Chapter 3

The pleasantest feature of Question time was the tribute paid (with hint of more substantial rewards to come after the War) to the gallantry and self-sacrifice of the officers and men of our mercantile marine. This furnished an appropriate prelude to the subject of the ensuing debate. Mr. PETO and others sought to press upon the Government the more economical use of our merchant shipping. Here they were forcing an open door. Steps have already been taken to restrict the imports of luxuries. Ministers are unanimous, I believe, in regarding "ginger," for instance, as an article whose importation might profitably be curtailed. * * * * *

* * * * *

ECONOMY AT THE CINEMA DE LUXE.

* * * * *

HIGHLAND HOSPITALITY.

It happened in Scotland--it couldn't have happened anywhere else.

I had been visiting the MacNeils. They sympathised over my wound; they rallied round with tea and toast; they provided Scotch whisky. My one objection to the family was their supreme confidence in these new-fledged lads of the Home Defence, whom I--as a Subaltern of the old school who had done my time at Sandhurst before the War--scorned with a dogged contempt which no degree of argument could kill.

It was when I reached the street that I realised that fervid fire in the soul of Scotch hospitality--a fire which brands it as unique in our island story. In my coat pocket reposed a bottle of Heather Dew.

The convalescent home where I was being wooed back to brisk health was situated along the sea-front. Chuckling at the MacNeils' efforts to modify my views of our Home Defenders and their inefficiency, and brooding on the folks' kind hearts, I paused to light a cigarette. The wind blew out the fluttering flame. It also set me sneezing, for I had a bad cold in the head. I struck another match.

"Hey!" said a voice suddenly behind me. I swerved, choking back a sneeze. "Hey, hey, hey!" some broad Doric tongue continued.

A heavy hand came plump on my shoulder; a large Highland face was pushed into mine; a kilt flapped round long bare shanks. I sneezed again.

"Got ye this time, lad!" announced the son of the North, who now appeared to be a brawny lance-corporal. "Signallin' ye are. Oot to sea. Ah saw ye blinkin' wi' a licht."

I sneezed again. "I was'd!" I declared as well as the cold in my head would allow. "It was a batch. I've dever sigdalled id by life. You're wrog--quite wrog!"

He gripped me firmly by the arm.

"Dinna tell me!" he announced in conclusive tones. "Ah ken better! Ye're the second spy Ah've cotched. Come along, ma freend Fritz! Ye'll hae the job o' explainin' to the Colonel whaur ye got that second-lootenant's uniform."

Hunching his rifle over his shoulder, he marched me back the way I had come.

"Where are you takig be to?" I enquired thickly. "Take be to your Cobbadig Officer at wudce. I wad to egsplaid!"

"Ah'll hae nane o' your clavers," he said shortly. "Ye're for the gaird-room. Dinna tell ma ye're no a German wi' a tongue like yon!"

"I've god a gold id by head!" I shouted at him. "I'b dot a Gerbud! I'b Lieutedad Dobsod----"

"Haud yer tongue. Ye're a Chooton. An' ye're cotched. That's flat."

I was bundled into a draughty cattle-shed. The door was slammed. I sneezed. It was a bright prospect. I changed my views on the inefficiency of our Home Defenders. They now appealed to me as violently efficient. A night in a tumble-down cow-house! Desolation! Then I brightened up: the MacNeils' whisky. The cork popped in the silence of the night.

The door opened. A sentry's head was poked round. Disregarding him, I raised the bottle to my chattering teeth. Then the lance-corporal appeared. With a sudden thought I offered him the bottle. A strange look crept across his face. Gingerly he took the bottle. Then there was a comfortable sound. He drew a hand across his mouth.

"That's grrand," he said. "Beg pardon, Sir. It's been ma mistake. Jock, the prisoner is a Scottish officer. Let him gang.... Thank ye, Sir; thank ye for the whisky."

* * * * *

"The Germans ... a whole company being decimated, the only survivors, a captain and seventy men, surrendering."

_Pall Mall Gazette._

This indication that the normal strength of a German company is now only 79 is welcome news.

* * * * *

"The air defence of London is now practically under the control of the home forces, of which Lord French is Commander-in-Chief, and Admiral Lord French is Commander-in Chief, and Admiral the gunnery defences of London."--_Provincial Paper._

So now we're all right.

* * * * *

"The spectacle of the snow-clad trees on the London Road, and in other suburban districts, was pleasant to the eye, although it made walking a trifle difficult."--_Leicester Mail._

It is our habit to discourage the dangerous practice of tree-gazing while in motion.

* * * * *

ONCE UPON A TIME.

The Miracle.

Once upon a time there was one Herbert. The doctor being unwilling to pass him so that there was no chance that he, in the words of the great joke, would "march too," he had taken a situation as a waiter.

Englishmen (it is an axiom) do not make good waiters; nor was he an exception. But he was conscientious and painstaking, although clumsy and of short memory. Still, this was war-time, and Hans had gone to Germany and might now be dead, and Fritz very properly was interned, and Josef had sought Vienna once more, and Pasquale and Giuseppe had rejoined the Italian flag, and the only foreigners left were a few nondescripts, very volubly, indeed almost passionately, of Swiss nationality. In fact, if this War has done nothing else it has at least established the fact that the male population of Switzerland is far greater than any one had supposed. Gallant little Switzerland!

So you see this was Herbert's chance, and the manager was glad to get him; and Herbert, who, owing to the slump in games, had lost his job at an athletic sports factory and had certain financial liabilities which he had long since abandoned any hope of meeting, was glad to come. Only, by infinite self-denial and sacrifice did he get together the necessary capital for his clothes and the deposit demanded from waiters against breakages, theft and so forth.

On his first day as one in charge of three or four tables Herbert made some very serious mistakes. He was complained of for slowness, he turned over a sauce-boat, he broke a glass, and he forgot to charge for the cigar which the portly gentleman in the corner had taken after his lunch. And this cigar was a half-crown Corona, for the portly gentleman either had not yet grasped the full meaning of War economy or was enjoying one of those periodical orgies to which even rigid economist think themselves to be entitled.

Already Herbert had, like _Alnaschar_ in the Eastern tale, spent imagination far more than he could make all the week, and this blow, with the manager's abuse to serve as salt in the wound, sent him home in misery. Nor was it as if the portly gentleman was a regular customer who could be reminded of the error (little as such reminding is to the taste of regular customers); on the contrary, he had never been known to visit the restaurant before. You see, then, how unhappily Herbert viewed life as he lay awake in his attic that night, and very heavy were his feet on his way to work the next day, with an overcoat buttoned up to his neck to hide his evening dress.

It was a cold rainy morning; the wind raged; and the very indifferent soles of Herbert's boots absorbed moisture like blotting-paper. Everything was against him. There was not a gleam of hope in the future, not a ray of light. His companions were surly, the manager was venomous, the bitter rain fell on. He was in debt and would get the sack.

It was then that the miracle happened. Suddenly Herbert, who was gazing forlornly through the window at this disconsolate world, waiting, napkin on his arm, to begin to wait, heard a voice saying, "I'm afraid you forgot to charge me for my cigar yesterday." It was the portly gentleman. Life was not utterly hopeless any more.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE BEST AIR "MINISTER."

Who shall be Lord of the Air, Now N. has seen fit to declare, To his followers' deep despair, That he can't conscientiously sit In a Cabinet void of grit? For CHURCHILL is tied to the Front, And MARKHAM is out of the hunt, And eloquent BERNARD VAUGHAN From his pulpit can't be withdrawn.

Who shall be Lord of the Air And take us all under his care? Why, ROBERTSON NICOLL, of course-- A man of colossal force, With a perfectly splendid gift For soaring and moral uplift. For, though nobody so uniquely Can hearten _The British Weekly_, His readers will cheerfully spare Him to go and remain in the air, Careering along the inane In a Nicoll-plated plane With, to lend him additional fervour, Mr. G*RV*N as his "Observer."

* * * * *

THE MULE'S PARENTAGE.

The Best Thing Yet Said of the 22.

Mr. Gibson Bowles, at the City blockade meeting, on the Coalition: "The Government did not swop horses. They made an alliance with another animal; and the result is a mule without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity."--_Evening News._

Incidentally the unkindest thing that has yet been said of the Unionists who joined the late Ministry.

* * * * *

"There were further indications at the meeting of the Salop County Council on Saturday of the Council's desire to economise where possible. Dr. McCarthy drew attention to figures given in the report of the County Medical Officer of Health showing a diminution in the birth-rate of the county for the quarter to the extent of 14 per cent."

_Wellington Journal._

Economy of any kind is praiseworthy, but we think they might have begun with one of the other rates.

* * * * *

"The domestic income of a more or less typical three-roomed cottage near the docks is at present £17 per week. Among the recent purchases of the family, a pianoforte, costing £50, may be enumerated, although no one in the house can play a note. This looks more wasteful than the common outlay on gramophones, which at least give pleasure. The idea of sound investment is slow in penetration among the suddenly affluent in wages."

_Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury._

We dislike carping, but surely a piano is always a sound investment.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

In fiction it is certainly true that nothing succeeds like success. There is a sure and very understandable charm in a story of climbing fortunes. Therefore it may be that part of my pleasure in _Tasker Jevons_ (HUTCHINSON) was due to sympathy with the upward progress of its hero. But much more was certainly due to the art with which Miss MAY SINCLAIR has written about it. _Tasker Jevons_ is a book, and a character, that will linger pleasantly in my memory. He was a little man with a great personality, or rather I will say a great purpose, and that was to approve himself in the eyes of the wife whom he worshipped, and her perplexed, slightly contemptuous family. The trouble was that _Tasker_ was in the beginning a hack journalist, socially and personally impossible; and that _Viola Thesiger_, whom he married, belonged by birth to the rigidest circle of Cathedral society (Miss SINCLAIR, scorning subterfuge, calls it quite openly Canterbury). So you see the difficulties that beset the _Jevons_ pair. Their story is told here, very effectively, through the mouth of a third person, a fellow-journalist and admirer of _Jevons_--but quite respectable--the rejected suitor of _Viola_, and eventually the husband of her sister. Through his clever and observant eyes we watch the progress of _Jevons_, see him prospering materially, becoming famous and rich and vulgarized. It is an unusually close and rather subtle study of the development of such a man. Eventually there happens that for which the date, Midsummer 1914, will have prepared you, even if you had forgotten that Miss SINCLAIR had herself served in Belgium with a field ambulance. So the end of the book gives us some vivid War pictures. Taking it all round, I am inclined to consider _Tasker Jevons_ the best of the 1916 novels that has yet come my way.

* * * * *

When, in the first chapter of _Moll Davis_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN), you find the heroine having a very pretty dispute with the landlord of the Mischief Inn, and a gallant blade of a fellow coming to her rescue, you will guess what fare is to follow. And, provided that your taste is for diet of the lightest, you will not be disappointed, for no one is more capable than Mr. BERNARD CAPES of making it palatable. Here we are then back in the year 1661, and in a maze of intrigue. Wit, if we are to believe the novelist, was as plentiful in those days as morals were scarce, and Mr. CAPES is not the man to spoil tradition for lack of colour. He calls his book a comedy, but he should have called it a comedy with an interlude; and the part I like best is the interlude. Possibly because he was weary of plots and counterplots he suddenly breaks loose, and with a warning to those who have "an unconquerable repugnance to sentiment" tells a moving tale that has nothing to do with the main narrative. I can thank him unreservedly for this, and for the crop of words which he has added to my vocabulary. "Bingawast," "gingumbobs," and "fubbs" have the right ring, and after a little training I hope to use them with telling effect on my platoon.

* * * * *

_Edith Ottley_ cherished a passion for _Aylmer Ross_; to such an extent indeed that she came within an ace of eloping with him. However, the ace wasn't played; and in due course _Aylmer_ went to the War and became a captain. Unfortunately he also became much more interesting by reason of a wound; and, when this brought him back to England, the passion also returned, stronger than ever. This, of course, is why their story is called _Love at Second Sight_ (GRANT RICHARDS). I have now a small surprise for you, namely that _Edith_ was already married, and owned a charming house, a valetudinarian husband and two pleasant children. So I quite expected that _Aylmer_, in the fulness of time, would either (1) be removed by the enemy, or (2) marry a delightful little Red-Cross nurse who adored him. But the author, Mrs. LEVERSON, had other views. Instead therefore of ending her heroine in the expected mood of conventional reconciliation she sends the objectionable husband off with somebody else, and leaves us to a prospect of wedding-bells with the divorce court as a preliminary. Which is at least original. But throughout I had the feeling that a great deal of bright and clever writing was being wasted on a poor theme. The characters are brilliantly suggested, but--with perhaps one exception, forgetful _Lady Conroy_, who is an entire delight--they seem altogether unworthy of it. In fact I came away from the book with the impression of having attended a gathering of somewhat shoddily smart people, and sat next to a clever woman who had been witty about them. The worst of the matter is that they are all so real. This is a tribute to the author, but a most unpleasant reflection for everyone else.

* * * * *

* * * * *

My attention was first attracted to _The New Dawn_ (LONG) by the fact that the plot starts at Euston Station. That interesting, not to say romantic, line, the L. & N. W. R., is usually shunned by our novelists. But although "GEORGE WOVIL" takes his characters to the furthest North, even beyond Glasgow, their sympathies, like, I think, those of their creator, remain behind in fair and false and fickle Wimbledon. This at least was where _Halvey Brown_ wished himself as the train glided over the best laid track in Europe towards dour Bartocher. And _Brown_, though he knew the natural drabness of his destination already, had at that time no information as to all the unpleasing events that were to happen there; that, for example, the minister's new wife would turn out to be a lady with a past that he himself had shared, or that the fair-haired young man in the same compartment was the assistant minister, who would fall in love with the said wife and eventually slay her, the minister, and himself. I find I have been led into betraying for you the outline of the story. Perhaps, however, this does not greatly matter. The value of the book lies in its very natural and human characters. All four of them--there are only four who really matter--are admirably drawn, so that the tragedy of their lives holds and convinces you. My complaints against the author are, first, the excess of emphasis that he gives to the physical unpleasantness of his background; secondly, the loose construction that allows the tale to be continually turning back to look behind it. He would keep a lover in the act of embracing the lady of his heart while he explains what the parents of each died of, and all that has happened since. Still, _The New Dawn_ remains an unconventional and strongly written story, which will certainly interest though perhaps hardly enliven you.

* * * * *

There is something very soothing in the peeps into dusty family papers and the faint echoes of departed gossip which Mrs. STIRLING provides in _A Painter of Dreams_ (LANE). These pleasantly amateurish historical studies go back a century and a half. A commonplace book from which are quoted many diverting and incredible things; a chapter in which those queer Radicals, HORNE TOOKE, COBBETT, Sir FRANCIS BURDETT and bluff Squire BOSVILLE, are chiefly concerned; a sketch of the fourth Earl of ALBEMARLE, keen farmer and friend of COKE of Norfolk, Master of the Horse to WILLIAM IV. and QUEEN VICTORIA (it is to ALBEMARLE in this capacity that the IRON DUKE said: "The Queen can make you go inside the coach, or outside the coach, or run behind it like a d----d tinker's dog"), winner of the Ascot Gold Cup three years running and stiff-backed autocrat; an account of the beautiful Misses CATON of Baltimore and their matrimonial adventures--the American invasion of brides bringing money and beauty in exchange for titles thus dating back to 1816; some details of the lives of two artists, JOHN HERRING, animal painter, and RODDAM SPENCER STANHOPE, one of the lesser pre-Raphaelites and the painter of dreams referred to in the title--these all make up an agreeable pot-pourri with an old-world fragrance which ought to be able to charm you out of the preposterous nightmare of the present. But it makes one feel old to see that the conscientious author thinks that DICKY DOYLE now needs a footnote to let the present generation know who he was.

* * * * *

From the Catalogue of a V.T.C. Tailor.

"'I am,' a V.T.C. Secretary writes, 'in correspondence with the undertaker, and hope at last to induce the War Office to recognise us by sending a representative to attend our funeral rites.'"

* * * * *

"One man of four who escaped the bombs."--_Morning Paper._

A little too old for the baby-killers.

* * * * *

"Lord Sumner on the Need for Self-Sacrifice.

'If the House of Lords and the House of Commons could be taken and thrown into a volcano every day the loss represented would be less than the daily cost of the campaign.'"--_The Times._

It sounds a drastic remedy, but might be worth trying.

* * * * *

"Lemons, used largely for making demonade, have a medicinal value."--_Daily Paper._

We know nothing of the drinks popular in the lower regions, but have always heard that the nectarines used for making nectar have a strong tonic effect.