Chapter 2

Other games, seldom chronicled but inquiring at least as much skill from their votaries as the better known varieties, are EARLY MORNING SKI-BAGGING--at which the Germans frequently carry all before them--and PRESSING THE PRESS-PHOTOGRAPHER, where the object of all the players is to appear recognizably in a snap-shot for the illustrated journals. At this the record score of three weekly and five daily papers has been held for two successive seasons by the same player, a gentleman whose dexterity is the subject of universal admiration.

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THE WONDER ZOO.

Canada has evolved a novelty described as a "new beef animal," which is a blend of the domestic cow and the North American bison. The resulting prodigy has the ferocious hump and shoulders of the bison, with the mildly benevolent face of the Herefordshire ox. It must not, however, be supposed that the old country is behind-hand in such experiments, as witness the following:--

Billingsgate salesmen have lately been supplied with advance copies of the new Codoyster fish. This epicurean triumph, which owes its existence to the research of several eminent specialists, is the result of a blend of the North Sea cod and the finest Whitstable native. The result is said to reproduce in a remarkable degree the succulent qualities of the original fish when eaten with oyster sauce, and caterers are sure to welcome the combination of these popular items in so handy a form.

Several fine examples of the Soho chicken have lately appeared upon the show benches at various important poultry contests. This ingenious creation, which has long been familiar to the patrons of our less expensive restaurants (hence the name), is said to possess qualities of endurance superior to anything previously on the market. Its muscular development is phenomenal, while the entire elimination of the liver, and the substitution of four extra drum-sticks for the ordinary wings and thighs, are noteworthy characteristics.

Success in another branch of the same endeavour is shown in the latest report of the Society for the Prolongation of Dachshunds. According to this the worm-ideal seems at last to be in sight, careful inter-breeding having now produced a variety called the Processional, selected specimens of which take from one to two minutes in passing any given spot. The almost entire disappearance of legs is another attractive feature.

Meanwhile Major-Gen. Threebottle writes from Oporto Lodge, Ealing, strongly protesting against any further complication of the fauna of these islands, and pointing out that the simple snakes and cats of our youth were already sufficiently formidable to a nervous invalid like himself without the addition of such objectionable novelties.

* * * * *

"Without warning, while the car was travelling at about fifteen miles per hour, the tyre of the front wheel burst."--_Scotsman_.

Our tyres are much better trained, and each of the four gives a distinctive cough before bursting.

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"WAREHOUSEMAN (jun.), clothing dept., large corporation."--_Advt. in_ "_Glasgow Herald_."

He should show off the new line in check waistcoats to the best advantage.

* * * * *

THE SECRET OUT.

AN INTERVIEW.

He had a coarse confident face, a red nose, a Cockney accent and a raucous voice. He was dressed as a sluttish woman.

Directly I saw him I was conscious of a feeling of repulsion, which I fear my expression must have indicated, for he looked surprised.

"Why aren't you laughing?" he asked.

"Why should I laugh?" I asked in return.

"Because you are looking at me," he said. "I am accustomed to laughter the instant I appear."

"Why?"

"Because I am a funny man," he said.

"How?"

"I look funny," he said; "I say funny things; I draw a good salary for it. If I wasn't funny I shouldn't draw a good salary, should I?"

"You do draw it," I said guardedly. "Be funny now."

"'Wait till I catch you bending,'" he said with a violent grimace. "'What ho! 'Ave a drop of gin, ole dear?'"

"Be funny now," I repeated.

He looked bewildered. "I _was_ being funny," he said. "I bring the house down with that, as a rule."

"Where?"

"In panto," he said.

"Oh!" I replied. "So you're the funny man of a pantomime, are you?"

"Yes," he said.

"Which one?"

"All of them," he said.

"Good," I replied. "I have long wanted a talk with you. There are things I want to ask you. Why, for instance, do you always pretend to be a grimy slum woman?"

"It seems to be expected," he said.

"Who expects it? The children?"

"What children?"

"The children who go to pantomimes," I said.

"Oh, those! Well, they laugh," he replied evasively.

"They like to see you quarrelling with your husband and getting drunk?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to hear you, as an Ugly Sister in _Cinderella_, singing 'Father's on the booze again; mother's off her chump'?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to see you as the wife of Ali Baba, finding pawntickets in your husband's pockets and charging him with spending his money on flappers?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to see you, as The Widow Twankay, visit a race meeting and get welshed and have your clothes torn off?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to see you, as Dick Whittington's mother, telling the cat that, if he must eat onions, at any rate he can refrain from kissing her?"

"They laugh," he said.

"They like to see you, as the dame in _Goody Two Shoes_, open a night club on the strict understanding that it is only for clergymen's daughters in need of recreation?"

"They laugh," he said again.

"But they don't know what you mean?"

"No. But I'm funny. That's what you don't seem to understand. I'm so funny that everything I say and do makes them laugh. It doesn't, in fact, matter _what_ I say."

"Ah!" I replied, "I have you there! In that case why don't you say a few simpler and sweeter things?"

He seemed perplexed.

"Things," I explained, "that don't want quite so much knowledge of the seamy side of life?"

"Go on!" he said derisively. "I haven't got time to mug _that_ up. I've got my living to get. You don't suppose I invent my jokes, do you? I collect them. I'm on the Halls the rest of the year, and I hear them there. There hasn't been a new joke in a pantomime these twenty years. But what you don't seem to get into your head, mister, is the fact that I make them laugh. Laugh. I'm a scream, I tell you."

"And laughter is all you want?" I asked.

"I must either make people laugh or get 'the bird.'"

"But hasn't it ever occurred to you," I said, "that children in a theatre at Christmas time are entitled to have a little fun that is not wholly connected with sordid domestic affairs and pothouse commonness?"

"Never," he said, and I believed him.

"Haven't you children of your own?"

"Several."

"And is that how you amuse them at home?"

"Of course not. They're too young."

"How old are they?"

"From six to thirteen."

"But that's the age of the children who go to pantomimes," I suggested.

"Well, it's different in your own home," he said. "Besides," he added, "it isn't children I aim at in my jokes. There's other things for them: the fairy ballets, the comic dog."

"And what is the audience you aim at?" I asked. "I suppose there is one definite figure you have in your mind's eye?"

"Yes," he said, "there is one. The person in the audience that I always aim at is the silly servant-girl in the front row of the gallery. That's why I so often say 'girls' before I make a joke. You've heard me, haven't you?"

"Haven't I?" I groaned.

* * * * *

THE GAME LICENCE.

It was yesterday afternoon, towards the close of the last beat of our annual cover shoot, that I perceived a fellow in a yellow waterproof popping up his head from time to time (at no little risk to his life) over a dyke some way behind the line of guns. As soon as the beaters came out he advanced and introduced himself as an Excise Officer, asking "if this would be a convenient moment to examine the game licences of the party."

It was not at all a convenient moment for Walter--who hadn't got one. My thoughts flew at once to Walter in this crisis, for I knew he was bound to be had. Walter never does have game licences, season tickets, adhesive labels, telegraph forms or things of that sort. And as he had only returned from Canada two days before and this was the first time that he had been out, and further as he immediately disappeared and hid behind the hedge, I knew that my worst suspicions must be confirmed. While the Excise Officer was taking down the names and addresses of the rest of the party I went after Walter. He was sitting in the ditch with his head in his hands.

"If this had happened a few years ago, old chap," he said, "when I was a younger man, I should have run for it. But to-day I believe that feller would overhaul me within half-a-mile. My wind's rotten. Do you think he'll find us here?"

"Yes," said I, "he is coming this way."

Walter got up. "There must be some way out of it," he said thoughtfully, "if one could only think of it." Then he boldly confronted his accuser.

"Since you put it to me," he said, "no, I have no game licence. But fortunately in my case it is not necessary. I am exempt."

The Officer stared at him a moment.

"Certainly it is necessary," he said.

"Kindly show me the form of this licence," said Walter in the most lordly, off-hand, _de-haut-en-bas_ tone of voice, and the Officer handed him one belonging to the Major, which he had been scrutinizing. "This, I perceive," said Walter, when he had read it carefully, "is a licence or certificate to kill game. It doesn't apply to me."

"Why not?"

"Because I haven't killed any game."

"But you have your gun in your hand at this moment."

"That is so. This is my gun. But where, I ask you, is my dead game? The truth is, my dear fellow," he went on, dropping his voice to a more confidential level, "though it's pretty humiliating to have to admit it and all that, especially before the beaters--the truth is that I haven't hit a blamed thing to-day. Rotten, isn't it?"

Walter isn't much of a shot and there weren't many birds anyway, and he hadn't been very lucky in his stands--and when one came to think it over one couldn't just exactly _remember_ anything at all having fallen to his gun.

"I call all these fellows to witness," said Walter most impressively, "that I have killed no game. If it pleases me to discharge my gun, at short intervals, for the sake of the bang--"

"You require a gun licence," said the Officer.

"That is not the point. I may or may not have a gun licence, but our present controversy relates to a certificate to kill game. Do not let us confuse the issue."

It now appeared, however, that the Officer had been waiting behind the dyke rather longer than we knew. "I myself," he said firmly, "saw you bring down a cock pheasant at the beginning of the last beat."

Walter consulted the paper in his hand. "I observe," he said, "that this licence (or certificate) relates to killing game. There is nothing said of bringing it down. I may, as you say, have induced a cock pheasant to descend. I certainly didn't kill him. As a matter of fact he was lightly touched on the wing, and he ran like a hare."

"He's in that patch of bracken there," said the Officer. "If you will send a keeper and a dog with me--"

"No, I can't do that," said Walter, "unless you can show me a written authority empowering you, in the KING's name, to borrow keepers and dogs."

It was then that the fun began. The Officer went off like a shot up the hillside, started the old cock, chased him up the ditch and through the hedge, and finally, to everyone's surprise and delight, collared him in a corner of the dyke. There were loud cheers from the enthusiastic crowd, but they were cut short by a sharp warning from Walter.

"Be careful how you handle that bird, Sir!" he cried. "If anything happens to him I shall hold you responsible. I have no reason to believe that you hold a licence (or certificate) to kill game. If he suffers a mortal injury I shall report you."

The Officer began to look rather bewildered and the old cock flapped his wings.

"I'll thank you for that bird," said Walter firmly, and he took it and tucked it comfortably under his arm.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the Officer.

"I am going to nurse it back to health and strength," said Walter. "It only requires a little close attention. I shall be happy if you will call in about a week's time to enquire. Good afternoon. I am very pleased to have met you." And Walter held out his hand.

Well, that is where the matter rests. If Walter can keep the bird alive the case against him falls to the ground. If not, I suppose it means a three-pound licence and a ten-pound fine. He took him straight back to the Home Farm and secured for him dry and airy quarters in the poultry run, and did not leave him till he had seen to his comfort in every way and given minute directions as to his treatment....

I am afraid the old cock passed a rather restless night, but he was able to take part of a warm mash, with two drops of laudanum in it, at an early hour this morning. At this moment I hear Walter getting out his motor-bicycle. I fancy he is going for the vet.

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Says Mr. CLEMENT SHORTER:--

"There is a journal in London which has the impertinence to call itself _The Nation_, but ... it does not represent the merest fraction of our countrymen."

Mr. SHORTER's own paper is called, more modestly, _The Sphere_.

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OLD FRIENDS.

I was in the train because I had to go to Birmingham; I was in the dining car because I had to dine. With all respect to the Company I cannot pretend that I regarded myself as doing anything remarkable or distinguished. The little man opposite me, however, felt differently. I have since been told that they of Birmingham are very proud of their non-stop train service by both routes.

"This, Sir," said the stranger, as I lowered my paper to help myself to a proffered roll--"this is one of the Two-Hour trains."

"You don't say," said I politely but not encouragingly.

"Two hours," he repeated impressively.

"Indeed? Two whole hours and not a moment less?" and I returned to my paper pending the soup's arrival.

"Is it not wonderful," he resumed when I was at his mercy again, "to be travelling at sixty miles an hour and eating soup at the same time?"

"Some people eat soup," said I, "and some drink it. For myself, I give it a miss;" and I returned to the news.

With the fish: "I came up by the breakfast train this morning," said he, "and I now return by the dining train." He meant by this to give credit to the Company rather than to himself, but even so it seemed to fall short of the complete ideal. There was something wanting. It was luncheon, of course.

"They run luncheon cars too," said he.

"Then there seems to be no reason why you should ever leave the train at all," I remarked, seeking refuge again in my paper. In spite, however, of my coldness, he continued to assail me with similar facts every time I emerged. Finally he took a sheet of slightly soiled paper and pencilled on it a schedule of our movements. It ran:--

Mileage. Place. Time.

-- Euston 6.55 P.M. 5½ Willesden [7.4] " 17½ Watford [7.18] " 46¾ Bletchley [7.50] " 82¼ Rugby [8.24] " 94¼ Coventry [8.36] " 113 Birmingham 8.55 "

"To give this the very careful consideration it deserves," said I, "I must be left absolutely to myself."

Later on, feeling that I had perhaps been rude, I offered the man a cigar by way of compensation. He accepted it as a mark of esteem and burst forth into more conversation. By now a little fed up with trains himself he suggested, for the sake of something new to say, that he had met me before somewhere. At first I had some idea of asking for my cigar to be returned, but instead I gave in to his persistence. More, I joined in the conversation with an energy which surprised him.

"Now I come to think of it we _have_ seen each other before; but where?" I said.

He thought promiscuously, disconnectedly and aloud. I could accept none of his suggestions because all referred to commercial rooms in provincial hotels, places to which I have not the _entrée_. "But I know now," I declared brightly; "it was at a place just this side of London that I saw you first."

"First?" he asked.

"Oh yes," said I. "I have seen you more than once. Surely you haven't forgotten that time at Watford?"

He felt that I had the advantage of him. "When was that?" he asked.

"Not very long after the first time; and the next occasion I remember seeing you was at a place called--called--something beginning with a B."

He was quite unable to cope with the situation.

"And the next time," I continued, "I happened to be passing through that town where the school is--you know, Rugby. I distinctly recollect noticing then that you hadn't changed in the least since I last saw you."

He couldn't decide whether to be more flattered at my remembering or more annoyed at his own forgetting.

"Come, come," I exclaimed, "you surely cannot have forgotten that little chat we had at Coventry?"

"Coventry?" he asked. "But how long ago was that?"

"Quite recently," I asserted.

"But I haven't set foot in Coventry for years," said he.

"Nor have I, ever," said I.

I could understand his feelings thoroughly. It might be that I was a liar; it might be that I was a lunatic. In either case he did not wish to converse further with me. Happily, I had two newspapers available.

* * * * *

As the speed of our train, in which of old he had taken such a pride, began to slacken: "And I shouldn't be surprised," I said from behind my paper, "if you and I saw each other again quite soon. The world is a small place and these things soon develop into a habit."

He made no answer from behind his paper.

"If you ask me when and where" (as in fact he didn't), "I should say it is just as likely as not to happen at Birmingham at about 8.55 P.M.," I estimated, relying upon his own schedule.

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* * * * *

"The play was preceded by 'The £12 Hook,' another Barrie comedy of more recent date."--_Sydney Morning Herald_.

We should prefer to call it "The £12 Eye."

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"LABOUR IN SOUTH AFRICA. BLACK OUTLOOK."

_Morning Post_.

Let us hear both sides. What is the White Outlook?

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"The grievance of the men is in regard to the rate of pay. They are paid 5½d. per hair."--_Glasgow News_.

And then when they are old and bald they have to starve.

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"TANGO RAPIDLY DYING. DANCE UPHELD BY MR. MAX PEMBERTON." _Daily Chronicle_.

This is the sort of thing that the Revue King has to put up with. Truly the lot of royalty is not an enviable one.

* * * * *

From an advertisement of Tango matinées in _The Lyceum_:--

"RESERVED TAUTENILS (4 first rows) 10/-- TAUTENILS (tea included) 7/6 TAUTENILS (tea not included) 6/--"

_Gourmet_ (_planking down his seven-and-six_). "Tea and tautenils, please."

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Seen on a Liverpool hoarding:--

"Quo Vadis: Whither goest thou in eight reels?"

_Answer_. "Anywhere in reason, but not home."

* * * * *

IN THE GARDEN OF ALLAH.

Weary of the struggle and the squalors Which beset the politician's life-- Work that for a modicum of dollars Brings a whole infinity of strife-- Three of England's most illustrious cronies Started on a winter holiday, With no thought of MURRAY or Marconis-- GEORGE and HENRY and the great TAY PAY.

Never since ÆNEAS and his raiders Stayed with DIDO in the days of yore Did such irresistible invaders Land upon the Carthaginian shore. GEORGE, of course, the largest crowds attended, But I'm told the kind Algerians say That ÆNEAS wasn't half so splendid Or so pious as the good TAY PAY.

Noble sheikhs and black and bearded Bashas Bowed, whene'er they met them, to the ground; Festas and fantasias and tamashas Followed in a never-ending round. GEORGE no more on his detractors brooded; HENRY simply sang the livelong day; While unmixed benevolence exuded From the loving heart of kind TAY PAY.

Side by side they read the works of HICHENS; Hand in hand they sampled the bazaars; Ate the sweetmeats cooked in native kitchens; Flew about in sumptuous motor-cars; Golfed where once great HANNIBAL was scheming; Joked where luckless DIDO once held sway; For the finest jokes were always streaming From the lips of comical TAY PAY.

Other days they spent in caracoling, Mounted each upon a mettled barb, Or along the streets serenely strolling Clad in semi-oriental garb; HENRY with a cummerbund suburban; GEORGE disguised to look like ENVER BEY; While a kilt surmounted by a turban Veiled the massive contours of TAY PAY.

Daily they partook of ripe and juicy Fruit, and Mocha coffee and kibobs; Daily they conversed with EL SENOUSSI And a lot of other native nobs; HENRY practised Algerine fandangos; GEORGE upon the tom-tom learned to play; And a dervish taught ten Arab tangos To the light fantastical TAY PAY.

Whither will they wander next, I wonder? Not, I hope and pray, within the reach Of the tribes who live on loot and plunder, Fanatics who practise what they preach. Fancy if these horrible disturbers, Swooping on our countrymen astray, Touaregs and Bedouins and Berbers, Carried off the succulent TAY PAY!

Hardly had this agonizing presage Taken shape within my tortured brain, When good REUTER flashed the welcome message, "Chancellor Returns," across the main. Neptune, be thy waters calm, not choppy, As they speed them on their homeward way, GEORGE and HENRY and, bowed down with "copy," Our unique arch-eulogist, TAY PAY.

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THE MARRIED MAN'S ADVANTAGE.