Chapter 3

_And so Herbert found himself in the street. Where should he go? What should he do ... say ... think ... feel...? He was quite unable to decide. Somehow he couldn't bring his mind to bear on the subject. He could hardly recall the name of the lady with whom he had been conversing, let alone what all the trouble was about. He paused and lit a cigarette. Absolutely there was nothing else for it._

"How are you getting on?" I asked Cecily a little peevishly.

"Nicely, thanks," she answered. "And you?"

"Oh, nicely, too," said I, with a sigh.

_As for ~Whatshername~ Ermyntrude, she was in little better case. She felt as if nothing was ever going to happen to her again; almost, she thought, things had given up happening for good. She felt ... but she hardly knew what she felt. ~After all, love wasn't~ ~Maybe love was~ She could not bear to think of love. Engaged? That is what she had been but wasn't any longer. Who was to blame? Was it Herbert? Was it she? Was it ~Exchange~ Providence? The more thought she gave to the matter the further she seemed to be from a definite conclusion. ~At times it seemed as if~ ~At one time it appeared as though~ ~At one time~ ~At times~ ~At 2284 Mayfair~ ~Mayfair 2248~ ~2248 Mayfair~ ~Twice two is four, twice four is eight.~_

"Are you coming to the end of your friends?" I asked Cecily.

"If I'm not wanted I'll go," said she snappily.

"You're always wanted, of course," I apologised.

"Then I'll stay," said she brightly.

_CHAPTER LVIII._

_As Herbert turned his back on Kensington and walked towards ~Gerrard~ Piccadilly, he would, had he looked behind him, have seen a malevolent, sinister man emerge from the shadow and follow him stealthily. ~But Herbert did not look behind him.~ ~And why not?~ ~It is impossible to say.~ ~Suffice it that he didn't.~ Nay, that is exactly what Herbert did see when he looked behind him. "My God," said he, turning pale...._

"Can we dine with the Monroes on Tuesday?" asked Cecily.

"That depends a good deal on whether they invite us," I answered.

"It's only Jack trying to be funny," Cecily told the receiver.

_"As I was saying," continued Herbert, "it's James MacClure."_

_"No less," said the other, with a fiendish smile._

_It is necessary to go back a little in order ~to property~ properly to appreciate the momentous importance of the arrival of this man at this juncture. He was destined to play a large part in Herbert's future; the manner of their acquaintance was this._

_~Many years ago McClure had~ ~James was the son of rich but~ ~Jas, as his college friends used to call~ ~McClure~ ~James~ Producing a revolver from his hip pocket, Herbert shot James McClure through the heart._

Cecily flapped about with the Directory.

"Trying to find a number that you haven't used already?" I enquired.

_~CHAPTER LIX.~_

_~Ermyntrude~_

_~CHAPTER LIX.~_

_~ERMYNTRUDE~_

_~CHAPTER LIX.~_

_~MINNIE~_

_CHAPTER LIX._

_On the whole it must be agreed that Herbert was well rid of this Ermyntrude person. There was nothing particular against her except that she was a woman, but surely to goodness that is enough. When Eve arrived the trouble began; when telephones were invented it came to a head. Think what literature might have achieved had it not always been obsessed by its desire to find some brief definition good enough for woman! I think it is our chief difficulty in appreciating the supposed greatness of VERGIL that he couldn't do any better than "Varium et mutabile semper." If VERGIL had been a butcher or a grocer or any other unhappy shopkeeper liable to the daily insult of receiving household orders, he must have expressed it more thoroughly. For my own part, sitting here in my study and thinking the matter over to myself, I cannot do better than adopt the phraseology of the telephone instructions: "Intermittent Buzz."_

_And so Herbert didn't marry, but lived happily ever afterwards. After all, Ermyntrude was essentially a woman; they all are, confound them, but some of us are not so lucky as was Herbert in finding out in time._

And that, of course, was the chapter that Cecily suddenly chose to read ... nor was it less than an hour before peace was declared again. The terms, however, were not unfavourable. I was partially forgiven, and, what was better still, Cecily wholly departed. I then wrote a revised version of

_CHAPTER LIX._

_Ermyntrude was still where we left her, but was beginning to collect her scattered thoughts when Herbert re-entered. He closed the door behind him, neither softly nor loudly, but just ordinarily, and without more ado took Ermyntrude in his arms._

_"We will never again think of all that came between us," he murmured._

_She smiled up at him._

_"It shall be as nothing," he added._

_"It shall," said she._

"It shall indeed," say I.

* * * * *

MOON-PENNIES.

(_Children in the Midlands give this name to the disc shaped fruit of Honesty._)

My garden is a beggar's pitch That Heaven throws its coins upon; And in the Summer I am rich, And in the Winter all is gone; Yet as the long days hurry by I keep my pitch, content and free, Where in a sweet profusion lie Fair Marigolds and Honesty; And oft I turn and count for fun My largess from the night and noon-- The golden tokens of the sun, The silver pennies of the moon!

* * * * *

Illustration: "I'M SORRY TO 'AVE TO SAY, MUM, 'E'S BIN A VERY BAD DOG WHILST YOU WAS HOUT. 'E'S BIN AN' EAT UP 'IS PATRIOTIC RIBBON."

* * * * *

CANNON FODDER.

(_Thus the War Party designates the rank and file of the German army._)

They are coming like a tempest, in their endless ranks of grey, While the world throws up a cloud of dust along their awful way; They're the glorious cannon fodder of the mighty Fatherland, Who shall make the kingdoms tremble and the nations understand. Tramp! tramp! tramp! the cannon fodder comes. God help the old; God help the young; God help the hearths and homes. They'll do his will that taught them, on the earth and on the waves, Then, like faithful cannon fodder, still salute him from their graves.

From the barrack and the fortress they are pouring in a flood; They sweep, a herd of winter wolves, upon the scent of blood; For all their deeds of horror they are told that death atones And their master's harvest cannot spring till he has sowed their bones.

Into beasts of prey he's turned them; when they show their teeth and growl The lash is buried in their cheeks; they're slaughtered if they howl; To their bloody Lord of Battles must they only bend the knee, For hard as steel and fierce as hell should cannon fodder be.

Scourge and curses are their portion, pain and hunger without end, Till they hail the yell of shrapnel as the welcome of a friend; They rape and burn and laugh to hear the frantic women cry And do the devil's work to-day, but on the morrow die.

A million souls, a million hearts, a million hopes and fears, A million million memories of partings and of tears March along with cannon fodder to the agony of war. Have they lost their human birthright? Are they fellow-men no more? Tramp! tramp! tramp! the cannon fodder comes. God help the old; God help the young; God help the hearths and homes. They'll do his will that taught them, on the earth and on the waves, Then, like faithful cannon fodder, still salute him from their graves.

* * * * *

The War and Physical Development.

"Here some words have been exercised by the Censor."

_Manchester Evening News._

* * * * *

"Kiel is very delightful in its own way, but it misses _in toto_ the charm and originality of Cowes."

So said _The Tatler_ in the very early days of the war, and yet the Germans still seem to prefer the waters of Kiel to the superior attractions of the Solent.

* * * * *

A NUT'S VIEWS ON THE WAR.

INTERESTING CHAT WITH MR. REGINALD FITZJENKINS.

He was manicuring himself when I called, and I was asked whether I would see him now, or wait two hours till he had finished. I said I would see him now; so I was shown into his dressing-room.

"I am sorry," said Mr. FitzJenkins, "but if you will call at such an early hour----" It was twelve o'clock, but I apologised. "And what can I do for you?" asked my host.

"My paper," I said, "would like to have your views on the War."

"Well, if you ask me what I think of the War," said Mr. FitzJenkins, "it's a noosance--an unmitigated noosance. No one talks anything but War nowadays--and the papers contain nothing but War news. Even the Men's Dress Columns have disappeared. I can tell you it has caused the greatest inconvenience to me personally. You may wonder why I am manicuring myself. I'll tell you why. My manicurist--the only man in London who knew how to manicure--turned out to be a beastly German or Austrian or something, and has gone off to his beastly War. I even offered to double the man's fees--at which the fellow, instead of being grateful, was grossly impertinent. If he hadn't been such a great hulking brute I'd have knocked him down.... So I have to do the business myself. Couldn't trust it to anyone else.... And then look here. You see this little pot of pink paste, which has to be used to give the nails the necessary blush? Do you know that the price of that has doubled since the War?"

I expressed my horror by a suitable gesture.

"Of course," said Mr. FitzJenkins, "I don't want to be hard on the Government--I know they have a lot to think of--but I do consider they ought to have prevented this somehow. They regulate the price of food, but forget that there are other necessities.... Again, some of my dividends have not been paid. A nice thing if one is to be forced to earn one's own living!"

"You haven't volunteered to fight, then?" I said.

"Good lor, no! That might suit some people, but not me. It's not a job for anyone of any refinement. Why, I am told that, when they are fighting, for days together even the officers don't shave or change their linen. I'm not that sort, thank you. There are plenty of rough fellows to do it, I suppose. And in any event I could not fight alongside of French soldiers. Have you seen the cut of their trousers?"

Mr. FitzJenkins laughed outright.

"And are you doing anything to help in the crisis?" I asked.

"Oh yes, oh yes," said Mr. FitzJenkins. "You mustn't imagine that it is only those who fight who are helping. What about the women who are left behind? I help amuse 'em--keep 'em bright. I'm 'carrying on.' I'm not of your panicky sort. It's just as well that there should be a few men like me left in town. We give it a tone."

"I trust, Mr. FitzJenkins," I said, "that you are not opposed to the War."

"Oh, dear, no. Please don't imagine that. It had to be fought, I suppose. And, although I am not taking an active part in it myself, I wish the War well, and hope that the KING and KITCHENER will pull it off all right."

"May I publish that? I think it would encourage them."

"Certainly. And you might say this. I am convinced we are going to win. No good could ever come to a man who wears an out-of-date moustache like the KAISER.... Oh, certainly I am in favour of the War. Why, I have just ordered several pairs of khaki spats.... Believe me, I wish our soldier-fellows well, and in my opinion they ought to be encouraged. I met a lot of 'em trudging along in Pall Mall yesterday, poor devils of Territorials, I fancy, and I waved my stick to 'em. Nothing would please me more than to see the country to which that impudent manicurist has returned receive a thrashing."

Just then the young man who had opened the door to me came in and asked his master if he could see him privately for a minute. Mr. FitzJenkins begged me to excuse him, and I did so. When he came back his face was flushed and almost animated.

"Atrocious! Infamous! I shall write to the papers about it," he said. "How dare he leave me helpless like this? Off to enlist, indeed!"

"Who?" I asked.

"My man," said Mr. FitzJenkins.

* * * * *

Illustration: ENTERPRISE ON OUR EAST COAST.

THE ANTI-ZEPPELIN BATH-CHAIR.

* * * * *

TO A JADED GERMAN PRESSMAN.

["One cannot receive news of victories every day."--_German Official Newspaper._]

True, as you say, there is no cause for grieving, When in your pages no triumphs appear, But, gentle Sir, when you talk of "receiving," Are you not wandering out of your sphere? Yours not to wait for a foe's retrogression, Yours not to heed the belligerents' fate; You're higher up in the writer's profession; Perish "receiving," 'tis yours to create.

What though you dabble in newspaper diction, Common reporters deserve your disdain; You should be ranked with the masters of fiction, Weaving your victories out of your brain. Stories are needed, and you must supply 'em; That should be easy; so gifted a man Surely can compass a triumph _per diem_, Seeing the truth is no part of your plan.

Even although inspiration is flagging, Let not your output grow markedly less; Fiction gives precedents (plenty) for dragging Out an old yarn in a different dress. But, if your brain is too weary for spinning Words to re-tell our habitual rout, Don't blame the army that hasn't been winning; Frankly confess that you feel written out.

* * * * *

"London Lady (twenties) well-educated, fair linguist, deeply interested in psychology and the things that matter in life, considered clever by inmates, but not brilliant, would greatly appreciate broadminded and friendly companion to share walks."

_T. P.'s Weekly._

We must remember that the inmates' standard would not be a very high one.

* * * * *

Illustration: _First Native._ "WE'RE DOIN' FINE AT THE WAR, JARGE."

_Second Native._ "YES, JAHN; AND SO BE THEY FRENCHIES."

_First Native._ "AY; AN' SO BE THEY BELGIANS AN' ROOSHIANS."

_Second Native._ "AY; AN' SO BE THEY ALLYS. OI DUNNO WHERE THEY COME FROM, JAHN, BUT THEY BE DEVILS FOR FIGHTIN'."

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Why is it that novels with scamp-heroes are so much more interesting than the conventional kind? _Bellamy_ (METHUEN) is a case in point, for the central character, who gives his name to it, is about as worthless an object, rightly-considered, as one need wish to meet. He steals and lies and poses; he betrays most of his friends; and throughout a varied life he only really cares for one person--himself. Yet Miss ELINOR MORDAUNT never seems to have any difficulty in making us share _Bellamy's_ delight in his own conscienceless career. Perhaps it is this very delight that does the trick. Charlatan as he is, and worse, _Bellamy_ is always so attractively amused at the success of his impostures that it becomes impossible to avoid an answering grin. It was not a little courageous of Miss MORDAUNT to write a story about a hero from the Five Towns district; but, though this may look like trespass upon the preserves of a brother novelist, _Bellamy_ is Miss MORDAUNT'S very own. I have the feeling that she enjoyed writing about him--a feeling that always makes for pleasure in reading. Perhaps of all his manifold phases I liked best his _role_ of assistant necromancer at a kind of psychical beauty parlour. There is some shrewd hitting here, which is vastly well done. But none of the adventures of _Bellamy_ should be skipped. I am sorry to add that the copy supplied me for review did not apparently credit me with this view, as it ruthlessly omitted some forty of what I am persuaded were most agreeable pages. The fact that it so far relented as to go back about ten, and repeat a chapter I had already read, did little to console me. I could have better spared part of a duller book.

* * * * *

A story by Mr. DION CLAYTON CALTHROP, with the title _Wonderful Woman_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), may almost be regarded as a work of expert reference. Because what he does not know about The Sex, and has not already written in a galaxy of engaging romances, is hardly worth the bother of remembering. So that his views on the matter naturally command respect. _Wonderful Woman_ is perhaps less a novel than an analysis--painfully close, with a kind of regretful brutality in it--of one special type of femininity, and a glance at several others. Perhaps its realistic quality may astonish you a little. You may have been delighting in Mr. CALTHROP'S fantastic work (as I do myself) and yet have cherished the suspicion that his Columbines and Chelsea fairies and Moonbeam folk generally were the creations of a sentimentalist who would have little taste for handling unsympathetic things. Well, if so, _Philippina_ is the answer to that. Here is the most masterly portraiture of a woman utterly without imagination or heart or anything except a kind of futile and worthless attraction, that I remember to have met for some time. As I say, it is all rather astonishing from Mr. CALTHROP. The men who love _Flip_, and whose lives are ruined by her, are easier to understand. About _Sir Timothy Swift_, for example, there is a touch of the Harlequin, or rather Pierrot, that betrays his origin. I will not tell you the story, for one reason because its charm is too elusive to retrieve. I content myself by saying that it seems to me the best work we have yet had from Mr. CALTHROP, combining his special and expected graces with an unusual and moving sincerity.

* * * * *

A month or two ago I have no doubt that the England of CHARLES II.'S declining years would have seemed to me a monstrously exciting country to live in; at the present moment (unfairly enough) I feel more like congratulating the hero of Monsignor BENSON'S _Oddsfish!_ (HUTCHINSON) on the mildness of his adventures for the furtherance of the Catholic faith. It is true that _Mr. Roger Mallock_ beheld some notable executions after the TITUS OATES affair, and on the night of the Rye House Plot had a large meat chopper thrown at his head by one of the conspirators; but, emissary of the Vatican as he was, he was actually only once compelled to whip out his sword in self-defence, though on that occasion he had the extreme bad luck to lose his _fiancee_ through a misdirected dagger-thrust. Even this tragedy, sufficiently overwhelming in an ordinary romance, is not, of course, wholly disastrous in Monsignor BENSON'S eyes, since it enabled _Mr. Mallock_ to resume the religious life and habit for which he had been originally intended. For the rest the book is written in a most captivating manner, and with a plausibility of incident and dialogue only too rare in novels of the Restoration period. Evidently the author has studied his authorities (and more particularly Mr. PEPYS) with a praiseworthy diligence. But in view of the anti-Protestant bias which he naturally exhibits I feel bound to bid him have a care. If he intends to pursue his historical researches any further, and discover (let us say) virtue in the Spanish Inquisition and villainy in Sir FRANCIS DRAKE, I shall load my arquebus to the muzzle.

* * * * *

The hero of _King Jack_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) "made sport," as his creator, Mr. KEIGHLEY SNOWDEN, says, "nearly a hundred years ago" in Yorkshire, and incidentally he also made records. For instance, he cleared four-and-twenty feet at a "run-jump," and with this in my mind I find it satisfactory to think that he lived in another century, or I might find myself regretting the eclipse of the Olympic Games. As an upholder of law and order I ought to be (I am not) ashamed to admire a man who, to say the least of it, was a very prickly thorn in the side of the police. My excuse is that _Jack Sincler_ and his brother _Lishe_ were kindly men withal. The game-laws were their trouble, but as far as I could make out they did not poach for the sake of pelf but from sheer love of sport. Among poachers they ought, anyhow, to be placed in Class I., for they loved the open air and the freshness of the morning and all the things that make for a clean mind in a clean body. _Jack_, though a shade arrogant at times, is a stimulating figure, human both in his weakness and his strength; and Mr. SNOWDEN deserves more than a little gratitude for the care with which he has reproduced the atmosphere of times that were conspicuously lawless and exciting.

* * * * *

When _Dicky Furlong_, the brilliant and aspiring artist of _The Achievement_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) who was in love with _Diana Charteris_, sloshed her husband, _Lord Freddy_, over the head with his own decanter (_vide_ Chap. XXI.) he rather overdid it. For "the jagged thing fell with a sullen thud behind his (_Lord Freddy's_) ear," and that discourteous nobleman collapsed to rise no more. When the detective arrived the following noon he convinced himself that there was no necessity to detain any of the guests, even though no windows had been found open or doors unlocked, and though Dicky had a contused lip from the conflict overnight and everybody had coupled his name with _Diana's_. However, the methodical sleuthhound ran his quarry to earth a year or two later, just as he had put the finishing touches to his great (seventeen-foot) canvas. And _Dicky_ took a little bottle out of his pocket. In fact, our old friend the novelette, with its unexacting canons of plausibility; tacked on, as it happens, to twenty chapters of meandering incident, a long way after the well-known Five-Towns formula, garnished with pleasantly romantic little notices of _Dicky's_ pictures and _Dicky's_ love affairs. But you don't begin to see the _Dicky_ of the decanter phase (even though a fight about an ill-treated dog is lugged in for the purpose), or indeed any other _Dicky_ of real flesh and blood, in this haphazard selection of episodes and comments. The truth is there is more in that difficult and dangerous formula than Mr. TEMPLE THURSTON is aware of. He has wandered into the wrong galley. A pity. For _Mrs. Flint_ is a dear, if a stupid dear, and _Dicky_ himself has his points.

* * * * *

Illustration: _The Old Man._ "I SEE BY THE PAPER HERE THAT THE ROOSHIANS ARE ATTACKING A TOWN THEY SPELL P-R-Z-E-M-Y-S-L. D'YE THINK, NOW, WUD THAT BE A MISTAKE OF THE PRINTER'S OR WUD THE LETTERS OF IT BE MIXED UP, LIKE, WI' THE BOMBARDMENT?"

* * * * *

OUR DAILY BREAD.

[_The London correspondent of a German paper announces that London is on the verge of starvation, his own diet being "reduced to bread and rancid dripping."_]

"There is a languor in this alien air; We are reduced, in fact, to famine fare; Mine, I may say, is dripping based on bread (Ugh!), and I gather I shall soon be dead. It is the same all over, East or West; Hungry each hollow just below the chest. Daily, I'm told, they rake the very dust, Hoping in vain to come across a crust. And, when our God-born WILHELM brings his Huns Here, he will find a few odd skeletons." Such is the tale a Teuton lately writ. How, then, I ask, does London look so fit? This is the reason, mainly, I surmise-- We are fed up, of course, with German Lies.

* * * * *