Chapter 4

_Myself to Henry Anderson, c/o Ezekiel Anderson, Slater, Crashie, Howe._

MY DEAR HENRY,--I do not think if I were you I should accept Mr. Julius Pitherby's offer of a job. Your marriage may, of course, have been--I hope it was--the occasion of your turning over a new leaf. Still, I doubt if you are quite the paragon he is looking for, and I am afraid that you may find him a little inquisitive.

I am, Yours faithfully, &c.

* * * * *

ONCE UPON A TIME.

THE POWER OF THE PRESS.

Once upon a time there was a quiet respectable little spell-of-hot-weather, with no idea of being a nuisance or doing more than warm people up a bit, and make the summer really feel like summer, and add attraction to seaside resorts. Directly it reached our shores every one began to be happy; and they would have gone on being so but for the sub-editors, who cannot leave well alone but must be for ever finding adjectives for it and teasing it with attentions. Just then they were particularly free to turn their attentions to the kindly visitor, because there was no good murder at the moment, and no divorce case, and no spicy society scandal, and therefore their pages were in need of filling. And seeing the little spell-of-hot-weather they gave way to their passion for labelling everything with crisp terseness--or terse crispness (I forget which)--and called it a "heat wave," and straightway began to give it half the paper, and with huge headings such as, "THE HEAT-WAVE," "HEAT-WAVE STILL GROWING," "80 IN THE SHADE," "HOW TO SUPPORT SUCH WEATHER," so that the nice little spell-of-hot-weather was gradually goaded into the desire really to justify this excitement.

"Very well," it said, "I never meant to be more than 80 in the shade and a pleasant interlude in the usual disappointing English June; but since they're determined I'm a nuisance I'll be one. I'll go up to 84."

And it did. It reached 84; and the wise people who like warmth said, "How splendid! If only it would go on like this for ever! Not hotter--just like this.".

But the sub-editors were not satisfied. They had got hold of a good thing and they meant to run it for all it was worth. So "HOTTER THAN EVER" they sprawled across their papers, there still being nothing of real public interest to distract them, "HOTTER TOMORROW," "HEAT-WAVE GROWING," "TERRIBLE HEAT."

And now the spell-of-hot-weather was stimulated to be really vicious. "I call Heaven to witness," it said, "that my sole desire was to be genial and beneficial. But what can one do when one is taunted and provoked, abused and nick-named like this? Very well then, I'll go up to 90!"

And it did. The sub-editors were delighted. "APPALLING HEAT," they wrote, "TROPICAL ENGLAND," "GASPING LONDON," "HEAT-WAVE BREAKS ALL RECORDS," "HOTTEST DAY FOR FIFTY YEARS," "NO SIGNS OF RELIEF."

And even the people who like warmth began to grumble a little--hypnotised by the Press. But the spell-of-hot-weather had had enough. "I'll go somewhere else, where I'm really welcome and they don't have contents bills," it said, and it crossed the Channel to Paris. It looked back to the English shores, deserted now by the happy paddlers and bathers and baskers of the days before. "I'm sorry to leave you," it said, "but don't blame me."

Yet the public did.

* * * * *

"The downpour of rain, which lasted for an hour, was preceded by a remarkable shower of hailstones, some of which were almost as large as marbles, and were as hard as ice."

_Yorkshire Herald._

And then came the rain, some drops of which were as wet as water.

* * * * *

"The tussle between Mr. Matheson and Mr. Anderson was carried to the 18th green, where the latter stood one."--_Daily Record._

"Mine's a gin and ginger," said Mr. MATHESON, as he holed the winning put.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE GUARDED GREEN.

[_It has been suggested that spectators at popular golf competitions should be installed in grand stands and other enclosures, and be restrained from wandering about the links._]

In playing his tee shot from in front of the Green Steward's marquee, Mr. Tullbrown-Smith, who took the honour in the final round of the 1916 Amateur Championship, unfortunately pulled his ball, with the result that, narrowly missing the Actors' Benevolent Fund stand, it entered the grand ducal box. The Grand Duke Raphael graciously decided that Mr. Tullbrown-Smith should be presented to His Imperial Highness before playing out. Pardonable nervousness proved fatal to the shot, which, being badly topped, fell into the Press pen, where it was photographed by _The Daily Mirror's_ special artist before it could be recovered by its owner.

* * * * *

It is interesting to record that along the straight mile boarded by the shilling enclosure Mr. Tanquery McBrail, who had been playing with marvellously decorative effect, had his ball blown into the bunker at the tenth by the laughter of the less well-informed onlookers, while a regrettable incident was the contribution of several empty ginger-beer bottles to the natural difficulties of the hazard.

* * * * *

Some dissatisfaction was expressed among the occupants of the cinema operators' cage. From the position allotted to them by the publicity committee it was impossible to film the most interesting moments in the Championship round, such as Mr. Tullbrown-Smith's acceptance of a peeled banana from his caddie on emerging from the particularly scenic bunker known as "Hell." Also a fine "picture" was missed at the 13th tee, where Mr. Tanquery McBrail was surrounded by a militant suffragist, who had invaded the course in spite of the rabbit-wire and double _chevaux-de-frise_.

* * * * *

Owing to the fact that the fashionable audience assembled in the Guards', Cavalry and Bath Club stands insisted upon encoring both players' wonderful putts at the 16th green, and the consequent delay of nearly ten minutes, there were some rather ugly manifestations of impatience in the cheaper seats. In spite of the fact that the Pale Pink Pierrots had been specially engaged to fill the interval before the finalists passed, they were so loudly booed upon their arrival that Mr. Tanquery McBrail put his mashie approach into the Parliamentary compound, amidst the jeers and hoots of the more unruly, who seemed to forget that the royal and ancient game is not a music-hall entertainment.

* * * * *

The fact that the links marshal had placed all the professional players present in one row of fauteuils, opposite the long carry to the 18th green, hardly seemed to further the interests of perfect golf. The warmest acknowledgments are therefore due to a number of ex-open champions, who kindly turned their backs on what proved one of the most distressing episodes in the day's play.

* * * * *

A MARK OF DISTINCTION.

When I passed our butcher's on my way to the station yesterday morning, I noticed outside his shop a placard prominently displayed, which read:--"Williamson's Spring Lamb. So different from the ordinary butchers."

There was no apostrophe before the "s" in "butchers," so the reference was clearly to Williamson and not Williamson's Spring Lamb.

"Is Williamson really different from his rivals?" I said to myself, crossing to the other side of the road to take a general survey of the shop front. No, the same sort of joints seemed to be hanging up as those in other butchers' windows; the same sort of legends attached to those which passers-by were invited to note particularly.

I crossed the road again. Yes, as I feared. There were several ordinary flies and at least one bluebottle exercising themselves on the meat. The choice cutlets were not isolated or decorated with garlands, or made a fuss of in any way. They just fraternised on terms of equality with the rest. The usual "young lady" in a smart blouse, with her bare pink neck served up in a ham-frill, sat behind the usual window, probably trying to work out the usual sums in butcher's arithmetic.

The top half of Mr. Williamson was visible behind his chopping-table. He saw me and touched his hat--a bowler; nothing very extraordinary about the bowler. The brim was certainly a great deal flatter than I like personally, but quite in keeping with the general tastes of those who purvey meat.

I thought it better to postpone further investigations, and reflected that Honor might be able to enlighten me when I returned home that evening.

"No," she said, when I asked her about it, "I haven't noticed anything exceptionally superior about him."

"Bills any different?"

"No," she said, "they take as long to pay; about as exorbitant as most of the others."

"Have you observed anything peculiar about his manners, then?" I said; "does he ever throw chops at you, for instance, when you pass the shop?"

"No such luck," said Honor; "I'm a good catch."

"Perhaps they give you tea," I said, "when you make an afternoon call on the sirloins?"

"Indeed they don't," said Honor, "not even when I go to pay something off the book."

"Then perhaps you have cosy little auction bridge parties in the room behind the cashier's window? No? Butchers are behind the times."

"There ought," said Honor, "to be a good joke to be made out of that--a newspaper joke; but I can't quite see how to make it just yet."

"That's something to the good," I said. "However, to our muttons."

"Rotten," said Honor.

"What of his entourage?" I said, ignoring her comment; "his steak-bearer and the like?"

"Nothing unusual; just _épris_ with Emily."

"Then where, oh where," I said, "is this difference that Williamson brags about?"

"I don't know," Honor said helplessly.

"I shall find out," I said, "even if I have to do the housekeeping myself for a bit."

"You can take it on," she said, "when you like."

* * * * *

"Aha!" I said triumphantly, as I burst into the room this evening. "I've solved the Williamson problem. He was standing at his door as I passed just now, in all the regalia of his dread office."

"And you went up to him and said, 'Well, what about it?' and pointed to the notice, I suppose."

"Not at all," I said; "I merely looked at him and the scales fell from my eyes. He butches in spats."

* * * * *

"In the open Golf Championship Treen won with 78."--_Monthly Daily Chronicle._

Next year it will be the saintly ANDREW'S turn again.

* * * * *

"With lightning-like repetition of his strides (his quick action is the essence of his speed), Applegarth came flying down the home straight."--_Yorkshire Post._

Seeing that we were looking to APPLEGARTH to uphold British prestige at the next Olympic games, we regret extremely that the secret of his speed should have been given away to our rivals.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

ELLEN MELICENT COBDEN can certainly not be accused of writing too hurriedly. I don't know how many years it is since, as "MILES AMBER," she captured my admiration with that wonderful first novel, _Wistons_; and now here is her second, _Sylvia Saxon_ (UNWIN), only just appearing. I may say at once that it entirely confirms my impression that she is a writer of very real and original gifts. _Sylvia Saxon_ is not a pleasant book. It is hard, more than a little bitter, and deliberately unsympathetic in treatment. But it is grimly real. _Sylvia_ herself is a character that lives, and her mother, Rachel, almost eclipses her in this same quality of tragic vitality. The whole tale is a tragedy of empty and meaningless lives passed in an atmosphere of too much money and too little significance. The "society" of a Northern manufacturing plutocracy, the display and rivalry, the marriages between the enriched families, the absence of any standard except wealth--all these things are set down with the minute realism that must come, I am sure, of intimate personal knowledge. _Sylvia_ is the offspring of one such family, and mated to the decadent heir of another. Her tragedy is that too late she meets a man whom she supposes capable of giving her the fuller, more complete life for which she has always ignorantly yearned. Then there is _Anne_, the penniless girl, hired as a child to be a playfellow for _Sylvia_, who herself loves the same man, and dies when his dawning affection is ruthlessly swept away from her by the dominant personality of _Sylvia_. A tale, one might call it, of unhappy women; not made the less grim by the fact that the man for whom they fought is shown as wholly unworthy of such emotion. A powerful, disturbing and highly original story.

* * * * *

"SAKI" has been now for a number of years a great delight to me, and his last work, _Beasts and Super-Beasts_ (LANE), is as good as any of its predecessors. Clothed in the elegant garments of _Clovis_ or _Reginald_, Mr. MUNRO makes plain to us how lovely this world might be were we only a little bolder about our practical jokes. In the art of introducing bears into the boudoir of a countess or pigs into the study of a diplomat, and then clinching the matter with the wittiest of epigrams, _Clovis_ is supreme. He knows, too, an immense amount about the vengeance that children may take upon their relations, and ladies upon their lady friends. I like him especially when he manoeuvres some stupid but kind-hearted woman into a situation of whose peril she herself is only cloudily aware, while the reader knows all about it. That is the fun of the whole thing. The reader is for ever assisting _Clovis_ and _Reginald_; in the course of their daring adventures he connives from behind curtains, through key-holes, from ambushes in trees, and always, whilst the poor creature is being harried by wild boars or terrified by menacing kittens, _Clovis_ may be observed, with finger on lip, begging of the intelligent reader that he will not give things away. Of the present collection of stories I like best "A Touch of Realism," "The Byzantine Omelette," "The Boar-Pig," and "The Dreamer;" but all are good, and I can only hope that it will not be too long before _Clovis_ once again invites us to further delightful conspiracies.

* * * * *

_Ars est celara artem_, and not to define and emphasise it in a foreword to the reader. The motive of _The Last Shot_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) appears in due course in the narrative; I would have preferred to discover it gradually for myself rather than have the essence of it extracted and poured into me in advance. The preface has not the excuse of a mere advertisement; to open this book at any point is to read the whole, and every page is the strongest possible incentive to the reading of the others. If (as is not admitted) any personal explanation was necessary, it should have been put at the end and in small type so that those who, like myself, detest explanations might have avoided this one. I am the more severe about this, because there can be no two opinions as to Mr. FREDERICK PALMER'S success in achieving his purpose, which, obviously, was to conceive modern warfare as between two First-class Powers, fighting in the midst of civilisation, and to reduce it to terms of exact realism, showing the latest devices of destruction at work, but carefully excluding those improbable and impossible agencies which the more exuberant but less informed novelist loves to imagine and put in play. Mr. PALMER'S conception, though based upon some experience, is for the most part speculative, of course, but I am confident that he gives us an excellent idea of how the military machine would work in practice, how its human constituent parts would feel inwardly, and what physical and moral effects a battle would have upon those civilians who inhabited and owned the battlefield. Whether or no the future will prove the truth of the author's somewhat Utopian conclusions, he certainly founds them upon a most exciting and convincing story, in which the "love interest" is as powerful as could be desired.

* * * * *

Would you like to pay a round of visits to some delightful Shropshire houses, as the friend and guest of a charming woman, who knows all about what is most interesting in all of them, and has a pleasantly chatty manner of telling it? Of course you would; so would anyone. That is why I predict another success for Lady CATHERINE MILNES GASKELL'S latest house-book, _Friends Round the Wrekin_ (SMITH, ELDER). Perhaps you have pleasant memories of her former volumes in the same kind; if so, I need say no more by way of introduction; but, if not, I must tell you that her new book is very fairly described, in the words of the publisher, as "a further collection of history and legend, garden lore and character study." What the publishers modestly refrain from mentioning is the real charm with which it has been written, a quality that makes all the difference. There are also photographs of a number of wholly fascinating houses (the kind that make me wistful when I see them in the auctioneers' windows), and the author has some personal anecdote or quaint scrap of legend to tell you about each. I am quite willing to admit that the rambling book has increased lately to an extent imperfectly justified by its average quality. Too many of them confuse rambling with drivelling. But for the reflections of a cultivated woman, one who has steeped herself in the lore of a country she evidently loves, and can transcribe it with such tender and persuasive charm, there should always be room. I may add--and your own tastes must decide whether this is a flaw or a fresh merit--that Lady CATHERINE'S sympathies, political and social, are undisguisedly with the past, and that the "Education of the People" comes in, upon almost every other page, for as shrewd raps as her gentle nature will allow her to administer.

* * * * *

I wish I were Mr. JUSTUS MILES FORMAN. Because then, if I ever chanced to wake up suddenly and find that I had been drugged in my sleep, and the six immense rubies, brought here from the East by a far-off ancestor and set in a black agate shield above my bed, to represent the "six _gouttes_ (or drops) _gules_ on a field _sable_" of my immemorial coat-of-arms, had been rudely reaved from me in the night by my cousin, who had sent one each to his six sons, I should have no fear. I should feel perfectly convinced that in a short time, by my own personal exertions, but without exercising the least particle of intelligence, I should recover those six rubies (representing six _gouttes_ or drops _gules_) and replace them in the black agate shield (representing a field _sable_); and naturally enough, like the autobiographical hero of _The Six Rubies_ (representing----I beg your pardon, I mean, published by WARD, LOCK), I should not dream of calling in the aid of the police. Another jolly thing that would inspirit me would be the fact that each of my adventures in search of the missing jewels would conform to a separate and well-known type of magazine story: there would be one fire, one notorious cracksman, one haunted castle, one cabinet with a secret drawer, and so on. There would be plenty of excitement, plenty of hairbreadth escapes. But I think that, when collating my experiences and putting them into six-shilling form, I should delete some of the tautologous references to the past which are one of the stern necessities of serial publication. Otherwise my readers might begin to feel slightly fatigued by my six ancestral _gouttes_. They might even begin to feel that they did not much care if I had hereditary sciatica.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"In addition to excellent port, which furnished many prominent features, the attendance was perhaps the best ever seen on a like occasion."--_Sportsman._

The most prominent feature would, of course, be the nose.

* * * * *