Chapter 1

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 159.

September 1st, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

A Newcastle miner who was stated to be earning a pound a day has been fined ten pounds for neglecting his children. The idea of waiting till September 20th and letting Mr. SMILLIE neglect them does not seem to have occurred to him.

* * *

"Beyond gardening," says a gossip writer, "Mr. SMILLIE has few hobbies." At the same time there is no doubt he is busy getting together a fine collection of strikes.

* * *

It is said that AMUNDSEN will not return to civilisation this year. If he was thinking of Ireland he isn't missing any civilisation worth mentioning.

* * *

"The POET LAUREATE," says a weekly paper, "has not written an ode to British weather." So that can't be the cause of it.

* * *

A Wolverhampton man weighing seventeen stone, in charging another with assault, said he heard somebody laughing at him, so he looked round. A man of that weight naturally would.

* * *

"There is work for everybody who likes to work," says Mr. N. GRATTAN DOYLE, M.P. It is this tactless way of rubbing it in which annoys so many people.

* * *

A contemporary has a letter from a correspondent who signs himself "Tube Traveller of Twenty Years' Standing." Somebody ought to offer the poor fellow a seat.

* * *

In connection with the case of a missing railway-porter one railway line has decided to issue notices warning travellers against touching porters while they are in motion.

* * *

"The United States," declares the proprietor of a leading New York hotel, "is on the eve of going wet again." A subtle move of this kind, with the object of depriving drink of its present popularity, is said to be making a strong appeal to the Prohibitionists.

* * *

One London firm is advertising thirty thousand alarum-clocks for sale at reduced prices. There is now no excuse for any workman being late at a strike.

* * *

A centenarian in the Shetlands, says a news agency, has never heard of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE. We have no wish to brag, but we have often seen his name mentioned.

* * *

Professor PETRIE'S statement that the world will only last another two hundred thousand years is a sorry blow to those who thought that _Chu Chin Chow_ was in for a long run. Otherwise the news has been received quietly.

* * *

"Nothing useful is ever done in the House of Commons," says a Labour speaker. He forgets that the cleaners are at work in the building just now.

* * *

We are informed that at the Bricklaying contest at the Olympic Games a British bricklayer lost easily.

* * *

"A dress designer," says a Camomile Street dressmaker in _The Evening News_, "must be born." We always think this is an advantage.

* * *

A gossip-writer points out that Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S earliest ambition was to be an actor. Our contemporary is wise not to disclose the name of the man who talked him out of it.

* * *

"Whatever price is fixed it is impossible to get stone in any quantity," says a building trade journal. They have evidently not heard of our coal-dealer.

* * *

"Nothing of any value has been gained by the War," complains a daily paper. This slur on the O.B.E. is in shocking taste.

* * *

A Sunday newspaper deplores that there seems to be no means of checking the crime-wave which is still spreading throughout the country. If only the Government would publish the amount of American bacon recently purchased by the Prisons' Department things might tend to improve.

* * *

"There is still a great shortage of gold in the country," announces a weekly paper. It certainly seems as if our profiteers will soon have to be content with having their teeth stopped with bank-notes.

* * *

We regret to learn that the amateur gardener whose marrows were awarded the second prize for cooking-apples at a horticultural show is still confined to his bed.

* * *

A neck-ruffle originally worn by QUEEN ELIZABETH has been stolen from a house in Manchester and has not yet been recovered. Any reader noticing a suspicious-looking person wearing such an article over her _décolleté_ should immediately communicate with the nearest police-station.

* * *

Hair tonic, declares the Washington Chief of Police, is growing in popularity as a beverage. The danger of this habit has been widely advertised by the sad case of a Chicago man who drank three shampoo cocktails and afterwards swallowed a hair in his soup.

* * *

The mystery of the City gentleman who has been noticed lately going up to public telephones and getting immediate answers is now solved. It appears that he is a well-known ventriloquist with a weakness for practical jokes.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"According to the latest census returns, the population of New York City is now £5,621,000."--_Indian Paper._

In dollars, of course, it would be considerably more.

* * * * *

"The Royal Dutch Mail steamer Stuyvesant will leave on Monday at 5 a.m. for Havre and Amsterdam. The tender leaves the Lighthouse Jetty at 8 a.m. punctually with passengers."--_West Indian Paper._

Rather a mean trick to play on them.

* * * * *

"The Chairman said the Council had never paid one penny for the oiling and washing of the fire brigade."--_Local Paper._

It is understood that while the noble fellows do not object to washing at reasonable intervals, they strongly deprecate oiling as unnecessarily adding to the risks of their dangerous calling.

* * * * *

MR. SMILLIE'S LITTLE ARMAGEDDON.

Shall she, the England unafraid, That came by steady courage through The toughest war was ever made And wiped the earth with WILLIAM TWO (Who, though it strikes us now as odd, Was, in his way, a sort of little god)--

Shall she that stood serene and firm, Sure of her will to stay and win, Cry "Comrade!" on her knees and squirm To lesser gods of cheaper tin, Spreading herself, a _corpus vile_, Under the prancing heels of Mr. SMILLIE?

Humour forbids! And even they Who toil beneath the so-called sun, Yet often in an eight-hours' day Indulge a quiet sense of fun-- These too can see, however dim, The joke of starving just for SMILLIE'S whim.

And here I note what looks to be A rent in Labour's sacred fane; The priestly oracles disagree, And, when a house is split in twain, Ruin occurs--ay! there's the rub Alike for Labour and Beelzebub.

And anyhow I hope that, where At red of dawn on Rigi's height He jodels to the astonished air, LLOYD GEORGE is bent on sitting tight; Nor, as he did in THOMAS' case, Nurses a scheme for saving SMILLIE'S face.

Why should his face be saved? indeed, Why should he have a face at all? But, if he _must_ have one to feed And smell with, let the man install A better kind, and thank his luck That _all_ his headpiece hasn't come unstuck.

O.S.

* * * * *

A WHIFF OF THE BRINY.

As I entered the D.E.F. Company's depôt, Melancholy marked me for her own. Business reasons--not my own but the more cogent business reasons of an upperling--had just postponed my summer holiday; postponed it with a lofty vagueness to "possibly November. We might be able to let you go by then, my boy." November! What would Shrimpton-on-Sea be like even at the beginning of November? Lovely sea-bathing, delicious boating, enchanting picnics on the sand? I didn't think. Melancholy tatooed me all over with anchors and pierced hearts, to show that I was her very own, not to be taken away.

I clasped my head in my hands and gazed in dumb agony at the menu card. A kind waitress listened with one ear.

"Poached egg and bacon--two rashers," I murmured.

While I waited I crooned softly to myself:--

"Poor disappointed Georgie. Life seems so terribly sad. All the bacon and eggs in the world, dear, won't make you a happy lad."

When the dish was brought I eyed it sadly. Sadly I raised a mouthful of bacon to my lips....

Swish!!! The exclamation-marks signify the suddenness with which the train swept into the station. I leapt down on to the platform and drew a long breath. The sea! In huge whiffs the ozone rolled into my nostrils. I gurgled with delight. Everything smelt of the dear old briny: the little boys running about with spades and pails; the great basketsful of fish; the blue jerseys of the red-faced men who, at rare intervals, toiled upon the deep. At the far end of the platform I saw the reddest face of all, that of my dear old landlord. I rushed to meet him....

Ah me, ah me! The incrusted-papered walls of the depôt girt me in again. I took another mouthful of bacon--a larger one....

Bang! Someone was thumping on the door of my bathing-machine. What a glorious scent of salt rose from the sea-washed floor! "Are you coming out?" asked a persuasive voice. "No, no, no!" I shouted joyously. "I am going in." What a dive! I never knew before how superlatively graceful my dives could be. Away through the breakers with a racing stroke. Over on my back, kicking fountains at the sun. In this warm water I should stay in for hours and hours and....

Pah! That horrible incrusted paper back again! I bolted the remaining rasher....

The boat rocked gently in a glassy sea. They were almost climbing over the gunwale in their eagerness to be caught. Lovely wet shining wriggly fellows; all the varieties of the fishmonger's slab and more. In season or out, they didn't care; they thought only of doing honour to my line. No need in future for me to envy the little boys on the river-bank who pulled in fish after fish when I never got a bite. How delightfully salt the fish smelt! And the sun drew out the scent of salt from the gently lapping waves. It was all so quiet and restful. Almost could I have slumbered, even as I pulled them in and in and....

The waitress must have giggled. Once again the incrusted paper leered at me in ail its horrible pink incrustiness. There was no bacon left on my plate. But the delicious scent of salt still lingered. Alas, my holiday was over! I must speed me or I should miss the train to town.

"Good-bye!" I shouted to the manageress and shook her by the hand. She seemed surprised. "Such a happy time," I assured her. "I wish I could have it all over again."

She said something which I could not hear. Sea-bathing tends to make me a little deaf.

"If I have forgotten anything--my pyjamas or my shaving strop--would you be so kind as to send them on? Good-bye again."

Something fluttered to the floor. The manageress stooped. I was just passing through the portals.

"You have forgotten this," she called.

It was the dear little square piece of paper which contained my bill. I looked at it in amazement.

"What!" I exclaimed--"only one-and-twopence for a poached egg and bacon and all that salt flavour thrown in?"

* * * * *

OUR MODEST ADVERTISERS.

"European lady (widow), rather lovely, would like to hear from Army Officer or Civilian in a similar position, with a view to keeping up a congenial correspondence."--_Indian Paper._

* * * * *

"A correspondent in the Air Force writes from Bangalore:--

'It is rather amusing to notice the number of people in the English community who have never before seen an aeroplane coming up to the aerodrome and gazing in wonder at the old buses.'"--_Evening Standard._

Even in England this spectacle is still the object of remark.

* * * * *

"We really feel inclined to parody Kipling and say--

'One hand stuck in your dress shirt from to show heart is cline, The other held behind your back, to signal, tax again.'"

_Singapore Free Press._

We can only hope our esteemed contemporary will not feel this way again.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE ART OF POETRY.

IV.

Good morning, gentlemen. Before I pass to the subject of my lecture today I must deal briefly with a personal matter of some delicacy. Since I began this series of lectures on the Art of Poetry I notice that the new Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Mr. W.P. KER, in what I think is questionable taste, has delivered an inaugural lecture on the _same_ subject under the _same_ title. On the question of good taste I do not wish to say much, except that I should have thought that any colleague of mine, even an entirely new Professor in a provincial university, would have recognised the propriety of at least communicating to me his intention before committing this monstrous plagiarism.

However, as I say, on that aspect of the matter I do not propose to dwell, though it does seem to me that decency imposes certain limits to that kind of academic piracy, and that those limits the Professor has overstepped. In these fermenting days of licence and indiscipline persons in responsible positions at our seats of learning have a great burden of example to bear before the world, and if it were to go forth that actions of this type may be taken with impunity by highly-paid Professors then indeed we are not far from Bimetallism and the breaking-up of laws.

Now let us glance for a moment at the substance of the lecture. I should have been glad if Professor KER had had the courtesy to show it to me before it was delivered, instead of my having to wait till it was printed and buy it in a shop, because I might have induced him to repair the more serious errors and omissions in his work. For really, when you come to analyse the lecture, what thin and bodyless stuff it is. Let me at once pay tribute to my colleague's scholarship and learning, to the variety of his citations. But, after all, anyone can buy a Quotation Dictionary and quote bits out of SWINBURNE. That surely--(see FREIDRICH'S _Crime and Quotation_, pp. 246-9)--is not the whole task of a Professor of Poetry.

Such a man, if he is to earn his pay, must be able--

(_a_) to show how poetry is written;

(_b_) to write poetry;

and it is no good his attempting (_a_) in the absence of (_b_). It is no good teaching a man to slope arms if you are unable to slope arms yourself, because a moment will come when he says, "Well, how the dickens _do_ you slope them?" It is no good professing lawn-tennis and saying, "Top-spin is imparted by drawing the racquet up and over," and so on, if, when you try to impart top-spin yourself, the ball disappears on to the District Railway. Still less is it useful if you deliver a long address to the student, saying, "H.L. DOHERTY was a good player, and so was RENSHAW, and I well remember the game between MCLOUGHLIN and WILDING, because WILDING hit the ball over the net more often than MCLOUGHLIN did."

Those students who have attended my lectures more regularly than others-- and I am sorry there are not more of them--will do me the justice to remember that I have put forward no theory of writing which I was not prepared to illustrate in practice from my own work. My colleague, so far as I can discover, makes one single attempt at practical assistance; and even that is a minor plagiarism from one of my own lectures. He makes a good deal of play with what he calls the principle and influence of the Italian Canzone, which simply means having a lot of ten-syllable lines and a few six-syllable ones. Students will remember that in our second lecture we wrote a poem on that principle, which finished:--

Toroodle--umti--oodle--umti--knife (or strife) Where have they put my hat?

That lecture was prepared on May 27th; my colleague's lecture was delivered on June 5th. It is clear to me that in the interval--by what discreditable means I know not--he obtained access to my manuscript and borrowed the idea, thinking to cloak his guilt by specious talk about the Italian _Canzone_. The device of offering stolen goods under a new name is an old one, and will help him little; the jury will know what to think.

Apart from this single piece of (second-hand) instruction, what contribution does he make to the student's knowledge of the Art of Poetry? He makes no reference to comic poetry at all; apparently he has never _heard_ of the Limerick, and I have the gravest doubts whether he can write one, though that, I admit, is a severe test. I am prepared however to give him a public opportunity of establishing his fitness for his post, and with that end I propose to put to him the following problems, and if his answers are satisfactory I shall most willingly modify my criticisms; but he must write on one side of the paper only and number his pages in the top right-hand corner.

_The Problems._

(1) What is the metre of:--

"And the other grasshopper jumped right over the other grasshopper's back."

(2) Finish the uncompleted Limerick given in my Second Lecture, beginning:

There was a young man who said "_Hell!_ I don't think I feel very well."

(3) In your inaugural lecture you ask, "Is it true, or not, that the great triumphs of poetical art often come suddenly?" The answer you give is most unsatisfactory; give a better one now, illustrating the answer from your own works.

(4) Write a Ballade of which the refrain is either--

(_a_) The situation is extremely grave; or (_b_) The Empire is not what it was; or (_c_) We lived to see Lord Birkenhead.

NOTE.--Extra marks will be given for an attempt at (_b_) because of the shortage of rhymes to _was_.

(5) What would you do in the following circumstances? In May you have sent a poem to an Editor, ending with the lines--

The soldiers cheered and cheered again-- It was the PRINCE OF WALES.

On July 20th the Editor writes and says that he likes the poem very much, and wishes to print it in his August number, but would be glad if you could make the poem refer to Mr. or Mrs. DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS instead of the PRINCE. He must have the proof by the first post to-morrow as he is going to press. Show, how you would reconstruct your last verse.

(6) Consider the following passages--

(i) I love little pussy, Her coat is so _warm_, And if I don't hurt her She'll do me no _harm_.

(ii) Who put her _in_? Little Tommy _Green_.

(_a_) Carefully amend the above so that they rhyme properly.

(_b_) Do you as a matter of principle approve of these kinds of rhyme?

(_c_) If not, do you approve of them in (i) SHAKSPEARE, (ii) WORDSWORTH, (iii) SHELLEY, (iv) Any serious classic?

A.P.H.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Four Volumes 'The Great World War,' pre-war price Rs. 40. What offers? Perfect."--_Indian Paper._

A clear case of propheteering.

* * * * *

From an Irish Labour manifesto:--

"Impulsive cats, howsoever justifiable, may prove to be unwise."-- _Irish Paper._

Remember what happened at Kilkenny.

* * * * *

THE PRIVILEGES OF MARGOTISM.

[Something was said in _Punch_ last week about the advantage to the reminiscencer of being his (or her) own JOHNSON and BOSWELL too. Mrs. ASQUITH'S recent adventures with the descendants of some of her late friends, of whose fair fame they are not less jealous than she, suggest certain of the pitfalls incident to this double _rôle_, particularly when the autobiographer is remote from his (or her) journals. Since however an inaccuracy always has a day's start and is never completely overtaken, while in course of time the pursuit ceases altogether, the greatest danger is not immediate but for the future. Let us imagine a case.]

FROM "THE MARGOTIST'S REMINISCENCES."

By the Author of _Statesmen I Have Influenced_; _My Wonderful Life_; _The Souls' Awakener_; _The Elusive Diary_, _etc., etc._

One of my dearest friends in the early nineteen hundreds was Mr. Sadrock. I have known eleven Prime Ministers in my time and have assurances from all, signed and witnessed, that but for me and my vivacious encouragement they would never have pulled through; but with none was I on terms of such close communion as with Mr. Sadrock, who not only asked my advice on every occasion of importance, but spent many of his waking hours in finding rhymes to my name. Some of his four-lined couplets in my honour could not be either wittier or more charming as compliments.

He often averred that no one could amuse him as I did. He laughed once for half-an-hour on end when I said, "It takes a Liberal to be a Tory;" and on another occasion when I said, "The essence of Home Rule is, like charity, that it begins abroad." Nothing but the circumstance that he was already happily married prevented him from proposing to me.

Mr. Sadrock is now to many people only a name; but in his day he was a force to compare with which we have at this moment only one statesman and he is temporarily out of office.

The odd thing is that if the ordinary person were to be asked what Mr. Sadrock was famous for, he would probably reply, For his devotion to HOMER and the Established Church. But the joke is that when I was with him in 1902 he was frivolous on both these subjects. It was, I remember, in the private room at the House of Commons set apart for Prime Ministers, to which, being notoriously so socially couth, I always had a private key--the only one ever given to a woman--and he was more than usually delightful.

This is what was said:--

_MR. SADROCK_ (_mixing himself an egg nogg_). Will you join me?

_MYSELF._ No, thank you. But I like to see you applying yourself to Subsidiary Studies to the Art of Butler.

_MR. SADROCK_ (_roaring with laughter_). That's very good. Some day you must put your best things into a book.

_MYSELF._ You bet.

_MR. SADROCK._ I wonder why it is that you make me so frank. It is your wonderful sympathetic understanding, I suppose. I long to tell you something now.

_MYSELF_ (_affecting not to care_). Do. I am secrecy itself.

_MR. SADROCK._ Would it surprise you to know that I am privily a Dissenter? Do you know that I often steal away in a false beard to attend the services of Hard-Shell Baptists and Plymouth Brethren?

_MYSELF._ I hope I am no longer capable of feeling anything so _démodé_ as surprise.

_MR. SADROCK._ And that I prefer _Robert Elsmere_ to the _Iliad_?

_MYSELF._ May I print those declarations in my book?

_MR. SADROCK._ Some day, yes, but not yet, not yet.

* * * * *

MR. SADROCK AND NONCONFORMITY. _To the Editor of_ "_The Monday Times_."

SIR,--I find it necessary, in the interests of truth and of respect for the memory of my uncle, Mr. Sadrock, to contest the accuracy of the Margotist's report of conversations with him in 1902. To begin with, my uncle died in 1898, four years before the alleged interview. She could therefore not have talked with him in 1902; and the _locale_ of this meeting, the Prime Minister's room, becomes peculiarly fantastic. Secondly, no member of his family--and they saw him constantly--ever heard him utter anything resembling the sentiments which the Margotist attributes to him. Mr. Sadrock was both an undeviating Churchman and a devotee of HOMER to the end of his life.

I am, etc., THEOPHILUS SADROCK.