Chapter 3

He meets Miss Butterfield.

"Mis BòttaRfild," he says, "uil ju ghiv mi ê glàs òv uòtaR, if ju plîS?" And that is the end of the lady. Or I think so. But there is just a possibility that it is she (no longer Miss Butterfield, but now a Signora) whom he rebukes in a coffee-house: "Mai diaR, du nòt spích òv pòllitichs in ê Còffi-Haus, fòr nò travvEllaR, if priùdènt, èvvaR tòchs èbaut pòllitichs in pòblich." And again it may be for Miss Butterfield that he orders a charming present (first saying it is for a lady): "Ghiv mi thèt ripittaR sèt uith rubès, thèt straich-S thi aurS ènd thi hâf-aurS."

Finally he embarks for Australia and quickly becomes as human as the rest of us. "Thi uind," he murmurs uneasily, "is raisin. Thi si is vèrE ròf. Thi mô-sciòn òv thi Stim-bôt mêch-S mi an-uèl. Ai fîl vèrE sich. Mai hèd is diZZE. Ai hèv gòt ê hèd-êch." But he assures a fellow- passenger that there is no cause for fear, even if a storm should come on. "Du nòt bi àlaRmD," he says; "thèaR is nô dêngg-aR. Thi Chèp-tèn òv this Stima-R is è vèrE clèvaR mèn."

His last words, addressed apparently to the rest of the passengers as they reach Adelaide, are these: "Lèt òs mêch hêst ènd gô tu thi Còstòm-HauS tu hèv aur lògh-êggS èch-samint. In ÒstrêlIa, thi Còstòm-HauS ÒffIsaRs aR nòt hòttE, bàt vèrE pôlait."

* * * * *

* * * * *

EMERGENCY RATIONS.

In our village many disruptions have been wrought by the War, but nothing has ever approached the state of turveydom which came in with the system of daily rations.

Margery brought home the first news of the revolution.

"Most extraordinary thing," she said. "The Joneses have got the two old Miss Singleweeds staying with them."

"What!" I exclaimed, swallowing my ration of mammalia in one astonished gulp. "Why, only two or three days ago Jones told me very privately that the Singleweeds were two of the most interfering, bigoted, cabbage-eating old cats that he had ever come across."

"Cabbage-eating!" repeated Margery thoughtfully. "How stupid we are. That's it, of course."

"What's it?"

"Why, cabbage-eating. The Singleweeds haven't touched meat since I don't know when, so for a consideration of brussels-sprouts and a few digestive biscuits the Joneses will have five pounds of genuine beef to play with."

"Hogs!" I said.

The hospitable influence of the new scheme of rationing spread very rapidly. A few days later we heard that Sir Meesly Goormay, the most self-indulgent and incorrigible egotist in the neighbourhood, had introduced a collection of octogenarian aunts to his household, and, when I was performing my afternoon beat, I was just in time to see the butcher's boy, assisted by the gardener, delivering what looked to be a baron of beef at Sir Meesly's back door. It was an enervating and disgusting spectacle, well calculated to upset the _moral_ of the steadiest special in the local force.

That night at dinner I had a Machiavellian thought.

"Look here," I said, stabbing at a plate of _petit pois_ (1911) and mis-cueing badly, "what about having Uncle Tom to stay for a few weeks?"

"Last time he came," replied Margery, "you said that nothing would induce you to ask him again. You haven't forgotten his chronic dyspepsia, have you?"

"Of course not," I retorted, looking a little pained at such flagrant gaucherie; "but you can't cast off a respectable blood relation because he happens to live on charcoal and hot water."

I delivered an irritable attack on a lentil pudding.

"Right-O," agreed Marjory. "And I'll ask Joan as well. She won't be able to come until Friday, because she's having some teeth extracted on Thursday."

After all Marjory is not altogether without perception.

Dinner over I wrote, in my best style, a short spontaneous invitation to Uncle Tom. Margery wrote a more discursive one to Joan.

"I think we ought to celebrate this," I suggested. "Let's be extravagant."

"All right," said Margery. "What shall it be, champagne or potatoes?"

Two days later I received the following:--

"MY DEAR JAMES,--Thank you very much for your invitation, which I am very pleased to accept. The country, after all, is the proper place for old fogeys like myself, as it is very difficult for them to live up to the present-day bustle of a large city. For the last six months I have been doing odd jobs at a munition factory, which, I must admit, has benefited my health in an extraordinary manner, so much so that I have entirely lost the troublesome dyspepsia I suffered from, and now, you will be glad to hear, I am able to eat like a hunter, as we used to say. Hoping to find you all flourishing on Thursday next, about lunch-time,

"Your affectionate UNCLE TOM."

Instinctively I took my belt in a hole. Then Margery silently placed this in front of me:--

"DARLING MARGERY,--How perfectly sweet of you! I shall simply love it. I am feeling especially beany as I have just finished with the dentist--usually a hateful person--who found out, after all, that it was not necessary to take out any of my teeth. I adore him. No time for more. Heaps to tell you on Friday,

"Your loving J.J."

"Hullo! Where are you off to?" I asked, as Margery made for the door.

"Off to? Why, to put our names down on the Singleweeds' waiting list."

I took my belt up another hole and, whistling _The Bing Boys_ out of sheer desperate bravado, made my gloomy way to the potato patch.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A MASTER OF THE QUILL.

"Of Swinburne's personal characteristics Mr. Goose, as was to be expected, writes admirably."--_Daily News and Leader_.

* * * * *

GERMAN MEASLES.

"Francesca," I said, "you must admit that at last I have you at a disadvantage."

"I admit nothing of the sort."

"Well," I said, "have you or have you not got German measles? It seems almost an insult to put such a question to a woman of your energy and brilliant intellectual capacity, but you force me to it."

"Dr. Manley--"

"Come, come, don't fob it off on the Doctor. He didn't wilfully provide you with an absurd attack of this childish disease."

"No, he didn't; but when I was getting along quite nicely with the idea that I was suffering from a passing headache he butted in and sent me to bed as a German measler--and now we've all got it."

"Yes," I said, "you've all got it, all my little chickens and their dam--you're the dam, remember that, Francesca--Muriel's got it, Nina's got it, Alice has got it and Frederick has got it very slightly, but he insists on having all the privileges of the worst kind of invalid; and you've got it, Francesca, and I'm left scatheless in a position of unlimited power and no responsibility."

"Yes," she said, "it's terrible, but you will use your strength mercifully."

"I'm not at all sure about that. At first I felt like one of those old prisoner Johnnies--Baron TRENCK, you know, or LATUDE--who were all shaky and mild when they were at last released; but now I've had time to think--yes, I've had time to think."

"And what is the result of your thoughts?"

"The result," I said, "is that I'm determined to do things thoroughly. I've mastered all your jealously-guarded secrets and I've allowed the strong wind of a man's intellect to blow through them. I am facing the cook on a new system and am dealing with the tradesmen in a spirit of inexorable resolution. The housemaid is being brought to heel and has already begun not to leave her brushes and dust-pans lying about on the floors of the library and the drawing-room. Stern measures are being taken with the kitchen-maid; and Parkins, that ancient servitor, is slowly being reduced to obedience. Even the garden is feeling the new influence and potatoes are being planted where no potatoes were ever planted before. Everything, in fact, is being reformed."

"I warn you," said Francesca, "that your reforms will not be allowed to go on. As soon as I can get rid of the German measles I shall restore everything to its former condition."

"But that," I said, "is the counter-revolution."

"It is; and it's going to begin as soon as I get out of bed."

"And what are you going to bring out of bed with you?"

"Common sense," said Francesca.

"Not at all," I said. "You're going to bring out of bed with you that hard reactionary bureaucratic spirit which all but ruined Russia and is in process of ruining Germany. It will be just as if the TSARITSA got loose and began to have her own way again. By the way, Francesca, what does one do when the butcher says there won't be any haunch of mutton till Tuesday, or when the grocer refuses you your due amount of sugar?"

"A TSARITSA," said Francesca haughtily, "cannot concern herself with sugar or haunches of mutton."

"But suppose that the TSARITSA has got German measles. Couldn't she manage to beat up an interest in mundane affairs?"

"I'll tell you what," said Francesca.

"Do," I said; "I'm dying to hear it."

"Well, you'd better let the strong wind of a man's intellect blow through them."

"What," I said--"through the haunch of mutton?"

"Yes, you could do without the haunch, you know, and score off the butcher."

"That's a sound idea. You're not so badly measled as I thought you were."

"Oh," she said, "I shall soon be rid of them altogether."

"To tell you the truth, I wish you'd hurry up."

"Long live the counter-revolution!"

"Oh, as long as you like," I said.

"Have you given the children their medicine and taken their temperatures?"

"I'm just off to do it," I said.

R.C.L.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"The Wady Ghuzzeh, or river of Gaza, a stream-bed which makes no large assertion on the map. But it 'just divides the desert from the sewn.'" --_Sunday Paper_.

Being, as you might say, a mere thread.

* * * * *

Extracts from an article entitled "London Sights: An Australian's Impressions":--

"When all is over and we are back where the coyote cries ... when the Rockies are looking down at us from their snowy heights, and the night-time silence steals across the fir-bordered foothills...."--_Sunday Times_.

Yet what is all this to the longing of the Canadian for the nightly howl of the kangaroo and the song of the wombat flitting among the blue-gums in his native bush?

* * * * *

According to a French philosopher mankind is divided into two categories, _Les Huns et les autres_.

* * * * *

"Sydney, January 2.

Concurrently with the inauguration of the new time schedule at 2 a.m. on Monday a violent earth tremor was experienced at Orange. An accompanying noise lasted about a half minute."--_Brisbane Courier_.

Another family quarrel between [Greek: Kronos] and [Greek: Gê].

* * * * *

"Petrograd, Wednesday,

The Council of Workmen's Delegates has issued an appeal to the proletariat, which contains the following striking passage: We shall defend our liberty to the utmost against all attacks within and without. The Russian revolution will not quail before the bayca fwyaa, mfwyawayqawyqa."--_Dublin Evening Mail_.

If that won't frighten it nothing will.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

I am wondering whether, among the myriad by-products of the War, there should be numbered a certain note of virility hitherto (if he will forgive me for saying so) foreign to the literary style of Mr. E. TEMPLE THURSTON. Because I have certainly found _Enchantment_ (UNWIN) a far more vigorous and less saccharine affair than previous experience had led me to expect from him. For which reason I find it far and away my favourite of the stories by this author that I have so far encountered. I certainly think (for example) that not one of his Cities of Beautiful Barley-Sugar contains any figures so alive as those of _John Desmond_, the hard-drinking Irish squireen, and _Mrs. Slattery_, his adoring housekeeper. There is red blood in both, and not less in _Charles Stuart_, a hero whose earlier adventures with smugglers, secret passages and the like have an almost STEVENSONIAN vigour. All the life of impoverished Waterpark, with its wonderful drawing-room full of precarious furniture, is excellently drawn. I willingly allow Mr. THURSTON so much of his earlier manner as is implied in the (quite pleasant) conceit of the fairy-tale. The point is that the real tale here is neither of fairies nor of sugar dolls, but of genuine human beings, vastly entertaining to read about and quite convincingly credible. I can only entreat the author to continue this rationing of sentiment for our mutual benefit.

* * * * *

When a book rejoices in such a title as _The Amazing Years_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) and begins with a prosperous English family contemplating their summer holiday in August 1914, you may be tolerably certain beforehand of its subject-matter. When, moreover, the name on the title-page is that of Mr. W. PETT RIDGE, you may with equal security anticipate that, whatever troubles befall this English family by the way, they will eventually reach a happy ending, and find all for the best in the best of all genially humorous worlds. As indeed it proves. But of course the _Hilliers_ were exceptionally fortunate in the fact that when the crash came they had one of those quite invaluable super-domestics whom Mr. PETT RIDGE delights in to steer them back to prosperity. The story tells us how the KAISER compelled the _Hilliers_ to leave "The Croft," and how that very capable woman, _Miss Weston_, restored it to them again, chiefly by the aid of her antique shop; and to anyone who has recently been a customer in such an establishment this result fully explains itself. I need not further enlarge upon the theme of the book. Your previous knowledge of Mr. PETT RIDGE'S method will enable you to imagine how the various members of the _Hillier_ household confront the changes brought by The Amazing Years; but this will not make you less anxious to read it for yourself in the author's own inimitable telling. I won't call this his best novel; now and again, indeed, there seemed rather too much padding for so slender a plot; but, take it for all in all, and bearing in mind the strange fact that we all love to read about events with which we are already familiar, I can at least promise you a cheery and optimistic entertainment.

* * * * *

_Jan Ross_, grey-haired at twenty-seven, but sweet of face and of a most taking way, found herself unexpectedly confronted, a year or two ago, with a "job." It was eventually to include the looking after a certain _Peter_, of the Indian Civil Service, a thoroughly good sort, who by now is making her as happy as she deserves; but in the first place it meant the care of a little motherless niece and nephew and their protection from a scoundrelly father. How successfully she has been doing it and what charmingly human babies are her charges, _Tony_ and _Fay_, you will realise when I say that it is Mrs. L. ALLEN HARKER who has been telling me all about _Jan and Her Job_ (MURRAY). You will understand, too, how pleasantly peaceful, how utterly removed from the artificially forced crispness of the special correspondent, is the telling of the story; but you must read it yourself to learn how simply and naturally the writer has used the coming of the War for her last chapter, and above all to get to know not only _Jan_ herself but also that most loyal of comrades, her pal _Meg_. _Meg_, indeed, is almost as much in the middle of the stage as the friend whose nursemaid she has elected to become; and as the completion of her own private happiness has to remain in doubt until the coming of peace, since Mrs. HARKER has resolutely refused to guarantee the survival of the soldier-sweetheart, you must join me in wishing him the best of good fortune. He is still rubbing it into the Bosches. Perhaps some day the author will be able to reassure us.

* * * * *

When I have said that _Twentieth-Century France_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is rather over-weighted by its title my grumble is made. To deal adequately with twentieth-century France in a volume of little more than two hundred amply-margined pages is beyond the powers of Miss M. BETHAM-EDWARDS or of any other writer. But, under any title, whatever she writes about France must be worth reading, and to-day of all times the French need to be explained to us almost as much as we need to be explained to them. Miss BETHAM-EDWARDS can be trusted to do this good work with admirable sympathy and discretion. Here she writes intimately of many people whose names are already household words in France. The more books we have of the kind the better. VOLTAIRE, we are reminded, once said that "when a Frenchman and an Englishman agree upon any subject we may be quite sure they have reason on their side." Well, they are agreeing at present upon a certain subject with what the Huns must regard as considerable unanimity. If in the last century there was any misunderstanding between us and our neighbours it is now in a fair way to be removed to the back of beyond; and in this removal Miss EDWARDS has lent a very helping hand.

* * * * *

What chiefly impressed me about _Marshdikes_ (UNWIN) was what I can only call the blazing indiscretion of the chief characters. To begin with, you have a happily married young couple asking a nice man down for the week-end to meet a girl, and as good as telling him that the party has been arranged, as the advertisements put it, with a view to matrimony. Passing from this, we find a doctor (surely unique) blurting out to a fellow-guest at dinner that a mutual friend had consulted him for heart trouble. To crown all, when the match arranged by the young couple has got as far as an engagement, the wife must needs go and tell the girl that the whole affair was manoeuvred by herself. Which naturally upset that apple-cart. It had also the effect of making me a somewhat impatient spectator of the subsequent developments, mainly political, of the plot. I smiled, though, when the hero was worsted in his by-election. After all, with a set of supporters so destitute of elementary tact.... But, of course, I know quite well what is my real grievance. Miss HELEN ASHTON began her story with a chapter so full of sparkle that I am peevish at being disappointed of the comedy that this promised. Perhaps next time she will take the hint, and give us an entire novel in the key which, I am sure, suits her best.

* * * * *

_A Little World Apart_ (LANE) is one of those gentle stories that please as much by reminding you of others like them as by any qualities of their own. Indeed you might call it, with no disparagement intended, a fragrant pot-pourri of many rustic romances--_Our Village_, for example, and more than a touch of _Cranford_. Your literary memory may also suggest to you another scene in fiction almost startlingly like the one here, in which the gently-born lover (named _Arthur_) of the village beauty is forced to combat by her rustic suitor. Fortunately, however, Mr. GEORGE STEVENSON has no tragedy like that of _Hetty_ in store for his _Rose_. His picture of rural life is more mellow than melodramatic; and his tale reaches a happy end, unchequered by anything more sensational than a mild outbreak of scandal from the local wag-tongues. There are many pleasant, if rather familiar, characters; though I own to a certain sense of repletion arising from the elderly and domineering dowagers of fiction, of whom _Lady Crane_ may be regarded as embodying the common form. _A Little World Apart_, in short, is no very sensational discovery, but good enough as a quiet corner for repose.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A VISION OF BLIGHTY.

I do not ask, when back on Blighty's shore My frozen frame in liberty shall rest, For pleasure to beguile the hours in store With long-drawn revel or with antique jest. I do not ask to probe the tedious pomp And tinsel splendour of the last Revue; The Fox-trot's mysteries, the giddy Romp, And all such folly I would fain eschew. But, propt on cushions of my long desire, Deep-buried in the vastest of armchairs, Let me recline what time the roaring fire Consumes itself and all my former cares. I shall not think nor speak, nor laugh nor weep, But simply sit and sleep and sleep and sleep.

* * * * *

"Wanted, Ladyhelp or General, for country, no bread or butter.--Apply 'Gay,' 'Dominion' Office."--_The Dominion_ (_Wellington, N.Z._).

We congratulate the advertiser on her cheery optimism.