Chapter 3

_Angus._ "OCH, SHE'S THE SAME AGE AS MA FIRRST WIFE WHEN I MARRIT _HER_."]

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"THE WEATHER.

'Fair generally: night frosts,' is the forecast for the next 24 months."--_Provincial Paper._

The best news for a long time.

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HOW TO BRIGHTEN VILLAGE LIFE.

"The exterior painting of the day school has been completed by the Vicar, assisted by the caretaker. Their appearance is greatly improved as a result."--_Provincial Paper._

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"---- HOTEL DINING-ROOM.

OPEN TO NON-RESIDENTS WITH ORCHESTRAL ACCOMPANIMENT."--_Jersey Paper._

Residents, we understand, need only bring their mouth (and other) organs.

* * * * *

"Wanted, 'Cello (could reside in if desired)."--_Provincial Paper._

The housing problem solved at last.

* * * * *

Smith Minor says he would rather be called Smith Secundus. There is a pleasanter sound about that qualification just now.

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AT THE PLAY.

"A Night Out."

Everybody except myself seems to recall the fact that the late farce of this name, adapted from _L'Hôtel du Libre Echange_, ran for five hundred nights before it expired. Some restorative music has now been applied to it and the corpse has revived. Indeed there are the usual signs of another long run. The trouble is that nearly all the cast at the Winter Garden Theatre seem to think that, if the play is to run, they must run too. They don't keep still for a moment, because they dare not. Even Mr. LESLIE HENSON, whose fun would be more effective if he didn't try so hard, feels that he must be at top pressure all the while with his face and his body and his words. Yet he could well afford to keep some of his strength in reserve, for he is a born humourist (in what one might perhaps call the Golliwog vein). But, whether it is that he underrates his own powers or that he can't contain himself, he keeps nothing in reserve; and the others, less gifted, follow his lead. They persist in "pressing," as if they had no confidence in their audience or their various authors or even themselves.

One is, of course, used to this with singers in musical comedy, who make a point of turning the lyrics assigned to them into unintelligible patter. Perhaps in the present case we lost little by that, though there was one song (of which I actually heard the words) that seemed to me to contain the elements of a sound and consoling philosophy. It ran something like this:--

For you won't be here and I won't be here When a hundred years are gone, But somebody else will be well in the cart* And the world will still go on.

* Or, alternatively, soup.

Mr. LESLIE HENSON, as I have hinted, allowed himself--and us--no rest. His energy was devastating; he gave the audience so much for their money that in the retrospect I feel ashamed of not having paid for my seat. One's taste for him may need acquiring; but, once acquired, there is clearly no getting away from it. Perhaps his most irresistible moment was when he laid out six policemen and then meekly surrendered to a female constable who led him off by the ear.

Mr. FRED LESLIE (a name to conjure with!) was almost fiercely emphatic in the part of _Paillard_, and I preferred the relatively quiet methods of Mr. AUSTIN MELFORD, who did without italics. Mr. RALPH ROBERTS was droll as a waiter; and it may have been my fault that I found Mr. DAVY BURNABY rather unfunny in the part of _Matthieu_.

Of the ladies, two could sing and two, or even three, could act (Miss LILY ST. JOHN could do both); nearly all had good looks and a few of them were pleasantly acrobatic.

The scene of the Hotel Pimlico, with an alleged private sitting-room on one side, an alleged bedroom on the other, and a hall and staircase in the middle, was extraordinarily unconvincing. The partition walls came to an end at quite a long distance from the front; and, with the general company spreading themselves at large over the whole width of the foreground, it was very difficult to entertain any illusion of that privacy which is of the essence of the _cabinet particulier_. I say nothing of the bedroom, whose tenancy was frankly promiscuous.

The fun, of course, is old-fashioned; if one may say it of a French farce, it is Victorian. Apart from a few topical allusions worked in rather perfunctorily there is scarcely anything said or done that might not have been said or done in the 'eighties. But for a certain type of Englishman there is a perennial attraction in feeling that at any moment the proprieties may be outraged. That they never actually are outraged does not seem very greatly to affect his pleasure. He can always console himself with easy conjecture of the wickedness of the original. So there will never be wanting a public for these _Noctes Parisianæ_.

Let us hope that somehow it all helps to keep the sacred flame of the Entente burning. _Vive MILLERAND!_

O.S.

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BETTERING THE BANYOROS.

(_By a Student of Anthropology._)

Sir JAMES FRAZER'S luminous _résumé_ of the investigations of the MACKIE Expedition amongst the Banyoros has only one defect. He omits all reference to the subsequent and even more fruitful visit of the Expedition to the adjoining Noxas tribe, whose manners and customs are of extraordinary interest. This remarkable race are noted not merely for their addiction to the dance, but for the kaleidoscopic rapidity with which the dances themselves are changed from season to season. Only a few years ago the entire tribe were under the spell of the Ognat, which in turn gave place to the Tortskof and the Zaj, the last named being an exercise in which violent contortions of the body were combined with the profoundest melancholy of facial expression. Curiously enough the musicians who are employed at these dances are not of indigenous stock, but of a negroid type and are imported from a distance at high salaries.

The literary gifts of this singular tribe are on a par with their saltatory talent, but are at present mainly occupied in the keeping of personal records, led therein by a chieftainess named Togram, in which the conversations, peculiarities, complexions and dresses of their friends are set down and described with ferocious _bonhomie_. The tablets containing these records are then posted up in conspicuous places of resort, with the most stimulating and entertaining results.

It is noteworthy that the ruler of the country is not chosen from the dancing or Bunihugoro section of the community, but from the powerful Renim clan, who devote themselves intermittently to the task of providing the country with fuel. The chieftain wields great power and is regarded with reverence by his followers, but is in turn expected to devote himself entirely to their interests, and if he fails to satisfy is promptly replaced by a more energetic leader. As the great bulk of the community yield allegiance to an hereditary sovereign of strictly defined powers this interesting country offers the agreeable spectacle of a state in which the dulness of constitutional government is happily tempered by the delights of industrial dictatorship.

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TO CERTAIN CAUTIOUS PROPHETS.

(_Suggested by the almost invariable form of the last sentence in the Weather Report._)

Ye watchers of the wind and rain, Forgive me for becoming nettled By your monotonous refrain: "The further outlook is unsettled."

When, on a bright and sunlit morn, I rise refreshed and finely fettled Your cue is not to cheer but warn: "The further outlook is unsettled."

They are too rare, these halcyon days, When earth's a paradise rose-petalled, For you to chill us with a phrase: "The further outlook is unsettled."

Too often have I shirked the goal At which (as Scotsmen say) I ettled, Discouraged by your words of dole: "The further outlook is unsettled."

For instance, lately I resigned A trip to Shetland to be shettled; Your menace made me change my mind: "The further outlook is unsettled."

Henceforth I'm going to defy You and your breed, inert, unmettled, Who chant that sad Cassandra cry: "The further outlook is unsettled."

Ay, if I held untrammelled sway I'd have you bottled up and kettled Like djinns, until you ceased to say: "The further outlook is unsettled."

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* * * * *

PIGS.

"Pigs pays," said Mrs. Pugsley.

"So I have heard."

"Pigs always pays; but Pugsley's pigs pays prodigious."

I rejoiced with her.

"Took 'em up sudden, he did; and now that interested! You'd never think that pigs 'ld twine themselves round a man's heart, so to speak, would you?"

"No."

"That's how it is with Willum. Reads nothing but about pigs; they'm his only joy. In partnership with Uncle Eli over them. First time Uncle Eli took to anything wholesome in his life. When Willum loses a pig he's that low that he puts on a black tie. Wonnerful!"

It was. I knew Willum, otherwise Uncle Billy, and something about his tastes. I had the pleasure of meeting him on the foreshore that afternoon. No doubt he was studying pigs; but the title of the book he had in his hand was _Form at a Glance_.

"Pig form, I presume," said I politely.

"Now then, Missie, don't go giving me away. All's lovely at home. Me and Uncle Eli has clubbed together to buy Bodger's racing tips. Bodger's got brain. Doing very well, we are. Sure, I can't tell the missus, and she a Plymouth Rock."

"Isn't it Plymouth Sister?"

"Maybe; but I think there's a rock in it somewhere. Anyway we agreed when we married to keep our purses in the same drawer, and mine's bulging."

"You are a brave man, Uncle Billy. What about the day she will want to see your pigs?"

"A thought that wakes me at night. We keep 'em out in the country, I'd have you know. There, why take a fence before you come to it? There'll be wisdom given."

Apparently there was, but the address from which the wisdom came was indistinct.

"Willum," said Mrs. Pugsley one day, "to-morrow I'm coming to see they pigs of yours; bless their fat sides!"

"You shall, my tender dear," said Uncle Billy. "Yes, to-morrow noon you'll see the blessed things."

Almost at dawn he presented himself at Farmer Dodge's and astonished that good man by asking to be allowed to hire a few pigs for the day.

Farmer Dodge scratched his head.

"Well, I've been asked to loan out most things in my time, but never pigs before. Where be taking them?"

"Home."

"That's a matter of better than two miles. Have 'ee thought of the wear and tear and the loss of good lard? No, Uncle Billy, I won't fly against the will of Heaven. If pigs had been meant to go for walks they'd have had legs according. Their legs hain't for walking; they'm for hams."

Uncle Billy drew near and explained. Farmer Dodge grinned.

"To do down your missus? Well, I like a jest as well as any, and to put females in their place is meat and taties to me; but 'tis a luxury, and luxury is what you like but can do without."

In the end Uncle Billy drove a bargain by which he secured the use of six pigs for a few hours and paid three shillings per pig. For three-and-six he also hired the help of a boy to drive them; as he remarked, he could have had more than another pig for that money, but it would be warm work for him alone.

The inhabitants of the houses on the terrace of the little sea-side town where the Pugsleys lived were thrilled at noon by the arrival of a small herd of swine. The animals looked rather tired but settled down contentedly in the front-garden of No. 3.

Mrs. Pugsley, hearing their voices, came to the door.

"Why, Willum, I was just making ready to come out with you to go and see them."

"My tender dear," he said with emotion, "would I let you be taken miles in this heat to see the finest pigs ever littered? No. 'Tis not for my wife to go to see pigs, 'tis for pigs to come to see my wife. Here they be. That's Spion Kop, the big black one--called because 'tis the highest mountain in America and he's to make the highest price. The pink one is Square Measure, for he'll eat his own size in meal any day. That's Diadem--no, it's not; Diadem lost--I should say Diadem's lost to us." Uncle Billy lifted his hat reverently. "The ginger one is Comrade--a fine name."

"Why, 'tis a little sow."

"And what better comrade than a blessed female, my loving dear, and who'd know that better than me?"

"Don't you go mixing me up with the pigs, Willum; I won't have it. What's the name of that perky black one?"

"Mount Royal," said Uncle Billy. "I'm a KING'S man and like to respect they set over me. Royal just means one of the KING'S family."

The parade was dismissed; the herd returned to its home and Uncle Billy paid the cost of wear and tear.

He sat smoking that evening in a state of blissful content. All had gone well; the dreaded black moment was over. Mrs. Pugsley knitted furiously in silence.

"Now what might you be turning over in that mind of yours?" asked Uncle Billy.

"Pigs."

"Couldn't do better."

"And their names. Maybe you won't christen any more until after the Cesarewitch."

She folded up her knitting and went to bed, leaving Uncle Billy as if turned to stone. When he recovered he sought out Uncle Eli and said:--

"Eli, she's known all along. She knowed when I was driving they brasted pigs here in the heat. She's never been took in at all. And that's a woman. That's what married me."

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"It would be wrong to enter upon political questions in these pages, but there can be no harm in suggesting that prayer should be made as much for our rulers at Westminster as for people in Ireland. The Collect, with certain alterations, for Those at Sea would seem especially suitable."--_Exeter Diocesan Gazette._

Very neatly and clerically put.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)

Undeniably ours is an age in which fond memory fills not only the heart of man but the shelves of the circulating libraries to a degree bordering upon excess. But, let reminiscences be even more frequent than they are, there would yet remain a welcome for such a book as Mr. W.H. MALLOCK'S attractive _Memoirs of Life and Literature_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL). The reason of this lies not more in the interest of what is told than in the fact that these memories have the advantage of being recalled by one who is master of a singularly engaging pen. Nothing in the book better displays its quality of charm than the opening chapters, with their picture of an old-world Devonshire, and in particular the group of related houses in which the boyhood of the future anti-socialist was so delightfully spent. Gracious homes have always had a special appeal to the author of _The New Republic_, as you are here reminded in a score of happy recollections. Then comes Oxford, and that meeting with SWINBURNE in the Balliol drawing-room that seems to have been the common experience of memoir-writers. Some entertaining chapters give a cheerful picture of London life when Mr. MALLOCK entered it, and Society, still Polite, opened its most exclusive doors to the young explorer. The rest of the book is devoted to a record of friendships, travel, an analysis of the writer's literary activities, and a host of good stories. Perhaps I have just space for one quotation--the prayer delivered by the local minister in the hall of Ardverike: "God bless Sir John; God bless also her dear Leddyship; bless the tender youth of the two young leddies likewise. We also unite in begging Thee to have mercy on the puir governess." A book of singular fragrance and individuality.

The Victorians used to talk, perhaps do still, about the lure of the stage; but I am inclined to suppose this was as nothing beside the lure of the stage-novel. All our writers apparently feel it, and in most cases their bones whiten the fields of failure. But amongst those of whom this certainly cannot be said is Mr. HORACE A. VACHELL, whose new book, _The Fourth Dimension_ (MURRAY), has both pleased and astonished me by its freedom from those defects that so often ruin the theatrical story. For one thing, of course, the explanation of this lies in my sustaining confidence that I was being handed out the genuine stuff. When a dramatist of Mr. VACHELL'S experience says that stage-life is thus and thus, well, I have to believe him. As a fact I seldom read so convincing a word-picture of that removed and esoteric existence. The title (not too happy) means the world beyond the theatre, that which so many players count well lost for the compensations of applause and fame; and the story is of a young and phenomenally successful actress, _Jess Yeo_, in whom the claims of domesticity and the love of her dramatist husband are shown in conflict with the attractions of West-End stardom and photographs in the illustrated papers. Eventually--but I suppose I can hardly tell that without spoiling for you what goes before the event. Anyhow, if I admit that the ending did not inspire me with any sanguine hope of happiness ever after, it at least put a pleasant finish on an attractive and successful tale.

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_In the Mountains_ (MACMILLAN) is one of those pleasant books of which the best review would be a long string of quotations, and that is a very complimentary thing to say about any novel. Written in diary form, on the whole successfully, it tells little of doing and much of being, and a great deal more of feeling than of either. It is scarcely necessary after that to add that it is discursive. As a matter of fact I found that for me that half of its charm which did not lie in being whisked off, as it were by magic, to sit in the sunshine of Switzerland lay in its author's reflections upon subjects quite unconnected with her story, and as far apart from each other as LAW'S _Serious Call_ and the effect of different kinds of underclothing on the outward demeanour of the wearer. From the human document point of view it is as a picture of the convalescence of a soul sick with grief that _In the Mountains_ deserves attention. I cannot imagine that anyone who has ever got well again after sorrow will fail to recognise its truth. The little mystery and the slender love-story which hold the discursiveness together are just sufficient but so slight that they shall not even be hinted at here. For the rest the book is whimsical, thoughtful, sentimental by turns and, in spite of its tolerance, a shade superior; with now and then a phrase which left me wondering whether a blushing cheek would deserve the Garter motto's rebuke; in fact it resembles more than anything else on earth what the "German garden" of a certain "Elizabeth" might grow into if she transplanted it to a Swiss mountain-top.

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_Peregrine in Love_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is a story whose sentimental title does it considerably less than justice. It gives no indication of what is really an admirably vivacious comedy of courtship and intrigue, with a colonial setting that is engagingly novel. Miss C. FOX SMITH seems to know Victoria and the island of Vancouver with the intimacy of long affection; her pen-pictures and her idiom are both of them convincingly genuine. The result for the reader is a twofold interest, half in seeing what will be to most an unfamiliar place under expert guidance, half in the briskly moving intrigue supposed to be going on there. I say "supposed," because, to be frank, Miss FOX SMITH'S story, good fun as it is, hardly convinces like her setting. You may, for example, feel that you have met before in fiction the lonely hero who rescues the solitary maiden, his shipmate, from undesirable society, and falls in love with her, only to learn that she is voyaging to meet her betrothed. At this point I suppose most novel-readers would have given fairly long odds against the betrothed in question keeping the appointment, and I may add that they would have won their money. Not that _Peregrine_ was going to find the course of his love run smooth in spite of this; being a hero and a gentleman he had for one thing to try, and keep on trying, to bring the affianced pair together, and thus provide the tale with another than its clearly predestined end. Of course he doesn't succeed, but the attempt furnishes capital entertainment for everybody concerned, and proves that Mr. Punch's "C.F.S." can write prose too.

* * * * *

The title of _Gold Must be Tried by Fire_ (MACMILLAN) might be called axiomatic for the precise type of fiction represented by the story. Because, if gold hadn't to be tried by fire, you might obviously marry the hero and heroine on the first page and save everybody much trouble and expense. Mr. RICHARD AUMERLE MAHER, however, knows his job better than that. True, he marries his heroine early, but to the wrong man, the Labour leader and crook, _Will Lewis_, who vanishes just before the entrance of the strong but unsilent hero, only to reappear (under an alias) in time to get shot in a strike riot. Mr. MAHER'S book comes, as you may already have guessed, from that great country where they have replaced alcohol by sugar, and where (perhaps in consequence) heroines of such super-sentimentality as _Daidie Grattan_ have no terrors for them. Personally I found her and her exploits on burning ships, besieged mills and the like a trifle sticky. For the rest you have some interesting details of the workings of the paper industry; a style that to the unfamiliar eye is at times startling (as when, on page 282, the hero's head "snapped erect"); and lots and lots of love. As for the ending, to relieve any apprehensions on your part, let me quote it. "Taking her swiftly in his arms, he questioned: 'Has the gold come free from the fire at last, my darling?' 'Gold or dross,' she whispered as she yielded, 'it is your own.'" _Ah!_

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_Love's Triumph_ (METHUEN) is concerned to a great extent with the development of a raw Kentucky lad into an attractive and resourceful man; but its chief interest lies rather with his trainer. When _Victor McCalloway_ arrived in Kentucky and took _Boone Wellver_ under his wing it became obvious enough that he was bent on reconstructing his own life as well as moulding _Boone's_. _McCalloway_, when the seal of his past is broken, turns out to be _Sir Hector Dinwiddie, D.S.O., K.C.B._, a tradesman's son who was generally believed to have killed himself in Paris. I must assume that Mr. CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK intended us to recognise in _Sir Hector_ a certain General whose name acquired a painful notoriety not so long ago. The reader may form what opinion he likes of the good taste of all this, but there can be no question that the author has drawn a fine character. At the outset his style is so jumpy that the story is difficult to follow, but presently its course grows clearer and I fancy that you will follow it keenly, as I did, to the end.

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