesn't belong to me. And it may be wrong, But it won't be long Before the feeling becomes too strong And I'll go and jolly well get that cottage That doesn't belong to me.

* * * * *

Illustration: A NEW AQUATIC SPORT HAS BEEN INVENTED. IT IS KNOWN AS "PLANKING," AND CONSISTS IN STANDING UPON A BOARD TOWED BY A FAST MOTOR-BOAT. SOME WHO HAVE TRIED IT CONSIDER THE PLEASURE OVER-RATED.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

_Reality_ (CASSELL) deserves to rank high amongst the novels of the present season; it has, indeed, qualities that will cause it, if I am not mistaken, to outlive most of them. The chief of these I can best express by the word colour; by which I mean not only a picturesque setting, but temperament and a fine sense of the romantic in life. Perhaps I ought to have known the name of MISS OLIVE WADSLEY already. As I did not, I can only be glad that _Reality_ has rectified the fault; I shall certainly not again forget a writer who has given me so much pleasure. The scene of the story is laid in Vienna, chiefly in musical Vienna, and the protagonists are the young widow, _Irene van Cleve_, and the violinist, _Jean Victoire_, whom she marries despite the well-founded objections of her noble family. Some of the family, too, are quite excellently drawn, notably a Cardinal, who, though he has little to do in the tale, manages to appear much more human and less of a draped waxwork than most Eminences of fiction. I have said that the objections of _Irene's_ relations were justified, the fact being that _Jean_ was not only a genius, but the most scatterbrained egoist and vulgarian. Naturally, therefore, the alliance turned out a failure; and the process is quite admirably portrayed. I liked least in the book the end, with its sudden revelation of a superfluous secret. Had the secret not been so superfluous it might have vexed me to have been so long kept in ignorance of it. But this is a small matter. The chief point is that _Reality_ has the pulse of life in it--in a word that it confirms its title; which, indeed, is about the highest praise that a critic can bestow.

* * * * *

I am not at all sure how Mr. FRANK NORRIS, were he still living, would have regarded the resurrection of this early attempt at realism, as taught us by M. ZOLA--_Vandover and the Brute_ (HEINEMANN). He would, I fancy, have softened some of the crudities and allowed a touch of humour to lighten the more solemn passages. There are pages here that remind one that _Vandover's_ creator was also the author of those magnificent novels _The Octopus_ and _The Pit_; but I cannot, in spite of them, place much confidence in the truth of _Vandover's_ life history. We are told that he enjoyed his bath, and usually spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates conveniently near. Here he stayed for over an hour, eating and reading and occasionally smoking a cigarette. Can you wonder after this that poor _Vandover_ went utterly to the bad, and is to be found on the last page doing some horrible work with a muck-rake whilst an innocent child points an obvious moral? So certain was _Vandover's_ doom, once that box of chocolates had been mentioned, that I grew impatient and a little weary. If this is an age of realism in fiction I think that _Vandover and the Brute_ should make plain to any reader why, very shortly, we are going to have an age of something else.

* * * * *