Chapter 3

The Assize Court of Appeal, which visited the district and heard Osman Effendi's appeal against the first verdict, consisted of three Egyptian judges. It is true that the English judge who should have gone on Assize had fallen ill, and there was no other to take his place. But Osman Effendi saw in this too the malevolent hand of the English, who nourished a grudge against him. "How," he said, "can I obtain justice if there is no Englishman on the Court?"

From that moment he has become an ultra-Nationalist, and has, I believe, been seen in the streets of Cairo shouting with the best of them the latest "English" catchword of "Long Live Egypt! Long Die MILNER!"

He is, you see, an educated man.

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CONSOLIDATING THE EMPIRE.

"In honour of the visit to Napier of the Prince of Wales the roof of the Borough Council offices is to be given a coat of paint."--_New Zealand Paper._

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"PERSONAL.

ARTHUR.--You idiot.--Irene."--_Times._

Very "personal," we should say.

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"Sir Auckland and Lady Geddes left London last Saturday for the Untied States."--_Irish Paper._

It is only fair to add that they have not chosen this country for the sake of its easy Divorce Laws.

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"Major. Christopher Lowther (CUCumberland, North) moved a new clause." --_Provincial Paper._

It was somewhere in this neighbourhood, we believe, that WORDSWORTH discovered his "winsome marrow."

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"Though to-day is Primrose Day...."--_Daily Mirror, April 12th._

At the risk of being thought behind the times, we ourselves deferred our celebration until April 19th as usual.

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AT THE PLAY.

"BIRDS OF A FEATHER."

It is nearly always a good thing for the author of a play to know what he is after, and if he can get his audience to follow him so much the better. It is quite possible that Mr. ESMOND had an idea in his head when he wrote _Birds of a Feather_, but if so he never let me get at it. Up to the very end I had no conception of what he was trying to illustrate, unless it was the trite theory that we are the creatures of our environment.

That, at any rate, was how _Constance_ (of "the House of _Ussher_") explained her vagaries, though I couldn't see why. The daughter of a very rich Jew, whose Christian wife had run away from him, she was brought up in great comfort, which included the love of a peer's son, her father's secretary. It is true that her stern parent would not hear of their union; but that has no doubt happened to young heiresses before now without turning them into criminals. With _Constance_ however it seems to have been different. She had gathered from what she knew of her father's career that there must be easy ways of making money if you are not too scrupulous, so she forged his name for a thousand pounds with speculative intent. It was open to the old man to regard this as an act of filial piety, since it was an attempt, however crude, to follow the parental tradition; but apparently forgery had not been one of his foibles and he threatened her with the law unless she gave up the idea of marrying the secretary, now dismissed from his service.

Meanwhile she has been carrying on a secret intrigue with that gentleman (she must have got this from her "Christian" mother), and when her father comes to know of it he suddenly exhibits an unsuspected gift of sentimentality ("My baby Con! my baby Con!" he sobs), and, in terror lest his ewe-lamb's name should be tainted by the breath of scandal, he offers his late secretary a heavy sum of money to make an honest woman of her. It sounds a little inconsistent, but of course there may have been a nice differentiation in the old rogue's mind between a moral and a criminal offence, in favour of the latter.

As for _Constance_ I have seldom met a less seizable character. If she was the result of environment there was no visible sign to show how it infected her. We simply had to take Mr. ESMOND'S word for it. To me the ménage seemed to be of the most respectable. But, of course, you can always attribute anything to your surroundings. One environment is vicious and so drives you to vice; another is virtuous with the same effect. _Constance_ might condemn hers, but it never had a chance with a girl like that.

For myself it was not her viciousness that worried me, it was her vulgarity; and of this she seemed quite unconscious. Her speech abounded in second-rate colloquialisms. Was it her environment that taught her to say dreadful things like "Put that in your pipe and smoke it"? The cheap fun that she got out of a girl-friend who had made it a rule to pray for her was the kind of thing you would be sorry to find in a common boarding-school. And are gentlefolk in the habit of asking a man, as _Constance_ did, how it was that he ever came to get engaged to such a woman as the one of his choice? In Bayswater it simply isn't done.

At the end of the First Act, after many trivialities and the waste of precious time over a description of certain characters that were presently to appear and endorse it, there was a sudden diversion. The professional card of a private detective was discovered in an arm-chair. No one seemed to know how it got there, and, as the curtain chose this moment to fall, we were left in a state of palpitation, wondering how we were to get through the interval with our curiosity unappeased. Ultimately it turned out that the detective was to be employed by _Miss Ussher_ (aunt) to verify her suspicions with regard to the morals of _Constance_. But I shall never get you to believe me when I say that the subject was not so much as touched again till the final Act.

I have spoken of the incongruous stuff of which old _Jacob Ussher's_ heart was constructed. That strange organ was hard enough to make him give his daughter away to his secretary in the matter of the forgery; but when it came to a question of the exposure of her relations with her lover this same heart was found to be of the consistency of putty.

I hope I shall not seem guilty of _Constance's_ indiscretion if I politely wonder how it was that so astute a judge as Miss MARIE LÖHR accepted this play. Actor-managers, of course, have been known to produce indifferent work for the sake of a good acting part for themselves. If that was her motive I think she must have imagined a fine subtlety in a character which was difficult only because it was loosely conceived. If she failed to make it plausible it was not for want of very adroit handling.

In _Jacob Ussher_ Mr. ESMOND gave himself a most congenial part, in which he easily surpassed his achievement as author. Mr. TOZER as a slum-parson was extremely probable with his quiet sincerity. But our chief consolation came from Miss RACHEL DE SOLLA as the maiden aunt, a reactionary type of the most confirmed stolidity, with a weakness for diamonds and indigestion. Miss MARIE LÖHR had many clever things to say, but it didn't matter what Miss DE SOLLA said; her manner was irresistible.

I must doubt, however, whether the excellent work of the actors will carry the play to success. Even its title is obscure. The only thing I know about "birds of a feather" is that they are supposed to "flock together"; and I have always been given to understand that the adage alludes to the mutual attraction of similar types. Nobody ever told me that it was meant to indicate that the sins of the father bird are liable to be reproduced in his chicken,

ANNA PAVLOVA.

She hasn't changed at all. Many Russian dancers have come and gone since last she was with us, but there is still none like her, none. Her perfect technique remains the least of her graces. The secret of her charm lies deeper, in the power to interpret and convey emotions in the language of her art. To watch her feet alone is to hear the shuddering sigh of her Dying Swan, but her whole body is alert to translate every nuance of her theme.

She can draw beauty even from an anticlimax. Again and again in _Snowflakes_, when her partner withdrew the support of his hand, she poised for a moment, and, when the poise had to cease, covered her descent with the most fascinating gestures of head and arms.

I liked her least (if one may talk of her like that) as the gipsy-girl in _Amarilla_; not that she failed in dramatic intensity but that jealous passion seems alien to her temperament as we have learned to know it. I think, however, that my judgment was tainted by her wig, which greatly distressed me.

In M. VOLININE she has a very accomplished partner. His solo as a _Pierrot_, danced to a familiar air of DVORÁK'S, was the most delightful of "_divertissements_." Her other dancers, Russian and English, make up a really excellent company. The _presto furioso_ of the wild gipsy dance in _Amarilla_, to the exciting music of GLOZOUNOW and DRIGO, was a brilliant _tour de force_.

My only complaint (apart from _Amarilla's_ wig) is that the programme's explanation of the motive of _Snowflakes_ was beyond me. "A little girl," it says, "receives as a present a nut-cracker in the form of a doll. The doll is in reality a Prince who has been transformed by a bad fairy, but by an act of devotion to the little girl he is restored to life. He then leads his little friend and other children to the Kingdom of Pine-trees where the Christmas-tree was born." It is true that the music was from TSCHAIKOWSKI'S "Casse-Noisettes," and that the snow-scene was suggestive of Christmas-time; but there was no sign of a "nut-cracker in the form of a doll," or, if there was, I can't think how it escaped me, for I was watching with all my eyes.

O.S.

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"Chaplain-Master Wanted on May 13th for one term to Teach Latin and History in Upper School, coloris paribus a cricketer would be most acceptable."--_Provincial Paper._

"_Coloris paribus_" suggests faintly that the authorities hope to get a double-blue; but it looks as if he would have to spend most of the term in teaching Latin.

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BIRD CALLS.

I.

The lark he trills his song on high, A tiny speck on a wide blue sky; "Tira-lir, it's sweet up here, It's sweet up here, my dear, my dear."

The turtle-dove's in love and so Is anxious all his world should know And follow his example too:-- "Look at us two. Oh do, oh do."

Woodpeckers make their thirsty cry Of "Pluie, pluie, pluie," to a sunlit sky; But sure enough they have their way For rain, rain, rain will fall next day.

The blackbird also craves a boon, Says "Bring a cherry, bring a cherry, soon, soon, soon;" And there in answer to his call The cherry blooms on the garden wall.

The thrush of all the birds that sing Of nests and little wives in Spring Alone confides the secret way:-- "What does she _line_ it with? Why, clay."

The willow wren she sings a song Just like her mate, though not so long, But both sing in all winds and weathers, "Sing to me; bring to me little brown feathers."

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SPRING AT KEW.

I am not one of those who believe in going down to the country to look at this Spring of which there is so much talk. Wanting in business organisation and coherent effort, Spring in the country is a poor affair at the best; there may be half-a-dozen daffodils in flower in one spinney, but you have to tramp over two or three muddy fields after that to find a button-hole of primroses, and so onwards over a stile and a ditch to the place where the blackthorn has blossomed and the green woodpecker is pecking the greenwood tree.

And very likely there are gates. Judging from statements in novels you might suppose a gate to be a bright and simple piece of mechanism, swung on by rosy-cheeked children and easily opened by Lord Hugo with his riding-crop so that Lady Hermione may jog through it on her practically priceless bay. That is quite wrong. It rests on the primary fallacy that gates are meant to be opened, whereas they are really meant to be kept shut. What actually happens when you want to open one is that you plunge halfway through a deep quagmire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire carrying it on your shoulder.

If you are riding like Lord Hugo you hook the fastening of the gate with the handle of your crop and make your horse shunt slowly backwards by applying the reverse clutch with your feet. As the gate refuses to give, you are, of course, drawn gently over the animal's head until you tumble into the bog like a man whose punt-pole is stuck in the bottom of the stream.

That is why I like going down to Kew, where the Spring is tidy and concentrated, and there is a squared map, just like France, at the turnstile gate to direct you to the magnolia dump, and little notices pointing you to the Temperate Houses, though this is really unnecessary, because there are no licensed premises in the Gardens at Kew. All is quiet and calm. You are not even compelled to leave the gravel-walks and tread on the damp grass, unless you have a desire to go to the river's edge and see how stiffly the tail of the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND'S stone lion sticks out on the further bank between the two peel towers from which his crossbowmen contemplate the Surrey marshes.

I used to know a man who had mugged up all the trees and plants, so that when you said to him, "What a funny juniper that is over there, with blue peach-blossoms on it," he would reply, "You mean the _Pyrofoliata persica corylus_," and explain how it was first introduced into England by JEREMY TAYLOR in 1658. Then when you went up to look at the placard on the tree you not only found that he was perfectly right, but obtained the additional information that the wood was of a particularly hard and durable nature, and only used for making the heads of croquet mallets and the seats on the tops of motor omnibuses.

I like this plan of putting placards upon trees, and I think it might well be carried out in the country too. There would be none of that standing about in the wet then, and arguing whether the thing is a beech or an oak, when all the time it is a horse-chestnut and laughing up its bark at you.

One must not forget either at Kew the great conservatories, though I do not care for these so much because there are men in them watching to see that you do not pick the cactuses or the palms to put in your button-hole; nor the magnificent Pagoda, which accommodates the Observator, who watches for the flowers to come out, and the Curator, who writes appreciative little notices to stick on the beds; nor the piebald swans in the artificial lake.

But the great glory of Kew is the Pump-room. It is surrounded by marble-topped tables and green seats, and I am aware that it is not called a Pump-room, though a noise proceeds from inside it very like the panting of a pump. They tell me that this is an hydraulic machine for washing up the cups and plates; but I do not believe them, because so many people who take tea round the Pump-room drink left-handed, as if the reverse side of the cup had belonged to somebody else.

Anyhow it is a very jolly and democratic assemblage that sits and drinks tea under the trees and eats cakes that have no placard on them to say at what date they were introduced into England. Here you may see the prosperous docker with his wife and family sitting quite unostentatiously at the next table to the needy scientist who has come to make notes about the purple narcissi. And a little further on is the novelist who is getting local colour for his great rustic love-scene which he is going to say took place in the heart of Devonshire.

But it was not for the purpose of providing you with tea and cakes that the Pump-room was founded. Just as you may read in your morning paper that the Honourable Miss Muffet has proceeded to Harrogate to take the waters, so it is with Kew. One goes to Kew to take the watercresses. I have found out by exhaustive inquiries from one of the waitresses that, though you may substitute rolls and butter for bread and margarine, and may have marmalade with either or both, and though it is optional to eat even the cakes with yellow sugar upon them, there is no way of evading the watercresses. There is a strong feeling amongst the waitresses that it is just these compulsory watercresses which have made us Englishmen what we are. The whole vast pleasure-ground really centres round them, and the reason why Londoners flock (as the papers say) to Kew is that they are hungry for the medicinal virtues of this aquaceous plant.

After you have taken the watercresses you are allowed to wander about the Gardens again and look at QUEEN VICTORIA'S cottage, round which there is always an eager and admiring crowd examining it from every point of view and wondering what premium they would have to pay for it if it were on the market now. And then you will want to go home and be unable to find the gate; but after a little time the Observator will observe you with his telescope from the top of the Pagoda and mention it to the Curator, who will direct a bronzed and amiable man in a blue uniform to lead you to the turnstile.

I am told that there are some people who do not care to sample their Spring at Kew or in the country either, but prefer to go to San Remo or spend Saturday afternoon toiling in their own back-garden. Let them mind their peas, I say, while I go down to Kew.

EVOE.

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THE CAUTIOUS AMORIST

(_Showing the effect of official phraseology on love-letters._)

Dearest Mary, this delay In the fixing of the day Drives all happiness away From my ken. If you _only_ will decide When you'll be my blushing bride You will see me glorified-- If and when.

They have promised me a rise When the senior partner dies; He is eighty and he lies Very ill; But until you seal your "Yes" By a notice in the Press I shall not feel safe--unless And until.

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"Bicycles of old-fashioned design acquired a new lease of life, and took to the road, where they were joined by pony traps in which father, mother and many children, all with crimped hair and white pinafores, were tightly packed."--_Daily Paper_.

Father, we are told, looked a perfect darling.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

The title, somewhat puzzling at first, which Miss F.E. MILLS YOUNG has given to her latest story, _The Almonds of Life_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), turns out to be based upon a Chinese proverb to the effect that "almonds came to those who have no teeth." This rather devastating sample of philosophy (which I have put by for use against the next person who attempts to work off upon me the adage about those who wait) forms the text of a well-told tale of misplaced affections. As you may expect, if you know Miss YOUNG'S former work, it is a South African story, not concerned however with Boers and natives and the trackless veld, but with coastwise civilization and suburban garden-parties. As before, the author excellently conveys the place-feeling, so well indeed that I was sorry when the love intrigues of the two protagonists necessitated their quitting Africa for a more conventional Italian setting. I may summarise the plot by telling you that the particular almond that fell too late to the heroine was somebody else's husband. But it wasn't so much that she was unable to eat him as that he proved indigestible when swallowed. The lady was _Gerda_, young and dazzling bride of the middle-aged _Fred Wooten_, and the gentleman one of her husband's closest friends, also (before the arrival of _Gerda_) happily married to a wife whom I found the most attractive person in the book. I need not further detail the crooked course of untrue love, though I may hint at a fault in balance, where your sympathy, previously and rightly enlisted for poor betrayed _Fred_, is demanded for _Gerda_ in her difficulty with the almond. As usual, Miss YOUNG unfolds her plot with admirable directness, chiefly through a natural and unforced dialogue, so easy that it disguises its own art.

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If any reasonable man still possesses a grain of sympathy with Bolshevism I invite him to purge himself by reading _With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia_ (CASSELL). In August, 1918, Colonel JOHN WARD, M.P., reached Vladivostok in command of the 25th Battalion Middlesex Regiment, and from the time of his arrival until his departure nearly a year later his position was almost grotesquely difficult. Of our Allies in Siberia and of their policy he writes with justifiable frankness. Our own is not excused, but he lets us clearly see that however ineffectual it may have been there was honesty of purpose underlying it. In the medley of confusion which prevailed we were lucky to have in Colonel WARD as senior British officer a man who was not afraid to shoulder his responsibility. Under conditions so exasperating that anyone might have been excused if he had been overwhelmed with anger and bewilderment he was resolved to uphold our prestige. Upon the Bolshevist horrors in Siberia he does not dwell, but he says enough in passing to make one shudder. Colonel WARD is a true friend of Russia. "This great people are bound to recover, and become all the stronger for their present trials," are the concluding words of his preface. That this prophecy may come true must be the prayer of all of us who remember what we owed to Russia during the earlier part of the War.

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