Chapter 1

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

VOL. 150

FEBRUARY 16, 1916

CHARIVARIA.

MANY early nestings are recorded as the result of the mild weather, and at least one occasional visitor (_Polonius bombifer_) has laid eggs in various parts of the country.

* * *

Says a learned correspondent of _The Observer_: "There may be fundamental differences between observed phenomena without affecting the validity of a strict analogy; and after all an analogy is based upon presented similarities. It is sufficient if the sameness should apply to particular attributes or occurrences found by induction to have similar relationships or consequences." It looks, after all, as if some of our Museums wanted closing.

* * *

The "popular parts" of the Natural History Museum are to remain open, though it is still felt by the Government that, at a time when the practice of frugality is incumbent upon everybody, the spectacle of stuffed animals may tend to have a demoralising effect upon the young.

* * *

From _The Evening News_:--

"Our Daily War-time Menu.

Fish Pie. Salt Beef. Turnips or Carrots. Baked Potatoes. Banana Pancake. Coffee."

This will gratify those who believed that our contemporary's diet consisted largely of brimstone.

* * *

It is reported from Holland that Germans there are refusing German notes. In the United States however they are still accepted at their face value.

* * *

It is understood that the Government recruiting authorities, with whose _jeu d'esprit_ all Trafalgar Square is ringing, have definitely rejected a proposed placard that says--

"WILL YOU 'ATE NOW OR WAIT TILL MARCH 8?"

* * *

The Admiralty has announced that sea-fishing is included among the certified occupations exempted from the provisions of the Military Service Act. The suggestion that the other kind of fishermen should be rejected for psychopathic reasons has been bitterly resented by some of our most persistent anglers.

* * *

"Many of the men," writes a correspondent at one of the Fronts, "have apparently been without shirts for some time, and consequently the Army authorities, with that kindly consideration which always distinguishes them, have issued to the men a new pair of pants all round."

* * *

A bird-eating spider has just arrived at the Zoo. While its diet is commonly confined to quite small birds the animal is understood to have expressed extreme confidence in its ability to eat eagles, if only to show that its heart is in the right place.

* * *

"Germany's sea dogs," says the _Berliner Tageblatt_, "cannot content themselves much longer with merely showing their teeth." This is obviously unfair to TIRPITZ'S tars, most of whom have not hesitated to show their tails also.

* * *

The KAISER at Headquarters lifted his glass to KING FERDINAND, this being the kindliest way of intimating that he has Bulgaria on toast.

* * *

It is rumoured that the Government has offered the control of our anti-aircraft defences to the Office of Works, but that Mr. LULU HARCOURT has declined the responsibility, adding, however, that he will gladly repair any damage done by Zeppelins to the flower-beds in his department.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE WORD OF A GERMAN.

YOUR troth was broken ere the trumpets blew; Into the fight with unclean hands you rode; Your spurs were sullied and the sword you drew Bore stain of outrage done to honour's code.

And you have played your game as you began. Witness the white flag raised by shattered ranks, The cry for mercy, answered, man to man-- And the swift stroke of traitor steel for thanks.

Once bitten we were twice a little shy, And then forgot; but with the mounting score Our old good-nature, tried a shade too high, Stiffens its lip and means to stand no more.

So now, when you protest with bleating throat, And broider round your wrongs a piteous tale, Urging the Neutral Ones to take a note That we have passed outside the human pale;

The world (no fool) will know where lies the blame If England lets your pleadings go unheard; To grace of chivalry you've lost your claim; We've grown too wise to trust a Bosch's word.

O. S.

* * * * *

THE BILLETING CAPTAIN.

MY job is to ride on ahead of the regiment, whenever we leave the trenches, and secure accommodation for men and horses in the place allotted to us. For billeting purposes there are four kinds of villages behind our front: the good, the indifferent, the positively bad, and the village of R----. It was to R---- that I was ordered on my first errand of this kind. On the road I met a friend who holds the same pest in his regiment as I do in mine. I told him where I was going, and he grinned. "You'll find all the doors locked when you arrive," he said. "The Mayor is away on service and you won't get any help from his wife. She's the most disagreeable woman I ever met, and is known for miles round as a holy terror." When at length I reached my destination I sent the rest of the party in search of barns and stables, proceeding myself towards the village pump, which I had been told was always a good place to work from. But there was little sign of life here. The _place_ was deserted, except for one old man who was supporting himself by the pump handle, while with a stick in his other hand he tried to strafe a hen that had inadvertently run between his legs.

"Bon jour, M'sieur," I said by way of a start.

"Cigarette anglaise!" replied the patriarch.

I offered my case and was presently being entertained with reminiscences of the war of _soixante-dix_. By the time that he had finished his cigarette he had gone further back into history and was vividly describing the retreat from Moscow under the First Napoleon, on which occasion I gathered that he had caught a severe cold. There was evidently little help to be gained here, so leaving my venerable friend amid the Russian snows I went to the nearest house and knocked. Presently a key turned and the door was opened for about three inches by an old woman.

"_Bon jour, Madame_," I said in my best French; "I seek a bedroom, if possible one with a bed in it."

She looked me up and down for a moment, then with a "_Pas compris_" shut and locked the door again.

In the next house they were more obliging. A stout gentleman opened the door and informed me that unfortunately he possessed only one bed, which was shared by himself and his family of six children. But as M'sieu was a member of the _entente_, and if he could find no other accommodation---- But here I fled. Thus it was from house to house, and when later my N.C.O. reported his arrangements for men and horses satisfactory I had only managed to secure one miserable little room. So desperate had I become by this time that I determined to face the Mayor's wife, in spite of my friend's advice. Accordingly I turned towards a house labelled _Mairie_, and entered the garden, where a small child was playing. I think without exception he was the ugliest little boy I have ever seen, but I am a father when home on leave, and he smiled at me in such a nice friendly way that I stopped and pecked at his cheek as I passed.

When I looked up I saw a grim face regarding me over a pot of geraniums in the window. "Now for it!" I thought, and was presently face to face with the formidable lady, who asked me in broken English what my business might be. "Madame," I said, "you see a ruined captain before you. I have been sent to this village to find twelve bedrooms for my Colonel and brother-officers. Also a mess-room and an office. In one hour I have secured one room, and even now the regiment is arriving," for as I spoke the O.C. and some of the others came riding up. On seeing me they dismounted, and before Madame could say anything she and I were the centre of a little group of officers.

"Well," said the O.C., "what luck? We're looking forward to real beds again, I can tell you!"

I felt myself growing red. "The men and horses are arranged for, Sir," I stammered, and then suddenly a voice at my side took up the tale: "And if you will come wiz me I shall 'elp ze Captain to show to you ze rooms 'e 'as found." Unable to utter a word, I bowed, and we followed Madame to the first house at which I had earlier tried so unsuccessfully. She knocked at the door like a fury, and no sooner was it opened than she went in without more ado, and we after her. "I have come to show M'sieu the Colonel the room that you have prepared for him," she said in her own language to the old woman, who stood bowing and smiling as hard as she could. Then she opened a door and took us into the nicest room imaginable.

"'Ere I 'ope you will be 'appy, my Colonel," she continued. "Zis is ze best room ze Captain could find for you. Also I 'ope you will find Madame aimable;" and here she looked at the old woman, who started bowing again harder than ever. It was the same at all the other houses. Passing from one to another she commandeered room after room, even managing to wrest a bed from the father of six; and I verily believe that the inhabitants would have burned their dwellings to warm us had the little lady ordered it. All the while she maintained the fiction that I had arranged things previously.

"I 'ave just come wiz ze Captain to see everyting ees what you call spick," she said on leaving us.

"And a very good business you have made of it," said the O.C. to me approvingly. Still greatly puzzled, I returned to thank my benefactress. After expressing my gratitude I ventured to tell her that she had been much kinder to me than I had been led to expect.

"But 'ave I not see you kees my little son?" she said gravely.

"Ah," I said to myself, "_that's_ it!" and, stooping down to where he was playing, I did it again with added warmth.

* * * * *

From the transactions of the Royal Dublin Society:--

"Professor HUGH RYAN, M.A., D.Sc., and Mr. M. J. WALSH, M.Sc.--'On Desoxyhydrocatechintetramethylether.'"

We are not surprised that it took two of them to tackle it.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

BLANCHE'S LETTERS.

WAR FASHIONS.

_Park Lane._

DEAREST DAPHNE,--People are going to the theatre a good deal, but not in the old way. We wait in the queue now, and work our way up into the gallery. We leave the stalls and boxes to _ces autres_. "Olga" has created a simply charming queue-coat, heavy grey frieze, with plenty of pockets and a cap to match with ear-pieces. You take a parcel of sandwiches to eat while you're waiting (the _dernier cri_ is to wrap the parcel in a spotted handkerchief), and, if you want to be immensely and utterly right, you'll _walk_ home and buy a piece of fried fish on the way for your supper.

À propos, there's quite a good little story being told about Lady Goreazure and these topsy-turvy times. She was in the gallery at the Incandescent the other night, and, on coming down, the gallery people, finding it was pouring in torrents, crowded into the chief entrance for shelter, to the enormous disgust of the stalls and boxes, who were just coming out. A rose-coloured satin gown with ante-war bare arms and shoulders, an ermine wrap, and a paste hair-bandeau was particularly furious, and announced loudly that it was "an abominable shame to mix us up with the gallery people in this way." Lady Goreazure thought she knew the voice, and, turning, recognised in the angry pink-satin person her maid, Dawkins, who left her some months ago to go into munition work. She's a skilled hand now and simply coining money, as she told Lady G. in a hurried furtive whisper, adding, "Please don't talk to me any more. I shouldn't like my friends to see that I know anyone from the gallery."

One of the _literally_ burning questions of the moment has been how to dispose of the little lanterns one's obliged to carry after dark now that so many people have given their motors to the country and stump it or bus it everywhere. Your Blanche has solved the difficulty and at the same time set a fashion. My evening boots (what a different meaning that phrase has from what it once had, my Daphne!) have darling little teeny-weeny lamps fixed to their toes, so that one can see exactly where one's stepping. With these boots is worn a toque with a small lamp fastened in a velvet or ribbon _chou_ in front. The _boots_ are for _one's own guidance_; the _toque illuminante_ is to show _other_ gropers in the darkness that one's coming. Some people add a chic little hooter, which clears the way quite nicely and is simply _precious_ in crossing roads.

Speaking of those who've given all their motors to the State and those who haven't, a new social danger has bobbed up for the latter--the chauffeuse. She's got to be reckoned with, dearest. In threatening the single lives of people's eldest sons she's leaving even the eternal chorus-girl down the course, and in releasing _one_ man for the Front she's quite likely to capture _another who counts considerably more!_

The Ramsgates thought they'd got a perfect jewel of a chauffeuse--smart, businesslike, knew town well, knew when she might exceed the speed limit and when she mightn't, thoroughly understood her car and so on. And then one day Pegwell came back from the Front on sick leave. As soon as he was well enough he went for a drive every day. Someone said to his mother, "I wonder you trust your boy out alone with that chauffeuse of yours." And Elizabeth Ramsgate _laughed_ at the caution. "I only wish Thompson were more dangerous," she said. "There's safety in numbers, and if she were younger and prettier perhaps she'd switch Peggy's thoughts off that fearful Dolly de Colty of the Incandescent."

And so Pegwell went on with his drives, and one day they were out so long that his mother was anxious, and when at last they came back she said, "Oh, Thompson, you've been driving Lord Pegwell too far; he's not strong enough for such long drives; it was very inconsiderate of you, Thompson." And the chauffeuse tossed up her chin and cried, "Not so much 'Thompson,' please!" And Pegwell chipped in with, "This is Lady Pegwell, mother, and in future she'll drive no one but me!"

Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, is even more furious about it than his parents. "Ramsgate and Elizabeth have behaved like fools," she said to me yesterday; "they don't know their world in the least, though they've lived in it nearly half a century. What if the minx _wasn't_ particularly young and pretty. A chauffeuse is a novelty, and when you've said that you've said everything."

Your Blanche is enormously busy just now editing a book that's going to be the sensation of the Spring crop of volumes. You're aware, of course, _m'amie_, that if a book's even to be _looked_ at now it must be either Somebody's Memories of Everybody Else or Somebody's Experiences in an Enemy Country. Well, and so Stella Clackmannan and I, in the hostel we run for poor dears who've lost their situations abroad and have no friends to go to on coming back here, found among our guests a bright little Cockney who's been what she calls an up-and-down girl in the Royal Palace at Bashbang, the capital of Rowdydaria. My dearest, the things that girl has climbed over and crawled under, and the weather she's come through, in escaping from the Rowdydarians and getting back here! And the things she's seen and heard in the Palace! It will throw a flood of light on all sorts of things, and will certainly make our F.O. sit up.

With the help of a clever photographer and some imagination we've reconstructed the up-and-down girl's adventures quite nicely. There are photos of the King of Rowdydaria as head of his own army; in his uniform as Colonel of the Hun Räuberundmörder Regiment; and in the Arab burnous in which he is to lead an attack on Egypt. There's a photo of the up-and-down girl sweeping a passage and listening through a key-hole to a wonderful conversation between the King of R. and an Emperor who'd come to see him (luckily it was in English and she remembers every word): "You've got to say _you_ did it." "But I haven't got any navy--I _couldn't_ have done it." "I'll give you the submarine that did it--or _lend_ it to you. There! now it's yours--for a time. _You_ don't depend on the Neutralians for any supplies. So you can afford to tell them you did it--and be quick about it." "But you can't expect even the _Neutralians_ to swallow that!" "Why, you fool, they'd swallow anything! That's the meaning of their phrase 'rubber-neck.'" There's a photo of the Queen of Rowdydaria coming up at this point, snatching the broom away, and beating the up-and-down girl with it, and calling her "Spying English Pig." Altogether, my dear, it's positively enthralling! Order your copy early, for people will be slaying each other for this book. _Astounding Disclosures of an Up-and-down Girl in the Royal Palace at Bashbang_ will certainly quite _quite_ eclipse those two other sensations, _What a Buttons Overheard in the Imperial Pickelhaube Schloss_ and _Amazing Revelations of a Tweeny in the Perhapsburg Hof_.

Ever thine, BLANCHE.

* * * * *

* * * * *

How to put People at their Ease.

"The officer in command, Lieut. Berg, was exceedingly pleasant, and did all in his power to put the passengers at their ease and make them feel comfortable.... He had a large bomb placed in the engine-room, and another on the bridge, which could be exploded easily by electricity."--_Daily News._

* * * * *

"AMERICA'S LAST WORD FOR THE HUN. SIXTEEN PAGES TO-DAY."

_Daily Mirror Poster._

These American last words!

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.

XXXV.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--Things go on here from day to day in a businesslike and orderly fashion, the comic relief being supplied by a temporary, very temporary, man from overseas, who has operated for a while at our telephone exchange. Most people, myself included, are overawed by the dignity and significance of our environment here; not so this Canadian. One of our very greatest was having words with his instrument the other evening. He supposed, wrongly, that his antagonist was a hundred kilometres away, and he adjusted his remarks and voice accordingly. Imagine his pain on being informed, from the exchange, in quite a cheerful and friendly tone, "I guess you're on the wrong string this time, Mister."

There is also, of course, that never-failing source of satisfaction, the military mess waiter. I think ours, the other night, excelled all starters in the art of ellipsis. Our meal was interrupted by a loud bump, crash, cataclysm and bang. We took it that two at least of the enemy's great offensives had begun, centralising on us and opening with the destruction of all our mess machinery, personnel and platter. Shortly afterwards Alfred, slightly flushed, came into the room. We asked him to let us know the worst. All we could get out of him was, "I must 'a' trod on a bit o' fat, Sir."

You will be touched, I am sure, by the pretty story now current concerning the earnest young subaltern and the Brigadier. The former was responsible for the training of an expert section, in no matter what particular black art; the latter called in person one morning to witness an experimental display. The apparatus was produced, the Brigadier inspected it delicately, and the section was fallen in, standing near by in an attitude of modest pride. From them the Brigadier eventually singled out a private to do a star turn; silence was enjoined while the subaltern should give the private the necessary detail orders. Now the subaltern was one of the many of us civilians who have a burning ambition not only to achieve perfection always, but also to maintain on all occasions a superlatively military bearing. Confronted by the private and expected to order him about, he hesitated, blushed and at last made it clear that he simply must, before beginning, have a few words apart in the General's private ear. With kindly toleration the General eventually conceded this, and it was then made more than apparent to him why it was that the earnest young subaltern was reluctant to give his orders to the private without some explanation in advance to the Brigadier. "The man's _surname_ is Bhyll, Sir," he whispered.

Red-hats may not always know much about life in the trenches, but they can tell you at first hand what strafing was like when there were no trenches to live in. You will perhaps care to hear of an adventure of the good old days, when men wandered about Flanders on their own, sometimes attaching themselves to English units, sometimes to French, and sometimes marching inadvertently with the Central Powers. Maps in those days didn't show you clearly which was your bit and which was the other fellow's, and many a time different parties, meeting in the dark, would be quite affable in passing, little knowing it was each other's blood they were after. My man, at the moment when we take up the narrative, was walking about in a wood, looking for a job. Half an hour earlier he had been busily engaged in a brisk battle, but, owing to his not keeping his mind on it, he'd got detached and now found himself in one of those peculiarly peaceful solitudes which only exist in the heart of the war zone. Whether the battle was over and, if so, who'd won it, he couldn't say. In fact, those being the early confused days, he didn't rightly know whether it had been a battle at all or just a little personal unpleasantness between himself and his private enemies. Everything appeared to be exactly as it should not be; he felt that he ought to be exhilarated with victory or depressed with defeat, exhausted or maimed, and not merely covered from top to toe with mud. He found himself walking along in a wood, just as he might do at home, smoking a cigarette and thinking that this would be a most convenient moment for a wash and a cup of tea. As he said, the very last thing he seemed to be at was war, when suddenly, climbing over a small ridge, he discovered himself face to face with a hostile sentry, and near him were, at repose, a knot of other equally repulsive Bosches.