Chapter 2

_Re_ your postscript. Try prussic acid, but pray do not confine it to the toilets of your carrots. A few drops on the tongue would, I am sure, make you take a less distorted view of things, and you would cease to worry over such trifles as the braying of a harmless animal.

Faithfully yours, FREDERICK PETHERTON.

Of course I simply had to reply to this, but made no reference to the _tu quoque_ question. He had evidently failed to grasp, or had ignored, the rather obvious suggestion in the last few words of my first letter on the subject. I wrote:--

MY DEAR CHAP,--Thanks so much for your prompt reply and valuable information about prussic acid. There was, however, one omission in the prescription. You didn't say on whose tongue the acid should be placed. If you meant on the donkey's it seems an excellent idea. I'll try it, so excuse more now, as the chemist's will be closed in a few minutes.

Yours in haste, HARRY F.

Petherton was getting angry, and his reply was terse and venomous:--

SIR,--Yes, I did mean the donkey's. It will cure both his stupid braying and his habit of writing absurd and childish letters.

But if you poison _my_ donkey it will cost you a good deal more than you will care to pay, especially in war-time.

It is a pity you're too old for the army; you might have been shot by now.

Faithfully yours, FREDERICK PETHERTON.

I had now got on to my fourth speed, and dashed off this reply:--

DEAR FREDDY,--I like you in all your moods, but positively adore you when you are angry. As a matter of fact I am very fond of what are so absurdly known as dumb animals, and am glad now that the chemist's was closed last night before I decided whether to go there or not. BALAAM himself would have been proud to own your animal. It roused me from my bed this morning with what was unmistakably a very fine asinine rendering of the first few bars of "The Yeoman's Wedding," but unfortunately it lost the swing of it before the end of the first verse.

Yours as ever, HARRY.

Petherton gave up the contest; but I let him have a final tweak after seeing the announcement of his splendid and public-spirited action to help on the War Food scheme.

DEAR OLD BOY (I wrote),--How stupid you must have thought me all this time! Only when I learnt from the paragraph in this morning's _Surbury Examiner_ that, in response to the suggestion of the Rural District Council, you have lent your field to the poor people of the neighbourhood for growing War Food did I realise the meaning of the dulcet-toned donkey's presence in your field.

The growing of more food at the present time is an absolute necessity, but it was left to you to discover this novel method of proclaiming to Surbury that here in its midst was land waiting to be put to really useful purpose.

I do not know which to admire the more, your patriotism or the ingenuity displayed in your selection of so admirable a mouthpiece from among your circle of friends.

Yrs., H.

Petherton has left it at that.

* * * * *

NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.

(SECOND SERIES.)

XVIII.

BAYSWATER.

The Bays came down to water-- Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! And there they found the Brindled Mules-- Bray! Bray! Bray! "How dare you muddy the Bays' water That was as clear as glass? How dare you drink of the Bays' water, You children of an Ass?"

"Why shouldn't we muddy your water? Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Why shouldn't we drink of your water, Pray, pray, pray? If our Sire was a Coster's Donkey Our Dam was a Golden Bay, And the Mules shall drink of the Bays' water Every other day!"

XIX.

KENTISH TOWN.

As I jogged by a Kentish Town Delighting in the crops, I met a Gipsy hazel-brown With a basketful of hops.

"You Sailor from the Dover Coast With your blue eyes full of ships, Carry my basket to the oast And I'll kiss you on the lips."

Once she kissed me with a jest, Once with a tear-- O where's the heart was in my breast And the ring was in my ear?

* * * * *

* * * * *

WAR'S ROMANCES. [Now that fiction is occupying itself so much with military matters, it is necessary to warn the lady novelist--as it used to be necessary in other days to warn her in relation to sport--to cultivate accuracy. There is a constant danger that the popular story will include such passages as follow.]

"Corporal Cuthbert Crewdson," said the Colonel in a kindly voice, "your work has been very satisfactory--so much so that I have decided to promote you. From to-day you will no longer be Corporal, but Lance-Corporal." With a grateful smile our hero saluted and retired to draw his lance at the Adjutant's stores.

* * * * *

"Darling," cried the handsome young private, "I told the Colonel of our engagement, and he said at once I might bring you to tea at our Mess any Sunday afternoon."

* * * * *

One night, as Private Jones and the Sergeant-major were strolling arm-in-arm through the High Street...

* * * * *

"Remember," said the old Major, eyeing his eighteen-year-old subaltern son with a shrewd affectionate glance, "a little well-placed courtesy goes a long way. For instance, if a Sergeant should call you 'Sir,' never forget to say 'Sir' to him."

* * * * *

Osbert, his cane dangling from his left hand and with Mabel at his side, sailed proudly down Oxford Street. Suddenly a Tommy hove in sight. At once Osbert passed his stick to his other hand, leaving the left one free. The next moment the man was saluting, and Osbert, bringing up his left hand in acknowledgment, passed on.

"It is always well to be scrupulously correct in these little details," he explained.

* * * * *

Mildred, her heart beating rapidly, stood shyly behind the muslin curtain as George, looking very gallant in khaki, strode past the window with his frog hopping along at his side.

* * * * *

Sidney Bellairs, apparently so stern and unbending on parade, was adored by his men. Often he had been known, when acting as "orderly officer" (as the officer is called who has to keep order), to carry round with him a light camp-stool, which, with his unfailing charm of manner, he would offer to some weary sentry. "There, my boy, sit down," he would say, without a trace of condescension.

* * * * *

Lord Debenham succeeded because even in small things he could look ahead. "Ethelred," he would say to his batman, "there is to be a field-day to-morrow, so see that my haversack, water-bottle and slacks are put ready for me in the morning."

"Very good, my lord," the orderly would answer.

* * * * *

Marmaduke sprang forward. The Hun's bomb, its pin withdrawn, was about to explode. Coolly removing his costly gold-and-diamond tie-pin, he thrust this substitute into the appointed place in the terrible sizzling bomb, and stood back with a little smile. The next moment his General stepped towards him and pinned to his breast the Victoria Cross.

* * * * *

Colonel Blood belonged to the old school--irascible, even explosive, but at bottom a heart of gold. Often after thrashing a subaltern with his cane for some neglect of duty he would smile suddenly and invite the offender to dine with him at the Regimental Mess as if nothing had happened.

* * * * *

_Lady._ "OH, I DIDN'T WANT TO GET OUT. I ONLY WANTED TO SHOW MY LITTLE FIDO WHERE HE WAS BORN."]

* * * * *

A NEW DANGER.

"I don't know if you realise," said Ernest, "that since Army signalling became fashionable a new danger confronts us."

"If you mean that an enthusiast might start semaphoring unexpectedly in a confined space and get his neighbour in the eye, I may say that I have thought of it," I answered. "But it isn't worth worrying very much about. He wouldn't do it more than once."

"It isn't that," said Ernest. "It's something much more subtle and insidious. It is the growing tendency in ordinary conversation to use 'Ack' for A, 'Beer' for B, 'Emma' for M, 'Esses' for S, 'Toe' for T, etc. When you told me you were going to see your Aunt at 3 P.M., for instance, you said '3 Pip Emma.' And it isn't as if you were at all good at Semaphore or Morse either.

"Imagine," he continued, "the effect upon a congregation of the announcement from the pulpit that the Reverend John Smith, Beer Ack, will preach next Sunday. Or upon a meeting when told that Mr. Carrington Ponk, J. Pip, will now speak. Think of Aunt Jane and all her Societies," he went on gloomily. "Imagine her saying that she's going to an Esses Pip G. meeting to-morrow. It's a dreadful thought. It will extend to people's initials, too. The great T.P. will be Toe Pip O'CONNOR. Something will have to be done about it."

"There's only one thing to be done," I said. "You must get into Parliament and bring in a Bill about it. All might yet be well if you were an Emma Pip."

* * * * *

THE HUNGRY HUNS.

"The _Berliner Tageblatt's_ correspondent states that the ground at St. Pierre Vaast has been converted into a marsh in which half-frozen soldiers, wet to the skin and knee-deep in mud, absorb the shells."

_New Zealand Paper._

* * * * *

"The dispute, he claimed, was not started by the employees, but by the employer making sweeping reductions in the ages of the men."

_Daily Paper._

If he wants to do this sort of thing with impunity he should employ women.

* * * * *

A FOOD PROBLEM.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Please _do_ tell me. Must I count sausages under the meat or the bread allowance? I do so want to help my country _faithfully_.

Yours, WORRIED HOUSEWIFE.

* * * * *

"REWARD 2s. 6d. Lost, a small Silver Toothpick, value sentimental."

_Nottingham Evening Post._

The latest thing in love-tokens.

* * * * *

"After a debate lasting three days, the Senate rejected the motion approving Mr. Wilson's Nose."--_The Bulletin (Lahore)._

The Senate has since shown its impartiality by registering its profound disapproval of the KAISER'S Cheek.

* * * * *

"A special constable has received the Silver Medal of the Society for Protection of Life from fire for his gallantry in mounting a ladder at a local fire last May and rescuing a cook."--_Daily Paper._

It is understood that members of the regular "force" consider that he showed some presumption in not leaving this particular task to them.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Wednesday, February 7th._--HIS MAJESTY opened Parliament to-day for what we all hope will be the Victory Session. But it will not be victory without effort. That was the burden of nearly all the speeches made to-day, from the KING'S downwards. HIS MAJESTY, who had left his crown and robes behind, wore the workmanlike uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet; and the Peers had forgone their scarlet and ermine in favour of khaki and sable. When Lord STANHOPE, who moved the Address, ventured, in the course of an oration otherwise sufficiently sedate, to remark that "the great crisis of the War had passed," Lord CURZON was swift to rebuke this deviation into cheerfulness. On the contrary, he declared, we were now approaching "the supreme and terrible climax of the War." He permitted himself, however, to impart one or two comforting items of information with regard to the arming of existing merchant-ships, the construction of new tonnage and the development of inventions for the discovery and deletion of submarines. For excellent reasons, no doubt, it was all a little vague, but in one respect his statement left nothing to be desired in the way of precision. "The present Government, in its seven weeks of office, had taken but two large and one small hotels," and is, I gather, marvelling at its own moderation.

I was a little disappointed with the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Address in the Commons, for of recent years there has been a great improvement in this difficult branch of oratory. Sir HEDWORTH MEUX must, I think, have been dazzled by the effulgence of his epaulettes, which were certainly more highly polished than his periods. When in mufti he is much briefer and brighter. As Mr. ASQUITH however found both speeches "admirable," no more need be said.

The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION, as one must for convenience style him--though in truth there is no Opposition, in the strict sense of the word--just said what he ought to have said. For one brief moment he seemed to be straying on to dangerous ground, when he put some questions regarding the scope of the coming Imperial Conference; but the rest of his speech was wholly in keeping with the peroration, in which he pleaded that in the prosecution of the Nation's aim there should be "no jarring voices, no party cross-currents, no personal or sectional distractions."

Unfortunately there is a section of the Commons over which he exercises no control. When Mr. BONAR LAW, as Leader of the House, rose to reply, the "jarring voices" of Mr. SNOWDEN and others of his kidney were heard in chorus, calling for the PRIME MINISTER. Mr. LAW paid no attention to the interruption. He cordially thanked Mr. ASQUITH for his speech, "the best possible testimony to the unity of this country," and assured him that the Imperial Conference would be primarily concerned with the successful prosecution of the War. The GERMAN EMPEROR had proved himself a great Empire-builder, but it was not his own empire that he was building.

Later on Mr. PRINGLE reverted to the absence of the PRIME MINISTER, which he, as a person of taste, interpreted as "studied disrespect of the House of Commons." In this view he was supported by Mr. KING. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE must really be careful.

Strange to say, no public notice was taken of another distinguished absentee--the Member for East Herts. A few days ago, after a violent collision with Mr. JUSTICE DARLING, MR. PEMBERTON-BILLING announced his intention of resigning his seat and submitting himself for re-election. But since then we have been given to understand that a vote of confidence proposed by PEMBERTON, seconded by BILLING, and carried unanimously by the hyphen, had convinced him that, as in the leading case of Mr. CECIL RHODES, "resignation can wait."

_Thursday, February 8th._--When we read day by day long lists of merchant vessels sunk by the enemy submarines two questions occur to most of us. How does the amount of tonnage lost compare with the amount of new tonnage put afloat, and what is the number of submarines that the Navy has accounted for in recent months? Mr. FLAVIN put the first question to-day, but found Sir LEO CHIOZZA MONEY, who usually exudes statistics at every pore, singularly reticent on the subject. All he would say was that a large programme of new construction was in hand.

Private Members blew off a great volume of steam to-day on the proposal of the Government to take the whole time of the House. Scotsmen, Irishmen and an Englishman or two joined in the plea that at least they should be allowed to introduce their various little Bills, even if they did not get any further. Perhaps if a Welshman had joined the band they might have been listened to. As it was, only one of them received any comfort. This was Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL, who was informed that the Bill to deprive the enemy dukes of their British titles, for which he has been clamouring these two years, would shortly be introduced. But for the rest Mr. BONAR LAW was not inclined at this crisis in our fate to encourage the raising of questions, most of them acutely controversial, which would distract attention from the War.

On an amendment to the Address Mr. LESLIE SCOTT took up his brief for the British farmer, who, deprived of his skilled men and faced with higher prices for fertilizers and feeding-stuffs, was expected to grow more food without having any certainty that he would be able to dispose of it at a remunerative price. Farming is always a bit of a gamble, but in present conditions it beats the Stock Exchange hollow. Some of the proposals which Mr. SCOTT outlined to improve the situation would have been denounced as revolutionary three years ago, and were a little too drastic even now for Mr. PROTHERO. Squeezed between the WAR MINISTER and the FOOD CONTROLLER, the MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE rather resembles the _Dormouse_ in _Alice in Wonderland_; but he is really quite all right, thank you. Mr. GEORGE LAMBERT thinks that the author of "The Psalms in Human Life" is too saintly to tackle Lords DERBY and DEVONPORT, but, if my memory serves me, DAVID--no allusion to the PREMIER--had a rather pretty gift of invective.

Let no one say that England is not at last awake. Mr. CHARLES BATHURST to-night made the terrific announcement that in some parts of the country Masters of Hounds are--shooting foxes.

"This brings the War home," said FERDINAND THE FEARFUL when he heard the news.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"It was agreed to express satisfaction with the announcement that the price fixed for the potato crop of 1917 was not a miximum price."--_Scots Paper._

This must be the happy mean of which we hear so much.

* * * * *

THE RECENT TRUCE.

Students of geography know that Ballybun is divided from the back gardens of Kilterash by the pellucid waters of that noble stream, the Bun, which hurls itself over a barrier of old tin-cans in a frantic effort to find the sea. But they do not know that this physical division, long ago bridged, is nothing to the moral and political division which will keep the two for ever asunder.

Several of our younger citizens have written to me from the trenches to ask how the War is progressing. I have usually in reply quoted the remark of one of their number on leaving us for the Front after a short holiday, that he was now looking forward to a little peace and rest. I wish here to add a postscript to this concerning a recent unexpected truce.

Political geography is not written as it should be, so that there may be people who have not even heard of the Great War between Ballybun and Kilterash. No one knows for certain when it started, or why. A local antiquary, after prolonged study of chronicles, memorials, rolls and records, to say nothing of local churchyards, refers it with some confidence to the reign of HENRY II. (LOUIS VII. being King of France, in the pontificate of ADRIAN IV. and so on), and to the forcible abduction of a pig (called the White Pearl) by the then ruling monarch of Kilterash. The Editor of _The Kilterash Curfew_, in one of his recent "Readings for the Day of Rest," remarked that Christian charity compelled him to hurl this foul aspersion back in the teeth of this so-called antiquary; the whole world knew that the pig had been born in the parish of Kilterash, but had "strayed" across the Bun, as things too often had the habit of straying.

I am the "so-called antiquary." My little pamphlet proves in less than three hundred pages the truth of my allegation concerning the abduction of the White Pearl, giving the original texts on which I rely and the genealogies of all concerned in a sordid story.

Since 1157, as far as history records, we have been afflicted with only two periods of truce. One was when, on hearing of the foul wrong done by the German Brute in Belgium, we united in enlisting recruits for our local regiment. This truce was broken by my worthy friend, the Editor of _The Curfew_, who pointed out, more in anger than in sorrow, that Ballybun had sent six men fewer than Kilterash. The second truce--again broken by the enemy--concerned myself. Wishing to add, if possible, to the evidence from monuments contained in my pamphlet, I was copying an inscription I had only just discovered in the disused churchyard of Killyburnbrae, when one of these light Atlantic showers sprang up and soaked me to the backbone. The result was influenza and a high temperature, which rose while I was reading _The Curfew_ upon my brochure, "_The White Pearl of Ballybun_, an Impartial Examination with the Original Documents herein set out and now for the first time deciphered by a Member of the Society of Antiquarians. Dedicated to All Lovers of the Truth. Printed by the Ballybun Binnacle Press."

_The Curfew_ said of this fair statement of the evidence (with the original documents, mind you) that it smacked of German scholarship and their graveyard style of doing things. My blood boiled at this, and to keep me cool my niece, who lives with me, pulled down all the blinds, as the sun was strong.

An old fish-woman passing by saw this and said, "Well, well, the poor old fellow's gone at last! A decent man in his time, with no taste in fish! We must all come to it." From her the news spread forty miles on either side of her and reached the Editor of _The Curfew_ in the middle of a philippic. Next morning I was astounded to read in his editorial columns: "Our distinguished neighbour and friend--if he will allow us to call him so--is now no more; in other words is gone ... as VIRGIL remarks ... famous antiquarian ... scrupulous and methodical, and, as we remarked in our last issue, reminiscent of the palmy days of the best German monumental scholarship ... our slight differences never affected the esteem in which we held him as a patriot, citizen, ratepayer and Man...."

Now this was kindly and fair. I have written to my worthy friend and have proposed to dedicate to him my forthcoming work (non-partisan) on the "Slant Observable in Some Church-Spires, Part I." When he had to unbury me, war had to be resumed--it was his side that insisted upon it--but as far as the two chieftains are concerned it is a war without bitterness. He now introduces his attacks with "Our honoured and able antiquarian friend"; while my answers breathe such sentiments as "The genial editor of that well-conducted organ."

* * * * *

* * * * *

AS YOU WERE.

"Blow to Narkets. Rise of nearly 400 points. Cotton jump. Germany's note breaks the market."

_Liverpool Echo, Feb. 1._

"Blow to Markets. Fall of nearly 400 points. Cotton slump."

_Same Paper, Later Edition._

In spite of this sensational transformation of a jump into a slump we are glad to see that typographically at any rate the markets had recovered a little from their early derangement.

* * * * *