Chapter 2

When Hippolyte finally yielded, his rapid and efficient despatch of the dainties excited the admiration of his hosts. They had collected their plates and were taking their departure, with expressions of regard, when a knock announced the arrival of a _garçon_ from the Café aux Gourmets, bearing a dish of crisp hot _crêpes_.

"One moment, Messieurs," said Hippolyte dramatically to his departing visitors. "It must not be said that Hippolyte Larivière lacks in neighbourly feeling. Behold my seasonable gift!"

M'sieur groaned. The Sergeant-Major, being a soldier, concealed his apprehensions. Wild thoughts of surreptitiously disposing of them in a coal-bin whirled through their minds, but Hippolyte apparently divined their thoughts.

"I regret that I must forgo the pleasure I promised myself of asking the ladies to take _crêpes_ with me," he said. "To offer these would be a poor compliment to their superlative efforts. But there is no reason why _you_ should not eat them here."

"I have an excellent reason," said M'sieur, stroking his waistcoat. "And the gallant Sergeant-Major, I imagine, has another."

"Bah! what is a little digestive inconvenience to a breach of courtesy?" cried Hippolyte maliciously. "You must eat them. _The law of hospitality demands it._"

When M'sieur and the Sergeant-Major stumbled unsteadily downstairs ten minutes later their eyes bulged with the expression of those whose cup of suffering is filled to overflowing.

"But after all," as M'sieur remarked, placing his hand on his heart, whence it insensibly wandered to a point lower down, "it is some satisfaction to know that the feelings of our excellent wives remain unlacerated."

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

SHATTERED ROMANCES.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--I read in a weekly paper that "plans are well in hand for putting up other Government Department buildings at Acton, which looks to have a future of its own, that of a sort of suburban Whitehall."

Have you considered what this new departure means for those who, like myself, are the writers of political romance? To all intents we have lost the Ball-platz; we have lost the Wilhelmstrasse, and now here is Whitehall going out into the suburbs.... No doubt our leading Ministers, attracted by the more salubrious air, will establish themselves in the environs of the Metropolis, leaving behind them only the lower class of civil servant. Have you considered the devastating effect of this change?

Think what we used to give our readers: "A heavy mist lay over Whitehall. High above the seething traffic the busy wires hummed with the fate of Empires." How, I ask you, will it look when they read: "The busy wires above Lewisham High Street hummed with the fate of Empires"?

Or think of the thrill that was conveyed by this (it comes in three of my most recent books): "He looked, with a little catch in the throat, and read the number, 'Ten'--No. 10, Downing Street, where the finger of fate writes its decrees while a trembling continent waits, where empires are made and unmade--the hub of the universe...." Doesn't that make even _your_ heart beat faster? But who will thrill at this: "He waited for a moment before the bijou semi-detached villa (bath h. and c.), known as Bella Vista, in Rule Britannia Road, Willesden Junction; then with a swift glance up and down he stealthily approached. When the neat maid opened the door, 'Is the Prime Minister in?' he asked?" (He did not hiss. Who could hiss in that atmosphere?)

Or take this from my last book (shall I ever write its like again?): "Men, bent with the weight of secrets which, if known, would send a shiver through the Chancelleries of Europe, could be seen hurrying across the Mall in the pale light and going towards the great building in which England's foreign policy is shaped and formulated." But the Foreign Office at Swiss Cottage, or Wandsworth--I could not write of it. And there will be the India Office at Tooting, or Ponder's End, or at--But how can your "dusky Sphinx-like faces, wrapt in the mystery of the East, be seen passing the purlieus of"--the Ilford Cinema?

But enough, Sir. Let me subscribe myself

A RUINED MAN.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A STORM IN A TEA-SHOP.

A NEW TALE OF A GRANDFATHER.

You ask me, Tommy, to tell you the really bravest deed That was ever yet accomplished by one of the bull-dog breed, And, although the hero was never so much as an O.B.E., I think I can safely pronounce it the bravest known to me.

It was not done in the trenches, nor yet in a submarine, Mine-sweeper or battle-cruiser; it was not filmed on the screen; For, though the man who performed it had three gold stripes on his sleeve, It happened in Nineteen-Twenty, when he was in town on leave.

He was strolling along the pavement, a pavement packed to the kerb, When he felt a sudden craving for China's fragrant herb, So he turned into a tea-shop--as he said, "like a silly fool"-- Which was patronised by the leaders of the ultra-Georgian school.

He ordered his tea and muffin, and, as he munched and sipped, Strange scraps of conversation his errant fancy gripped, Strange talk of form and metre, of "Wheels" and of SHERARD VINES, And scorn of TENNYSON, BROWNING and SWINBURNE (of The Pines).

He listened awhile in silence, but at last the fire grew hot, When he heard "The Lotus-Eaters" described as "luscious rot"; And he shouted out in the madness that is one of Truth's allies, "Old TENNYSON'S little finger is thicker than all your thighs."

A hush fell on the tea-shop, and then the storm arose As a chunk of old dry seed-cake took him plumb upon the nose, And a cup, a generous jorum, of boiling cocoa nibs, Hurled by a brawny Georgian, struck squarely on his ribs.

For several hectic minutes the air was thick with buns, It was almost as bad, so he told me, as the shelling of the Huns, But our gallant Tennysonian held on until a clout In the eye from a metal teapot knocked him ultimately out.

A sympathetic waitress fled off to fetch the police, Whose opportune arrival caused hostilities to cease, And they carefully conveyed him to a hospital hard by Where a skilful surgeon managed to preserve his wounded eye.

It was from the self-same surgeon that I subsequently learned The first remark of the victim when his consciousness returned:-- "The Georgians may shine at shying the crumpet and the scone, But as poets they're just No Earthly compared with TENNYSON."

He never got a medal for his exploit, or a star, And his only decoration was an ugly frontal scar; But still I hold him highest among heroic men, This lone Victorian champion in the Georgian lions' den.

* * * * *

* * * * *

DOMESTIC STRATEGY.

I will admit that it was I who gave Mrs. Brackett the idea. But to blame me for the very unfortunate _dénouement_ is ridiculous.

I met Mrs. Blackett in Sloane Street.

"I'm on my way to a registry-office," she said. "No, not that kind of registry-office; I'm not about to commit bigamy. I mean the kind where domestic assistants are sought, but mostly in vain. I suppose you don't know of a cook, a kitchenmaid, a housemaid, a parlourmaid and a tweeny?"

I confessed that I did not. But I told her the story of some friends of mine who had been in a similar position and had succeeded in reorganising their establishment by an ingenious strategy.

"The wife went away to stay with friends in the country," I said, "and the husband went to the registry-office, representing himself to be a bachelor, a rather easy-going bachelor. It seems that such establishments are popular with the few domestic servants still at large. After a short time he let it be known that he was really married, but separated from his wife; and after a further interval he called his household together and with tears in his voice informed them that he and his wife had composed their differences and that she was returning to him on the morrow. I understand that it was a complete success."

Mrs. Brackett was very much impressed by this story.

"If I don't find anyone to-day I shall try it," she said as we parted.

She did not find anyone, and, she did try it. She left home the following day, as I learnt from Brackett when I met him a week later.

"Your tip's come off absolutely A 1," he said, "and I'm most awfully obliged. The worry was getting on my wife's nerves. As it is I filled up my establishment a couple of days ago and, as everything is going well, I've wired my wife to come home to-morrow."

"Have you broken it to the maids?" I asked doubtfully.

"Oh, no; but I shall just tell 'em in the morning," said Brackett. "That'll be all right."

I felt at the time that he was being far too precipitate, but he seemed so confident that I didn't interfere. The sequel was disastrous.

In the first place Brackett, in his casual way, omitted to say anything about his being married until Mrs. Brackett was actually in the house. Even then he seems to have been rather ambiguous in his explanations. Anyway the new maids were, or affected to be, profoundly shocked. They intimated that they would never have entered so irregular an establishment had they known, and departed _en masse_ after spreading a scandal among the tradespeople which will take the Bracketts twenty years to live down.

* * * * *

THE ARRESTING POWER OF BEAUTY.

"You dreamed of someone with whiskers who made your heart stop beating in your tiny waist every time he looked at you."--_Home Notes._

* * * * *

"General, good plain cook; £45; flat, Maida Vale; constant hot water." --_Times._

But why tell the poor woman beforehand?

* * * * *

"It recalls the distressing aphorism:

'Life is real, life is earnest, And things are not what they seem.'"

_Liverpool Post and Mercury._

For example, this may seem like a quotation from the "Psalm of Life," but it isn't.

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Tuesday, February 10th._--As HIS MAJESTY read his gracious speech to the assembled Lords and Commons did his thoughts flow back for a moment to the last time he opened Parliament in person? It was on another February 10th, in 1914, and so little was the coming storm foreseen that the customary announcement, "My relations with Foreign Powers continue to be friendly," was followed by a special reference to the satisfactory progress of "my negotiations with the German Government and the Ottoman Government" regarding--Mesopotamia, of all places.

Since then everything has changed--save one. Ireland remains the skeleton at the feast. The condition of that unhappy country still causes HIS MAJESTY "grave concern," to be removed, let us piously hope, by the promised Home Rule Bill. It is true that, as Lord DUFFERIN said when moving the Address in the Lords, no one in Ireland appears to want the Bill; but then, as Colonel SIDNEY PEEL, the Mover in the Commons, remarked with equal truth, the ordinary rules of thought do not apply to the Irish Question.

The PRIME MINISTER has lately been advised by a candid friend to take a six months' holiday "to recover his resilience." Mr. ADAMSON and Sir DONALD MACLEAN found him nowise lacking in that quality when he came to reply to their criticisms of the King's Speech. The Labour leader, convinced by a fortnight in Ireland that the present Administration was all wrong, and that the Government's Bill would do nothing to improve it, was bluntly asked, "Are we to withdraw the troops and leave the assassins in charge?" while the "Wee Free" champion, who had interpreted the recent by-elections as a sign that the time for the Coalition was past, was unkindly reminded that, at any rate, the results of these contests had furnished no encouragement to the party that he adorns. "But I am afraid I am getting controversial," said Mr. LLLOYD GEORGE, to the amusement of the House, which had enjoyed his sword-play for half-an-hour; and with that he turned to the task of defending the new policy in Russia. Having failed to subdue the Bolshevists by force, we are now going to try the effect of commerce--a modern reading of "Trade Follows the Flag." The Labour Party cheered the new departure vociferously, but the rest of the House seemed a little chilly, and Mr. CHURCHILL, at the PRIME MINISTER'S elbow, looked about as happy as NAPOLEON on the return from Moscow.

Lord HUGH CECIL raised the standard of economy, and complained that the legislative programme was extravagantly long. "A large number of Bills generally meant a large amount of expenditure." I have myself observed this phenomenon.

_Wednesday, February 11th._--The Lords, having disposed of the Address with their usual celerity, welcomed Baron RIDDELL of Walton Heath (and, perhaps I may add, Bouverie Street) to their ranks, and then adjourned for a week.

If all Labour Members possessed the sweet reasonableness of Mr. BRACE we should view the advent of a Labour Government without any of Mr. CHURCHILL'S misgivings. The Member for Abertillery argued the case for the nationalisation of mines so gently and genially that before he sat down I am sure that a good half of his hearers began to think that, after all, there was "something in it." Visions of a carboniferous millennium, when there would be no more strikes and hardly any accidents, and altruistic colliers would hew their hardest to get cheap and abundant coal for the community, floated before the mind's eye as Mr. BRACE purred persuasively along.

Unfortunately for the Nationalisers Mr. LUNN thought it necessary later to make a blood-and-thunder oration, threatening all sorts of dreadful things (including a boycott of the newspapers) if the Miners' demands were refused. Moreover, he made it clear that coal was only a beginning and that the Labour Party's ultimate objective was nationalisation all round, and wound up by reminding the House that "we are many and ye are few."

The PRIME MINISTER is not the man either to miss a chance or refuse a challenge. The tone of his reply was set by Mr. LUNN, not by Mr. BRACE; and though he had plenty of solid arguments to advance against the motion the most telling passage in his speech was a quotation from "Comrade TROTSKY," showing what Nationalisation had spelt in Soviet Russia--labour conscription in its most drastic shape. The nation, he declared, that had fought for liberty throughout the world would stand to the death against this new bondage.

Result: Amendment defeated by 329 to 64.

_Thursday, February 12th._--This was the first Question-day of the new Session, and the House was flattered to see Mr. LLOYD GEORGE in his place, despite the counter-claims of the Peace Conference at St. James's Palace. Evidently he means this year to "stick to the shop" more closely, in view, perhaps, of the possible return from Paisley of the old proprietor.

To a Labour Member's complaint that several ex-Generals had been appointed as divisional Food officers, Mr. MCCURDY replied that no preference was given to military candidates. But why not? Where will you find more competent judges of alimentary questions than in the higher ranks of His Majesty's Forces?

In attacking the provisions of the Peace Treaty with Germany as "impracticable," Sir DONALD MACLEAN revealed himself as a diligent student of a recent notorious book. Most of his observations--excepting, perhaps, the statement that he had "no sentimental tenderness for the Germans"--were marked with the brand of KEYNES, and his assertion that the utmost Germany could pay was two thousand millions came bodily from that eminent statistician. To the same inspiration was possibly due the unhappy suggestion that our chief Ally was pursuing a policy of revenge.

For this he was promptly pulled up by Lord ROBERT CECIL, who warned him not to judge the policy of France by the utterances of certain French newspapers. Lord ROBERT had, however, his own quarrel with the Government, who, according to his account, had done nothing to set Central Europe on its legs again, except to send it a certain amount of food--not, one would would have thought, an altogether bad preliminary.

It was a pity that Mr. BALFOUR had not a stronger indictment to answer, for he was dialectically at his best. After complimenting the Opposition leader on his "charming tones and anodyne temper" he proceeded to take up his challenge--"if I may call it a challenge." If Germany was in doubt as to the amount she might be called upon to pay, she had her remedy, for the Peace Treaty especially provided that she might offer a "lump sum." The list of war-criminals was long, no doubt, but we had limited our own demands to those who were guilty of gratuitous brutality. As for the condition of Central Europe, that was not the fault of the Peace Treaty, it was the fault of the War, and this country had done all it reasonably could to remedy it.

The Opposition insisted on taking a division, and were beaten by 254 to 60. So far the "doomed Coalition" seems to be doing rather well.

* * * * *

A SINGLE HOUND.

When the opal lights in the West had died And night was wrapping the red ferns round, As I came home by the woodland side I heard the cry of a single hound.

The huntsman had gathered his pack and gone; The last late hoof had echoed away; The horn was twanging a long way on For the only hound that was still astray.

While, heedless of all but the work in hand, Up through the brake where the brambles twine, Crying his joy to the drowsy land Javelin drove on a burning line.

The air was sharp with a touch of frost; The moon came up like a wheel of gold; The wall at the end of the woods he crossed And flung away on the open wold.

And long as I listened beside the stile The larches echoed that eerie sound, Steady and tireless, mile on mile, The hunting cry of a single hound.

W.H.O.

* * * * *

"FAMILIES SUPPLIED."

"Village General Stores Wanted for dis. soldier: also widow and daughter; price no object if genuine."--_Daily Paper._

* * * * *

"H.B. Playford is 6 feet 5 inches, or thereabouts, in height, has a fabulous reach, and weighs 13-1/2 stone. He rowed No. 8 in the Jesus four, beaten by Leander at Henley."--_Times._

A fabulous reach indeed! So fabulous that it made the four look as long as an eight.

* * * * *

THE AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF PASSENGERS.

"I've hit on something at last," cried Charles exultantly, throwing himself down on my second-best armchair.

"I wish you wouldn't hit on it so hard," I complained; "the springs are half-broken already. What's the trouble?"

"Have you ever heard," he inquired, "of the black-coated salariat?"

"The egg of the greater green-backed woodpecker--"

"It isn't a bird," he said; "it's a class of people that works with its brains. And the hand of Labour, according to my evening paper, is being held out to it."

"But suppose one wears a pepper-and-salt suit," I said, "and writes 'Society Gossip.' What about that?"

"That's just my point. All these accepted lines of distinction are absolutely wrong. It isn't what people work at that divides them, it's the way they travel to their work. Sir THOMAS MALORY knew that. When _Lancelot_ was going to rescue _Guinevere_ he had his white horse badly punctured by a bushment of archers and had to finish the journey in a woodcutter's cart. And that was a great disgrace to him and made the _Queen's_ ladies laugh. It would be just the same with the typists of a rich employer if his motor-car broke down and he had to arrive in a bus. How do you get to town in the morning yourself?"

"I am a Tuber," I said sadly. "Every bright morning I say I will go by bus, but when I reach the Tube station the draught sucks me in through the door, the man grabs me by the collar, throws me into the sink, lifts up the plug and down we go into the drain-pipe together. I think I have the brand of Tubal Cain on my brow. It is a kind of perpetual crease--"

"I too Tube," said Charles; "but I know many eminently respectable bus people as well. Especially bus-women. They ride about, they tell me, on the most fantastically labelled vehicles and are always seeing new suburbs swim into their ken, and gazing--

'Out over London with a wild surmise, Silent upon a seat of No. 10,'

or whatever the bally thing may be. But I never join their rash adventures. I belong to a different _milieu_. I move in a sort of social underworld. Not that I can deny, of course, that there is a certain amount of overlapping."

"I overlapped twice to-day myself," I said, "and as the second one was knitting a jumper--"

"And then there are the Tram-ites," he went on. "I don't understand their world either. The tram, I am told, suddenly plunges with a loud roar like a walrus under the streets of Holborn and emerges on the Embankment. The hansom cabs were called the gondolas of London. The trams, I suppose, are the submarines. But they are not of my life. I do not mingle with them."

"I mingled with a tram once," I said. "I clasped it warmly by the rail as it was going by, but I missed the step with my foot. It spurned me rather badly. But kindly explain what you're driving at."

"All these classes," said Charles, "have their own friendships, their own jolts and jars, their own way of being bullied by conductors and thrown into the mud and squeezed into cages and arranged upon straps. But they have one great thing in common, distinct though they may be. They are all passengers, all takers of tickets. There is going to be a Bus Union, a Tube Union, and a Tram Union, and when necessary they will combine."

"Against what?"