Chapter 2

Fine? Ay, and more than fine. But we young men of the nineteen-noughts made one big mistake. We thought Guy Beverley had scaled the summit of art; but art has no summit. We thought he had plumbed the depths of psychology; but psychology defies the plumber. I date a new epoch in my life from that day in 19-- when I picked up my _Daily Reflector_ and read the opening chapter of a new serial, _Her Soldier Sweetheart_, by Ruby L. Binns. That was on a Monday. By Wednesday of that week this unknown writer had revealed to me a New Idea and a New Style. The idea is familiar to most of you now, but in those days the daring conception that a common soldier might turn out to be the missing heir of a baronet rang like a challenge in the ears of the older romanticism. It is her style, however, that is Ruby Binns's most enduring gift to English prose literature. Lean, restrained, economical, it holds (for me) the very spirit of the English race and tongue. Listen:--

She went to the door, thinking she heard something. There was nobody there, so she went back to her work, thinking sadly of her soldier boy. "Cheer up," said Clarice; "perhaps he'll come back soon." "Perhaps," answered Yvonne wanly, "but it does not seem very likely, does it, dear?" The next moment the door opened and a tall soldierly figure entered the room.

English? It is like a May morning on Tooting Common. Beverley would have handled that situation well, no doubt. But could he--could anyone--have achieved the poignancy of that unaffected phrase, "It does not seem very likely"? I said that the depths of Art were unplumbable. True, but Ruby Binns has at least got lower than most.

Next week I want to speak of a new man and a new book, Stott Mackenzie and his _Only a Trailer-Car Conductress_.

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THE BEAUTIFUL THING.

You see ugly things in London now-a-days. Oh, yes, but you see beautiful things as well. I saw one yesterday--one of the beautiful things.

It was a cold wet evening, not actually raining but very, very nearly. I stood at the place in Piccadilly where the 'buses stop. There was quite a little crowd waiting, as there always is at this time of day--women with parcels, work-girls going home, a few men. All of them looked tired, and many of them looked cross.

When a 'bus drew up at the curb all those people made a simultaneous plunge for it. Before it had finally stopped they were clinging like a swarm of bees to the steps and rails. It is an arduous game this 'bus-catching, though for those who are young and strong it should perhaps have a certain attraction, combining as it does the allurement of a lottery gamble with the charm of a football scrimmage.

There were only three vacant places, and these, after a desperate struggle, were secured by two athletic-looking girls and a red-haired schoolboy. The conductor waved back the disappointed boarders and they dropped off sulkily. I watched them a moment and then my eyes toward two soldiers, who were crossing the street. Fine, well-set-up men they were, and they carried themselves with the indescribable air of those who have crossed swords with Death and left their opponent, for the time at least, defeated. One of them had a green shade over his left eye. The other carried a stick and walked with a slight limp.

They took up their position a little to the side of the expectant crowd that was already beginning to sway and jostle at the sight of a fresh 'bus, which had just rounded the corner. Small chance for the new-comers, however slightly wounded, in such a _mêlée_, thought I.

The 'bus came rocking along, reeled to the left, staggered to the right, and came uncertainly to a shuddering rest beside the pavement.

And then it was that I saw the Beautiful Thing.

For of that little crowd, some twenty people in all, not a soul moved. Not a man, woman or child took so much as a step forward. They looked at the half-filled 'bus, they looked at the two soldiers, and waited, motionless.

Those two had pressed forward briskly enough, but as they mounted the steps, the man with the green shade giving a helping hand to his companion, the attitude of the crowd seemed suddenly to strike them. The lame man glanced over his shoulder, smiled and murmured something to his friend. His friend turned likewise and stared. He pushed his comrade through the doorway, turned again, and very solemnly raised his hand to his cap in salute. A second later he too vanished within the interior of the 'bus.

And then the rush began.

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THE TRUMP CARD.

_"Gold lace has a charm for the fair."_

When William first became a Lieut. R.N.V.R., in blue and gold, Belinda smiled upon his suit (Which formerly had found her cold); His manly form and honest face, She really liked them, I believe; But, most of all, she loved the lace Upon his sleeve.

Yet soon a rival courtier came-- A dashing dapper Lieut. R.N.; And, as this paragon pressed his claim, Oh, what could William hope for then? How could a wobbly-braided swain Vie with the actual Royal Navy, Whose stripes were half as broad again And straight, not wavy?

Then William swore (ah, Envy, ah!) "Belinda _shall_ be mine, she SHALL!" And wrote a note to his papa, Who'd just been made an Admiral:-- "Father, now that you'll fly at sea A two-balled flag in place of pennant, What do you say to taking me As flag-lieutenant?"

When William next waylaid his fair, He had his glittering "aiglets" on; Rope upon rope of gold was there, And now his rival's look was wan; He tried a bitter sneer, to greet This "peacock preening in the sun"; But Miss Belinda thought them "sweet".... And William won.

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MR. PUNCH'S POTTED FILMS. THE AMERICAN THRILLER.

THE EXPLOITS OF JEMIMA ANN. 159th EPISODE.

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THE LATEST SOLAR MYTH.

[Mr. J. H. WILLIS, a Norwich scientist, writing in _The Morning Post_, condemns the daylight-saving movement on the ground that too much sunshine is enervating and that life is more virile in Northern latitudes.]

Though the daylight-saving measure, which ingenious WILLETT planned To illume the work and leisure of the toilers of the land, Has not yet convinced the nation, or unto the mass appealed, Still without exaggeration it can claim to hold the field.

But of late a man of science--Mr. WILLIS is his name-- In a mood of flat defiance bans the daylight-saving game; And, relentlessly pooh-poohing the delights of sunny days, Recommends the prompt tabooing of the cult of solar rays.

All the hardy Northern races are efficient, in his view, Just because they live in places where the sunlit hours are few, And, conversely, peoples broiling in the horrid torrid zones Have no grit or zest for toiling and no marrow in their bones.

There was once a commentator, if I rightly recollect, Who, discussing the Equator, treated it with disrespect; But his temperate impeachment, though it showed a mental twist, Pales before the drastic preachment of the Norwich scientist.

Metaphorically speaking, it's a symptom of the Hun To be always bent on seeking after places in the sun; But I'd rather choose to follow what my deadliest foes applaud Than to ostracise Apollo as an enervating fraud.

No, you don't convince me, WILLIS, with your scientific chat, And my slangy daughter, Phyllis, says you're talking through your hat; For, while many drug-concoctors merit death _by sus. per coll._, I believe the best of doctors is our old friend Doctor Sol.

Hours recorded on the dial, "hours serene," assuage more ills Than the lancet or the phial or a wilderness of pills; And if cranks of anti-solar leanings long for gloom, they should Emigrate to circumpolar regions and remain for good.

* * * * *

Punch's Roll of Honour.

We record with sincere grief the death of Lieutenant ALEC LEITH JOHNSTON, who was killed in action on April 22nd during the fight in which the gallant Shropshires recaptured a trench on the Ypres-Langemarck Road. Early in the War Mr. JOHNSTON joined the Artists' Corps and saw service at the Front. Later he received a commission in the K.S.L.I., and a few months ago was in the list of wounded. He has for a long time been associated with _Punch_, and during the War has contributed many articles under the titles "At the Back of the Front" and "At the Front." His loss will be very keenly felt.

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WANTED--A ST. PATRICK.

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ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Tuesday, April 25th._--The Government, which has sometimes been accused of not having sufficient confidence in the House of Commons, has made ample amends. Information about the Army, too grave to be imparted to the people who provide the men and the means for maintaining it, is to be freely given to four or five hundred Members of Parliament (not to mention a similar number of Peers).

The PRIME MINISTER opened the Secret Session in one of his briefest speeches. "Mr. Speaker," he said, "I beg, Sir, to call your attention to the fact that strangers are present." The historic form of this advertisement, "I spy strangers;" is briefer still, but inadmissible in these ticklish times. One does not want to see, in the enemy Press, "British Prime Minister confesses to spying."

Then the Press Gallery was cleared, and the Great Inquest of the Nation became a Vehmgericht. The wretched scribe who should attempt to peer behind the veil that shrouds its proceedings has been warned in advance of the unnamed pains and penalties that await him if he should venture to describe or even "refer to" the proceedings of the Secret Session. I am unable to say, therefore, whether it is true that the occupants of the Treasury Bench forthwith donned helmets and gas-masks to protect themselves from the fiery darts and mephitic vapours launched at them from above and below the Gangway.

On these picturesque details the official report, compiled by Mr. SPEAKER, who is understood to have seized the opportunity offered by his recent stay at Bath to learn Pitman's shorthand, is unfortunately silent.

All we learn from its severely restrained pages is that the PRIME MINISTER made a long statement about recruiting. From this we gather that if fifty thousand of the unattested married men do not enlist before the end of May they will be compelled to do so; and that altogether the Government will insist on getting 200,000 men from this source. The German General Staff will be surprised to learn that our requirements are so modest, and will wonder, as we do, what all the pother is about.

Perhaps Mr. LOWTHER did not take notes of the other speeches that were delivered. At any rate he gives us no indication of their drift. All we know is that in the course of some seven hours no fewer than sixteen Members addressed the House. From this it may be inferred that the absence of reporters has at least the negative advantage of conducing to brevity of utterance. May we also infer that the speaking was as plain as it was brief, and that for the time being the Palace of Westminster has become the Palace of Truth?

_Wednesday, April 26th._--So far as we are permitted to know what took place--for the House of Commons had another Secret Session--in both Houses it was Ireland, Ireland all the way. The Commons began by granting a return relating to Irish Lunacy accounts, and then by an easy transition passed to the report of the Sinn Fein rebellion in Dublin.

Colonel SHARMAN-CRAWFORD, who bears a name that all Ireland has solid reason to respect, desiring to return to his native country, asked Mr. BIRRELL what routes, if any, were open. Mr. BIRRELL did not know, but intimated genially that he might be able to take absence of over the gallant Colonel under his own protecting wing. The House appeared to find humour in the idea of the CHIEF SECRETARY returning to his post, and an Hon. Member inquired why he had ever left it.

The PRIME MINISTER gave a brief and, so far as it went, rosy-coloured report of the situation in Dublin. Some Nationalist Volunteers were helping the Government. The forces of the Crown were to be further strengthened by a party of American journalists, armed to the teeth with quick-firing pencils, who were going over to deal with "this most recent German campaign."

This may have reminded Mr. ASQUITH that there were British journalists in the Press Gallery. The DEPUTY SPEAKER'S attention having been called to this fact, the House voted for their expulsion, and again passed into Secret Session.

The Lords were again in Open Session, to the regret, perhaps, of the Government representatives, who heard some very plain speaking from Lord MIDDLETON. According to his information the rebels were still in possession of important parts of Dublin. The Government had been warned on Sunday last that an outbreak was imminent, but had nevertheless allowed many officers to go on leave, while others were permitted to assist at the races on Monday.

_Thursday, April 21th._--Mr. GINNELL does not believe in the supineness of the Irish Executive. His information is that quite a long time ago it had resolved to place Dublin in a state of siege, to imprison Archbishop WALSH and the LORD MAYOR in their respective official residences, and to arrest the leaders of sundry Nationalist associations. Mr. T. W. RUSSELL, as spokesman for the ruthless Mr. BIRRELL, denied emphatically that these drastic steps had been contemplated.

The PRIME MINISTER subsequently announced that the situation still had "serious features." This mild phrase covers the continued possession by the rebels of important parts of Dublin, the prevalence of street fighting, and the spread of the insurrection to the wild West. Martial law had been proclaimed all over the country; Sir JOHN MAXWELL had been sent over in supreme command, and the Irish Government had been placed under his orders--the last part of this announcement being greeted with especially loud cheers.

Sir EDWARD CARSON and Mr. JOHN REDMOND joined in expressing horror of this rebellion and hoped that the Press would not make it an excuse for reviving political dissension on Irish matters--a sufficient rebuke to _The Westminster Gazette_ and _The Star_, both of which by a curious coincidence had found the moment auspicious for preaching from the text of the old tag, "There but for the grace of God," etc.

Sir H. DALZIEL attempted to secure an immediate debate upon the Irish trouble. But the eminent Privy Councillor found little support in the House, and was first knocked down by the DEPUTY-SPEAKER and then trampled upon by Mr. ASQUITH.

If the Secret Sessions were intended to make smooth the way of the Military Service Bill they failed miserably in their object. Mr. LONG, to whom was entrusted the task of introducing it, felt his position acutely. Only when explaining that one of the principal objects of the Bill was to extend the service of time-expired soldiers for the duration of the War did he wax at all eloquent, and then it was in lauding the chivalry of these men and in expressing his extreme distaste for the task of coercing them. The whole speech justified the poet's remark that "long petitions spoil the cause they plead."

Not a voice was heard in favour of the measure. Sir EDWARD CARSON damned it for not going far enough, and Mr. LEIF JONES because it went too far; and Mr. STEPHEN WALSH, as representative of the miners, who have given so much of their blood to the country's cause, bluntly demanded that the House should reject this Bill "and insist on the straight thing."

Mr. ASQUITH, recalled to the House by his agitated colleague, recognised that his old Parliamentary hand had got into a hornet's nest, and promptly withdrew it. To the best of my recollection this is the first time on record that a Government measure has perished before its first reading. Conceived in secrecy and delivered in pain, its epitaph will be that of another unhappy infant:--

"If I was to be so soon done for I wonder what I was began for."

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* * * * *

"The Austrians thrice attempted to rush the Italian positions on the Upper Isonzo, but were repulsed with heavy lasses."

_Times of Ceylon._

Stout girls, these _contadine_.

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"Recently I have seen several German planes so high as to be mere specks, and of the many I have seen none has been lower, I should say, than ,000 ft."--_Morning Paper._

A cautious statement, and probably true.

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"We are glad to learn that the daughter of our popular banker was married on the 10th instant, over 1000 persons were invited and sumpfedtuously."--_Indian Paper._

We infer that the compositor was among them.

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"In his defence Mr. ---- said he had endeavoured to fake the point that the onus of proving he was under the Military Service Act was upon the prosecution."

_Bayswater Chronicle._

If not a conscientious he seems to have been at least a candid objector.

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"THE BIRTH OF A FLUENCE."

In consequence of the new tax on imported films the Cinema industry in England has received a new fillip, and a wave of enterprise is passing over the studios. In place of the familiar--almost too familiar-- American dramas we are to have English. No more of those square-jawed stern American business men at their desks, with the telephone ever in their hands and instantaneous replies to every call. No more police officers, also at their desks, giving orders like lightning and having them understood and acted upon as quickly. No more crooks clambering over the roofs of an express train. No more motor-car pursuits. No more Indians, no more cowboys, no more heroines in top boots.

And what is there to be instead? Not--I hear you cry appealingly--not panoramas of Zurich or Cape Town? No, not those devastating views of scenery, but home-made films "featuring" English performers, with an eye not only to entertainment but instruction. That is the new movie note. And for a start a wonderful picture has just been completed, under the title "The Birth of a Fluence," taking the Cinema-goers (as they are called) behind the scenes of a London daily paper.

Not a real paper, of course, for that would be telling too much, but an absolutely imaginary paper, yet like enough in many respects to a real paper to afford to the imaginative spectator an idea of how such marvellous sheets are put together.

No expense has been spared to get an air of verisimilitude into these pictures, at a private view of which we were permitted to be present.

Let us give a rough sketch of the film, which is some mile and a half long, or as far, say, as from the House of Lords to Printing House Square. But first we must remark that the unseen force which agitates all the documents and blinds of the various rooms shown is not due, as it usually is, to the circumstance that the pictures were taken in the open air, during a gale, but it symbolises the power of the Proprietor of the paper, who can by a breath make or unmake Governments.

The first picture shows the arrival of the Editor, a man of desperate mien, dark as a thunder cloud, ready to be affrighted by nothing, with instant disapproval of whatever he disapproves breaking through his alert, intellectual features. To him, stern patriot as he is, it is nothing that men do well. He is there, vigilant and implacable, to pounce swiftly and mercilessly on derelictions of duty. No one knows so well as he what is possible to a Minister and his Department and what not. They themselves, the Minister and his Department, are totally uninstructed in the matter. Truly a remarkable man.

The Editor opens his letters; touches bells, speaks through telephones, and generally proves himself to be more than a man, a Force. Imaginary as is the whole affair, no one seeing this film can ever open a morning paper again without a thrill, a foreboding.

Next we are shown the Proprietor leaving his private house by aeroplane to visit the office. We see him first alighting on the roof and then entering his private room by a secret door, from a secret staircase. Having removed his slouch hat and cloak and laid aside his dark lantern, he is revealed as a man of destiny indeed.

We see the mottoes on the walls of the room, such as "Always change horses in midstream"; "Always wash dirty linen in public"; "Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with"; "If you throw enough mud some will stick"; "Damn the consequences"; "Disunion is strength"; "After me the Deluge," and so forth.

Then the Proprietor begins to get busy. He too touches bells, and various assistants rush to his presence. The first is the Editor, and we watch the progress of a fateful interview, which is made the more understandable by legends shown on the screen. Thus, after a long course of lip-moving and chin-wagging on the part of the Proprietor, we read the helpful words:--

"The Twenty-three must go."

Then the Editor's lips move and his chin rides up and down and we read the words:--

"But suppose the old man is too clever?"

And so the epoch-making talk goes on and others are summoned to take part in it.