Chapter 2

To begin with, let me describe myself. I am an ordinary quiet-living obscure person, neither exalted nor lowly, who, having tired of town, took a little place in the country and there settled down to a life of placidity, varied by such inroads upon ease as all back-to-the-landers know: now a raid on the chickens by a fox, whose humour it is not to devour but merely to decapitate; now the disappearance of the gardener at Lord Derby's coat-tails; now a flood; and now and continually a desire on the part of the cook to give a month's notice, if you please, and the consequent resumption of correspondence with the registry office. There you have the main lines of the existence not only of myself, but of thousands of other English rural recluses. But for such little difficulties I have been happy--a Cincinnatus ungrumbling.

The new fly entered the ointment about three weeks ago, when a parcel was brought to me by a footman from the Priory, some three miles away, with a message to the effect that it had been delivered there and opened in error. They were of course very sorry.

I asked how the mistake had occurred.

"Same name," he said. "The house has just been let furnished to some people of the same name as yourself."

Now I have always rather prided myself on the rarity of my name. I don't go so far as to claim that it came over with the Conqueror, but it is an old name and an uncommon one, and hitherto I had been the only owner of it in the district. To have it duplicated was annoying.

Worse however was to come.

I do not expect to be believed, but it is a solemn fact that within a fortnight two more bearers of my name moved into the village. One was a cowman, and the other a maiden lady, so that at the present moment there are four of us all opening or rejecting each other's letters. The thing is absurd. One might as well be named Smith right away.

I don't mind the cowman, but the maiden lady is a large order. I have, as I say, lived in this place for some time--at least six years--and she moved into The Laurels only ten days ago, but when she came round this morning with an opened telegram that was not meant for her, she had the maiden--ladylikehood to remark how awkward it was when other people had the same name as herself. "There should," she said, "never be more than one holder of a name in a small place."

I had no retort beyond the obvious one that I got there first; but I hope that the cowman henceforth gets all her correspondence and delays it. He is welcome to mine so long as he deals faithfully with hers.

* * * * *

"Balakn Centre has shifted." _Toronto Mail_.

So we observe.

MR. PUNCH'S POTTED FILMS. THE WILD WEST DRAMA.

THE ROSEBUD OF GINGER'S GULCH.

* * * * *

NEWS FROM KIEL.

(_By our Naval Expert._)

An interesting little item of news in the daily papers of last Wednesday may have escaped notice. It appears that the German Liners which have been laid up in New York harbour for the last eighteen months have discovered that their magnetic deviation has been affected. This is the explanation of the recent movement in the harbour, when all the German ships were turned round so as to readjust their compasses.

The special significance of this information is to be found by taking it in conjunction with the recent puzzling reports of movements of the German High Seas Fleet. It will be remembered that the Fleet was represented in an enemy official report (with the customary exaggeration) as sweeping out into the North Sea. That was not readily believed, but it was generally felt that there must be something in it, especially as all manner of rumours of naval activity kept coming through from Scandinavia about the same time.

Our naval experts in this country were quite at a loss, but to-day the riddle is solved. What was happening was that the High Seas Fleet was _turning round_.

I have had the good fortune to fall in with a neutral traveller--of the usual high standing and impartial sympathies--who has supplied a few details. It seems that great excitement prevailed at this scene of unwonted bustle and activity. The operation was carried out under favourable weather conditions practically without a hitch, the casualties being quite negligible, and the _moral_ of the men, in spite of their long period of enforced coma, being absolutely unshaken. One and all have now cheerfully accepted the disconcerting changes involved in the new orientation, and window-boxes have been generally shifted to the sunny side.

* * * * *

"On Monday, near Durgerdam, in Holland, a fresh dyke burst occurred on a length of 50 metres. Over 200 handbags were at once thrown into the opening without any visible result."--_Provincial Paper._

Still, the sacrifice was well meant.

* * * * *

THE GOLDEN VALLEY.

(Herefordshire.)

Abbeydore, Abbeydore, Land of apples and of gold, Where the lavish field-gods pour Song and cider manifold; Gilded land of wheat and rye, Land where laden branches cry, "Apples for the young and old Ripe at Abbeydore!"

Abbeydore, Abbeydore, Where the shallow river spins Elfin spells for evermore, Where the mellow kilderkins Hoard the winking apple-juice For the laughing reapers' use; All the joy of life begins There at Abbeydore.

Abbeydore, Abbeydore, In whose lap of wonder teems Largess from a wizard store, World of idle, crooning streams-- From a stricken land of pain May I win to you again, Garden of the God of Dreams, Golden Abbeydore.

* * * * *

AT THE FRONT.

There is one matter I have hitherto not touched on, because it has not hitherto touched on me, and that is Courses.

The ideal course works like this. You are sitting up to the ears in mud under a brisk howitzer, trench mortar and rifle grenade fire, when a respectful signaller crawls round a traverse, remarking, "Message, Sir."

You take the chit from him languidly, wondering whether you have earned a court-martial by omitting to report on the trench sleeping-suits which someone in the Rearward Services has omitted to forward, and you read, still languidly at first; then you get up and whoop, throw your primus stove into the air and proceed to dance on the parapet, if your trench has one. Then you settle down and read your message again to see if it still runs, "You are detailed to attend three months' Staff work course at Boulogne, commencing to-morrow. A car will be at the dump for you to-night. A month's leave on completion, of course."

But all courses are not like this; all you can say is that some are less unlike it than others. I was sitting in a warm billet about twelve noon having breakfast on the first day out of trenches when the blow fell on me. I was to report about two days ago at a School of Instruction some two hundred yards away. I gathered that the course had started without me. I set some leisurely inquiries in train, in the hope that it might be over before I joined up. I also asked the Adjutant whether I couldn't have it put off till next time in trenches, or have it debited to me as half a machine-gun course payable on demand, or exchange it for a guinea-pig or a canary, or do anything consistent with the honour of an officer to stave it off. For to tell the truth, like all people who know nothing and have known it for a long time, I cherish a deeply-rooted objection to being instructed.

Unfortunately the Adjutant is one of those weak fellows who always tell you that they are mere machines in the grip of the powers that change great nations. So on the third day I bought a nice new slate and satchel and joined up.

Even now, after some days of intense instruction, I find my condition is a little confused and foggy. Of course it covers practically the whole field of military interests, and I ought to be able to win the War in about three-quarters of an hour, given a reasonable modicum of men, guns, indents, physical training and bayonet exercise, knowledge of military law, and acquaintance with the approved methods of conducting a casualty clearing station, a mechanical transport column, and a field kitchen. The confusion of mind evident in this last sentence is a high testimonial to the comprehensive nature of our course.

Physical training made the strongest appeal to me. I remember some of the best words, not perhaps as they are, but as I caught them from an almost over-glib expert. Did you know you had a strabismal vertebra? or, given a strabismal vertebra, that it could be developed to almost any extent by simply 'eaving from the 'ips? Take my tip and try it next time you're under shell-fire.

To-morrow we break up, and I join the army. The army has gone away somewhere while I wasn't looking, and I shall have to make inquiries about it. You never can tell what these things will do when not kept under the strictest observation. My bit _may_ have gone to Egypt or Nyassaland or Nagri Sembilan. But I have a depressing feeling that A 27 _x y z_ iv. 9.8 will be nearer the mark, and that I shall find it meandering nightly to Bk 171 in large droves, there to insert more and more humps of soggy Belgium into more and more sandbags. I don't want to make myself unpleasant to the War Office, but I really can't see why we haven't once and for all built trenches all done up in eight-inch thick steel plates. They could easily be brought up ready-made, and simply sunk into position.

They would sink all right; you'd just have to put them down anywhere and look the other way for a minute. The difficulty would be to stop the lift before it got to the basement--if there is a basement in Flanders.

There is a tragedy to report. We were adopted recently by a magpie. He was a gentle creature of impulsive habits and strong woodpecking instincts. Arsène we called him. For some days he gladdened us with his soft bright eye. But when we came to know him well and I relied on him to break the shells of my eggs every morning at breakfast, to steal my pens and spill my ink, to wake me by a gentle nip on the nose from his firm but courteous beak, a rough grenadier came one day to explain a new type of infernal machine, and, when we went out, left a detonator on the table.

I never saw what actually followed, but we buried Arsène with full military honours.

* * * * *

"Ladies' Self-trimmed Velvet Hate for One Shilling."--_North-Country Paper._

The latest fashion in Berlin.

* * * * *

MORE LIGHT FROM OUR LEADERS.

By way of a supplement to the Candle-shade epigrams recently contributed by various distinguished men and women of light and leading, we have been fortunate to secure the following sentiments for St. Valentine's Day from several luminaries who were conspicuously absent from the list.

Mr. Harry Lauder, the illustrious comedian, poetizes as follows:--

"Let those wha wull compile the nation's annals, And guide oor thochts in strict historic channels; Ma Muse prefers, far fra these dull morasses, To laud the purrrple heather and the lassies."

Mr. Stevenson, the incomparable cueist, sends this pithy distich:--

"Big guns are useful in their way, 'tis true, But nursery cannons have their uses too."

Miss Carrie Tubb, the famous soprano, writes:--

"Butt me no butts. Though carping critics flout us, What would Diogenes have done without us?"

A distinguished actor gives as his favourite quotation the couplet from Goldsmith:--

"A man he was financially unique, And passing poor on forty pounds a week."

Mr. Bernard Shaw contributes this characteristic definition of genius:--

"Genius consists in an infinite capacity for giving pain."

The Air Candidate for Mile End sends the following witty and topical epigram:--

"Mid war's alarms there is no time for cooing, But Billing may prevent our land's undoing."

* * * * *

"We are all familiar with the poetic words: 'There's many a gem that's born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air.'"--_Kilmarnock Herald._

Our own ignorance of this gem makes us blush (unseen, we hope).

* * * * *

"How To Keep Warm.--In Great Britain I think a shirt, vest and coat enough covering for the ordinary man. I wear no more."

_Reynolds Newspaper._

No one who follows this advice need fear a chill. The police are sure to make it warm for him.

* * * * *

"When Sir Stanley (now Lord) Buckmaster succeeded Mr. (now Sir) F. E. Smith in the chief responsibility for the Bureau he made a point of betting on friendly terms with the representatives of the Fourth Estate."

_Bristol Times and Mirror._

Several of them, it is well known, have been charged with book-making.

* * * * *

"Lady (Young) seeks Sit. in shop; butcher's preferred; would like to learn scales."

_Morning Paper._

Why not try a piano-monger's?

* * * * *

A DUEL OF ENDURANCE.

Our butcher's name is Bones. Yes, I know it sounds too good to be true. But I can't help it. Once more, his name is Bones.

There is something wrong with Bones. Mark him as he stands there among all those bodies of sheep and oxen, feeling with his thumb the edge of that long sharp knife and gazing wistfully across the way to where the greengrocer's baby lies asleep in its perambulator on the pavement. Observe him start with a sigh from his reverie as you enter his shop. What is the matter with him? Why should a butcher sigh?

I will tell you. He has been thinking about the Kaiser, the Kaiser who is breaking his heart through the medium of the greengrocer's baby.

As all the world knows, between the ages of one and two the best British babies are built up on beef tea and mutton broth; at two or thereabouts they start on small chops. No one can say when the custom arose. Like so many of those unwritten laws on which the greatness of England is really based it has outgrown the memory of its origin. But its force is as universally binding to-day as it was in Plantagenet times. Thus, though numerous households since the War began have temporarily adopted a vegetarian diet, in the majority of cases a line has been drawn at the baby. That is why butchers at present look on babies as their sheet-anchors. It is through them that they keep the toe of their boot inside the family door. The little things they send for them serve as a memento of the old Sunday sirloin, a reminder that while nuts may nourish niggers the Briton's true prerogative is beef.

The greengrocer has given up meat. But he has done more than this. He has done what not even a greengrocer should do. He has broken the tradition of the ages. He is feeding his baby on bananas.

At first the greengrocer's baby did not like bananas and its cries were awful. But after a while it got used to them, and now even when it goes to bed it clutches one in its tiny hand. It is not so rosy as it was, but the greengrocer says red-faced babies are apoplectic and that the reason it twitches so much in its sleep is because it is so full of vitality. He is advising all his customers to feed their babies on bananas. Bones does not care much what happens to the greengrocer's baby, but he says if it lasts much longer he will have to put his shutters up. He is growing very despondent, and I noticed the other day that he had given up chewing suet--a bad sign in a butcher.

It is a duel of endurance between Bones and the greengrocer's baby. I wonder which will win.

* * * * *

"Mr. Buxton was severely heckled at the outset from all parts of the room. Each time he endeavoured to speak he was hailed with a torrent of howls, hoots and kisses."

_Provincial Paper_.

A notoriously effective way of stopping the mouth.

* * * * *

From the Lady's column in _The Cur_:--

"Now about this word 'damn.' Of course you all think it is a good old Saxon word! Well, prepare for a surprise. It is derived from the Latin damnere."

Well, we are--surprised.

* * * * *

Motto for the next Turkish Revolution: _Enver Renversé_.

* * * * *

TONNAGE.

"Oh, dear," said Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair.

"Well," I said, "you've known all along how it would be. Everybody's told you so."

"Everybody? Who's everybody in this case?"

"I told you so for one, and Mr. Asquith mentioned it several times, and so did Mr. McKenna."

"I have never," she said proudly, "discussed my weekly books with Messrs. Asquith and McKenna. I should scorn the action."

"That's all very well," I said. "Keep them away as far as you can, but they'll still get hold of you. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows your weekly books by heart."

"I wish," she said, "he'd add them up for me. He's a good adder-up, I suppose, or he wouldn't be what he is."

"He's fair to middling, I fancy--something like me."

"_You!_" she said, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "You're no good at addition."

"Francesca," I said, "you wrong me. I'm a great deal of good. Of course I don't pretend to be able to run three fingers up three columns of figures a yard long and to write down the result as £7,956 17_s._ 8_d_., or whatever it may be, without a moment's pause. I can't do that, but for the ordinary rough-and-tumble work of domestic addition I'm hard to beat. Only if I'm to do these books of yours there must be perfect silence in the room. I mustn't be talked to while I'm wrestling with the nineteens and the seventeens in the shilling column."

"In fact," said Francesca, "you ought to be a deaf adder."

"Francesca," I said, "how could you? Give me the butcher's book and let there be no more _jeux de mots_ between us."

I took the book, which was a masterpiece of illegibility, and added it up with my usual grace and felicity.

"Francesca," I said as I finished my task, "my total differs from the butcher's, but the difference is in his favour, not in mine. He seems to have imparted variety to his calculations by considering that it took twenty pence to make a shilling, which is a generous error. Now let me deal with the baker while you tackle the grocer, and then we'll wind up by doing the washing-book together."

The washing-book was a teaser, the items being apparently entered in Chaldee, but we stumbled through it at last.

"And now," I said, "we can take up the subject of thrift."

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, "I'm thoroughly tired of it. We've talked too much about it already."

"You're wrong there; we haven't talked half enough. If we had, the books wouldn't have gone up."

"They haven't gone up," she said. "They're about the same, but we've been having less."

"Noble creature," I said, "do you mean to say that you've docked me of one of my Sunday sausages and the whole of my Thursday roly-poly pudding and never said a word about it?"

"Well, you didn't seem to notice it, so I left it alone."

"Ah, but I did notice it," I said, "but I determined to suffer in silence in order to set an example to the children."

"That was bravely done," she said. "It encourages me to cut down the Saturday sirloin."

"But what will the servants say? They won't like it."

"They'll have to lump it then."

"But I thought servants never lumped it. I thought they always insisted on their elevenses and all their other food privileges."

"Anyhow," she said, "I'm going to make a push for economy and the servants must push with me. They won't starve, whatever happens."

"No, and if they begin to object you can talk to them about tonnage."

"That ought to bowl them over. But hadn't I better know what it means before I mention it?"

"Yes, that might be an advantage."

"You see," she said, "Mrs. Mincer devotes to the reading of newspapers all the time she can spare from the cooking of meals and she'd be sure to trip me up if I ventured to say anything about tonnage."

"Learn then," I said, "that tonnage means the amount of space reserved for cargoes on ships--at least I suppose that's what it means, and----"

"You don't seem very sure about it. Hadn't you better look it up?"

"No," I said. "That's good enough for Mrs. Mincer. Now if there's an insufficiency of tonnage----"

"But why should there be an insufficiency of tonnage?"

"Because," I said, "the Government have taken up so much tonnage for the purposes of the War. How did you think the Army got supplied with food and shells and guns and men? Did you think they flew over to France and Egypt and Salonica?"

"Don't be rude," she said. "I didn't introduce this question of tonnage. You did. And even now I don't see what tonnage has got to do with our sirloin of beef."

"I will," I said kindly, "explain it to you all over again. We have ample tonnage for necessaries, but not for luxuries."

"But my sirloin of beef isn't a luxury."

"For the purpose of my argument," I said, "it is a luxury and must be treated as such."

"Do you know," she said, "I don't think I'll bother about tonnage. I'll tackle Mrs. Mincer in my own way."

"You're throwing away a great opportunity," I said.

"Never mind," she said. "If I feel I'm being beaten I'll call you in. Your power of lucid explanation will pull me through."

R. C. L.

* * * * *

* * * * *

CANADIAN REMOUNTS.

Bronco dams they ran by on the ranges of the prairies, Heard the chicken drumming in the scented saskatoon, Saw the jewel humming-birds, the flocks of pale canaries, Heard the coyotes dirging to the ruddy Northern moon; Woolly foals, leggy foals, foals that romped and wrestled, Rolled in beds of golden-rod and charged to mimic fights, Saw the frosty Bear wink out and comfortably nestled Close beside their vixen dams beneath the wizard Lights.

Far from home and overseas, older now--and wiser, Branded with the arrow brand, broke to trace and bit, Tugging up the grey guns "to strafe the blooming Kaiser," Up the hill to Kemmel, where the Mauser bullets spit; Stiffened with the cold rains, mired and tired and gory, Plunging through the mud-holes as the batteries advance, Far from home and overseas--but battling on to glory With the English eighteen-pounders and the soixante-quinzes of France!

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"Mrs. Pretty and the Premier."