Chapter 2

[_From an Early-Victorian pocket "Etiquette for Gentlemen."_--"During the morning hours a gentleman visitor who neither shoots, reads, writes letters nor does anything but idle about the house and chat with the ladies is an intolerable nuisance. Sooner than become the latter he had better retire to the billiard-room and practise cannons by himself."]]

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TELEPHONE TACTICS.

It is now some months since the great autumn offensive was conducted with the idea of biting off an awkward salient in my circumstances--in brief, of obtaining the necessary telephone to enable me to commence an ordered existence. For many, many days my voice had been unheard crying in the wilderness that I was a poor demobilised soldier, that I had once had a telephone and had given it up at my country's call, and please couldn't they give me back even my old, old telephone again? I have already told how in response to these very human appeals I at length got only a request for the balance due for calls for 1914. My old friend Time, however, worked his proverbial wonders and one day a telephone came--phit! like that.

Directly it had come I suspected a trap somewhere. Nor were my friends behindhand in telling me of the horrors of gigantic and inexorable bills from which there was no appeal. They said I must have a coin-box. Excellent idea! I would have a coin-box.

So the great Spring offensive began. In early February I opened a strong barrage upon the main headquarters (how lovingly these ancient military metaphors come back to one!) and kept up a little light harassing fire upon the District Agent. The enemy replied with rigid uniformity upon printed forms--a mean advantage, for I have to type mine myself. But matters progressed. At the end of the first fortnight I had been advised that the work of installing my coin-box had been entrusted to no fewer than three groups of engineers, "to whom you should refer in all cases."

Well, I "referred" for some little time, and then, after a decent interval, made their acquaintance separately. If anything was calculated to bring back memories of the lighter side of the War it was the gracious and suave manner in which I despatched and redespatched to other departments. I might have been the buffest of buff slips the way I was "passed to you, please."

Once again I cancelled all my work in the pursuit of where the rainbow ends. Nor was this renunciation any great hardship, for I had been writing a book about the Realities of War, and had just found that all the horrors that ever might have happened had already been set down by one who saw most of the game, being an onlooker. "But this," I said, as I set out every morning--"this is the life, pure adventure in every moment of it."

My efforts were rewarded. In late February three people came and left three coin-boxes--in pieces. Then I must admit that I did a foolish thing. I wrote and said that I only wanted one box. I was afraid that if I kept them all it would be, a case of "Thr-r-ree pennies, please," instead of one. (Mine is a penny district).

It annoyed them all. They came and took all the boxes away again--jealousy, I suppose. So at the end of February I was back in my old trenches again and visitors were still saying, "Oh, _do_ you mind if I ring up So-and-so?" and I was listening to myself answering, "Oh, _do_. No, of _course_ don't bother about the twopence" (visitors always want calls just outside the radius; I do myself).

The crisis came in March. It was then that I joined the criminal classes. For many days I had haunted the telephone dump, taking a melancholy pleasure in watching real engineers come out with real coin-boxes for other people. No Peri at the golden gate ever looked more wistful. I know now that it is opportunity that makes the criminal, and one day the opportunity came. It came in the form of a young and evidently new hand, who emerged from the dump and pitched upon me--me of all people--to ask, "Can you tell me where this place is?" As he spoke he began to get out a slip with the address, and in that moment my fate was sealed. One glance showed me that he was the bearer of a perfectly good coin-box, and in a second I had seized the opportunity.

What he said I have not the slightest idea and it wouldn't have mattered what the address had been; before he started I had assured him that by a curious coincidence I was going to that very place, and that by a still more curious coincidence I was the very man who wanted that coin-box. Curious, wasn't it, how such coincidences happened in real life as well as in books?

I took him to my home in a taxi. On the way I succeeded in diverting his mind from any possible awkward questions by relating details of my sad story until I could see the poor fellow was on the verge of tears. For those interested in criminology I may say that all the best criminal devices are not necessarily planned beforehand to the end; they are begun any-old-how and the genius consists in carrying the thing through afterwards, much the same as running a great war. I recked not what might occur after I had nefariously induced the poor innocent to install the machine; perhaps I had some vague idea that the Englishman's house is his castle, though this seems ridiculous when considered calmly. However, what matter these psychological dissections? He came with me unsuspecting, and I piloted him out of the taxi without his ever noticing the name of the street even. How could I have foreseen? Well, anyhow I didn't, or I shouldn't have tipped him on the stairs.

With many nods and winks I gave my wife the hint how I had managed it, and we went about the house whispering and hobnobbing in odd corners like a couple of conspirators while he began the work of installation.

Then the first dreadful moment came. Suddenly he addressed me by my name, with a certain suspicious interrogation in his tone.

"Who?" I asked blandly, going as red as a turkey-cock, of course; I never can help it.

He looked surprised and I plunged heavily, giving the first name I could think of, which happened to be the one he had mentioned in the taxi--his own, in fact. He looked still more suspicious and I knew it had been a mistake, especially as close to where he had been working were two envelopes addressed to me. I am certain that if my wife had not called me at that moment I should have gone permanently purple all over.

When I got back (I tried to get my wife to go, but she said she would rather I went, and that I wasn't really as red as I felt)--when I got back I could see that it had dawned upon him that I had wheedled him there without his knowing exactly where he was, and that he was determined not to be had. He asked me to sign for the installation.

Alas, I could not do that. It was only then that I realised that I am constitutionally honest; besides they might find me out.

We both tried to turn his thoughts to pleasanter topics. Perhaps asking him to have a glass of port was a mistake there are times when even bribery is bad policy. Briefly, after a mumbled remark that "there was something fishy," he refused to leave the box. Dry-eyed we watched him take it all down and depart in a dudgeon. We were left with a vision of shameless visitors with their twopenny calls and interminable bills running up even while we were away on our holidays.

"Let us," I said hoarsely--"let us go and look at our child; she is all we have left now."

Moodily we turned to go upstairs. In the hall we stopped dead. Upon the floor was the wretched paper which my Victorian conscience and my twentieth-century caution had prevented me from signing.

"He must," said my wife with her usual perspicacity, "have dropped it on his way out. Let's see who the box was really meant for."

Picking it up I read aloud in cold firm tones _my own name and address_. The box had been meant for us after all.

* * * * *

We got it in the end. It came one morning, like the flowers in Spring, quite suddenly, and we spent a whole day telephoning to our friends to tell them we had a coin-box at last. I also wrote a letter full of gratitude to the telephone people and got the reply that, "owing to the shortage of plant, etc.," they regretted that for the time being they could not grant my request for a telephone.

We did not tell them that we had had one for three months; Heaven knows what would have happened.

And we are left in peace--now that our visitors have heard that we have a coin-box.

L.

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* * * * *

TWO "STEIN"-WAY GRANDS.

BY A PHILISTINE.

EINSTEIN and EPSTEIN were wonderful men, Bringing new miracles into our ken. EINSTEIN upset the Newtonian rule; EPSTEIN demolished the Pheidian School. EINSTEIN gave fits to the Royal Society; EPSTEIN delighted in loud notoriety. EINSTEIN made parallels meet in infinity; EPSTEIN remodelled the form of Divinity. Nature exhausted, I hopefully sing, Can't have more Steins of this sort in her sling.

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"Disputing Sergt. Alvan C. York's claim as the world war's greatest hero, Sergt. Mike Donaldson of New York has challenged the Tennessean to a debate on who is the greatest war hero."--_New Haven Journal-Courier (U.S.A.)_

Without waiting for the result of this unique contest Mr. Punch has no hesitation in saying that between them these warriors are responsible for the mightiest "blow" of the War.

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FROM THE DANCE WORLD.

(_By our Ballet Expert._)

_The Daily Graphic_ announces that Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT has "fallen a willing victim to the latest fashionable dances," and is having lessons in them "in the privacy of his Hanover Square home." A thousand entrancing possibilities are opened up by this bald announcement. We are content to supplement it by a few authentic details.

Mr. BENNETT, who does nothing by halves, has mapped out a programme which will occupy his energies for at least two years. First comes the period of pupilship, which will last for six months. Then a year on the stage; then six months devoted to the composition of three novels and three plays, each with a Terpsichorean motive. Already, while engaged on his daily exercises, Mr. BENNETT has found time to revise the titles of some of his earlier works in keeping with his present aims, and two of these have now been appropriately rechristened _Anna Pavlova of the Five Towns_ and _Helen of the High Kick_.

In the actual technique of his adopted art Mr. BENNETT has already shown extraordinary progress. The other day, while a wedding party was just about to leave St. George's, Hanover Square, Mr. BENNETT, who happened to be passing by, took a flying caracole clean over the Rolls-Royce which contained the happy pair. Those who witnessed the feat say that it eclipsed NIJINSKY in his most elastic mood. But Mr. BENNETT is not satisfied, and declined an invitation to appear at the Devonshire House Ball last week on the ground that his achievement does not yet square with his ambition. Moreover he has decided not to dance in public under his real name, but is not yet quite certain whether to choose the artistic pseudonym of Ben Netsky or Cinquecittà--probably the latter.

Above all he is firmly resolved to preserve in his dancing the sympathetic and humanistic tone of his presentation of life in his books. It will be a message of hope. He is determined by his gestural artistry and resilient thistle-downiness to "sanction and fortify the natural human passion for believing that life can somehow, behind all the miseries and the mysteries, mean something profoundly worth while." To render justice to his mental and physical agility is beyond our powers.

We have been driven to culling this memorable sentence from the latest and most preternaturally precious of his American admirers.

It is only fair to say that as a dancing fictionist Mr. BENNETT will not be allowed to have it entirely his own way. Rumours are already afloat of the appearance on the boards of Messrs. CHESTERTON and BELLOC, under the impressive aliases of Campoborgo and Bellocchio, "the Terrible Tarantulators." This may be only a wild surmise. There is however strong _a priori_ evidence in support of the statements that Mr. MASEFIELD is taking lessons in the Fox Trot at Boar's Hill, and that Lord Northsquith is bringing back with him from Morocco a powerful troupe of Dancing Dervishes, with the intention of installing them ultimately in Downing Street.

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OUR LITERARY LEGISLATORS.

"AN IMPERIAL POLICY.

(By Mr. ALFRED BIGLAND, M.P.)

May I commence my argument by a well-known quotation from Shakespeare, 'He knows not England who only England knows'?"--_Liverpool Paper_.

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"SITUATIONS OPEN.

(COLONIAL, INDIAN AND FOREIGN.)

IRELAND.--Invoice Clerk required by leading firm of Wholesale Druggists in Ireland."--_Trade Paper._

Dominion Home Rule casts its shadow before.

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"The decree of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the creation of a separate Providence of Wales was read."--_Scotch Paper._

What's wrong with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE?

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ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, April 12th._--Neither Ministers nor ordinary Members showed any marked eagerness to resume their Parliamentary labours. Little green oases were to be seen in every part of the House, and on the Treasury Bench even Under-Secretaries (who often have to maintain a precarious perch on one another's knees) had room to spread themselves.

The Underground Railway may, like Nature, be careless of the individual, but it is extremely careful of the typewriter, and insists on making a special charge for this instrument, officially regarded as a bicycle. But as Sir ERIC GEDDES announced that this extortion, "though legal," was in his opinion "neither just nor expedient," we may hope that it will shortly be abandoned. The Ministry of Transport at last seems likely to justify its existence.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY was annoyed to find that there has been no change during the recess in the regulations relating to passports, and that they are still not issued to Soviet Russia. The tone of the Minister's reply rather suggested that the Government might be disposed to make an exception in favour of the hon. and gallant Member.

_Tuesday, April 13th._--After the official announcement that the Slough depot had been sold, and the chorus of satisfaction in the Press that the Government had disposed of its white elephant at a profit, Mr. HOGGE was disappointed to learn that, though the heads of agreement were being discussed, no contract had yet been signed. He was indeed rather surprised that the Government should think of parting at all with what the LEADER OF THE HOUSE had assured them was going to be "a dripping roast for the taxpayer." Mr. LAW smilingly disclaimed the coinage of this appetising phrase.

Mr. MILLS, the new Member for Dartford, is credited with being "very hot stuff" (a cadet, I am told, of the _Moulin Rouge_ family), but he looked much too trim and spruce for a real revolutionary as he walked up, amid the plaudits of his Labour colleagues, to take the oath and his seat. In fact Mr. GREENWOOD, the new Coalition-Unionist Member for Stockport, who followed him, has much more the air of an _homme du peuple_. As for Mr. FILDES, his Coalition-Liberal colleague, I don't wonder that Stockport favoured a candidate whose genial countenance so strongly resembles that of Mr. Punch.

The debate on the Civil Service Estimates furnished Mr. HOPKINS with an opportunity of delivering an appeal, doubtless cogent but mainly inaudible, for the restoration of the exchange value of the pound sterling. Mr. A.M. SAMUEL, on the other hand, was more audible than orthodox. At least it rather shocked me to be told that we were getting too much for the pound before the War. Mr. BALDWIN, for the Government, made a speech so full of sound commonsense that Sir FREDERICK BANBURY hoped he would send a special copy of it to San Remo for the edification of the PRIME MINISTER.

The rest of the evening was mainly taken up with the case of the Irish hunger-strikers. Mr. BONAR LAW was at first very stiff in his attitude, pointing out quite reasonably that if the Government found it necessary to intern people suspected of crime it was absurd to let them out again because they threatened to commit suicide. Several Members, English as well as Irish, thought that there was a case for differentiating between convicted prisoners and those who were merely under suspicion, and on the adjournment the Irish Attorney-General a little relieved the prevailing gloom by a hint that some modification of the prison-rules might be made on these lines.

_Wednesday, April 14th._--The MINISTER OF HEALTH announced with some pride that under the Housing Acts passed last year no fewer than 1,346 dwellings had actually been completed, and twelve thousand more were in various stages of construction. But he showed no enthusiasm for the suggestion that be should extend the benefits of the Acts to others besides the "working classes," and flatly declined to attempt a definition of that ambiguous term. It is believed, however, that recent experience has convinced him that builders in general and bricklayers in particular cannot properly be so described.

Mr. RENDALL'S attempt to get the House to pledge itself in advance to the full policy of Lord BUCKMASTER'S Divorce Bill was defeated. The main opposition came from Mr. RONALD MCNEILL, who sits for Canterbury and spoke with cathedral solemnity. Mr. MUNRO supported the Resolution, on the ground that Englishwomen ought not to be refused the advantages enjoyed by their Scotch sisters. Marriage in Scotland appears to resemble Glasgow--there are great facilities for getting away from it. But Lady ASTOR, hailing from a land where they are even greater, displayed no desire to jump to conclusions, and asked for an interval of five or ten years to make up her mind.

If the cheers that greeted Mr. MACPHERSON were meant to console him for his "Irishman's rise" in slipping down from the Chief Secretaryship to the Ministry of Pensions, they were assuredly superfluous. The supposed victim was obviously delighted to be rid of the responsibility for a policy which seems to grow more tangled every day. Only on Tuesday Mr. BONAR LAW was assuring the House that the Mountjoy hunger-strikers must be left to commit suicide if they chose; the Government could not release men suspected of grave crimes. This afternoon he announced that sixty-six of them had in fact been liberated on parole.

The new Minister of Labour (late of the Admiralty) came on board again, looking none the worse for his strenuous exertions at Camberwell. He had a hearty welcome from all quarters of the House, which would hardly know itself without its "Dr. MAC."

It is one thing to gain a seat in the House, but quite another thing to keep it, as Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS has just discovered. Returning from a prolonged tour in foreign parts he found that his favourite corner-seat had been annexed by another Member. Determined to reclaim it, he visited the House at 8 A.M. and inserted his card; but on coming back to the House for prayers found that the usurper had substituted her own. Mr. T.P. O'CONNOR, with old-world chivalry, considered that the only lady-Member should be allowed to sit where she pleased; but the SPEAKER upheld the principle "first come, first served."

On a Vote of twenty-seven millions for the expenses of the Ministry of Munitions Mr. HOPE told a flattering tale. The Department might be spending a lot of money, but it was making a great deal more; and he anticipated that the Disposals Board would hand over to the Exchequer this year something like a hundred millions, if not more. The Slough Depôt, he maintained, had been run at a profit and sold at a profit. The Ministry might have made some mistakes, but it represented a prodigious national effort, of which the historian would speak with amazement and praise.

Unimpressed by this panegyric Sir DONALD MACLEAN intimated that he came to bury the Ministry and not to praise it. In his view its administration had been grossly extravagant. He demanded the full details of the Slough transaction and suggested that the Vote should be withdrawn until they were forthcoming. To this proposal Mr. HOPE, with more humility than I should have expected after the optimism of his earlier speech, ultimately agreed.

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THE LAND OF LOGIC.

Let me tell you about my Nationalist friend, Gabal Osman Effendi.

The circumstances of his brother's death, which were as follows, drove him into politics and made him a fervent advocate of "Egypt for the Egyptians."

His brother was in a very humble way and lived in a little mud village. There he had a friend, yet poorer than himself, who only attained to prosperity when a plague fell on the village. The sanitary authorities put a cordon around it to prevent the spread of the plague, and hired this man among others to throw disinfectants and things into any drains that happened to exist. Thus Osman Effendi's brother's friend became a Government servant.

Now Osman Effendi's brother had a sore leg. When he heard of his friend's new work he thought he saw a way to avoid any doctor's fees. So he went to him and said, "I hear that you are now a doctor." His friend, proud but truthful, said he was perhaps hardly that, but he was certainly put to administer drugs. Osman's brother pointed out that his leg was sore and suggested that it should be healed. The other looked doubtful, then produced a lump of his disinfectant. "This," said he, "is a powerful drug and, who knows? it may cure your leg." It was a friendly act; but Osman's brother swallowed the lump and shortly afterwards died.

Osman Effendi at once brought an action for damages against the Government, on the ground that its servant had caused the death of his brother (whom, as a matter of fact, he himself had largely supported). The case was heard by a Court on which sat two Egyptian judges and one English, and the decision went against Osman. This convinced him of the injustice of the English.