Part 3

The following interesting letter has been forwarded to us by the relatives of one of our wounded heroes. It gives a vivid idea of his impressions during a severe engagement, particulars of which have not so far appeared in the Press.

_"Red Cross Hospital,_ _Somewhere in England._

"... And now I must tell you of a very hot time that our lot here had recently. The attack was due to open at 5.30 in the afternoon. We had been warned to expect it, and the appointed hour found us ready in our positions. We were five deep, strongly posted on deck chairs; moreover, the warning had given us opportunity to construct a defensive rampart of evergreens and pot-plants before the front line.

"The engagement opened fairly punctually with a furious pianoforte bombardment, accompanied by asphyxiating footlights. Owing to the closeness of the range and the weight of metal employed, our first rank gave way a little, but subsequently rallied smartly. The attack now became general, the enemy advancing first in detached units, subsequently in column or quartette formation. A stubborn resistance was put up, but we were nearly forced to recoil before a desperate charge by _The Men of Harlech_.

"Hardly had we contrived to withstand these, when, with blood-curdling cries, the Funny Men dashed forward and fell upon us. The engagement was at this point so fierce that it was impossible to obtain more than a confused impression of it. I saw several of my brave comrades doubled up. Puns and lachrymatory wheezes darkened the air. At last, after a specially violent offensive, in which he was supported by the full strength of his piano, the enemy retired, followed by salvoes from our ranks, and left us, at least temporarily, masters of the situation.

"A lull ensued, during which, however, in spite of the curtain behind which the enemy endeavoured to mask his preparations, we were convinced, from certain unmistakable signs, that a fresh and possibly more violent attack was shortly to develop. Nor was this view wrong; for, when the curtain lifted, we at once saw that our worst fears were justified. Confronting us were the 1st Amateur Thespians, the most dreaded battalion in the enemy's Volunteer forces, and one reputed to have decimated more British classics than any two professional regiments.

"The methods of this body have changed very little during the last half-century. They still employ for choice the old _Box-and-Cox_ attack, which has proved so effective in the past, followed frequently by _A Case for Eviction_ or else _Gentlemen Boarders_. Bold to the point of rashness, no difficulties are found to daunt them; and the stoutest hearts might well quail at being exposed to the fury of their onslaught. Indeed how any of us survived the half-hour that followed I hardly know. It was a nightmare of smashed china, dropped cups, shouts of 'Bouncer, Bouncer!' and general confusion.

"But time was on our side; and when, towards seven o'clock, the curtain fell again, we knew that, holding as we did almost our original positions, we were victorious. Our exact casualties I have not yet heard, but they are certain to have been heavy. The ground lately held by the enemy presented a spectacle of appalling confusion; and everything pointed to the struggle having been most determined. Restoratives were administered to our men, and we turned in, exhausted but happy."

* * * * *

PERSONALIA.

It has been noticed by close observers that among curious developments brought about by the War the personal advertisements have been growing increasingly intimate. Mars and Venus again are associated. So far, only the Classes have been conspicuous. Why not the Masses too? Something like this:--

WILL LADY wearing handsome garnet necklace and ostrich feathers in large hat in front row of gallery of Britannia Theatre, who threw orange at Gordon Highlander in pit, injuring his left eye, meet him Sunday evening, Marble Arch, 7 sharp?--Box F.3.

* * * * *

WILL GIRL seated second table on left at Lockhart's, 17th April, 6.30, eating cold meat-pie, communicate with Bedfordshire Corporal with arm in sling, two tables away?--Box 183.

* * * * *

LONELY MARRIED MAN invites correspondence while waiting for single men to do their duty.--Box 84.

* * * * *

SAW YOU marching past Charing Cross Station, three a-breast, whistling "Keep the Home Fires Burning," Saturday night at 10.15, and called out to you from top of omnibus. Please write.--Box 10.

* * * * *

"LOST, gold CHAIN and PENDANT, containing sailor and baby; 5/- reward."

_Liverpool Echo._

Small enough, even for the baby.

* * * * *

ECONOMY IN THE PRESS.

I.--THE EDITORIAL PAGE.

Here upon our middle page, Where the correspondents rage, Grim and dour and dry, Here with counsel bold and sage War on lollipops we wage, Smiting hip and thigh.

"Pare potatoes very thin; All the virtue's in the skin; Save the peel for soups; Drop cigars; abandon gin; Leave the bristles on your chin; Tie your hair in loops.

"Golf and ties and collars shun; Lunch upon a penny bun; Butter not your bread; Save your pennies--every one Helps to crush the brutal Hun." Thus and thus we've said.

II.--THE ADVERTISEMENT PAGES.

Now the advertiser comes; Hush the sound of warning drums; Hear his siren song: "Leave your economic sums; Leave the task of saving crumbs; Join the shopping throng.

"Come to Blank's--the thing to do! Here are chiffons, ninons too, Quilts for Fido's cot; Silken robe and satin shoe, Figured fabrics, gold and blue, Bangles, pearls--what not?

"Bon-bons, perfumes, trifles gay-- Still you'll find a fresh display Where the last one ends; New sensations every day! Motor round without delay! Come, and bring your friends!"

* * * * *

In Its Proper Element.

"No appointments have been made in the place of Lord Derby and Lord Montagu [who have resigned their seats on the Joint Air Committee], and the Committee is, for the present, _en l'air._"--_The Times._

* * * * *

"Amongst the sights which never fail to draw the attention of curious Londoners is that of girls perched high up on enormous vans manipulating the reins and guiding fresh nurses through the maze of city traffic."

_"Star" (Ch. Ch. N. Z.)_

There must be some mistake here. The nurses we see in London are always perfectly sober.

* * * * *

Mr. BLATCHFORD on the match-tax:--

"In this insidious manipulation of the thin end of the Tory wedge do we not perceive the cloven hoof of the serpent casting its shadow before?"--_Weekly Dispatch._

No; all we see is Mr. BLATCHFORD laboriously trying to emulate Sir BOYLE ROCHE.

* * * * *

* * * * *

NOT RUNNING TO SEED.

_To Reginald Cressingham, Esq._

DEAR SIR (OR MADAM),--Looking over our records a few days ago, we noticed that you had not been so good a customer of ours for Seeds during the past twelve months as you used to be; and the more we looked at that record the more we wondered what we had done that caused you to practically stop dealing with us.

Finally we decided to drop you a line and ask you whether you will kindly tell us, personally, frankly, whether there is anything we have not done that we should have done.

Unfortunately accidents will happen at times, and if one has happened in this case we hope you will tell us about it so that we can try to put it right the day we get your letter. IT DOES NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE WHAT THE TROUBLE IS, WE WILL DO OUR BEST TO MAKE IT GOOD.

Your faithful and obedient Servants, GOODENOUGH & SONS.

* * * * *

_To Messrs. Goodenough & Sons._

DEAR SIRS,--I regret to say there _is_ a reason for discontinuing my seed order, and I am pleased to hear you will do your best to make the trouble good; but I am half afraid you will not be able to "put it right the day you get my letter."

The fact is there is a European War going on just now, and it has sadly upset our gardening plans. Instead of having eight men (counting a husband) about the place, I am now reduced to one gardener, and he will shortly be called up in a married group, unless the flat foot he is assiduously cultivating softens the heart of the Exemption Tribunal.

I am sorry I have no time to tell you more about this War, but I must now go and dig the vegetables.

Yours faithfully,

HELENA CRESSINGHAM.

* * * * *

"STABBING AFFRAY DUE TO A GIRL'S CHARM.

"In the village of Sharwida, Zagazig district, lives a girl who is a paragraph of beauty."

_Egyptian Mail._

This barely does her justice. She seems to have been quite the penny novelette.

* * * * *

"In the Argonne we carried out a coup domain this morning."--_Evening Paper._

It is a good General who never puts off till to-morrow what he can do this morning.

* * * * *

NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.

VI.--CHALK FARM.

Certain farmers farm in fruit, and some farm in grain, Others farm in dairy-stuff, and many farm in vain, But I know a place for a Sunday morning's walk Where the Farmer and his Family only farm in Chalk. The Farmer and his Family before you walk back Will bid you in to sit awhile and share their midday snack; O they that live in Chalk Farm they live at their ease, For the Farmer and his Family can't tell Chalk from Cheese.

VII.--THE SPANIARDS.

Three Spaniards dwell on Hampstead Heath: One has a scowl and a knife in a sheath; One twangs a guitar in the bright moonlight; One chases a bull round a bush all night!

* * * * *

"In talking of flying, Boillot only returned to a pastime that he had been one of the first to practise."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

Just like our Mr. BILLING.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

_Miss Pandora_ (HEINEMANN) is proclaimed by its publishers to be a first novel. Probably, however, it will not also be a last, as the author, M. E. NORMAN, has a considerable gift for tale-telling. Perhaps I may be permitted to hope that he (or she) will use it next time to illuminate a rather more attractive set of characters. I don't think that the circle in which _Pandora_ moved contains a single person whom I should wish to meet twice. There was _Pandora_ herself, who was dark and Spanish-looking, with an origin wrapped in mild mystery. There was her friend, a futile lady-novelist; there were three quite disagreeable men, a spoilt child and an old lady suffering from senile dementia. Oh, and I nearly forgot the sniffy neighbour, who, having cut _Pandora_ dead for half the book, was revealed in the second half as her mother. Add to this that _Pandora_ had a past (and a present too, for that matter) with the husband of the lady novelist, and you will, I think, agree with me that they were a queer lot. Also I have seldom read a novel with such an unsatisfactory ending. It almost seemed as though M. E. NORMAN, having got the affair into a tangle, was too bored to unravel it. I am by no means sure, for example, that he (or she) had any clearer ideas about _Pandora's_ paternity than I have. The depressing conclusion is that, while I readily admit that the writing of it shows originality and promise, _Miss Pandora_ is hardly the novel I should have expected to be produced in a paper famine.

* * * * *

Before I began to unweave _The Web of Fraeulein_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) a dreadful and, as it turned out, an unnecessary fear seized me that Miss _Katharine Tynan_ had written a spy-novel of the present day. Imagine then my relief when I found that the story dates back some thirty or forty years, and that, although _Fraeulein_ was really as pestilential a woman as ever became governess to a respectable British family, espionage was not part of her game. With uncanny skill Miss TYNAN relates the influence that this flat-footed German woman gained in the _Allanson_ household; but I must protest, in justice to our race, that we have not many families so lacking in enterprise as to allow themselves to be enmeshed in such a web as this. In short I can dislike this German product very cordially but without for a moment understanding the source of the devastating power she had over others. You must not, however, imagine that the web casts a gloom over the whole book, for when _Fraeulein_ is not on the scene--and we do have some holidays from her--those _Allansons_ whom she had not marked down could be attractively natural and gay; and the younger _Allanson_ girl is as delightful a portrait as any in Miss TYNAN's generous gallery.

* * * * *

I think I never met a writer who splashed language about with a greater recklessness than Miss MARION HILL. I see that one of the reviews of that previous best seller of hers, _The Lure of Crooning Water_, speaks of its literary charm. Well, there are, of course, many varieties of charm, but "literary" is hardly the epithet that I should myself apply to the undoubted attractions of _A Slack Wire_ (LONG). This very bustling story of the marriage between a variety artist and a quiet, not to say somewhat prigsome, young engineer is told for the most part in the purest American, an engaging and vivid medium with which I am but imperfectly acquainted. Further, Miss HILL's command of words seems to be gloriously unhampered by tradition. "It was with a supercargo of relief even heavier than usual that he found it" is a sample that I select at random. No, I certainly do not think that "literary" would be the epithet. But I am far from saying that there is no charm in the tale, of a sort. Not specially original perhaps the situation of the Bohemian wife brought to an ultra-Philistine home; but Miss HILL manages to keep it going briskly enough. And, as I have hinted, you never know what she will say next, or how. The whole thing would make such an admirable film-play that I can hardly believe this idea to have been absent from the intention of its author. The final sensation-scene, in which _Violet_ uses her old wire-walking agility to prevent a catastrophe (never ask me how!), would make a fortune on the screen. Poor _Violet_, I may tell you, had been born in England, and, on the death of her rightful guardians, was "farmed off to peasants, who boarded her because it would cancel their poor-tax." I feel somehow that if I could grasp this reference it would make much in _Violet_ clear. But so far it eludes me.

* * * * *

If powers of absorption are still left to you for any battles save those of to-day, you will find a vivid account of Flodden in _The Crimson Field_ (WARD, LOCK). I won't believe it is Mr. HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE's fault that the fighting scenes of his story left me cold; the blame lies rather with the Hunnish times in which we live. While describing the beauty of the Yorkshire dales and the lives of their inhabitants, Mr. SUTCLIFFE held me in the hollow of his hand. But when he started to tell of the valiant deeds of the yeoman-hero, _Sylvester Demain_, who was knighted on the field of battle and won the maiden of high degree, I was released from that bondage. Indeed, I think Mr. SUTCLIFFE was no more anxious to leave the dales than I was, for, when the march to Flodden begins, his style becomes almost bewilderingly jumpy, so often does he look over his shoulder to see--and let us know--what is happening to those who were left behind. The fight, however, when it does come, is strenuous enough, and in the midst of it KING JAMES--German papers please copy--stands out as a pattern of chivalry.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A Dickens Revival.

"WANTED--Fat Boy for yard: 10s. weekly."

_Dublin "Daily Independent."_

* * * * *

Eighteen tailors from Leeds have been arrested at Dublin as deserters from the Army. As nine tailors make a man this is a net gain of two recruits.