Chapter 2

And not only do the medicine-men dispute among themselves, but their followers engage even more vehemently in bitter strife. For instance, there is a national belief that the juby-juby nut, which grows in the forests in profusion, possesses some supernatural virtue that will make a man who chews it impervious to the weapons of his enemies. That this virtue exists is generally accepted; but when it comes to a discussion of how, when and where to chew the nut, much wrangling goes on; and such men as survive in battle claim that their particular method is proved to be the correct one, while such as succumb are cited in proof of the error of their process of absorbing the juices of the juby-juby nut. The survivors include, of course, representatives of various schools of thought, and a battle against a common enemy rarely goes by without being immediately followed by a conflict among the surviving Kakekikokuans in order to put to final proof their respective theories about their remarkable fruit. Thus a promising people is committing race-suicide; for this sort of thing goes on not only in connection with this particular problem, but over such questions as the number of beads to wear round one's neck when visiting the medicine-man, whether the national custom of saluting the rising sun need be observed on cloudy mornings, and whether the medicine-man is entitled to the pick of the yams on any day but Sunday. People of different opinions on these points decline to eat together or to enter into social intercourse with one another; and their children are forbidden to mingle in play.

The good news has just come to hand, however, that a band of Church of England missionaries, despatched by the Bishop of ZANZIBAR, has now entered the country; and it is delightful to contemplate the beneficent result that may be expected from their broadminded attitude and their sane teaching on the subject of the brotherhood of man.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"The Berlin critics have been accusing Mr. Bernard Shaw of having committed in his 'Pygmalion,' produced in Germany the other day, a plagiarism from Smollett's novel, 'Peregrine Pickle.' Mr. Shaw denies that he has ever read the novel in question, and, in an interview in the London 'Observer,' remarks: 'The suggestion of the German papers that I had Pygmalion produced in Germany lest I should be detected in my own country of plagiarism, shows an amusing ignorance of English culture.'"--_Yorkshire Evening Post_.

It does. Why even our most cultured countryman, Mr. BERNARD SHAW, has never read _Peregrine Pickle_.

* * * * *

"Mr. Spademan, of Woodnewton, Northants, placed a dozen eggs under a hen some time ago, and there were hatched out thirteen chickens, one of the eggs being double-yolked. All the young birds are doing well.

Burroughes and Watts' billiard tables for accuracy."--_Birmingham Daily Mail_.

They are, in fact, a lesson to Mr. STADEMAN's hens.

* * * * *

LACONICS.

"As a matter of fact," said the doctor, "you ought not to speak at all. But that's asking too much. So let it go at this--not a word more than is necessary. Good-bye.",

He left the room and I lay back pondering on his instructions. How many words were really necessary?

The nurse soon after entered.

"So the doctor's gone," she said.

Obviously it wasn't necessary to say Yes, since the room was empty save for me and her; so I made no reply.

She went to the window and looked out. The sky was blue and the sunshine was brilliant.

"It's a fine day," she said.

No, I thought, you don't catch me there; and said nothing. But I reflected that yesterday I might myself have made the same inane remark as she.

"Would you like the paper?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, and then almost regretted it, for having waited nearly fifty years for yesterday's news surely I could wait longer. Still, the paper would help to pass the time.

While she was fetching it I remembered a dream of last night which I had intended to tell her this morning.

But why do so? A dream is of no account even to the dreamer. Still, the recital might have made her laugh. But why should laughter be bothered about?

The nurse brought the paper and I signified Thank you.

"I'll leave you for a while now," she said; "The fire's all right. Your drink's by the bed. You'll ring if you want anything."

All these things I knew. My drink is always beside the bed; the bell is the natural communication between me and the house. What a foolish chatterbox the woman was! I nodded and she went out.

On her return an hour or so later she asked, "Is there anything in the paper?"

Before answering I examined this question. What did it mean? It did not mean, Are the pages this morning absolutely blank, for a change? It meant, Is there a good murder? Is any very important person dead? In reply I handed the paper to her.

Instead of reading it she began a long account of her morning's walk. She told me where she had been; whom she had seen; whom she had thought she had seen and then found that it was some one else; what somebody had said. Not a syllable mattered, I now realised; but yesterday I should have joined in the talk, asked questions, encouraged her in her foolishness.

Just before lunch my brother and a guest came into the room and began to talk about golf. My brother said that he had been round in 98. This was his best since September, when he went round in 97. He described his difficulties at the tenth hole.

It all seemed very idiotic to me, for the game was over and done with. Why rake it up?

The guest said that he had lost two balls, one of which was expensive. His driving had been good, but in the short game he had been weak. He could never quite make up his mind whether he putted best with a gun-metal putter or a wooden one.

My brother asked me if I remembered that long drive of his two years ago?

I nodded.

The nurse came in and told them to go. She then asked me if I was hungry.

"Very," I said.

She brought me some beef-tea and calf's-foot-jelly, remarking that they were easily taken and "would not hurt my throat."

That was why they were chosen, of course.

In the afternoon I had a visit from my Aunt Lavinia, who sat down with the remark that she would tell me all the news.

"You remember Esther?" she began.

Esther is my cousin and we were brought up together. How could I have forgotten her?

What she told me about Esther was of no consequence. Then she told me how she had nearly lost her luggage at Brighton--she quite thought she had lost it, in fact--but, as it happened, it turned up. "And if I had lost it," she said, "it would have been dreadful, for I had a number of dear Stella's beautiful sketches in one of my trunks. Quite irreplaceable. However, it is all right."

Then why tell me?

And so she rattled on.

"You don't say anything," she said at last.

It was true. I had said nothing. I told her what the doctor instructed.

"Quite right," she remarked. "I wish other people even in good health could have the same prescription."

Just before dinner my brother came in again. "You've had Aunt Lavinia here," he said.

I had.

"Getting quite grey, I thought," he said.

I had noticed it too.

He was smoking, and while he was with me he emptied his pipe and filled it again. He thought he had knocked the burning ash in the grate, but it had fallen in the turn-up of his right trouser-leg.

Should I tell him? I wondered. He would, of course, find it out from the smell, but meanwhile the cloth would be burned through.

"Your trouser's burning," I said.

That was the only remark I volunteered all that day; and really, except now and then on business, I don't see why one should ever talk more.

* * * * *

CURLING.

(_THE GAME AND HOW TO PLAY IT, BY A WINTER SPORT._)

Take a piece of ice (you'll want Switzerland for this). Draw two circles, one at each end. Draw a line a short distance from each circle. The drawing can be done with a pin, pocket-knife, diamond, axe, friend's razor or other edged or pointed instrument. I give no dimensions because they are dull things and I hate guessing. Talk of the circles at each end as "houses" and the lines as "hogs," and you are well on the road to become a curler.

Take two narrow pieces of tin with prickly eruptions on one side. Place one each end of the ice-patch, prickly side down, and stamp on the smooth side. Why these pieces of tin are called "crampits" I can't tell you, unless it's just part of the fun.

You now have a prepared patch that can be used for hop-scotch, shove-halfpenny, Rugby football or curling. If you have named the things as directed you really ought to use it for curling.

We now come to the question of players. This is one of the most important parts of the game. Four a side is the almost ideal number, but a few more or less do not make any very great difference. But be sure to get some Scotchmen. They take the game seriously and do much to make the whole affair bright and mirthful. A slight sprinkling of Irishmen often serves to bring out more prominently the flavour of the Scottish humour.

Don't play for money unless you have the majority of Scotchmen on your side.

The game is played with "stones," or, to use their Scotch pseudonym, "stanes." To every man two stanes. You can either get your "stanes" in England and travel out with them, or hire them in the locality. They make the most pleasant travelling companions and at times are the cause of many amusing incidents which beguile the tedium of the journey. Also they often lead to your picking up chance acquaintances. I have known one stone placed in a dimly lighted corridor of a train productive of much merriment and harmless banter. Being of considerable weight they do not readily respond to a playful kick, but having no sharp corners they are seldom responsible for serious injury to the kicker.

Every stone, when new, has a handle. Be careful to preserve the handle intact on the upper part of the stone. If this adjunct be lost or mislaid the stone is less amenable to transit and almost useless for its original purpose.

You will also require a long-handled carpet-broom, which you will on arrival re-name a "cow." Most dressing-bags constructed for foreign travel are now fitted with these useful and picturesque articles. The "cow" is used for two purposes. If you are lucky enough to be appointed scorer for your side you mark the score on the handle in such a way as to be indecipherable by everyone but yourself. This prevents disputes with regard to the accuracy of your arithmetic. You also use it to sweep the ice in front of a friendly stone which appears likely to give up prematurely from exhaustion. Sweeping is carried out under the direction of your captain, and the process is known in the vernacular as "sooping 'er oop." You are not allowed to retard the progress of a stone, friendly or otherwise, by intentionally sweeping obstructions into its path. To discard a portion of your "cow" in front of a rapidly advancing stone is actionable.

Over-enthusiasm in "sooping 'er 'oop" should be avoided. Ice is proverbially slippery, and if you fall on to a friendly stone from excess of energy or from debility, your side is "huffed" that stone. This is a serious matter, and even if you are able to continue the game you are looked on with disfavour by your friends.

The object of the game is to get your stone as near as possible to the centre of the circle at the other end of the rink. With this object you stand on the piece of tin or "crampit" before referred to, grasp the stone firmly by the handle and hurl it along the ice. It is almost essential to let go the stone at the right moment, otherwise it will hurl you. The game is almost identical with the commoner game of "bowls," except for the language, which is worse. The term "wood" is inappropriate and must be avoided, as the use of it may lay you under a charge of ignorance or flippancy, which you will find almost impossible to live down.

I will conclude with a few hints to novices. Preserve a cool head and steady eye. Whilst you are playing your shot your captain will be dancing about in the circle at the other end of the ice. You will find it best to disregard his maniacal shoutings and gesticulations. You will probably not understand half of them and will not agree with the other half. If he should break a blood-vessel do not take any notice unless some part of his fallen body is likely to obstruct your stone. In this case you are entitled to have him moved.

If, after you have played, cries of "hog" or "wobbler" arise, remember that you are engaged in a sport and not in politics and that there is nothing really offensive in the terms. Finally, never scoff at the language used, and above all remember that what is one man's game may be another's religion.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

REVENGE.

(_OR, A HINT TO A HOUSE-AGENT AFTER COMING AWAY FROM HIS OFFICE._)

Your voice was pleasing and your face was fat; With soap _ad libitum_ you sought to dabble us; But when I told you we must leave the flat Did I not notice; underneath the spat, The bifurcated boot that marks _Diabolus_?

I know that in a brief while you'll have found The house I wanted (_sic_), superbly roomy, With a fine view and every comfort crowned, A short three minutes from the Underground; Also I know that you are safe to "do" me.

There will be something wrong; but you shall fill My ears with praises specious and irrelevant Of this and that; and you shall have your will, And heave a deep sigh when I've paid my bill, Having got off at last some rare white elephant.

And when things happen to "The Yews" or "Planes" Left by the Joneses like a haunt of lazars; When the roof falls, or in the winter rains The dining-room breaks out in sudden blains, And every feast we have recalls BELSHAZZAR's;

You shall be smiling. But you have not guessed One thing, for all your wisdom, child of Lucifer: You did not know I was a bard, whose breast Could boil with bitter language when oppressed Like a bargee's; if anything, abusiver.

This is the high reward of sacred song; The minstrels' voices are like falling honey When the gods please them, but when things go wrong They speak their mind out straight, and speak it strong, Especially on points concerned with money.

So, if you "do me down," I have my lyre, And I shall trumpet (at the normal Press wage) Such things about that house, and with such fire, That all men ever after shall conspire To shun the said demesne and curse that messuage.

And spiders on the broken panes shall sit, And the grey rats shall scuttle in the basement, Until the Borough Council purchase it And cleanse and decorate, and lastly fit A fair blue _plaque_ above the study casement,

Saying, "Here lived a while and wove his spell, Eusebius Binks the bard, the unforgotten; The house is mentioned in his 'Lines to Hell,' Also the agents, Messrs. Azazel, And the then drains which, so he sang, were rotten."

EVOE.

* * * * *

_The Daily Telegraph_ says of the Portsmouth Corporation telephone system:--

"At present there are 1,899 subscribers and 2,528 distinct telephones."

Why doesn't the Post Office experiment with this new sort of telephone.

* * * * *

"Yet it is necessary to state emphatically, although no representative of a daily newspaper seems to have been under this impression, that not for twenty years have I been so bored."

_C.K.S. in "The Sphere," on the 'Edwin Drood' trial_.

But how are the poor reporters to know so much about C.K.S. as that?

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE POST OFFICE AGAIN.

DEAR UNCLE,--Its your birthday to-day. I sent you some nice pairs of hankerchifs because its your birthday. They for your nose. Its funny our birthdays being so close. And now no more from your loving neice

NANCY.

MY DEAR NANCY,--Thank you very much indeed for the nice pocket-handkerchiefs. I am very pleased with them. Nobody has ever troubled to give me handkerchiefs before with pretty flowers worked in the corners. I have been wearing them to-day, or rather one of them. They are so nice that I really meant to have kept them specially for parties and things like that, but, as I was obliged to leave home in a great hurry this morning, and someone had hidden my everyday handkerchiefs, I took one of yours.

Such a funny thing has happened. I sent you for your birthday a pretty card with birds on it, and somehow or other it got taken in quite a different direction, and was returned to me this morning by--whom do you think? Auntie Maud, all the way away in Ireland. But we mustn't blame the Postmaster-General without being absolutely sure of ourselves. It is very difficult in mysterious cases like this to be absolutely sure. Didn't you get my parcel? I sent it off at the same time as I sent the card, and I haven't had the parcel back. I wonder where it is. It looks as though things were going on that you and I know nothing about. I shall be very angry with him if he has forgotten to give you your parcel.

Hoping you are quite well, thank you, Your loving

UNCLE HENRY.

DEAR UNCLE,--Thank you for your pretty card for my birthday. I didn't got your parsel. Its very naughty of him when its my birthday. I hop youll be very very angry with him because its my birthday and I didnt get your parsel. And now no more from your loving neice

NANCY.

_The Postmaster-General_.

SIR,--On Tuesday last I despatched by book-post a parcel from the South-Western District Office. It is now Friday, and the parcel has not been delivered. I should esteem it a favour if you would kindly give the Official Handicapper for the District in question instructions to allow my parcel to start forthwith. Yours faithfully,

HY. FRESHFIELD.

_The Postmaster-General_.

SIR,--In reply to your enquiry as to the nature of the parcel, I beg to inform you that it was oblong in shape and done up in brown paper and tied securely with string. To assist you still further in the task of identification, I may mention that it is addressed to Miss Nancy Freshfield, c/o F.E.L. Freshfield, Esq., 47, Ottalie Gardens, Westminster, S.W.

Trusting that nothing serious has occurred to disqualify my parcel, Yours faithfully, HY. FRESHFIELD.

DEAR UNCLE,--I thought it was such a long time my parsel didnt come I would write to you dear Uncle. I hop you were very angry with him. And now no more

from your loving neice NANCY.

DEAR SIR,--I am directed by the Postmaster-General to inform you that your parcel has now been traced.

The name of the addressee was correctly stated by you, but you omitted to append such further instructions for the guidance of the Post Office as to indicate the destination to which you desired it to go. I have the pleasure to add that the fuller information has been copied in from your letter, and the parcel despatched....

DEAR NANCY,--By the same post that brought me your letter I heard from our absent-minded friend, the Postmaster-General. You will be pained to learn that he is even more absent-minded than we thought he was. Although, when I handed him your parcel, I distinctly told him it was going to Westminster, the moment my back is turned he must needs forget all about it.

I feel really rather sorry for him, and I don't think we ought to be angry any more. He can't possibly forget now, because I have written the address down for him. Your loving

UNCLE HENRY.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A CABINET CRISIS.

It had to be faced at last. There is a demand for them occasionally, and people won't put up with that excellent one taken under the crab-apple tree any longer.

I was caught just right there. The sun was in an indulgent mood and winked at the signs of advancing age. The bald patch was out of sight, and the smile would have softened the heart of an income-tax assessor. I acquired the negative from the amateur performer, and had it vignetted, which made it better still, as there was a space between the cashmere sock and the spring trousering in the original that I did not want attention drawn to. I had a large number of prints made, and dealt them out to anybody who asked for a photograph of me. At first they aroused considerable enthusiasm, but after five or six years a look of doubt began to appear on the faces of the recipients. Hadn't I got a later one? This was very nice, but--I pointed out that I hadn't changed at all, or only a very little. At my best I was still like that; and didn't they want me at my best?

At last a person described by himself as plain-spoken, and by other people as offensively rude, said that I had never really been as good-looking as that, with all possible allowances made, and any way he wanted a photograph and not a memorial card. I took a firm stand, and said that if he wasn't satisfied with that one he could go without altogether, and he said in the most insulting way that he supposed he should be himself again in time if he took a tonic.

A few more episodes of that sort eventually drove me to it. I passed my _viva-voce_ examination at the hands of the young lady at the desk, paid my fees, got my testamur, and was shown into the torture-chamber, where the head executioner was busy adjusting his racks and screws.

I was rather taken with the rustic seat that was standing on a white fur mat in front of a scene representing the Jungfrau, but he headed me off it. If I liked the Jungfrau as a background I could have it, but not with the seat; that was for engaged couples only. He recommended a pair of skis, or a bobsleigh; he could put a fine fall of snow into the negative. But as I had arrayed myself in a black coat, with one of those white waistcoat slips, and a flowing tie with a pearl pin, I refused this offer, and we decided we wouldn't have a background at all.

As the man who administered the laughing gas was out at lunch, I prepared to go through with it in cold blood, and seated myself in the operating chair in the most natural attitude I could assume--something like the one I had taken under the crab-tree. I thought I would show them that there wasn't so much difference after all. But it did not suit the head mechanic at all. He looked at me with his head on one side, and then took hold of mine by the chin and the hair and gave it a twist. I had never worn it at that angle in my life, and I knew it would put my collar all wrong; but I had to do what he told me. He arranged my coat so that it should look as if it had been made to fit somebody else, and disposed my arms in such a way as to give the sleeves the appearance of trouser legs with rucks in them. I felt almost more sorry for my tailor than for myself, but I shall send him one of the prints when I get them; it will be good for him.