Part 3

We reached the sea at last. The Serpentine's a puddle by comparison. The very first morning I tore across the shingle with two two-shilling pieces in my box rattling like eighteen-pence in copper. Such a time I had, though my box was dreadfully heavy, being full of sand and sea water. Presently, joy! the bottom fell out. But the public later seemed quite satisfied, until a horrid nurse-girl gave the show away--and of course Mabel had it mended.

The very day we came away I met the millionaire man. It was a wild wet day, and I was draining in an alcove underneath the promenade when he appeared. He didn't look rich, and he was running and panting and glancing over his shoulder in a hunted manner. No sooner did he see me than he whispered, "Blimy, 'ere's a chance! Good dawg, then--'old yer 'ed up," and at once crammed a heap of "goblins" (Mabel's word) and lots of crackley paper into my box. He followed this up with about two yards of shiny chain and things that winked so that I had to wink as well. Then came lots of things like goblins with their middles bitten out; and hardly had he given me the last before two monstrous men in blue rushed round the corner. I don't remember exactly what happened, but the millionaire man said, Blimy, couldn't he run after his hat wot the wind blown off? and the blue men said why, yes he could, but they were sure he hadn't. Then _he_ said, Blimy, they could "turn him over," straight they could, and _they_ said straight they would. But they didn't. Instead they felt in all his pockets, and only found a clay pipe and some cheese wrapped up in newspaper. Then things became so uninteresting that I sauntered back to Mabel.

The day after our home-coming my box and I were marched to the committee. I've had some bad times there, but nothing quite so bad before. The way an old girl gushed about the "darlings" (whoever they were) parting with their jewellery simply wearied me. As soon as Mabel felt strong enough to walk we went home. She seemed to forget that the haul was entirely due to me. Yet she's a wonderful memory for some things. Ever since breakfast to-day she's done nothing but talk about a daring robbery at Winklebeach, and looks at me in the most extraordinary manner. I don't know what Winklebeach may be, but it's as clear as daylight that she's thinking of the six sweet biscuits that I stole behind her back at her last "At home." But how did she find out?

* * * * *

OUR FIRST CAPTURE.

By SPECIAL CONSTABLE XXX.

You must understand that the work of the Special Constable is so utterly dreary that we heave sighs of envy on seeing one of our number, an L.C.C. employee, being allowed to clean the windows of a public building. The lucky dog!

Imagine, therefore, our joy at receiving a staff order to watch out for motor-cars with hoggish headlights, and report their numbers to headquarters. We were not to arrest them--even if we could.

Within half an hour of the staff order we registered Our First Capture. Myself, I received a fleeting impression of LL--8183; my colleague took it for LS--6163. An amicable discussion ensued. I pointed out that LS might mean London Scottish, who should be allowed to go scot free; he countered with the suggestion that LL might stand for LLOYD GEORGE, who should also be above the law. We tossed for it. I won. The honour fell to me to report the capture.

"Sergeant, oblige me by recording the following episode in your official notebook: Special Constable XXX has the honour to report that on or about the 15th instant, in the year of grace----"

"Is there much more like this?"

"Don't rob me of my hour of glory. I've had four blank months.... In the year of grace 1914, at the hour of 5.15, post meridian, at the corner of ---- Street, a motor-car contravening, traversing or otherwise infringing His Majesty's Regulations promulgated by the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, pursuant to an Order in Council----"

"What was its number?" demanded the Sergeant crudely.

"LL--8183, Sir. And I have the honour to suspect that it belonged to the Right Hon. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE."

The Sergeant, who wears a yellow brassard, reported to the Sub-Inspector (red band), and from there the information will travel upwards and onwards to the Chief Sub-Inspector (light-blue band), the Inspector (dark-blue band), the Commander (white band), and the Chief Staff Officer, who resides in the west wing of New Scotland Yard and probably wears a cocked hat. From there it will cross the Bridge of Sighs to the east wing, occupied by the more ordinary police, and will trickle down in reverse order of precedence to a regular Constable, who will probably call on Mr. LLOYD GEORGE with an official blue paper in his hand:--

"Sir,--From information received, it transpires that on or about the 15th instant, in the year of grace 1914,... head-lights contravening, traversing or otherwise infringing ... and should the offence be repeated.... In the name of our Sovereign Lord the King, Emperor of India, Defender of the Faith."

LLOYD GEORGE will humbly submit to the decree, will sign a promissory note of obedience (Moratorium barred), and the incident will close.

Think of the glory of putting all that in motion!

Yes, it was worth while joining the Force.

* * * * *

It having been officially announced (in "Charivaria") that members of the O.B.C. (Old Boys Corps) object to being called the Old B.C.'s, an intolerable suggestion is now put forward that they should be known as the "Obese He's."

* * * * *

Rear-Admiral SCHLIEPER says in the _Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger_ that the Germans could never overcome a certain sentimental feeling of justice and delicacy with regard to England. We do not know how Scarborough regards this veracious statement, but our own motto is "Let Schlieping dogs lie."

* * * * *

THE PATRIOTIC BURGLAR.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"DAVID COPPERFIELD."

If it were a simple question of bulk, few authors would lend themselves to the process of compression so well as CHARLES DICKENS; but the scheme of _David Copperfield_ is too complex, and its interests too many and competitive, to be packed into a three-hours' play, even by Mr. LOUIS PARKER, master of the tabloid. Of the main themes--the career of the hero himself, the machinations of _Uriah Heep_, the tragedy of _Little Em'ly_--only the last was at all effective in pillule form. The figure of _David Copperfield_--always pleasant if rather colourless--served to hold the play together; but the central experience of his life was treated with the extreme of haziness. We were informed of his engagement to _Dora_, his marriage, her illness, her death, all with the brevity of a French official _communiqué_; but as for the child-wife herself we never so much as set eyes on her. While again we gathered that the designs of _Uriah Heep_ were ultimately confounded, nobody without the aid of memory or imagination could possibly have penetrated their obscurity.

On the other hand--whether with or without the connivance of Sir HERBERT TREE I dare not conjecture--the person of _Wilkins Micawber_ was given a prominence out of all proportion to his share in any one of the plots. Unlike the something that was to make his fortune, he was always "turning up," and, whenever he did, he practically had the stage to himself.

I am far from quarrelling with this arrangement, for I have never seen Sir HERBERT in better form. His humour was of the richest, yet full of quiet subtleties, and merely to gaze upon his grotesque figure was a pure delight. That he should have permitted himself, in a spirit of creative irresponsibility, to deviate at times into the borderland of farce, and become an hilarious blend of himself and Mr. HENRY JAMES (I don't know why he suggested to me a burlesque of Mr. HENRY JAMES, for I have never known that most distinguished of writers to lapse from decorum) need not trouble anybody in a play where there was no pretence of insisting upon the letter of DICKENS.

The transition from _Falstaff_ to _Micawber_, from a bibber of sack to a bibber of punch, was an easy one for Sir HERBERT; but not so easy were the constant changes from and into the part of _Dan'l Peggotty_. Here he gave us a really admirable character-sketch--for _Peggotty_ belongs to the region of possibility, whereas _Micawber_ is always a creature of incredible fancy--and I am not sure that his achievement as the old salt was not, for him, the greater of the two. Certainly in the scene where he tells of his search over the world for _Little Em'ly_ he came nearer to simple pathos than I have ever known him to come. Even the strong Somerset accent of this East Anglian tar could not conceal his sincerity.

I shrink from the odious task of distinguishing between the merits of a most admirable cast, but I must mention the delightfully piquant drollery of Miss SYDNEY FAIRBROTHER as _Mrs. Micawber_, and the too-brief excellence of Mr. ROY BYFORD as the _Waiter_ of the "Golden Cross," and Mr. GAYER MACKAY as _Littimer_. Mr. QUARTERMAINE'S _Uriah Heep_--a very careful study--seemed perhaps too obviously stamped from the start with the hallmark of villany. Conversely the _Betsey Trotwood_ of Miss AGNES THOMAS appeared to be lacking in austerity of mien.

One shared Mr. NIGEL PLAYFAIR'S enjoyment of the futility of _Mr. Dick_; but this freakish figure, so typical of DICKENS, seemed always a little out of the picture.

Though _Mrs. Gummidge_, played with a sound restraint by Miss ADA KING, insisted from time to time upon the fact that she was a "lone lorn creetur'," we were spared a good many of the author's reiterated tags, and I think it was not till his friends had guaranteed to lubricate his passage to the New World that _Mr. Wilkins Micawber_ so much as alluded to his habitual expectation of something "turning up."

The popularity of the production promises to be exceptional, and with good reason, apart from the high quality of the performance. For with its human tenderness, and the relief of its gaiety, it offers just the right kind of distraction to the strain of public emotion in these times. And, though its matter bears no relation to the subject which absorbs our hearts, the very name of CHARLES DICKENS makes immediate appeal to that national spirit which the War has reawakened.

O. S.

* * * * *

Sir HERBERT TREE (as _Dan'l Peggotty_) to Sir HERBERT TREE (as _Micawber_). "THEER, I ZED 'TWOULD HAPPEN ZO ONE OF THESE VINE DAYS. YOU'VE TURNED UP TOO ZOON!"]

* * * * *

TO SOME OF OUR EDITORS.

Ye pundits who edit our papers, How long will it take you to learn That mere egotistical capers Are not of the highest concern? The writers who cut them for ages In the nostrils of England shall stink, Yet while able to hamper, you pet and you pamper These slingers of poisonous ink.

In the stress of a conflict Titanic, When personal sorrow is mute, We see them beset with a panic Of losing their chances of loot; So they start with indecent endeavour, On the flimsiest pretext and hint, Criticising and squealing, but only revealing Their passionate craving for print.

When they ask you to publish their sloppy, Sophistical, impudent screeds, Think, editors, less of "good copy" And more of the national needs; For whether they pontify sadly, Or flout us in cap and in bells, Pontifical patter and arrogant chatter Are worse than the enemy's shells.

There's a saying that's frequently quoted, And cannot be wholly ignored, That the pen, when its force can be noted, Is a mightier thing than the sword; But the mightiness doesn't reside in The pen, but the writer behind, Who, if hostile to reason or bent upon treason, No deadlier weapon can find.

In Peace, in the times that were piping, When pacifists bade us disarm, This smart intellectual sniping Did less recognisable harm; But now, in the hour of its peril, The country is sick of its Shaws, And hurls to the devil the sophists who revel In pleading the enemy's cause.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

This paragraph will, I hope, catch your eye in time to be of use as a guide in the holiday fairy-tale traffic. But at worst there are always birthdays or, for nursery gifts, those even more apt occasions known as Nothing-in-particular Days. (_Humpty-Dumpty_, you remember, a recognised authority, used to call them un-birthdays.) Anyhow, if you should be looking about for something applicable to Kit or Ursula, you may take my word that you will find nothing better than _The Dream Pedlar_ (SIMPKIN, MARSHALL). The letterpress--I beg your pardon, I should have said the "reading"--is by Lady MARGARET SACKVILLE, who has clearly a pretty taste in fairy matters, and the pictures are by FLORENCE ANDERSON in colour, and CLARA SHIRLEY HAYWARD in black-and-white. I don't say that all these are of equal merit, but the best of them are delightful. Moreover, although in the modern sumptuous fashion the colour plates are introduced on brown-paper mounts, still they have the practical merit of being fixed, and not merely gummed at one corner, a fashion that simply results in litter for the nursery floor. The tales themselves are wholly charming, and about quite the right people, kings and woodcutters and dream-princesses and goblins. Perhaps now and again Lady MARGARET falls to the temptation of being a thought too clever with an aside, so to speak, whispered in the ear of the reader-aloud. But the wise child will forgive her this for the compelling charm of her simplicities. For me, if I had a favourite in the tales, it was perhaps _Martin's godmother_, "an attractive old lady, short, with large fan-like ears, which she would wave to and fro when amused." There is an enchanting picture of her doing it. I have not yet known the nursery where that picture would not soon bear the thumb-marks of popularity.

* * * * *

Not a single word could be conveniently omitted from _Friends and Memories_ (ARNOLD), but I could easily spare a great many of its notes of exclamation--nearly all superfluous--for Miss MAUDE VALÉRIE WHITE'S style of writing needs no such advertisement. And having got rid of that grumble I feel at liberty to express, without restraint, my profound admiration of the book and its author. Never, then, has it been my good fortune to read so many pages that are filled with what I can only call the fragrance of life. Sorrows and troubles Miss WHITE has known in abundance--one often sees her smiling through a veil of tears--but she steadfastly refuses to dwell upon anything but the joy of living, and the kindness of her many friends. This splendid way of regarding the world is one of the qualities that has made her welcome and more than welcome wherever she goes; it is also the quality that gives an almost unique distinction to her volume of reminiscences. One can scarcely think of her as an eminent composer whose songs have been heard throughout the world when the gift, which she obviously values most and would herself call "priceless," is that of being able to keep up a cheerful end whatever happens. Her book, therefore, is really both a tonic and a lesson, but it is a tonic that is as delightful as good champagne, and it is a lesson that is full of humour and of what is rarer than humour--good fun. Even in her reticences Miss WHITE cannot save herself from being amusing, for on her first page she refuses to tell us her age, though afterwards she gives it away time and again to anyone inquisitive enough to use a little arithmetic. But she need have no fears, for she has the spirit of youth which can laugh at figures and defy the passing years.

Must I believe that the life of anybody, even the hardest worked and least attractive village girl, is as devoid of exhilaration and good cheer as was that of _Chrismas Hamlyn?_ Maybe dismal events happen now and then to individuals which make them wish, with reason, that they were dead and had never been alive, and I will admit that it was so with _Chrismas_ at the moment when her second lover proved to be entirely spurious and to have pretended passion in order to steal a purse. But I am asked to assume that, apart from and before this little tragedy, she was necessarily in a state of gloom by reason of the mere dulness and hardship of the existence of her sort. This is a proposition which, notwithstanding Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY'S skilful pleading, I am reluctant to accept. I prefer to think that the girl found recreation in everyday events, or at least in every other day events, of her neighbourhood which would make no appeal to Mrs. DUDENEY or myself; or, indeed, that the brooding over her unhappy lot in general, and her first love failure in particular, afforded some satisfaction for which credit has not been allowed. Undoubtedly the environment of the _Hamlyns_ is studied rather from our view than from their own, and by that method of analysis a vast amount of human misery may be discovered which does not always in fact exist. Apart from that, _What a Woman Wants_ (HEINEMANN) is a convincing study of the sordid side of things; but I would like to see the admirable gifts of the authoress directed to the emphasizing of the merrier side of the same sort of life, so that we might compare the two and form a more balanced opinion.

* * * * *

_The Bed-Book of Happiness_ is a "Colligation or Assemblage of Cheerful Writings," colligated by Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE, and published by Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON. It is a second edition, entitled the Red-Cross Edition, and it offers itself as an anodyne for the pain and boredom of wounded heroes. Said heroes, of average British pattern, would, I think, receive a nasty shock on reading the title and might be tempted to thrust the volume privily away without more ado. But they need do no such thing; it is nothing like so bad as that. On the contrary it is stuffed with most excellent matter for the perceptive, in doses not long enough to tire and with sufficient variety to stimulate. Old favourites from HOOD and CALVERLEY; an odd Ingoldsby or two; whimsicality from SAMUEL BUTLER; absurdities from that other SAMUEL (CLEMENS); growls from that greatest of the tribe, JOHNSON; cheeriness from that best of poets and schoolmasters, T. E. BROWN; a little STERNE, a little DICKENS, a little THACKERAY; _Percy Anecdotes_ and snippets from GRONOW; translated excerpts from those delightful allies, DAUDET, SAINT-BEUVE, ANATOLE FRANCE; and so forth and on. Of course no two colligators of bed-books could agree upon their choice, but I do think Mr. BEGBIE might have bagged a little from R. L. S. That omission and the deplorable title are my chief grievances. It is a sound point that there is no unwholesome invalidy tone about this seasonable re-issue with additions.

Though I enjoyed _Broken Shackles_ (METHUEN) in a mild degree, I hardly think that Mr. JOHN OXENHAM has here given us of his best. So little do I think this that I am the prey of a suspicion--probably quite unfounded--that the tale is either early work, or has been hastily put together since the beginning of August. Anyhow, it's about a young man named _de Valle_, an officer in the Eastern Army of France, who is married but lives apart from his wife. The time is the winter of 1870, and when the great surrender comes, and the army is forced over into Switzerland, _de Valle_ is so sick of military muddles that he determines to settle down as a Swiss civilian and never go back any more. This (fortune helping him) he is enabled to do. He changes his name to _Duval_, and starts the simpler life with some pleasant folk who run a saw-mill in the Brunnen Thal. He even goes so far as to marry the maid of the mill. Which was rash of him, since he was still legally tied to his French wife, and (in fiction at least) the course of bigamy never did run smooth. Inevitably, therefore, not only did he encounter his wife again, coming out of the casino at Interlaken (she too has not been idle, having meanwhile married a Russian Prince), but the villain of the story also saw them both, and looked to make a good thing by it. But you know how quick and deep the Aar runs at Interlaken? _Duval_ accordingly pushed the inconvenient blackmailer into the water, and everyone, with this exception, lived happy. The real merit of the book lies not in this improbable plot, but in its moving chapters upon a little treated phase of the last Franco-German fighting. These are well done.

* * * * *

Many gentle readers will be well pleased to hear that AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE are giving them more news of that engaging heroine, _Lady Kilcroney_. True, in the new book _Kitty_ herself plays but a subordinate part, but as her dainty mantle of insolence and charm appeals to have fallen on the shoulders of a worthy successor no one need grumble upon that score. The new book is called _The Ways of Miss Barbara_ (SMITH ELDER), and I daresay that having said so much I might spare myself the pains of telling precisely what those ways were. Do you need to hear how _Mistress Barbara_ (who was a kind of eighteenth-century _Becky Sharp_ without the sting) was befriended by _Lady Kitty_ and her susceptible lord? How the noble carriage was waylaid on its journey from Paris to the coast? How the highwayman was eventually brought to hook by the wiles of _Barbara_, who in the long run marries a duke, and is left preparing for permanent prosperity? Whether this last expectation will be fulfilled without preliminary troubles I take leave to doubt. Indeed, the situation as regards _Barbara_ and her ducal spouse is left so full of intriguing possibilities that I could not but suspect those clever campaigners, the EGERTON CASTLES, of having artfully arranged it as a kind of concrete foundation from which to attack the public sympathy later on. This is as may be. Meanwhile here is a pleasantly sparkling comedy with which, I vow, you are like to find yourself vastly well pleased.

* * * * *

[Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]