Chapter 3

Our conversation of a fortnight earlier came back to me--Brenda's desire to disguise herself and apply to Lady Lupin for the post of kitchenmaid, her confidence in her ability to carry it off successfully, my ridicule of the possibility that she could pass unrecognised. So now, on the 1st of April, she was for proving me wrong.

The disguise was certainly masterly. Had it not been for that unaccountable smile, and the hair----

I did not lose my head. I continued to carry on the conversation on orthodox lines. Then I said, "Do you know Miss Brenda Scott, who lives near Mrs. Copplestone?"

"Oh, yes, I've known her since she was a little girl," was the answer. "Sweet young lady she is."

"Ye--es," I said. "A little too fond of practical jokes, perhaps."

The eyebrows went up almost to the artificial-looking hair, which I had now decided was horse-hair.

"Indeed," she said.

"Yes, my dear Brenda, it is your besetting sin. You should pray against it," I said bluntly.

She stood up with an opposing air of surprise and alarm. But I was not to be deceived.

"Your assumed name, Eliza Smudge," I said, "gave you away at the start. And that hair--it is the tail of your nephew's rocking-horse, isn't it? And----"

But she had fled from the room and was scudding down the drive, heedless of my cries of "Brenda, you idiot, come back!"

* * * * *

As I watched from the front-door I saw that "Eliza Smudge" had met another woman in the lane and had engaged her in conversation.

Then they parted, and the other woman came in at the gate and up the drive.

"My dear Elfrida," said a well-known voice, "what have you been up to? You seem to have thoroughly upset that nice woman who was with the Copplestones so long. She told me you were a very strange lady; in fact she thought you must be suffering from a nervous breakdown."

I leaned for support against the door-post, feeling a little faint.

"Brenda? You?" I gasped. "I thought----"

"Such a splendid maid she is," Brenda went on. "You'll never find her equal if you try for ten years."

* * * * *

* * * * *

Eccentric Behaviour of a Cuckoo.

"The summer-like weather which set in during the week-end has been marked by the arrival of the cuckoo, which was heard at Shanklin on Saturday and on Sunday morning at Staplers, bursting into full flower of plum and pear trees, and general activity in the gardens and fields."--_Local Paper._

* * * * *

"He (Mr. Asquith) could only say 'O Sanctas Simplicitas.' (Laughter.)"

_Irish Paper._

"I can only say: 'O sanctus simplicitus!'"

_Yorkshire Paper._

Neither version seems to us quite worthy of an ex-Craven Scholar.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"UNCLE NED."

As the final curtain fell on the Fourth Act there was talk of celebrating the conversion of the villain in a bottle of the best (1906). But this did not mean that the good wine of the play had been kept to the end. Indeed it had been practically exhausted about the middle of the Third Act, and the rest was barley-water, sweet but relatively insipid. So long as Mr. HENRY AINLEY was just allowed to sparkle, with beaded bubbles winking all round the brim of him, everything went well and more than well; the trouble began when the author, Mr. DOUGLAS MURRAY, remembered that no British audience would be contented with mere irresponsible badinage, however fresh and delicate; that somehow he must provide an ending where virtue prevailed and sentiment was satisfied.

So, when _Uncle Ned's_ humour had failed to move the brutal egoism of his brother, beating upon it like the lightest of sea-foam on a rock of basalt, he was made to fall back upon the alternative of heavy denunciation. And it was significant that this commonplace tirade drew more applause than all the pretty wit that had gone before it. Seldom have I been so profoundly impressed with the difficulties of an art which depends for its success (financial, that is to say) on the satisfaction of tastes that have nothing in common beyond the crudest elements of human nature.

Mr. AINLEY had things all his own way. Between him, the romancer of the light heart and the free fancy, and his brother, the millionaire tradesman of the tough hide, there was the clash of temperaments but never the clash of intellects. ("Nobody with a sense of humour," says _Uncle Ned_, "ever made a million pounds.") That the man with the iron will should be beaten at the last with his own weapons, and brought to see the lifelong error of his ways by a violent philippic that must have surprised the speaker hardly less than his audience, was the most incredible thing in the play. Indeed the author was reduced to showing us the results of the bad man's change of heart and leaving us to imagine the processes, these being worked out in the interval between two Acts by means of a fortnight's physical collapse, from which he emerges unrecognisably reformed.

I cannot praise too warmly the delightfully fantastic and inconsequent humour of the first half of the play. Often it was the things that Mr. AINLEY was given to say; but even more often, I think, it was the incomparable way he said them, with those astonishingly swift and unforeseen turns of gesture and glance and movement which are his peculiar gift. Now and then, to remind us of his versatility, he may turn to sentiment or even tragedy, but light comedy remains his natural _métier_.

If I have a complaint to make it is that _Uncle Ned's_ studied refusal to understand from an intimate woman-friend why it was that his elder niece, who had been privily married, "could no longer hide her secret" (the reticence of his friend was the sort of silly thing that you get in books and plays, but never in life) was perhaps a little wanton and caused needless embarrassment both to the young wife and to us. And one need not be very squeamish to feel that it was a pity to put into the lips of a mere child, a younger sister, the rather precocious comment that she makes on the inconvenience of a secret marriage. The humour of the play was too good to need assistance from this sort of titillation.

Mr. RANDLE AYRTON, as the plutocratic pachyderm, kept up his thankless end with a fine imperviousness; and Miss IRENE ROOKE, in the part of his secretary, played, as always, with a very gracious serenity, though I wish this charming actress would pronounce her words with not quite so nice a precision. Miss EDNA BEST was an admirable flapper, with just the right note of _gaucherie_.

As _Mears_, Mr. CLAUDE RAINS was not to be hampered by the methods dear to the detective of convention; he looked like an apache and behaved, rather effectively, like nothing in particular.

The _Dawkins_ of Mr. G. W. ANSON knew well the first duty of a stage-butler, to keep coming on whenever a stop-gap is wanted; but he had also great personal qualities, to say nothing of his astounding record of forty years' service in a house where strong liquor was only permitted for "medicinal" purposes.

O. S.

"THE YOUNG PERSON IN PINK."

What the chair-man said about _The Young Person in Pink_ who had been hanging about the Park every morning for a week was that nowadays you couldn't really tell. He thought on the whole she was all right. The balloon-woman was certain that with boots like that she must be a 'ussy; but then she had refused to buy a balloon. As a matter of fact she couldn't, being broke to the world. And worse. For she had arrived at Victoria Station unable to remember who she was or where she came from, ticketless, a few shillings in her purse. She had murmured "Season" at the barrier and had taken rooms at the Carlton because she had a queer feeling she had been there before. Her things had a coronet on them. The rest was a blank.

Of course nobody believed her; the women were scornful, the men not quite nice, till very young _Lord Stevenage_, the one that was engaged to a notorious baby-snatcher, _Lady Tonbridge_--in a high fever he'd unfortunately said "Yes"--meets her, and you guess the rest. No, you don't. You couldn't possibly guess _Mrs. Badger_, relict of an undertaker and now in the old-clothes line, who has social ambitions. (I must here say in parenthesis that _Mrs. Badger_ is a double stroke of genius on the part both of Miss JENNINGS the author and of Miss SYDNEY FAIRBROTHER. You don't know which to admire most, the things she says [Miss J.] or the way she says them [Miss S. B.]. Honours divided and high honours at that.)

_Lady Tonbridge_ had advertised for a clergyman's widow to render some secretarial service, and the ambitious _Mrs. Badger_ had applied, duly weeded. Meanwhile the elderly _Lady T._ had seen her _fiancé_ and with the young person in pink, and it was a brilliant and base afterthought to bribe the clergyman's widow to claim the girl as her long-missing daughter (invented). Both the young Lord and the young person, too much in love perhaps to be critical, accept the situation; but you haven't quite got _Mrs. Badger_ if you think she's the sort of person one would precisely jump at for a mother-in-law.

At the supreme moment when _Mrs. B._, after an interview with the whisky bottle, forgets her part and, lapsing into the mere widow of the undertaker, gives it to the intriguing _Lady Tonbridge_ in the neck with a wealth of imagery, a command of slightly slurred invective and a range of facial expression beyond adequate description, she is perhaps less attractive in the capacity of mother-by-marriage than ever, even if the interlude prove the goodness of her heart. But it is just at that moment that the young person is recognised by her maid. The daughter of the _Duchess of Hampshire_, no less! So all is well.

Not that Miss JENNINGS' plot matters. She freely accepts the absurdities which her bizarre outline demands, but doesn't shirk the pains to make her situations possible within the pleasantly impossible frame. What is all-important is that she does shake the house with genuinely explosive humour.

If they were Miss JENNINGS' bombs, Miss FAIRBROTHER threw the most and the best of them with a perfect aim. The rest of the platoon helped in varying degrees. I hope I don't irretrievably damage Miss JOYCE CAREY'S reputation as a modern when I say that she looked so pretty and innocent that I don't believe even sour old spinsters would have doubted her. A charming and capable performance. Mr. DONALD CALTHROP made love quite admirably on the lighter note; a little awkwardly, perhaps, on the more serious. Miss SYBIL CARLISLE handled an unpromising part with great skill. Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS as the ineffable _Lady Tonbridge_ was as competent as ever, and had a coat and skirt in the Third Act which filled the female breast with envy. Looks like a long run.

T.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Art in Washing--with economy.--Ladies desiring personal attention are invited to apply to ---- Laundry."--_Daily Paper._

No "imperfect ablutioner" (_vide_ "The Mikado") should miss this opportunity.

* * * * *

"Fun undiluted and rippling is the main feature of _The Little Visiters_, and not a single feature of the author's book is lost in the process of dramatisation."--_Weekly Paper._

Except, apparently, the title.

* * * * *

The Boat-Race.

ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY CAMBRIDGE.

In complimenting the Light Blues we cannot help calling attention to two curious facts which may have contributed to their victory, and seem to have escaped the notice of the Oxford crew. According to _The Weekly Dispatch_ Mr. SWANN rowed "No. 9 in the Cambridge boat"; and a photograph in _The Illustrated Sunday Herald_ ("the camera cannot lie") distinctly shows the Cambridge crew rowing with as many as eight oars on the stroke side. How many they were using on the bow side is not revealed.

* * * * *

"WANTED IMMEDIATELY!

MEDICAL DOCTOR

for Joe Batt's Arm and vicinity. Salary two thousand dollars guaranteed. All specials additional. Address communication to

ALEX. COFFIN, Sec. Doctor's Committee."

_Newfoundland Paper._

Even the serious condition of Joe Batt's Arm hardly interests us so much as the challenge to the world's humourists implied in the Committee's selection of their secretary.

* * * * *

MY ONE ADMIRER.

Of course my wife had made me go to the bazaar. All men go to bazaars either because their wives send them, or in search of possible wives. The men who are never at bazaars are those with humane wives, or the true bachelors.

I did not mind the young lady who grabbed my walking-stick and presented me with a shilling cloakroom ticket, or the other who placed a buttonhole in my coat (two-and-sixpence), or the third who sprayed me with scent (one shilling, but had I known of the threatened attack I would have paid two shillings for immunity), or the fourth, who snatched my rather elderly silk hat and renovated it, not before its time, with some mysterious fluid (one-and-ninepence). These are the things one expects.

But when I faced the stalls I must admit that I trembled. In pre-war days it was occasionally hinted that bazaar prices were a trifle high. What would they be now? How could I face the Bazaar profiteer? Sums, reminding me of schooldays, ran in my head, "If milk be a shilling a quart what will be the price of a sofa-cushion?"

As I stood in the centre of the hall I could see that the eyes of the stall-holders were upon me--cold, horrid, calculating eyes. I could read in them, "How much has this man got?" I felt that it would be a proper punishment for war-profiteers if they were sentenced to purchase all their requirements at bazaars for six months.

Glancing round the hall in search of a place of refuge I saw a sign, "Autograph Exhibition--Admission one shilling." A shilling! Why, such a comfortable hiding-place would have been cheap at half-a-crown. I bolted for the Autograph Exhibition before a piratical lady, bearing down on me with velvet smoking caps, could reduce me to pulp.

A smiling elderly gentleman was in charge. "Hah, you would like to see my little collection? Certainly, certainly."

I am not interested in autographs. Most bygone celebrities wrote undecipherable hands. I have been equally puzzled in trying to read the handwriting of GUY FAWKES and Mr. GLADSTONE. But this collection was different. It had letters from nearly every one distinguished in the world to-day--good, lengthy, interesting, readable letters.

"How did you contrive to get all these?" I asked the exhibitor.

"Tact, foresight and flattery, my dear Sir. It would be no use writing to these people to-day. You'd get ignored, or at best two lines type-written by a secretary. Now look at that long letter from LLOYD GEORGE about Welsh nationality and that other from HILAIRE BELLOC concerning the adulteration of modern beer. You couldn't get them now. My idea is to catch your celebrity young. When a man produces his first play or novel or book of poems I write him an admiring letter. You can't lay it on too thick. Ask him some question on a topic that interests him. It always draws. They are unused to praise and you catch them before the public has spoilt them. I card-index all the replies I get. Of course nine out of ten of the people turn out of no account, but some are sure to come off. You just throw out the failures and put the successes in your collection."

At this point I heard our Archdeacon afar off. Our Archdeacon booms--not like trade, but like the bittern. I heard him booming outside, "My dear lady, I cannot miss the chance of seeing dear Mr. Fletterby's collection."

Fletterby! The name was familiar. Long years ago I published something--don't inquire into the details of my crime--and the sole response I had from an unappreciative world was a highly eulogistic letter from one Samuel Fletterby. I remembered the time I had spent in writing him a lengthy and courteous reply. I remembered that often in my darker days I had drawn out the letter of Fletterby to encourage me.

And now! I looked at the collection. It was arranged alphabetically. As I turned to the initial of my name I framed a dramatic revelation for my friend Fletterby: "That writing is familiar to me. In fact, Mr. Fletterby, I am its unworthy writer."

But my letter was not included in the collection.

"Throw out the failures," Mr. Fletterby had said.

I threw myself out instantly from the Autograph Exhibition. Better, far better buy things I didn't want at prices I couldn't afford than stay in the company of that faithless one, my sole erstwhile (as the papers say) admirer.

* * * * *

There was a great athlete named RUDD Who was born with a Blue in his blood; Stout-hearted, spring-heeled, He achieved on the field What his Varsity lost on the flood.

But when he had breasted the tape A cynic emitted this jape: "Pray notice, old son, 'Tisn't Oxford that's won, But Utah, Bowdoin and the Cape."

* * * * *

EASTER IN WILD WALES.

The recent discovery (duly noted in _The Daily Graphic_ of the 30th ult.) of "seven pearls of excellent quality" by an Aberavon labourer in a mussel stranded by the tide has led to an extraordinary influx of visitors to that quiet seaside resort. Costers have been arriving at the rate of several hundreds a day, attracted by the prospect of finding the raw materials for the indispensable decoration of their costumes, and the local authorities are at their wits' end to provide adequate accommodation. Amongst the latest arrivals is the great architect, Sir MARTIN CONWAY, who has been consulted with regard to the erection of a number of bungalow skyscrapers, and an urgent message has been despatched to Sir EDWIN LUTYENS at Delhi, begging him to supply designs of a suitable character. Meanwhile pearl-diving goes on day and night on the sea-front, with the assistance of a flock of oyster-catchers, whose brilliant plumage adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the scene.

Though the special good fortune of Aberavon has excited a certain amount of natural jealousy in the breasts of hotel and boarding-house proprietors at other Welsh seaside resorts, they have no serious reason to complain. The usual attractions of Barmouth have been powerfully reinforced by the presence in the neighbouring hills of a full-sized gorilla which recently escaped from a travelling menagerie. When last seen the animal was making in the direction of Harlech, which is at present the head-quarters of the Easter Vacation School of the Cambrian section of the Yugo-Slav Doukhobors. It is understood that the local police have the matter well in hand, and arrangements have been made, in case of emergency, for withdrawing all the population within the precincts of the castle.

Great disappointment prevails at Llandudno owing to the refusal of Mr. EVAN ROBERTS, the famous revivalist, to localise the materialisation of the Millennium, which he has recently prophesied, at Llandudno during the Easter holidays. By way of a set-off an effort was made to induce Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES to give a vocal recital before his departure for America. As his recent performance at a meeting of the London Scots Club proved, Sir AUCKLAND is a singist of remarkable power, infinite humour and soul-shaking pathos. Unfortunately his repertory is confined to Scottish songs, and on this ground he has been obliged to decline the invitation, though the fee offered was unprecedented in the economic annals of the variety stage.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Mr. FORREST REID is a writer upon whose progress I have for some time kept an appreciative eye. His latest story, bearing the attractive title of _Pirates of the Spring_ (UNWIN), proves, I think, that progress to be well sustained. As you may have guessed from the name, this is a tale of adolescence; it shows Mr. REID'S North-Ireland lads differing slightly from the more familiar home-product, though less in essentials than in tricks of speech, and (since these are day-school boys, exposed to the influence of their several homes) an echo of religious conflict happily rare in the experience of English youth. Mr. REID is amongst the few novelists who can be sympathetic to boyhood without sentimentalising over it; he has admirably caught its strange mingling of pride and curiosity, of reticence and romance and jealous loyalty. The tale has no particular plot; it is a record of seeming trifles, friendships made and broken and renewed, sporadic adventures and deep-laid intrigues that lead nowhere. But you will catch in it a real air of youth, a spring-time wind blowing from the half-forgotten world in which all of us once were chartered privateers. There are, of course, worthy folk who would be simply bored by all this--which is why I do not venture to call _Pirates of the Spring_ everyone's reading; others, however, more fortunate, will find it a true and delicately observed study of an engaging theme.

* * * * *

I must really warn the flippant. It would be appalling if admirers of _Literary_ (and other) _Lapses_ were to send blithely to the libraries for Mr. LEACOCK'S latest and find themselves landed with _The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice_ (LANE). And yet I don't know. Here is a subject which even the flippant cannot long ignore. And a man of the world with a clear head and a mastery of clearer idiom than a professor of political economy usually commands has here said something desperately serious without a trace of dulness. I should like Professor LEACOCK'S short book to be divided into three. The first part, a trenchant analysis of some of the evils of our social and industrial system, I would send to the impossibilists and obstructives; the second, a critical examination of some of the nostrums of the progressives, should go to the hasty optimists who think that a sudden change of system will as suddenly change men, for it contains much that they will do well (and now resolutely refuse) to ponder. The third part I would return to the author for revision, for it contains no more, when analysed, than an _ipse dixit_, and quite fails to show that the evils denounced as intolerable in the first part can be remedied without some substantial portion at least of the heroic reforms denounced in his second. Also I would remind him, or rather perhaps the more ingenuous of his readers, that there have been later contributions to the theory and practice of new-world building than Mr. BELLAMY'S _Looking Backward_.

* * * * *