Chapter 3

"Against the motorists, first and foremost," said Charles. "The opulent people who ride a-wallop to their offices in cars. Suppose that Ethelinda Bellairs, who is a trifle absent-minded, has got the sack for typing a letter like this: 'I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 25th ult., and ask you to note that a sudden sense of indefinable yearning seized Hephzibah. She closed her eyes and slowly swayed towards him. Awaiting the favour of an early reply, etc.'--what happens? There is an immediate strike of the Bus Union until she is reinstated. If necessary the two other branches of the Amalgamated Society of Passengers are called out. No case of hardship will be too insignificant for the A.S.P. We shall all carry a symbol in the shape of a secret season ticket. When the strike occurs nobody will go to work in the morning. All the stations and starting-places will be picketed; business will be paralysed."

"Except for the stout fellows who walk," I suggested.

"They will find it very lonely at their offices," said Charles. "Nobody wants to work if there's any excuse to avoid it, and the beauty of the thing is that we can strike not only against ordinary employers, but against the raising of fares, and against the N.U.R. or the Vehicle and Transport Workers Union itself. That will be the quickest strike that has ever been struck. You can't go on banging lifts and gates and rushing about in empty buses without anybody to shove into the dirt or any thumbs to snip bits out of. It takes all the enjoyment out of life."

"And where exactly do you come in?" I asked.

"I intend to be the Organising Secretary of the A.S.P.," he said. "It will be hard work, but very meritorious."

"Rather a nuisance won't it be on strike days," I inquired, "going round and visiting a few thousand pickets on foot in your black coat, with the brain waves working on top?"

"The O.S. of the A.S.P.," answered Charles magnificently, "will not move about on foot. He will be provided with a handsome motor-car."

EVOE.

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* * * * *

"A van containing £3,000 worth of woollen goods has been stolen from Broad-street, Bloomsbury. It was left unattended by the driver, who went into a restaurant for dinner and later was found empty at Holloway."--_Provincial Paper._

We know that kind of restaurant.

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"ACCOUNTING FOR WOMEN."--_American Paper._

We had always been told there was no accounting for them.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"CARNIVAL."

Those who imagined that they were to be given a dramatic version of Mr. COMPTON MACKENZIE'S romance must have been shocked to find that the entertainment provided at the New Theatre was just a variation, from an Italian source, of the general idea of _Pagliacci_. But it was the only palpable shock they sustained, for never did a play run a more obvious course from start to finish. When you have for your leading character an actor-manager, who plays the part of _Othello_, with his wife as _Desdemona_ (how well we know to our cost this conjugal form of nepotism), and discusses in private life the character of the Moor--whether a man would be likely to indulge his jealousy on grounds so inadequate--speaking with the detached air of one who is absolutely confident of his own wife's fidelity, you don't need much intelligence to foresee what the envy of the gods is preparing for him. The remainder is only a matter of detail--what particular excuse, for instance, the lady will find for a diversion, and to what lengths she will go.

In the present case her only excuse was the old one, that she was "treated like a child." Certainly she deserved to be, for her behaviour was of the most wilful and wayward; but she was the mother of a strapping boy, and a woman who is thought old enough to play, in the premier Italian company, the part of _Desdemona_ (with the accent, too, on the second syllable) could hardly justify her complaint that she was regarded as a juvenile.

The choice of the Alfieri Theatre for the scene of the culmination of the domestic drama seemed to touch the extreme of improbability. The actors were not a poor travelling company of mummers, as in _Pagliacci_, with no decent private accommodation for this kind of thing. The protagonist of _Carnival_ was lodged in a perfectly good Venetian palace, where there was every convenience for having the matter out with his wife and her lover. For the rest the plot was commonplace to the verge of banality.

As _Silvio Steno_, in his home life, Mr. MATHESON LANG was excellently natural, but as _Othello_ his make-up spoilt his nice face and tended to alienate me. As _Simonetta_ (I got very sick of the name) Miss HILDA BAYLEY had a difficult part, and failed, from no great fault of her own, to attach our sympathies, till in the end she explained her rather inscrutable conduct in a defence which gave us for the first time a sense of sincerity in her character. There was too much play with her Carnival dress of a Bacchante, which, perhaps, was less intriguing than we were given to understand. Mr. DENNIS NEILSON-TERRY has a certain distinction, but he did not make a very perfect military paramour. His intonation seemed to lack control, and he has a curious habit of baring his upper teeth when he is getting ready to make a forcible remark.

As for the scenes, they were alleged to be Venice (where the Doges wedded the sea), but there was no visible sign of water. You called for a gondola, which always sounds better than a taxi, but it never appeared. Perhaps, however, for one has not always been very happy in one's experiences of stage navigation, this was just as well.

O.S.

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"PETER IBBETSON."

That incorrigible romanticist, GEORGE DU MAURIER of happy memory, was so transparently sincere as to be disarming. No use telling him "life's not like that." "That's just it," he'd say, and get on with his pleasant illusions. _Peter Ibbetson_ is certainly not tuned to the moods of this decade, but it would be a pity if we all became too sophisticated to enjoy such occasional excursions into the land of almost-grown-up make-believe.

If life doesn't give you what you want, then "cross your legs, put your hands behind your head," go to sleep and live a dream-life of your own devising--that is the theme. The bare essentials of the story are that the beloved _Mimsy_ of _Peter's_ happy childhood becomes the wife of a distinctly unfaithful duke; while _Peter_ finds himself in prison for killing his quite gratuitously wicked uncle, and for forty years reprieved convict and deceived duchess meet in dreams till her death divides and his again unites them.

It is a considerable tribute to both author and adapter (the late JOHN RAPHAEL) that their work should, at the height of the barking season, hold an audience silent and apparently enthralled, in spite of the handicap that, in order to make the story in any degree intelligible, much time had to be given to more or less tedious explanations.

I will not pretend that the motives of the characters were clear or that (for me) the phantasy quite passed the test of being translated from the medium of the written word into that of canvas, gauze and costumed players, with those scufflings of dim figures in the semi-darkness and that furtive and by no means noiseless zeal of scene-shifters; or, again, that I was much attracted by a picture of the life after death, in which opera-going (please _cf._ Mr. VALE OWEN) figured so prominently. Indeed I think that the play would be better if it ended with the death of the dreamers and did not attempt that hazardous last passage.

But certainly there were quite admirable tableaux and some very intelligent individual playing--in contrast with the team-work of (particularly) the First Act, which was ragged and amateurish.

Mr. BASIL RATHBONE'S _Peter_ was an effective study, avoiding Scylla of the commonplace and Charybdis of the mawkish--no mean feat. A young man with a future, I dare hazard; with a gift of clear utterance, and sensibility and a useful figure.

It is a good deal to say that Miss CONSTANCE COLLIER so contrived her _Duchess of Towers_ as to make us understand _Peter's_ worship.

Miss JESSIE BATEMAN'S _Mrs. Deane_ seemed to me an exceedingly competent piece of work, and Mr. GILBERT HARE thoroughly enjoyed every mouthful of _Colonel Ibbetson's_ wickedness, and made us share his appreciation. And you couldn't accuse him of over-playing, though he certainly looked too bad to be true.

Mr. WILLIAM BURCHILL'S little sketch of an old French officer was almost too poignant.

Why the landlord of the _Tête Noir_ was got up to resemble Mr. WILL EVANS so closely is a deep matter I could not fathom, and, if ever I kill my uncle, may Fate send me a less rhetorical chaplain than Mr. CYRIL SWORDER!

T.

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* * * * *

THE ORDER OF THE B.S.O.

One of the oldest of Mr. Punch's young men thought he would like to hear some orchestral music on Monday week last, so he dropped in at the Queen's Hall to assist at a concert of the new British Symphony Orchestra. The name of the founder and conductor, Mr. RAYMOND ROZE, was already familiar, for Mr. Punch's young man was old enough to remember Mr. ROZE'S mother, MARIE ROZE, in her brilliant prime as _prima donna_ of the Carl Rosa Company; and he is glad to know that she is still living in her beloved Paris, where she was decorated by M. THIERS for her gallant conduct during the siege of 1870. So it is pleasant to find her son so actively associated in the good work of finding permanent musical engagements for demobilised soldiers in the British Symphony Orchestra.

The B.S.O. men are not home-keeping soldiers. Every one of them has served over-seas, and it was a pity that their names and the record of their services were not printed in the programme, for it is a fine and inspiriting list, and a striking disproof of the old tradition that musicians must needs be long-haired, sallow and unathletic. Alert and young and vigorous they appealed to the eye as well as to the ear, and they played, as they fought, gloriously, these minstrel boys who had all gone to the War. Strings and woodwind, brass and percussion, all are up to the best professional level.

There is no movement which has a stronger claim on all men and women of goodwill than that for providing employment for demobilized soldiers, and the British Symphony Orchestra is a first-rate contribution to that desirable end. The _personnel_ of the orchestra is all that can be desired. It was bad luck that Mr. RAYMOND ROZE was prevented by illness from conducting last week, but the band was fortunate in securing an admirable substitute in Mr. FRANK BRIDGE. Mr. Punch gives the scheme his blessing without reserve, but with a word of advice. To win for the B.S.O. the success it deserves will need good judgment as well as energy and efficiency. The art of programme-framing has to be studied with especial care in view of the powerful but, we believe, perfectly friendly competition of other established organizations. Last week's programme had its _beaux moments_, but it had also at least two _mauvais quarts d'heure_. The men, however, were splendid.

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THE NEW COLOUR: ASQUITHIAN ROSE.

"To-day everything Asquithian has a rosy hue. To begin with, there arrived a horseshoe of white chrysanthemums with the words 'Good luck' worked in green."--_Daily Paper._

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"Shakespeare's 'Otehllo' has fallen upon evil days."--_Evening Paper._

It certainly seems to be having a bad spell.

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"The vexed question, 'What is a new-laid egg?' is at present confronting a committee of poultry experts."--_Daily Telegraph._

The Committee should invite a hen to sit on it.

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An "under-cut":--

"Earl Beatty is setting an example in hustle at the Admiralty. Photographed yesterday hurrying to lunch."--_Daily Paper._

His Lordship's example is superfluous. The Admiralty has nothing to learn about hurrying to lunch.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Mr. JOHN HASTINGS TURNER, who had already to his credit a play, a novel and various successful revues, has now produced, in _A Place in the World_ (CASSELL), what is, I understand, to some extent a fictional version of his play. How far this may be so I am uncertain (not having seen the play), but I am by no means uncertain that it makes here a wholly admirable story, one moreover that shows a notable advance in Mr. TURNER'S art as novelist, being firmer in touch and generally more matured than anything he has yet written. The plot concerns the adventures, spiritual and other, of _Madame Iris Iranovna_, pampered cosmopolitan beauty, when fate or her own egotistical whim had dumped her as a temporary dweller in the semi-detached villas of suburbia. The theme, you observe, is one that might excuse the wildest farce, since the effect of _Iris_ upon her unfamiliar surroundings was naturally devastating. Mr. TURNER however has chosen the more ambitious path of high comedy. In _Iris_ herself, and even more in the kindly old vicar who so unexpectedly confronts her with her own weapons of wit and worldly wisdom, he has drawn two characters of genuine and moving humanity. I shall not tell you how the conflict (essential to real comedy) works itself out, nor after what fashion the empty brilliance of _Iris_ is humiliated and transformed. If I have a criticism of Mr. TURNER'S method, it is that, as with _Bunthorne_, a "tendency to soliloquy" is growing upon him which will need watching. But he clothes his reflections pleasantly enough. Already known as what the old lady called "an agreeable rattlesnake," he has now proved himself a story-teller of conspicuous promise.

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VON FALKENHAYN'S _General Headquarters 1914-1916 and its Critical Decisions_ (HUTCHINSON) seems an honester book than LUDENDORFF'S; less political, less querulous, less egoistic. VON FALKENHAYN, who was War Minister when the War began and retained his office after he had superseded VON MOLTKE as Chief of the General Staff, shows himself incurably Prussian, refusing even to consider the possibility that any State which could wage war effectively would hesitate to do so from any ethical or humanitarian scruple. "Don't bother about a just cause, but see that it appears just before men," he seems to say. "The surprise effect of gas (at Ypres) was very great," is all the comment that tragic episode draws from him. He was a submarine campaign whole-hogger. But he has his own soldierly virtues of modesty and loyalty, and refuses to air his personal grievances in the matter of his supersession by the HINDENBURG-LUDENDORFF syndicate. If, as seems likely, he speaks the truth, as he had opportunity to see it, we must revise our too flattering estimates of the German superiority in numbers and attribute a good deal of the stubbornness of their defence to their quicker appreciation of the character of siege war. The holding of front-line trenches with few men and consequent immense saving of life was, according to the General, practised by the German Command long before we discovered its value. He gives a reasoned criticism, which has to the layman a plausible air, to the effect that the relative failure of Joffre's great combined Champagne-Flanders offensive of 1915 was due to the overcrowding of the attacking armies. General VON FALKENHAYN, though he has a prejudice for the German soldier, can bring himself to testify to the valour of his British and French opponent. A readable and conscientious account of a difficult stewardship.

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I wish I could feel as enthusiastic about _The Booming of Bunkie_ (JENKINS) as _Mr. Peter McMunn_, who, falling off a motor-cycle, landed in that quiet Scots village and proceeded to turn it, by a series of stunts, into a well-known watering-place. He undertook the job, I gather, partly for a joke and partly for the bright eyes of _Evelyn Kirbet_, whose father put up the money for the purposes of publicity and propaganda. The transformation of a hamlet into a seaside resort has been treated as a sort of psychological romance by Mr. OLIVER ONIONS in _Mushroom Town_, where the human beings are a background as it were for the bricks and mortar; Mr. A.S. NEILL, having chosen to make a farce of it, has provided a hero who believes in humorous advertisements, and has evidently persuaded the author to take him at his own valuation. This is hardly to be wondered at, since _Mr. McMunn_ seems always keener on popping his puns than on selling his goods. Specimens are given of speeches, press articles, posters and cinema productions, but the fun rages with the most furious intensity round the golf links, where eighteen holes have been compressed into the usual space of one and the winner stands to lose drinks. There are also some parodies of ROBERT BURNS, some jokes about bathing-machines and some digs at the Kirk. One has been, of course, before to seaside places that were a bit too bracing, and I am afraid that the air of Bunkie leaves me cold.

* * * * *

I really think that _The World of Wonderful Reality_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) may come to be something of a test for your true follower of Mr. E. TEMPLE THURSTON. You recall the ingredients that went towards the first, or _Beautiful Nonsense_, book? Sentiment in the slums, Venice with a very big V and poverty _passim_ might be regarded as its composition. Well, here you have _John_ and _Jill_ home again; no more Venice, a palpably decreasing sentiment and only poverty to fill up with. I am bound to confess that I found _John's_ protracted preparation for his nuptials rather less than enough as subject-matter for a whole book. Of course all this time there remained _Amber_ (you recollect her; she "also ran" for the _John_ stakes), and at the back of your mind a comfortable conviction that two strings are still better than one. Having censured the book for insufficient plot, I had better not proceed to give away what there is. I will content myself with a personal doubt as to whether _John_ and _Jill_ will quite reduplicate their former triumph--and that for various reasons, not least because (for purposes of sequel, I suppose) even _Jill_ herself has been permitted so grave a lapse from the attitude of stand-anything-so-long-as- it's-slummy-enough that so endeared her to her former public. Touch that and the bloom is indeed gone.

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_With the Chinks_ (LANE), a volume of the "Active Service Series," treats of the training of Chinese coolies for work with the Labour Corps in the B.E.F. The special interest of the racial type was, for me, exhausted by the charming photographs; the task remaining for Mr. DARYL KLEIN, Lieutenant in the Chinese Labour Corps, of so conveying the atmosphere as to absorb the reader's attention, was not achieved. On the two main aspects of the topic, the origin in China and the result in France, he makes no serious attempt. I got no clear impression of the coolie at home or of why he took to being an ally, and I was left with but the vaguest conception of the unit in France, since the narrative ended at the disembarcation. Lastly, I have with regret to complain of one sentence in particular, where he tells us: "It is high time I said something about the officers." He had, from the general reader's point of view, already said too much. It is a pity to have to speak thus moderately of a war-book obviously written with care and treating of an enterprise which must have cost much labour in the achieving and, in the achievement, must have duly contributed to our victory. For those personally involved it will be a welcome memento. For the conscientious historian it will have a certain unique value. And in fairness it must be added that in the latter half there are touches of humour and humanity which make the reading easy and pleasant.

* * * * *

It has been my lot, and I am far from complaining about it, to read many war-books, but never has my luck been more completely in than when _With the Persian Expedition_ (ARNOLD) fell into my hands. Major DONOHOE, while never losing sight of his main object, finds time to tell us a number of entertaining stories with a sedate humour which is most attractive. Seldom has an expedition set out on a wilder errand than this of the "Hush-hush" Brigade, or, as it was officially known, the "Dunsterville" or "Bagdad Party." It was commanded by General DUNSTERVILLE, and briefly its objects were to combat Bolshevism, train Persian levies, prevent the Huns and Turks from threatening India by way of the Caspian Sea, and a few other little things of the same nature. The men of this "party" were picked men, and it is enough to say that their courage was as high as their numbers were few. It is indeed a mystery why any of them escaped with their lives, for, as experience proved, it was one thing to train Persian levies and another to get them to fight when they were wanted to. And without the levies the "Hush-Hush" party was outnumbered again and again. I could have wished that the excellent map which is firmly embedded in the binding had been detachable, for the interest of the chronicle compelled me constantly to refer to it, and I suffered great distraction.

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_Sidelights of Song_ (LONG), by Mr. GILBERT COLLINS, contains a few sets of verse which have appeared in _Punch_.