Chapter 2

reminiscences at a regimental dinner.

"Not young George?"

"Yes, old George. We had a letter from him last week. First we'd heard for six years."

"Lordy, lordy," said the post-mistress, "it only seems yesterday that he went away. I remember----" and she proved it by doing so for ten minutes with a volubility that would have made the fortune of a patter comedian. At the first sign of a pause I found the courage to ask for my stamps, but quite in vain. The conversation was only getting its second wind.

"Young George, to be sure! And how is he? Tell me all about him."

I gathered that George was in the best of health and in America, was unmarried and umpired out in a recent baseball match and wanted----" ["A dozen stamps, please." This from me.] a photograph of the old people and his brothers and sisters. From this the transition was easy to an uncle of the post-mistress's who went----" ["A dozen stamps."]--to foreign parts. He always was a rolling stone, he was. Never gathered no moss. On the other hand, there were no flies on him. Did very well for himself, he did, and when he died----"

But it was at this point that the moisture from the margarine cask against which I had been leaning began to make its presence felt, and, stampless, I left the shop.

At the edge of the village I met our policeman.

"Go quickly," I implored him; "there's a hold-up at the post-office."

Perhaps "quickly" is not quite the right word, but, at any rate, he went. I doubt if he will get promotion over the job, but I am sure he too will like to hear about our George, if there's anything left to say by the time he gets there.

* * * * *

SOMETIMES.

Some days are fairy days. The minute that you wake You have a magic feeling that you never could mistake; You may not see the fairies, but you know they're all about, And any single minute they might all come popping out; You want to laugh, you want to sing, you want to dance and run, Everything is different, everything is fun; The sky is full of fairy clouds, the streets are fairy ways-- _Anything_ might happen on truly fairy days.

Some nights are fairy nights. Before you go to bed You hear their darling music go chiming in your head; You look into the garden and through the misty grey You see the trees all waiting in a breathless kind of way. All the stars are smiling; they know that very soon The fairies will come singing from the land behind the moon. If only you could keep awake when Nurse puts out the light . . . _Anything_ might happen on a truly fairy night.

R. F.

* * * * *

"CRICKET.

Little Snoring Ladies _v._ Little Snoring Lads."--_Local Paper._

This match was played in Norfolk and not, as you might have expected, in Beds.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE PARADISE OF BARDS.

(_From an Oxford Correspondent._)

Considerable resentment has been caused in various centres of poetic activity by the preference recently expressed by the PRIME MINISTER for the products of Welsh minstrelsy. In a letter addressed to HUW MENAI, the working South Wales miner poet, Mr. LLOYD GEORGE declares that he has read his poems with the "greatest delight." If the PREMIER had merely said "great delight" no untoward consequences would have ensued, but the invidious use of the superlative threatens to embroil the whole country in that internecine war recently predicted by the Editor of _The Athenæum_ in his gloomy survey of Neo-Georgian literature.

Meetings of protest have been held in Hampstead, at Letchworth, Stratford-on-Avon and the Eustace Miles Restaurant, but the most remarkable and orderly of these demonstrations was that which took place at Boar's Hill on Saturday last, under the presidency of the POET LAUREATE. Boar's Hill, we need not remind our readers, is _par excellence_ the fashionable intellectual suburb of Oxford, and has been called the "Paradise of Bards." Dr. BRIDGES in a brief opening address, speaking more in sorrow than in anger, dealt with the statistical side of the question. He pointed out that of the residents at Boar's Hill one in every six was a true poet, and three out of every five were masters of the art of prosody. There were no miner poets on Boar's Hill. Their motto was _Majora canamus_.

Professor GILBERT MURRAY, who followed, laid stress on the perfect harmony which reigned amongst the residents, in spite of the fact that all schools of poetry were represented, from the austerest of classicists to the most advanced exponents of Neo-Georgian _vers libre_. They were a happy family, linked together by a common devotion to the Muses, and in their daily output of verse showing a higher unit of production than that recorded of any other community in either hemisphere.

Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD moved the only resolution, which was carried unanimously, to the effect that Mr. FISHER, the Minister of Education, should be requested to convey to the PRIME MINISTER the regret of the meeting that he should have overlooked the paramount claim of Boar's Hill to be regarded as the Parnassus of Great Britain. In _Murray's Guide to Oxfordshire_ it had been spoken of as "a health resort for jaded students," but that was an obsolete libel. Constitutionally vigorous and daily refreshed by draughts from the pellucid springs of the Pierides, they led a life of exuberant health, as the vital statistics of the neighbourhood would abundantly show. On Boar's Hill people began to write poetry earlier and continued to do so later than in any other spot in the British Isles.

Sir ARTHUR EVANS, in proposing a vote of thanks to the Chairman, made the gratifying announcement that Mr. MASEFIELD was already engaged on a companion poem to his "Reynard the Fox," commemorating the _genius loci_ under the inspiring title of "The Sticking of the Pig."

* * * * *

A Very Free Translation.

"'Have you come to make peace?'

'_Nous verrons pour cela_ ('That is what we have come for),' replied Krassin at once."

_Daily Paper._

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING OFFICE.

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

Recent developments have given an unexpectedly topical interest to a new book by Professor PAUL MILIUKOV, L.L.D., entitled _Bolshevism: an International Danger_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN). The whole question of the _de facto_ Government of Russia is so fiercely controversial that it is not to be expected that such a work should escape violent criticism from those for whom that Government can do no wrong, though the writer justly claims that (however obvious his own views) he has striven to be strictly fair to those of the enemy. The scheme of his work has been "to trace the evolution of Bolshevism from an abstract doctrine to a practical experiment." One may excusably find the history a grim and menacing one. In the course of it Professor MILIUKOV tells again the tragedy of the great betrayal (which it will do no one harm to ponder upon just now), when the Commander of the 1st corps of the Siberian Army reported: "A brilliant success crowned our efforts ... there remained before us only a few fortifications, and the battle might soon have taken the character of a complete destruction of the enemy." But the work of M. LENIN had been too thorough; instead of a victory that might have ended the War and saved thousands of lives, we saw this already triumphant army, equipped through British industry, melt into a disorganised rabble. Nor is the writer less interesting on other aspects of his theme; in particular an exposition of the notorious Third International and a survey of the present-moment activities of Bolshevist propaganda, notably in our own country. No one who wishes to read and keep for reference a clearly written and understandable survey of the most urgent problem in modern politics need go further than this short but highly concentrated study.

* * * * *

_The March to Paris and the Battle of the Marne, 1914_ (ARNOLD), by Generaloberst ALEXANDER VON KLUCK, is more of a soldiers', indeed a staff-officers', book than any that has appeared here from the other side. It deals exclusively with the operations of the German right wing, VON KLUCK'S own (first) army and his _liaison_ with the second (VON BÜLOW'S), during the move forward to the Grand Morin, the allied counter-offensive and the establishment of the line of the Aisne--that is from the twelfth of August to the twelfth of September. The principal army orders are given textually. An admirable map illustrates each day's routes and billets for his first line and second line troops, his cavalry and the extreme right of the second army. VON KLUCK'S explanation of his breach of the Supreme Command's orders and the manoeuvre which exposed him to MANOURY'S stroke was that, while ignoring the letter, he was acting in the spirit of those orders on the information available; that a pause to fulfil them literally would have given the enemy time to recover; that defective intelligence kept him ignorant of the fact that the German left and centre had been definitely held by the French (if he had known this he would not, he says, have crossed the Marne). An examination of the frontispiece portrait suggests that this fighting General would easily find excellent reason for disobeying other people's orders and maintain an obstinate defence of his own decisions once made, however disastrous in result. Notes by the historical section (military branch) of the Committee of Imperial Defence point out inaccuracies and contradictions which the lay reader would be unlikely to discover for himself. He will however, if I mistake not, appreciate a soldierly narrative, unspoiled by "political" parentheses or underestimation of opponents, of what was undoubtedly a great military feat. The German right wing covered the most ground and met perhaps the toughest of the fighting.

* * * * *

I have found in _Lighting-up Time_ (COBDEN-SANDERSON) that all too rare thing, a theatrical novel of which the vitality does not expire towards the end of the fourth chapter. Obviously Mr. IVOR BROWN knows the life of modern stageland, one would say, with the intimacy of personal experience. More important still, he commands an easy style and a flow of genial, not too esoteric, humour that combine to keep the reader chuckling and curious to the last page. His title is characteristic, _Lighting-up Time_ symbolising here that period in the career of an actress when her possibly waning attractions need the illumination of a judicious boom. The two main characters are _Mary Maroon_, the leading lady, and _Peter Penruddock_, the astute publicity agent who engages to set her upon her financial and artistic pedestal. _Peter_, in other words, is _Mary's_ tide, taken at the flood in chapter one, and leading her, very divertingly, on to fortune. Both the tour of _Stolen or Strayed_ and the company that present it are admirably true to life, while Mr. BROWN has even been able convincingly to suggest the atmosphere of theatrical Oxford, when in due course his mummers descend upon that home of lost comedies and impossible revues. If I have a complaint against the book it is that a tale of such pleasant irony hardly needed the general pairing-off with which the author rings down his curtain; but for this Noah's Ark I should have more easily believed in a story that entertained me throughout.

* * * * *

There are some forty-odd bits in _A Bit at a Time_ (MILLS AND BOON), and they embrace a variety of subjects, ranging from crocuses in Kensington Gardens to corpse-boats on the Tigris. They are all, whether sentimental, satirical or pathetic, fiction of the lightest type. Such literature was eminently readable during the War--most of Mr. DION CLAYTON CALTHROP'S bits have to do with somebody's "bit"--when a touch of conventional pathos and pretended cynicism and a generous padding of humour, real or forced, provided sufficient relaxation from the strain of anxious hours. But the wisdom of republishing them in book form in these sober days of peace is open to question. When Mr. CALTHROP talks satirically of "perfect officials" or of an earnest young American aviator who writes letters home in a United States dialect that was never heard on land or sea outside Bayswater, or of the war-time adventures of one _Mr. Mason_, skipper, and _Mr. Smith_, his mate, he is tolerably amusing. When he becomes serious, as in "The Prayer of the Classical Parson" and "When the Son Came Home," his limitations become increasingly apparent. Yet it is in this vein that he gives us what is by all odds his best bit, "The Chevalier of Carnaby Row." When he writes of Cupids and fauns and Columbines and rose-leaves and the sort of young females that find this environment congenial (in books) I like Mr. CALTHROP least. Perhaps it is because the publishers have put his picture on the paper cover. He looks much too stalwart and sophisticated to be toying with such gossamer fantasies.

* * * * *

* * * * *

I doubt whether the complications which attend the devolution of dead men's property were created for the confusion of survivors or for the convenience of novelists. In the case of _The Lost Mr. Linthwaite_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), _Mrs. Byfield_ had married _Mr. Byfield_, or at least she thought she had, and _Mr. Byfield_ had died, supposedly intestate. Previously _Mrs. Byfield_ had married _Mr. Melsome_, or again she thought she had, and _Mr. Melsome_ had disappeared and was assumed to be dead, leaving nothing behind him except a brother as vile as himself. The following discoveries were made by her in due sequence: That _Mr. Melsome_ was not dead and that therefore she was not _Mrs. Byfield_ but _Mrs. Melsome_; that _Mr. Melsome_ was already married when he purported to marry her, and that therefore she was not _Mrs. Melsome_ but _Mrs. Byfield_; and that a solicitor's clerk was absconding with the bulk of the _Byfield_ estate, which, of course, was what the bother was all about. Her son, bitten with the craze for discoveries, then discovered on his own that the late _Mr. Byfield_ hadn't died intestate. I wonder myself if he ever really died at all.... These are what Mr. J. S. FLETCHER very aptly calls the mere legalities; the plot, which thickens and thickens from first page to last, concerns the handling of them by the evil but talented _Melsome_ brothers, the accidental intervention of _Mr. Linthwaite_, and the rescue work of his admirable nephew, _Mr. Richard Brixey_, of _The Morning Sentinel_. Mr. FLETCHER tells his story well, but up to the very last moment I was looking and hoping for a surprise and was suspecting those legalities of being a deception invented to make the surprise all the greater. A first-class adventure, in my opinion spoilt by the sacrifice of originality to technicality.

* * * * *

"The girls, to the number of 116, escaped in their night attire, and displayed great coolness."--_News of the World._

Very natural.

* * * * *

"Baron Evence Coppee, a Belgian, has been arrested on the charge of furnishing coal to the enemy during the war."--_Daily Paper._

With a name like that the copper could hardly miss him.

* * * * *

"Sir Robert is now satisfied, I understand, that there is considerable merit in the adage 'all comes to he who waits.'"--_Daily Paper._

SIR ROBERT seems easily pleased.

* * * * *

"ORCHESTRA (small), or few Instrumentalists, for sea-handling Margarine and Butter in up-to-date style."--_Advt. in Provincial Paper._

But we fear that some of the stuff met with nowadays would "beat the band."