Chapter 3

"What would he say to a chemist who could not translate a common tag--for example, rem tetigisti acer?"--_Morning Paper._

We give it up, like the chemist.

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"GENERAL (good, refined) for modern non-basement clergyman's house."--_Daily Chronicle._

The reverend gentleman does not mention his ecclesiastical views; but we gather that he is not an Arian.

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* * * * *

RAILWAY RHYMES.

WHEN books are pow'rless to beguile And papers only stir my bile, For solace and relief I flee To _Bradshaw_ or the _A. B. C._, And find the best of recreations In studying the names of stations.

There is not much among the _A_'s To prompt enthusiastic praise, But _B_ is infinitely better, And there are gems in ev'ry letter. The only fault I have with Barnack Is that it rhymes with Dr. HARNACK; Barbon, Beluncle Halt, Bodorgan Resound like chords upon the organ, And there's a spirit blithe and merry In Evercreech and Egloskerry. Park Drain and Counter Drain, I'm sure, Are hygienically pure, But when æsthetically viewed They seem to me a little crude. I often long to visit Frant, Hose, Little Kimble and Lelant; And, if I had sufficient dollars, Sibley's (for Chickney) and Neen Sollars; Shustoke and Smeeth my soul arride And likewise Sholing, Sole Street, Shide, But I'm afraid my speech might go Awry on reaching Spooner Row.

In serious mood I often bend My thoughts to Ponder and his End, And when I'm feeling dull and down The very name of Tibshelf Town Rejoices me, while Par and Praze And Pylle and Quy promote amaze.

Of all the Straths, a numerous host, Strathbungo pleases me the most, While I can court reluctant slumber By murmuring thy name, Stogumber. Were I beginning life anew From Swadlincote I'd take my cue, But shun as I would shun the scurvy The perilous atmosphere of Turvey.

But though the tuneful name of Horbling Incites to further doggerel warbling, And Gallions, Goonbell, Gamlingay Are each deserving of a lay, No railway bard is worth his salt Who cannot bear to call a "Halt."

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Encouraging.

"WANTED, GIRL; farmhouse; last lived two years."--_Devon and Exeter Gazette._

* * * * *

The Pinch of War.

"Mr. ---- is having his first show of well-known English Corsets, made specially for him."--_Provincial Paper._

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Getting Off Cheaply.

"Mark then explained to the police that they had been 'had.' He was promptly arrested for falsely representing himself as a deserter and to-day was fined 0s."

_Evening Paper._

Judging by the small value attached to him he might have been the German mark.

* * * * *

"LOST, in Annfield, Newhaven, boy's bicycle (three-wheeled); if found in any person's possession after this date will be prosecuted."

_Edinburgh Evening News._

For unlawful acquisition of the extra wheel, we presume.

* * * * *

From a shop-girl's account of the great War:--

"I shall never forget the Saturday before that Bank Holiday if I live till I draw my last breath."--_Daily Mirror._

She ought to have a fair chance of this.

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"Sir Edward Grey has all manner of fine and beautiful ideals to which we lay no claim. But the fairy step-mother who was so prodigal over his cradle yet denied him one gift."

_Morning Paper._

Still, it takes an exceptional man to have a step-mother at birth, fairy or other.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"CAROLINE."

A BABY, did he but know it, is only happy reaching out from the bath for the soap. When he gets it, lo! it is mere froth and bitterness. That, roughly, is Mr. MAUGHAM'S idea in _Caroline_.

If you are to love a woman, for heaven's sake, says he, take care that she be safe bound beyond your reach. All attainment is dead-sea fruit. But how is anyone to believe this depressing sort of doctrine when the woman in question is such an engaging divinity as his _Caroline Ashley_, interpreted by Miss IRENE VANBRUGH at the very top of her form? The doctrine, indeed, may be hanged for the nefarious half-truth it is; but this would still leave you free to appreciate one of the most brilliant and finished pieces of work which Mr. MAUGHAM has yet done for the stage. True, it is merely an airy trifle; but it is almost perfect of its kind.

The action opens on the morning of the announcement in _The Times_ of the death of _Caroline's_ extremely difficult husband, who has long been a wanderer seeking spirituous consolations in out-of-the-way places of the earth. _Robert Oldham_, a quite delightful barrister (Mr. LEONARD BOYNE; so you will understand the "delightful"), has worshipped _Caroline_ with an honourable fidelity for ten years, waiting patiently for the day on which she shall be free. Well, here is the long-desired day. Affectionate, officious friends come to congratulate each of the pair before they meet, and each confesses to a curious chilling sense of dread. When the embarrassing moment of the _téte-à-téte_ arrives, _Robert_, obviously ill-at-ease and apparently more as a matter of duty than of eager conviction, suggests that _Caroline_ shall name the day. She gives him a blank refusal. Both affect dismay at this queer ending of their long-deferred hopes, but eventually confess, mid peals of their own happy laughter, their actual relief. So ends the first chapter.

A later hour of the same day finds our heroine on her sofa, languid from the morning's emotions, and indulging in the luxury of not feeling at all well. Her world is crumbling. She cannot do without a slave, and _Robert_ can no longer fill quite the old _rôle_. Clearly a matter for counsel with her physician and friend, _Dr. Cornish_ (Mr. DION BOUCICAULT), who pleasantly diagnoses middle-age and prescribes a young adorer, than which no advice could be more nicely calculated to restore her lost feeling of queenly complacency. She sends for young _Rex Cunningham_ (Mr. MARTIN LEWIS), a morbid egoist, who nourishes a hopeless passion for her (and others), being well aware of the paramount claims of _Robert_. She contrives to let him know that she is free, and the youth, whose pet hobby is hopeless passion, at once sheers off in alarm. _Caroline_ is learning--is beginning to understand the dark philosophy of Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. In despair she again turns to _Robert_. They become engaged and promptly begin quarrelling about their houses. He objects to her Futurist bathroom; she to his, which is so like a tube station that she would bathe in constant apprehension of the sudden appearance of a young man demanding tickets. _Robert_ begins to assert his masculine rights to control these and sundry matters. She realises (oh, venerable gag of the cynics!) that the fetters which would unite their bodies would put a barrier between their souls. The engagement is by mutual consent declared off.

Realising, however, in Chapter III., that she needs _Robert's_ devotion more than anything else, she conceives a plot. _Dr. Cornish_ makes an opportune call, not this time as a doctor, but as a whole-hearted admirer. With just such an one for my husband, thinks _Caroline_, _Robert_ could again assume his accustomed part of loyal friend and incense-bearer. She accordingly proposes. Appreciating the difficulty of directly refusing without discourtesy, he temporises and appears to fall in with her suggestion that he shall announce their engagement to _Robert_ and her interfering friends, who are promptly telephoned for to hear an interesting statement. But _Cornish_ proves himself a WOLFF in sheep's clothing. Instead of announcing the engagement he asserts that he has just seen _Stephen Ashley_, the husband: a lie which obtains credence with the others because of the dead man's amiable habit of occasionally putting about a rumour of his decease. _Caroline_, with superb presence of mind, seeing a glorious way out of a dilemma, adopts the lie, contrives a more or less plausible explanation, and thus establishes the _status quo ante_--the grass widow with the faithful and contented adorer.

The play, whose only flaw was a certain rather upsetting ambiguity (whether accidental or designed I could not quite gather) in the last few sentences before the curtain fell, was interpreted with a very fine intelligence. Miss IRENE VANBRUGH'S superbly trained talent showed itself in an astonishing range of moods tethered in a plausible unity of conception. Mr. BOYNE, who is just coming into his own, scored bull after bull. Perhaps he didn't make _Oldham_ quite the Englishman that the author (I should say) designed, but rather an Irishman of that delightfully faint flavour which is so entirely attractive. Miss LILLAH MACARTHY, as _Maude Fulton_, a well-preserved bachelor in the most bizarre modern mode, also a dexterous liar and officious matchmaker, played with her head in her most accomplished manner and gave full value in the general scheme to a character which the author made a person when he might have been content with a peg. Mr. DION BOUCICAULT'S physician was as bland a humbug as ever coined guineas in Mayfair. Mr. MARTIN LEWIS, as a profoundly silly ass, played a difficult hand without fault. Miss NINA SEVENING, as a consoler of handsome men in trouble, and Miss FLORENCE LLOYD, as _Caroline's_ maid, competently rounded off in subsidiary _rôles_ the work of the principals.

Yes, undoubtedly a brilliant performance.

T.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

THE evolution of the long novel appears to be following that of the human race. Instead of the individual, the family now threatens to become the central unit. I confess that this prospect, as evidenced by _Three Pretty Men_ (METHUEN), fills me with some just apprehension. Mr. GILBERT CANNAN has set out to tell how a Scotch family, three brothers, a mother, and some sisters in the background, determines to make its fortune in a South Lancashire city (very recognisable under the name of _Thrigsby_), and how eventually all but one of them succeed. It is a long book and a close; and the dialogue (which of its kind is good dialogue, crisp and illuminating), being printed without the usual spacing, produces an indigestible-looking page that might well alarm a reader out for enjoyment. The book, in its record of the progress of the three, _Jamie_ and _Tom_ and _John_, is really more a study of social conditions in mid-Victorian Manchester than a work of imagination. But there is clever character-drawing in it, especially in _Jamie_, who from a worldly point of view is the failure of the group, making no money, and drifting through journalism to emigration; and in the finely suggested figure of _Tibby_, the ill-favoured kitchen drudge, who is his real centre of inspiration. But first and last it remains a dull business, partly from an entire lack of humour, partly from the absence of any settled plan that might help one to endure the dreariness of the setting. Mr. CANNAN certainly knows his subject, and few novels indeed have given me, rightly or wrongly, a greater suggestion of autobiography. But for once the art of being exhaustive without being exhausting seems to have eluded him.

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If you want really to get a picture of war as she is waged by an obscure unit in the thick of the dirtiest, dampest and most depressing part, read PATRICK MACGILL'S _The Red Horizon_ (JENKINS). Here we meet the author of _The Children of the Dead End_ and _The Rat Pit_ as Rifleman 3008 of the London Irish, involved in the grim routine of the firing line--reliefs, diggings and repairs, sentry-go's, stand-to's, reserves, working and covering parties, billets; and so _da capo_. With a rare artistic intuition, instead of diffusing his effects in a riot of general impressions, he has confined himself to a record of the doings of his section, and I have read nothing that gives anything near so convincing an impression of the truth, at once splendid and bitter. It is a privilege to be shown, through the medium of an imaginative temperament, the fine comradeship of the trenches, the heroism that shines through the haunting fear of death, mostly conquered with a laugh, but sometimes frankly expressed in the pathetic desire for a "blighty" wound--a wound just serious enough to send the envied hero home. You won't get much of the Romance of War out of this strong piece of work, except the jolly sort of romance of the little Cockney, _Bill_, who, when the regiment in reserve was crouching in the trench under heavy shelling, cheered it by delivering himself characteristically as follows: "If I kick the bucket don't put a cross with ''E died for 'is King and Country' over me. A bully beef tin at my 'ead will do, and--''E died doin' fatigues on an empty stomach.'"

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If you were the hero of a novel, the only possible mate for the heroine, and, in short, taking you all round, an important sort of person, would you not consider yourself hardly treated if you were not allowed to make the girl's acquaintance till page 311, when you knew there were to be only three hundred and thirty-two pages in the book? I disagree entirely with _Roger Quinn_, in Miss BEATRICE KELSTON'S _The Blows of Circumstance_ (LONG), when, reviewing the affair, he writes to a friend: "It's amazing that we fell short of perfect understanding." My opinion is that _Roger_ did extremely well in the little time he was given. Of course he had conducted the case for the Crown when she was in the dock, charged with murder, and that formed a sort of bond between them; but even so I don't see how he could have got much nearer to a complete understanding, considering that the girl dashed off and committed suicide almost before he could get a word in. If my enjoyment of _The Blows of Circumstance_ waned towards the end and the book seemed to me to lose grip, it was because the sudden discovery on the part of _Quinn_ and _Amalie Gayne_ that they were soul-mates was too sudden to convince me. Up to the beginning of the trial the story has vigour and an air of probability, with its careful building-up of _Amalie's_ curious character and the vivid description of her life on the stage and off it in the society of a drug-taking husband; but from that point on it seemed to me to fail. In real life all might have happened just as it is set down, but real life is sloppily constructed. A novel must obey more rigid rules. Miss KELSTON writes extremely well, if a trifle too gloomily for my personal taste, but she cannot afford to ignore the laws of construction and hurl her big situation at the reader with an abrupt "Take it or leave it!"

* * * * *

For _Thirteen Stories_ I've nought but praise, Although you'll find when you overhaul them They're best described, in the author's phrase, As "sketches, studies or what do you call them?"

Per DUCKWORTH forward and back you trek; You may book right through or choose between a Peep at Perim or Chapultepec, Sahara, Hampstead or Argentina.

You may halt, if you will, at phalansteries, Where Mescaleros on maturangos Eat or drink (whichever it is) Baked tortillas and twang changangos.

Suchlike things come easy as pie To the author, Mr. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, And I quite like 'em so long as I Have only to read and not to say 'em.

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If 'tis love that makes the world go round, it is certainly the same force that maintains the circulation of the libraries. So it is safe to assume that such a title as _The Little Blind God_ (MELROSE) is itself enough to preserve the volume that bears it from any wallflower existence on the less frequented shelves. But as for the story to which Miss ANNE WEAVER has given this attractive name I find it very difficult to say anything, good or bad. Only once did its placid unfolding cause me any emotion, even the mildest. Old _Lady Conyers_ had adopted as companion one _Mistress Barbara Cardeen_ (need I interpolate that the time is the eighteenth century? O brocade and lavender! O swords and candle-light and general tushery!), whom she found playing a violin in the streets of Bath--I should say _the_ Bath; let us above all things be atmospheric! As her ladyship had a most eligible son, and as _Barbara_--the chit!--naturally hadn't a guinea, I own I was slightly astonished to find the dowager positively hurling the young couple at each other's heads. However, doubtless _Lady Conyers_, as herself a novel-reader, knew that the thing was inevitable anyway. But before this there were of course the misunderstandings. _Mistress Barbara_ had, in the violin days, a half-brother and this gentleman very obligingly turns up _incognito_ at Conyers End, and even goes to the expense of hiring rooms in a cottage on the estate, for no other purpose in life than that his conspicuously clandestine meetings with the fair _Barbara_ should be misconstrued as an assignation. Ha! out, rapiers! and let us be ready for the moment when _Barbara_, rushing between the combatants, receives in her own bosom the blade intended for ----, etc. But of course not enough blade to endanger the happy ending. So there you are. A placid, undistinguished tale, that may be commended as nourishment or soporific according to the taste and fancy of the reader.

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* * * * *

An Optimist.

"Gentlewoman, bright, owing to War, offers Companionship in Return for hospitality, laundry, and travelling expenses."

_Morning Paper._

* * * * *

"An attack on the compulsory vice bill now before the House of Lords was made by the president of the conference, William C. Anderson."--_New York Globe._

Our American contemporary is misinformed. The measure in question seeks to make virtue compulsory--the virtue of patriotism.

* * * * *

"The following French official communiqué was issued this afternoon:--3.25.--Bouton Rouge 1, Dordogne 2, Kitch 3. Eight ran."--_Evening Times and Echo._

We are sorry that K. OF K. didn't do better.