Chapter 3

Is the PRINCE kept prisoner on a trawler sweeping the North Sea for mines? Has he escaped in the German submarine which ventured up the Thames as far as the lower end of Fleet Street? Or is he interned in the searchlight apparatus at Charing Cross to insure it against attack by Zeppelins?

We seek exact information.

* * * * *

"As regards the quality of this beverage, he said he was at a loss to know on what grounds they called it coffee."--_Daily Mail._

Coffee grounds, no doubt.

* * * * *

JOURNALISTIC CANDOUR.

"There comes a time when no responsible organ of public opinion can keep silence without sacrificing the tacit obligation under which it lies to its readers."--_The Globe._

We are glad to note that in the same article there is a subsequent and reassuring reference to our contemporary's "well-deserved reputation for straightforwardness and accuracy."

* * * * *

The author of _Secrets of the German War Office_ writes of the German FOREIGN MINISTER'S "atrocious taste in waistcoats":--

"The one he had on still sticks in my memory. It was a lurid peach-blossom creation, spotted with greed."

It is to guard against this that so many of his compatriots tuck their napkins in at their necks.

* * * * *

AN ESCAPED PRISONER.

It was summertime, years ago, in the early days of the war.

Having distributed myself quite satisfactorily within a hammock, I had just decided that nothing short of invasion or the luncheon bell should disturb me, when my flapper niece shot forth in my direction from the French windows of the morning-room.

In one hand she flourished an empty birdcage and in the other what proved to be a tin of enormous hemp seeds.

"Wake up!" she cried as she approached rapidly through the near distance. "The precious Balaam has escaped! The brute must have got out while I was fetching his clean water, and the windows were _wide_ open!"

The prospect of a canary hunt across country with a temperature at 80 degrees in the shade positively made me shiver.

"Your father is the man to catch it for you, Eileen," I suggested. "He's most awfully good at catching things. I--er think he's somewhere on the tennis-court."

"He's not, because he was splashing about in the bathroom just now when I wanted to fill Balaam's water-bottle."

"All right," I said resignedly, "I'll come. Was Balaam the man or the ass? I forget. And while we're at it why should you call the bird Balaam at all?"

Eileen was in no mood for foolish questionings.

"Get up!" she ordered. "I call him Balaam because he's not a proper canary--he's a mule."

"Then I am not at all sure," I began hopefully, "that I can countenance the keeping of mules in birdcages! Should the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals get to hear of it, they would certainly----"

"There he is!" interrupted Eileen shrilly as something yellowish flew jerkily across a neighbouring cabbage bed. "That's Balaam! Take the cage. I'll wait here in case he comes back!"

By the time I had reached the further end of the cabbage bed I was just in time to see a tawny bird vanish over a hedge, flop tantalisingly across the road and disappear among the branches of an apple-tree on the other side.

What I now see to have been a mistaken idea of my duty towards Eileen led me painfully through two hedges to the foot of the tree in whose branches Balaam the Mule was possibly enjoying the first-fruits of his liberty.

In vain I produced vocal effects calculated to charm away the love of travel from the breast of any canary; then, as Balaam persistently refused to come to me, I proceeded slowly but surely, and accompanied by the cage, to make my way to him.

Whether tree-climbing shares the same age limit as that assigned to recruits, or whether the cage was too severe a handicap, I don't know, but halfway up I somehow found myself marooned on an obviously inadequate branch.

For several minutes I balanced uncertainly. Then someone began to pass along the road beyond the hedge. As it seemed probable that their owner might prove of use to me, I hailed the footsteps with a shout.

The footsteps stopped and I shouted again.

This time there was a faint scream in answer and a mauve-and-white bonnet bobbed agitatedly up the road.

After a few more minutes of delicate and masterly balancing I was relieved to hear the approach of quite a number of people from the other side of the orchard.

Evidently the mauve-and-white bonnet had thoroughly realized my perilous position, for my rescuers seemed to include almost the entire village. Even the Vicar was there, armed with an assegai--no doubt a missionary trophy. It was thoughtful of them to have turned out in such numbers to rescue a mere visitor, but still one ploughman with a ladder would have been ample.

Soon words floated up to me from the mouth of the leading rescuer. "I'll learn him!" he was saying with fervour. "I'll learn him to come German-spying round my orchard!"

Balaam or no Balaam, I drew the line at being assegaied to death as a Teuton spy, so I dropped the cage with a bang and, clinging to the end of my branch, I at last succeeded in gaining the ground in moderate safety.

When I had finished explaining about Balaam, they were convinced, though evidently disappointed.

"You see," explained the Vicar, prodding the apple-tree regretfully with his assegai, "poor Miss Tittlepatter said that she had been attacked by German spies from this very orchard."

At the third prod of the Vicar's assegai, a brown-and-yellow bird flew self-consciously from the top of the apple-tree and perched in full view on a five-barred gate.

"There he is!" I hissed, moving stealthily forward with the remains of the birdcage. "There's Balaam the canary!"

"Kenary!" contemptuously remarked the rescuer who had been so anxious to undertake the education of Teutonic spies. "That ain't no kenary; that's a bloomin' yellow'ammer!"

* * *

When, a dishevelled wreck, I reached my own gateway, I was met in the drive by Eileen.

"It's all right after all," she remarked cheerfully. "The stupid bird was on the curtain pole all the time. So lucky, because, if he _had_ got out, it would have meant an awful bother. And, I say, is it true that they've caught a German spy down in the village?"

* * * * *

Illustration: _Salesman._ "NO, SIR, NEITHER OF THESE MASKS WAS MADE IN GERMANY."

* * * * *

In aid of the Arts Fund for the relief of the many members of the artistic professions who are in distress owing to the War, a _Matinee_ under the patronage of QUEEN ALEXANDRA will be given at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 3 o'clock. Mr. THOMAS BEECHAM will produce Bach's _Phoebus and Pan_, and Mr. GRANVILLE BARKER will produce _Philip the King_, a new play by Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD. _Mr. Punch_ very heartily commends the cause to his readers.

* * * * *

Illustration:

_Huntsman._ "BLANKETY-BLANK THAT BLOOMIN' KAISER! I WISH MY 'OUNDS 'AD 'IM!"

_Farmer._ "WHAT'S 'E BIN DOIN' TO YOU NOW, JACK?"

_Huntsman._ "DOIN'? JUST LOOK AT THE 'OSSES 'E'S LEFT US TO RIDE!"

* * * * *

NOTES BY A WAR-DOG.

Now I don't want to snarl at the Cause--whatever it may be--but it isn't all beef-bones and country walks by any means. I first became aware of it about the same time the Dachshund at the corner house began to declare he was an Aberdeen Terrier. From that time on I scented something wrong, though could never quite dig it out. For one thing, the parrot began to practise a new phrase about "Down with the KAI...!" and also "_Veeve_" the something or other. Then Mabel--who does absurd things but has to be tolerated because she waits upon me--started tying coloured ribbons in my hair, and later sticking little flags in my collar; but I put a stop to that. A week ago things came to a head, and don't look like improving.

For the last five years my daily life has been brightened in manner following. We live next door to a railway station and a pastry-cook's. Every morning Mabel gives me a round hard thing she calls a penny, and very slippery to hold in one's mouth. I carry the penny to the pastry-cook's. The girl takes it and gives me a currant biscuit in exchange. Sometimes there are people in the shop, and then I gaze upon them meltingly. If they are the right sort, they melt--according to their means; usually it's pastry. The rest of the day I spend loafing about the station _and_ the pastry-cook's. Now all that is changed.

Last Thursday Mabel took me to a Committee, a place full of typewriters and ladies; and I was registered--so they said; Mabel being given a sheet of paper all over scribble, and a wooden box with "War Relief Fund" on it. "On Monday, dear," said Mabel, "you begin."

I have begun. Would you believe it? I had to wear that beastly box tied to my collar! Retrievers, I know, are used to that sort of thing; but I'm a Collie. All that day I hung about on my old beat, and every now and then somebody gushed and called me silly names, and dropped a penny into my box. Conceive the hideous mockery of my position! By four o'clock there was I sitting outside that confectioner's, wearing enough pennies to buy the shop out, and yet not a Bath bun to the good!

But that wasn't the worst. About five an urchin came along, looked at mo, grinned, and tried to put something in my box. Clumsy little beast, he trod on my foot. I sprang forward with a growl, and his offering, whatever it was, rolled on the pavement. Round turned an old lady, and, "Oh you wicked boy," she cried, "trying to put buttons in the hospital box! No wonder the dog growled, sensible creature." She began fumbling with her purse, and I was certain I saw a macaroon in her eye. "There," she said, "there's half-a-crown for you, Doggie, dear," and, before I could stop her, put it in the box. I could have bitten her.

Yesterday an old gentleman stopped to stare at me, and, absent-mindedly putting his hand in his pocket, brought out something rather like a penny, but smaller and bright yellow, and dropped it into the box. The very next moment he gave a violent start, looked wildly about him, turned the colour of cold veal, and muttering, "Lord bless my soul ... what have I done?... thought it was only" ... made a clumsy grab at my collar. Of course I knew what he was after; he wanted my pennies; so I just ambled off, and very soon outdistanced him. An Airedale, I suppose, would have held him till the police arrived, but I'm a Collie.

That very same afternoon, wandering about the station, I chanced to saunter into the ticket-office. The clerk's a man with a very well-regulated mind. He gives me chocolate. Just then, however, he was out, but his three-year-old boy-puppy was there sitting on a table all covered with bits of cardboard and little piles of pennies, ordinary brown ones, big white ones and a few little yellow ones. Well, in less time than it takes to cock your ears, that baby was shovelling pennies through the slit in my box and chuckling with joy. I stood it as long as I could, and then, in the nick of time, snatched a big white penny out of his paw and bolted off to the confectioner's. Imagine my astonishment when the girl actually refused to serve me! "Oh, Scottie," she cried, "there must be some mistake; I _know_ your mistress wouldn't give you a two-shilling piece."

* * *

I thought Mabel was going to be ill when she felt the weight of my box. She dragged me off that very afternoon to the Committee, and when they discovered I'd collected seven pounds ten in three days the idiotic things they said about me beat anything in my experience since the time I killed the mouse in the conservatory. But I will say Mabel did the right thing by me at the pastry-cook's.

She's going to take me to a Church Bazaar to-morrow. But I doubt if a bazaar can beat that ticket-office.

* * * * *

HERBERT.

"I haven't introduced Herbert to you yet, have I?"

Stella-my-niece spoke with her eyes on the matinee hat before her, and concluded, _a propos_ of the hat, though at first I feared of Herbert--"I do hope and pray that it will come off. Hip! Hip! She's pulling out pins."

"I had no idea there was--a Herbert."

"Oh, Nunckle! and you're responsible for the fact that he's mine at all!"

"I responsible?"

"Well, but for you I never might have seen him even; and I'm sure there isn't another like Herbert in the whole round world. Everyone wants him."

Presently I enquired when she proposed to introduce this paragon to the person responsible for him.

"I've got him here to-day."

I looked at her in pained silence, for Stella-my-niece, calmly fishing for "hard ones" in a chocolate box, was, as it were, sheltered under the lee of a long-haired gentleman who occupied rather more than double half-a-crown's worth of red velvet seat.

"There?" I whispered, pointing to the long-haired gentleman who neighboured her, and wondering what her mother would have to say about it all.

Stella-my-niece smiled.

"Do you imagine that I should bring Herbert into the pit?"

"Point him out to me."

"I can't. Now they're going to begin!" She snuggled down into her place and invited me to do likewise in my own as the curtain rose and revealed the legs of one of our leading actor-managers, and the audience clapped, hoping for more. "Now we're going to enjoy ourselves! Don't forget to hold my hand if anything pops."

Stella-my-niece has made it a stern rule that we are not to talk during the Acts, contriving to telegraph her appreciation of most things by fervent clutches at my arm; but to-day the effects of this salutary regulation were spoilt for me by Herbert. My attention wandered.

"Is he an actor?" I asked sternly, as the lights leaped up again.

"Which do you mean? I think they were all perfect darlings in that scene."

"Why, Herbert, of course."

"HERBERT--Sir HERBERT? He isn't in this, is he? I didn't see anyone looking as bored as he does. Hunt him up in the programme--it's down there under your boots."

"I didn't mean TREE. I meant Herbert--your Herbert."

"My Herbert?" Stella-my-niece opened her mouth showing astonishment and very pretty teeth.

"Yes, your Herbert. He's an actor fellow, isn't he?"

"No, he's an umbrella--my new umbrella. I bought him with the sovereign you sent me for my birthday, and he is such a darling! I felt he ought to have a name of his own, so I called him Herbert. He looks like that."

"A girl's name--Maud, for instance, only one doesn't use them in the garden much----"

"A girl's name, like Pauline, may suit your fountain pen, and Dad may call the motor 'Mary Jane' when he's pleased with how he's mended her; but I decided I would have a man's. It sounds better to say, 'Herbert is seeing me home, thank you.' The sad thing is that I'm sure I shan't keep him long; he's so pretty. When he's waiting for me in umbrella-stands I feel nervous, and in trains. He's so unique--so utterly unlike anyone else's umbrella. I know you'll love him."

I did as soon as ever I saw him coming out of the cloak-room hanging on her arm. There was a gentle coyness in the turn of Herbert's handle, a nutty daintiness about his little gold tie which made me look involuntarily for his socks.

"Now, you wait and see if someone doesn't try to run off with him before we get home," said Stella-my-niece. "I'll hold him on a long lead so that people will think he's out by himself, and we'll await developments."

We settled ourselves by tact and firmness in a crowded _apres matinee_ 'bus, and Stella-my-niece, having set down all her belongings the better to persuade the programme to ride inside her pocket, took Herbert by his long tassels, leaving him leaning against the seat between herself and her neighbour, a lady with many trimmings and a book.

"I hope she'll go before we do," said Stella-my-niece in my ear. "I sort of feel that she'll try to take Herbert."

She did; as she read, her hand reached out and took a grip upon Herbert's immaculate head! Stella-my-niece stifled a squeak of pure excitement.

"Oxford Street," announced the conductor dispassionately, and the trimmed lady shut her book and rose to get out. Stella-my-niece, holding Herbert by his tassels, smiled indulgently.

"You have my umbrella, I'm afraid," she said sweetly. "It is such a very uncommon one that I simply couldn't be mistaken."

The trimmed lady looked round; so did everyone in the 'bus. Then she pointed to a slim object propped against the seat between Stella-my-niece's blue skirt and my own striped garments.

"That's yours by the gentleman; they're just the same pattern."

So they were!

* * *

As Stella-my-niece said afterwards at tea, the worst of it was that it proved that Herbert wasn't quite unique; at the best he was a twin. I think that privately we thought him something worse than a triplet, but we neither knew quite how to say it. Anyhow, all the Herberts are fascinating.

* * * * *

THE UNIVERSAL WAR.

"Into this gap the Germans placed a number of gnus--six or eight."--_People._

The "Gorilla Warfare" (mentioned last week) having failed, the enemy tries a new dodge. But the Allies remain unalarmed.

* * * * *

Illustration: LATEST DEVICE OF THE ENEMY.

LEARNING TO SING "IT'S A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY" FOR THE PURPOSE OF DECEIVING THE ALLIES.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

If, as is just conceivable, the Teuton braggart fails to convert the universe into a German empire, his downfall will be partly due to his lack of humour. Among the things that go to make this saving grace are an agile imagination and a nice sense of proportion, and it is when a man starts lying about himself that he shows most clearly whether or not he has it. Some weeks ago an "Honorary Committee of thirty-four distinguished" (or, if you will, notorious) "Germans and a Board of Editors," eleven strong, gathered together to concoct an epoch-making fib, which, upon completion, was labelled "The Truth about Germany: Facts about the War", and was circulated, secretly but thoroughly, throughout the United States. The Forty-five Liars content themselves with a methodical misstatement of every fact, disregarding all the evidence, and, indeed, their own diplomatists' admissions, to the contrary. There is no ingenious perversion of the truth, no subtle invention of argument and no appeal whatever to the intelligence of the reader; it is from beginning to end heavy and quite incredible bosh. Though it was never intended to be read in this country, Mr. DOUGLAS SLADEN has been lucky or clever enough to secure a copy of it, which he reproduces cheaply under the title _Germany's Great Lie_ (HUTCHINSON). I congratulate him upon having obtained such excellent copy, but I think he has somewhat spoilt the effect of it by the manner of his annotations interposed in italics. His facts and quotations are apt and useful, but his indignant denials and sarcastic epithets run to excess; every time one reads the emphatic assertion that black is white one does not want to have also to read that this is an amazing lie. I recommend the public to consume every word of the text, but to omit the larger part of the notes.

* * *

In the nature of things it is possible that the 1914 crop of gift-books for boys may not be a bumper one as far as quantity is concerned, but Mr. HENRY NEWBOLT has already removed any danger of a famine. Indeed, he has done more than that, for, if quality can (as it should) be considered a satisfactory substitute for bulk, there is no reason why 1914 should not be remembered as a year in which the palates of discerning boys were most delightfully tickled. I find a difficulty in preventing my congratulations upon _The Book of the Blue Sea_ (LONGMANS) from being fulsome. To begin with, the title itself is simply irresistible. Then, before you even get to the preface, there are some verses, "The Song of the Larboard Berth," which cry "halt" so arrestingly that after I had got by them and was fairly revelling in the entrancing pages that follow I kept on going back to have another look at

"When moonlight flecks the cruiser's decks And engines rumble slow ..."

To a nicety Mr. NEWBOLT knows how to reproduce the spirit of the sea and of adventure thereon, and whether he is writing of EDWARD PELLEW, JOHN FRANKLIN, DAVID FARRAGUT, or of Trafalgar, it is only possible to escape from his grip when he endeavours to be a little edifying. Boys may conceivably resent this tendency to point out what they can see extraordinarily well for themselves, but all the same they will admit their heavy debt to him. _The Book of the Blue Sea_ (I must write that again), excellently illustrated by Mr. NORMAN WILKINSON, had better be confiscated forthwith by parents who do not wish their sons to become sailors. And in the end I am left wondering whether the Admiralty, overburdened by clamorous applicants, would not be wise to intern Mr. NEWBOLT in one of those camps where no ink or paper is provided, because, if he repeats this performance, we shall want a dozen new naval colleges and hundreds and hundreds more ships.

* * *

_Shifting Sands_ (LANE) reads like a book with a purpose from which the purpose has been by some oversight omitted. When a young person fails to "find herself" (as the phrase used to go) there should surely be provided some foil to her instability, either implicit in the behaviour of other characters or expressed in the meditations of the author. Even if the author only means to tell us that human life is all like this, she ought at least to let us know that she means it. _Gabrielle Brenda_ is presented to us by ALICE BIRKHEAD as a girl brought up in the remoter parts of Cornwall by a father who was a semi-retired doctor and something of a dreamer. She develops dramatic talent, and having become engaged to her instructor gives him up to her younger sister for no better reason apparently than that she has always been accustomed to give that sister everything she wants. Afterwards _Gabrielle_ becomes the secretary of a domineering little manufacturer in the Black Country with expensive sons and daughters. She resists his proposals of marriage and also the temptation to purloin his eldest daughter's _fiance_, and then reverts to her original vocation, without finding on the stage either satisfaction or any remarkable success. For I see no indication that the offer of a fairly lucrative engagement in America, with which the book ends, is regarded by the author as the golden moment of her heroine's career. Altogether I am at a loss whether to learn from _Shifting Sands_ the disadvantages of a haphazard education, the unfair position of woman in the labour-market, or merely the irony of fate. And this is a pity because, though the manner of the story is very episodic, there are scenes and conversations of considerable vivacity and truth.

* * *