Part 2

"Then I think you might have warned me," said Celia reproachfully, "so that we could have shared them."

"I'm sorry," I said. Then I had an idea. "It's all right," I said. "I made a mistake. Those weren't our eleven seconds at all; CARNEGIE or somebody paid for those. We'll have ours together later on."

"Well, let's see that they are good ones ... when we're having a victory. We might tell people that the last eleven seconds off the Falkland Islands were ours."

"But I hadn't paid then. Anyway, I don't think they begin to use my money till April 5th ... I say, Celia, let's do our eleven seconds in style. Let's make an occasion of it."

"Oh, do let's." She looked at her diary. "What about April 15th? I'm not doing anything then."

"But why the 15th?"

"I thought perhaps the KING might like the first few days for himself. Or doesn't he pay income-tax? Anyhow, the 15th is a Thursday, which is a nice day."

So we have decided on Thursday, April 15th. Starting at 1.30 (because we want to pay for as much bully beef and jam as possible), for eleven seconds we shall support alone the British Empire.... And, when those fateful moments are over, then we shall raise a glass in gratitude to the men who have served us so well.

* * * * *

Oh, you lucky millionaires, who may be gods, perhaps, for half-an-hour--have you filled in your income-tax forms? If not, fill them in properly this time. Leave out no quarry, no alum mine, no stream of water. Who knows? That salt spring which you were forgetting may well be the deciding second of the war.

A. A. M.

* * * * *

DÎNER DU KAISER.

LE MENU.

Consommé Chiffon de Papier. Purée Barbare.

Anguilles de la Marne.

Bulletins Variés. Sauce Crème de Menteur. Petites Vérités à la Dentiste.

MOI en Dégringolade. Ôtages Fusillés à la Croix d'Enfer. Langue de Boche à la Kultur.

Suprême de Dégoût Américain. Incendies à l'Amour de Dieu.

Bombe Visée à la Cathédrale. Saucissons Cent Soucis. Amendes en Milliards.

* * * * *

DÎNER DU GÉNÉRAL JOFFRE.

LE MENU.

Consommé aux Gueux Pochés. Purée de Renforts.

Filets de Sol Natal. Sauce Balayage.

Petites Tranchées à la Baïonnette. Soixante-Quinze en Surprise.

Aloyau Français à la Loyauté. Concours Anglais à la French.

Timbales de Progrès à la Rongeur. Obus en Autobus.

Silences Assortis de Journalistes en Bandeau.

Piou-Pious en Bonbonnière. Accueil de Glace aux Correspondants.

* * * * *

* * * * *

FROM THE BACK OF THE FRONT.

_Somewhere in ----._

Active service is like oratory in that one of its biggest ideas is action. Being ostensibly on active service ourselves we felt we ought to see a little before going home; and now we have. We make no boast about it. Like the simple English soldiers we are we merely state the fact for what it is worth.

You ask, you who lead the sheltered life, what we felt like under fire; how you swim from one trench to another; what we ate and drank; and what a bayonet charge is really like. Let me answer your questions one by one.

(1) We were such a long way under fire that some doubt existed as to whether the Germans were merely trying to frighten us, or were engaged in testing new rifles and fired high and in no particular direction for fear of hitting somebody. We only had one casualty and he wanted to walk across to the German trenches and insist on an apology and a new pair of boots, the right heel being practically torn off. But we convinced him that it was futile for an Englishman to argue with Germans, especially when ignorant of their language. If a German has made up his mind to be careless nothing will stop him. To return to the question, we didn't feel under fire at all.

(2) You aren't allowed to leave a trench; and a man who was allowed to and then went to another shouldn't be allowed out at all.

(3) The soldier is not particular about his "tack"--as he calls his food. Bacon and eggs, sausages, chicken, washed down with hot coffee, are good enough for him to fight on. Failing even such humble comestibles he will, when pressed by hunger, open a tin of bully beef and decide he is not hungry after all.

(4) Bayonet charges are getting rather cheap, so we didn't have one.

We were opposed to the flower of the German army, the KAISER'S beloved Prussians. This we were told on our arrival. Next day we learned that a prisoner taken turned out to be one of the KAISER'S beloved Bavarians. We subsequently discovered--well, to save time you might just take a map of the German Empire and pick where you like.

If anyone tells you that our heroes live in trenches like tessellated boudoirs in an atmosphere of sybaritic luxury you might just put him right. Our Edward had got hold of some such idea from diagrams in the illustrated papers. When we reached the crumbling ruins we were to defend, an officer was so impressed by Edward's air of woebegone disgust that he observed brusquely that, in the trenches, comfort was a matter of minor importance.

This assurance pulled Edward together for the moment; and he had just settled down to a placid expectation of the evening meal when we learned that our commissariat had stuck in the mud some miles back. However, as a second officer cheerfully observed, in the trenches food is a matter of minor importance. Edward, who had pinned all his faith on the commissariat, relapsed into a resigned melancholy.

Just as he was making his poor but ingenious preparations for slumber in a dug-out that looked like a badly drained pond a third officer came along. A digging fatigue was wanted for the night. We were it. Edward moaned, not mutinously, you understand, but expressively. The third officer turned on him sharply. "In the trenches," he observed epigrammatically, "sleep is a matter of minor importance."

Edward and I returned at 3 A.M. As he flopped wearily down I heard him murmur judicially: "In the trenches soldiers are matters of minor importance."

Edward never got really fond of the trenches.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A FIELD SERVICE POSTCARD.

Dear _Mr. Punch_,--Hurrah! I am so excited and my paw shakes so that I have to use my teeth to keep the pen steady. My mistress has received a letter from my master at the Front--at least it isn't a letter but a postcard. I know it's from him because she gave it to me to smell, and I nearly swallowed it in my anxiety to make quite sure. I should have got a beating for my foolish behaviour, but luckily my mistress was crying at the time and could not see what I was doing. When we were both calmer she told me what was on the card; and there was nothing whatever about me! My master merely said that he was quite well. I kept my ears cocked for some time waiting for more, but that was all.

I need hardly tell you, _Mr. Punch_, how disappointed I felt. It is true there was nothing about my mistress either, but she was so happy she didn't seem to mind. I could not understand it. And then I suddenly remembered something I had heard from a dog who had actually been out at the Front taking care of his regiment. He told me that Lord KITCHENER had invented a special postcard for the use of soldiers out there. They are not allowed to write anything on these cards except their names, but there are several sentences printed on them and the sentences that are not suitable are struck out by the soldiers. My master had evidently found them all unsuitable except the one that said he was quite well.

Now I readily admit that these postcards are an excellent idea of Lord KITCHENER'S, but I do not think that he has carried out the scheme as thoroughly as he should. Where would be the harm in putting at the end of the card, "Give my love and a bone to ----"? It would only take up one line and would mean such a lot to us. I expect the truth is Lord KITCHENER has not got a dog of his own, so the point did not occur to him, and it merely needs a hint from you, _Mr. Punch_, to get the matter put right. I only hope he won't be annoyed when he finds what a slip he has made.

Yours expectantly,

A SAD DOG.

P.S.--Perhaps you had better not publish this as it rather shows him up, and I should not like to think that I had made people lose confidence in him.

* * * * *

We take this breathless story of adventure from a Suez Cinema synopsis:--

"This play is historian & so touching. It is Containing 3rd classes. Its length is 1200 metres. Its subject that was John General, the engineer in a small village the was a simple labour the became very skilful in making ironships. Therefore he became a rich man the had a wife, called Ima. Her conduct was extremely good. When he found himself very rich, the left his wife at all. One day he accompagned his wife & rode a motor car while they were walking, he saw a womens, called baron Nellie Dow. At last this man was mending an iron ship. It was broken out, the became blind. Baron Nellie Dow, left him at once. But his life came in as an assistant doctor. She was observing him untel he was cured. He found her by him. He know that his wife well & was very sorry about the bad entreatment, that he had done with her."

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE DEFENCE OF AMBERRY PARVA.

Amberry Parva certainly existed before SHAKSPEARE's time, but I doubt if SHAKSPEARE ever saw it. For which he was so much the poorer, seeing that Amberry is a faithful microcosm of much of England.

Thomas Fallow, Aaron West and George Hangar are all friends of mine. Though still comparative youthful, they are the shining lights of the Amberry Rural Council, self-trained to face a crisis or an emergency with calm and steady bearing. When I came upon them last week they were seated about the bench outside the door of "The Three Cups." A fourth man--a small hairy stranger--was addressing them.

Thomas Fallow motioned me to halt.

"We're consultin'," he explained, "with Mr. Chittenden as keeps the baccy-shop in Wream."

Now Wream is a shade--the merest shade--more important (in its own esteem) than Amberry. It sits astride the same high road that the Romans carved seawards a thousand-odd years ago, and supplies us with newspapers, telegrams and gossip. While we score in the possession of two tin chapels to their one, we writhe inwardly over a Diamond Jubilee Fountain which we cannot hope to surpass.

"Mr. Chittenden," pursued Thomas, "brings noos."

"Good news?" I asked.

Mr. Chittenden, like the Eldest Oyster, shook his heavy head.

"I 'eard it from a natteralized German two days ago. It seems that they're goin' to make a fresh dash with invisible Zeppelins. Once they can _e_-vade the ships that's watchin'----"

He left the sentence unfinished.

"Consequence o' which," said George Hangar, "we've gone an' made ourselves into an Informal Committee o' Defence, same as sits night an' day in the War Office in London. An' the question before the meetin' is, what's to be done if some fine day we wakes up to find a couple o' thousand black 'elmets marchin' down the main road?"

"Ambush 'em," said Thomas Fallow definitely. "Told you so afore. Lie be'ind the 'edges an' pick 'em off. My old rook-rifle'd roll 'em over proper. Shoot straight an' keep on shootin'."

Aaron made a scornful noise in his throat.

"An' them as did get in the village'd punish us for them as didn't! Burnin', killin' an' worse."

"Then outflank 'em," insisted Thomas doggedly. "Let 'em 'ave their fill of advancin', same as old Joffer done, an' then ketch 'em in the side an' discriminate 'em."

"You're not agoin' to do that with the men left in Amberry," said Aaron. He was a market-gardener by trade. "'Twould be like a dozen sparrers tryin' to outflank a steam-roller. Trenchin's the thing. Dig deep, an' lay the soil loose 'long the far edge. There's a decent bit o' shelter by Whemmick's Cottages."

"The best bein' opposite Number Five," added Fallow, whereat there was a bellow of laughter, and Aaron flushed magnificently, for at Number Five lives Molly Garner, wooed by Aaron, but as yet hesitating between him and the Wream plumber.

George Hangar, who up to the present had scarcely spoken, intervened. He has a bass voice, which on Sundays makes the little roof of the United Bunyans quiver; for the other six days of the week he works at a carpenter's bench in an open-fronted shed. He has a sound knowledge of timber, and is no ignoramus concerning the values of Hepplewhite and Sheraton.

"You're wrong," he roared. "Silly-minded an' wrong! This ain't the Aisne. What do a village do when it's attacked? Answer me that."

No one answered; to say the wrong thing would exasperate him, to say the right would exasperate him still more.

"They puts up barrycades," continued Hangar. "An' for why? 'Cause it's only them that can hold off horse, foot an' 'tillery. Barrycades made o' seasoned oak, same as I got stored at the back o' my shed, sunk a good two feet, with bolted cross-pieces an' spurs, an' maybe a trifle o' barbed wire in front."

"An' where's this contraption to be set up?" demanded Mr. Chittenden with sudden suspicion.

"End o' village."

"Meanin' that the enemy may march through Wream, with nothin' to stop 'em wreckin' the Fountain? An' this was to be a meetin' for the consideration o' mutual defence!"

"The question afore the members," said Aaron hastily, "is, which place 'as most strategetical value? Thing is to stop 'em quick an' for good."

"An' where'll you beat a rook-rifle for doin' that?" demanded Thomas Fallow. "If I'm willin' to take the risks----"

"'Tain't a question o' willingness, but tatties," said Mr. Chittenden, still unappeased.

"Then put the case afore the sergeant as is stayin' at the police-station," said George.

There was a moment's pause, then Aaron spoke.

"The motion is carried," he said, "an' the meetin' stands adjourned _sinny die_."

* * * * *

I did not meet any of the members for several days afterwards; then chance took me in the direction of George Hangar's workshop. I found him engrossed in the unheard-of task of arranging and packing his tools.

"Well?" I asked.

He rasped his chin pensively with a chisel.

"Did the interview with the Sergeant take place?"

"Ay; the feller's more brains than the rest of us put together. Reckon it's trainin'."

"What happened?"

"What 'appened? 'If you barrycades, entrenches, enfilades or outflanks 'em outside Amberry,' says 'e, 'the enemy'll wait for reinforcements, an' then smash you with bigger guns. 'Twill be the same at Wream, Bewchester, Lydhirst, Lower Thettley, an' Capper'am.'"

"Which brings us to the sea?"

"Ezzackly."

"Where it's the Fleet's job."

"'Twould seem so. But, as the Sergeant pointed out, the Germans is by birth an' natur' land-fighters, an' must so be met, trained man to trained man. Meaning Territorials."

"Then your plans came to nothing?"

"Only in a manner o' speakin', Sir. In fact, the resolution put afore the meetin' would 'a' been carried _nem. con._ but for the unsatisfactoriness o' Jacob Chittenden's chest-measurement. As it is, 'e's eatin' b'iled bread an' practising three hours a day on the horizontal-bar."

I was a little bewildered.

"What resolution?"

He took a paper from his apron pocket and read as follows:--

"_That it be 'ereby decided, in the joint int'rests of Wheam, Amberry Parva, Great Britain and 'is Majesty's Dominions beyond the Seas, that the undersigned, bein' between the age limits, sound in wind an' limb, an' not needed at 'ome as much as they thought they was, do 'ereby join the Territorial Army at the earliest possible date. THOMAS FALLOW, AARON WEST, GEO. HANGAR. Also, when 'is chest-measurement do allow of it, JACOB CHITTENDEN._"

* * * * *

Thus is the burden of the Empire borne by her sons when once they get the idea of it into their heads.

* * * * *

"LOOK OUT, BILL! HERE'S A SPECIAL CONSTABLE. HE'LL COP US WITH THE SWAG IN OUR 'ANDS."

"I DON'T MIND 'IM, 'ARRY. 'E'S ONLY A LITTLE UN."]

* * * * *

THE SCAPEGOAT.

"And what do you do with yourself on your half-holidays?"

I had taken courage to address the office-boy who keeps his eye on me while I wait humbly in the vestibule of my Financial Adviser.

"Pitchers," he replied affably.

"I beg your pardon," I said.

"Movin' pitchers," he explained; and I knew that the cinema had another slave.

And this too I knew, that a youth who breathed, as he did, the pure atmosphere of High Finance, would never commit a crime and blame the pitchers for it, as so many of our young criminals do. So many, in fact, that in my mind's eye I see the following reports in the papers:--

A boy of five was brought yesterday before the Darlington Bench charged with the bombardment of a street. Evidence showed that the prisoner established a machine-gun in the back garden of his father's house and systematically fired it at his neighbours' walls, doing considerable damage. The boy pleaded guilty, but explained that he had been to see some war-pictures at the cinema. The magistrate ordered the cinema to be kept under observation, and awarded the boy a shilling from the poor-box.

A girl of eight was charged at the Guildhall with causing an obstruction. Evidence was to the effect that she stood in the middle of Cheapside holding out her hands and a block resulted which disorganised the traffic for some hours. The child's excuse was that she had been witnessing the Lord Mayor's Show at the cinema.

"The pictures again!" exclaimed the magistrate. "When will this nuisance be stopped?"

Two boys of seven were charged at the Thames Police Court yesterday with kidnapping a young lady. Evidence showed that on the evening before, they first obtained possession of a motor car from the window of a shop in Long Acre, drove it at a great pace (one constable said forty miles an hour, and another sixty-one) to a house in Park Lane, where, while one boy remained outside, the other drew a revolver and forced the resident heiress into the car. At this point they were arrested. The boys said that they were very sorry, but that the spectacle of an abduction romance on the films had been too strong for them.

The magistrate: "What is the cinema censor about? Nothing is more deplorable than that the imaginations of young boys should be excited by these lurid dramas." The boys were discharged.

Three boys of six, seven and eight respectively were charged at Sheffield with stealing a railway train. It appears that while the driver of a Scotch excursion, which was in a siding, was oiling the wheels, the three boys sprang to the footboard and started the train. The driver pursued it, but was at once shot by one of the boys, who was armed to the teeth with pea-shooters. Asked to explain their conduct the boys said that they had seen so many train robberies on the local cinemas that they felt bound to do something in that line themselves. The magistrate said he did not wonder, and directed that the proprietors of the cinemas should have their licence cancelled.

Three men of criminal appearance, against whom previous convictions were proved, who were charged at Vine Street with pocket picking, explained that it was entirely due to the effect produced upon them by _Oliver Twist_ on the cinema. The magistrate dismissed the prisoners and ordered the cinema to be closed.

* * * * *

* * * * *

From a speech reported in the _Widnes Gazette:_--

"The character of this little nation is now what it was when Julius Cesar wrote 'De tous les peuples de la Gaule les Belges sont les plus braves.'"

It was in the same spirit of compliment to the country he was invading that HANNIBAL wrote "Longa est via ad Tipperariam" as he began to slide down the Alps.

"Mrs. Francis M. Cunliffe, writes from Southport:--To the unknown person or persons that sent three body belts. I beg to thank you most sincerely for your generous gift to the 9th (Reserve) Battalion Manchester Regiment. It will add greatly to the comfort of four men, and will be much appreciated by them."--_Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter._

With three-quarters of a body-belt apiece they should do splendidly.

* * * * *

A French interpreter with the Expeditionary Force sends us the following notice which he saw, he says, on the office door of the A.S.C.:--

"The waiter is not allowed to be drunk unless boiled before."

But boiling before is not really so good as a cold douche after.

* * * * *

The following directions for the right use of the "Snapseal Patent" are printed inside the pass-book envelopes issued by Lloyds Bank:--

"First wet the gum, then insert the tongue into lock and draw until you hear it snap."

After doing this once you may prefer to let your tongue, after it has wetted the gum, return to its usual position within the mouth.

* * * * *

FURTHER NOTES BY A WAR-DOG.

My name's "Scottie." I'm a collie and wear a box in which I collect contributions for the National Relief Fund. Probably you've met me--and, I hope, contributed. Not long ago, so Mabel told a friend the other day, a few of my early experiences were published in a book called _Punch_. I've had heaps more since then. I'm getting quite an old hand at the piteous "Won't-you-spare-me-something?" look. For one thing, I've learnt to let people put _anything_ into my box. Once I got a penny (from a little girl) that turned out, when the box was opened, to be chocolate. A bit cocoa-y by then, but still eatable. But my best haul was during my--and Mabel's--weekend by the sea.

We went down in a corridor train, where I collected quite a lot of money. When the train stopped half-way there, I jumped out for a mouthful of air, and there, on the platform, was a black retriever wearing a collecting box like mine! I asked him what he meant by it, and, as he didn't explain himself, I went for him, and stood him upside down; and in the scrimmage half a crown fell out of his collecting box. Everybody thought that it had fallen out of mine; Mabel was _sure_ it had; so it was given to me. You should have seen that retriever when I smiled at him from the carriage window.