Chapter 3

"Frederick is looking after these domestic details. He seems to think that if he goes to the hen-house every ten minutes or so the laying of eggs will be promoted. Won't you go round with him next time?"

"No," I said, "I've never seen a hen lay an egg yet, and I'm not going to begin at my time of life. Besides, I've already said they never lay eggs even when you don't watch them."

"Wrong again," she said. "We got one egg this morning."

"Francesca," I said, "this _is_ exciting. Did the happy mother announce the event to the world in the usual way?"

"Yes, she screamed and cackled for about a quarter-of-an-hour, and Frederick came along and seized the subject of her rejoicing. You're going to have it to-night, boiled, instead of soup and fish."

"Isn't that splendid?" I said. "At this rate we shall soon be self-supporting, and then we can snap our fingers at Lord DEVONPORT."

"I never snap my fingers," she said. "No well-brought-up hen-keeper ever does. Besides, it's our duty to help the Government all we can, so that Lord DEVONPORT may have so much more to play with."

"Why should he want to play with it?" I said. "He doesn't strike me as being that kind of man at all."

"I daresay he plays in his off-hours."

"A man like that," I said, "hasn't any off-hours. He's chin-deep in his work."

"Anyhow," she said, "I should like him to know that we're pulling up the herbaceous border and planting it with potatoes, and that we've started keeping hens, and that we've already got one egg, and that when the time comes we shall not lack for chicken, roast or boiled."

"Francesca," I said, "how can you allude so flippantly to the tragedies which are inseparable from the possession of Buff Orpingtons? In the morning a young bird struts about in his pride, resolved to live his life fearlessly and to salute the dawn at any and every hour before the break of day. Then something happens: a gardener, a family man not naturally ruthless, comes upon the scene; there is a short but terrible struggle; a neck (not the gardener's) is wrung, and there is chicken for dinner."

"Don't move me," she said, "to tears, or I shall have to countermand your egg. Besides, I don't think I could ever make a real friend of a fowl. They've got such silly ways and their eyes are so beady."

"Their ways are not sillier nor are their eyes beadier than our Mrs. Burwell's, yet she is honoured as a pillar of propriety, while they--no matter; I hope the chicken when its moment comes will be tender and succulent."

"Hark!" said Francesca.

"Yes," I said, "another egg has come into the world, and there's Frederick rushing round like a mad thing with a basket, to find himself once more too late. Never mind," I said, "I can have two boiled eggs to-night with my chop,--I mean cutlet."

"No," she said.

"Yes," I said, "and you can have all the rissoles."

R.C.L.

* * * * *

ON PROMOTION TO FIELD RANK.

I remember a day when I felt quite tall Because of a gift of five whole shillings; I was Johnson major then, I recall, And didn't I swank and put on frillings!

Well, we know that children are parents of men; And, now that I'm getting an ancient stager, Here am I pleased with a crown again, And signing myself as Johnson, Major.

* * * * *

"Experienced General disengaged 1st March, one lady; no washing; would take England."--_Irish Times_.

The advertiser should wire to KAISER, Potsdam.

* * * * *

"During the night an enemy raiding party in the neighbourhood of Gueudecourt was driven off by our baggage before reaching our line."--_Continental Daily Mail_.

There is no end to our warlike inventions. First the Tanks, and now the Trunks.

* * * * *

"The Tigris, immediately above Kut, runs South-East for about four miles. Then there is a sharp bend, and its course is almost due South for about the same distance. Then against the stream it goes due North for about the same distance."--_Glasgow Citizen_.

With the river behaving in this unnatural fashion General MAUDE deserves all the greater credit for his success.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

_War and the Future_ (CASSELL), by Mr. H.G. WELLS, is not a sustained thesis but just jets of comment and flashes of epigram about the War as he has seen it on the French, Italian and British fronts, and has thought about it in peaceful Essex. A characteristic opening chapter, "The Passing of the Effigy," suggests that "the Kaiser is perhaps the last of that long series of crowned and cloaked and semi-divine personages which has included Caesar and Alexander and Napoleon the First--and Third. In the light of the new time we see the emperor-god for the guy he is." Generalissimo JOFFRE, on the other hand, he found to be a decent most capable man, without fuss and flummery, doing a distasteful job of work singularly well. There is some particularly interesting matter about aeroplane work, and the writer betrays a keen distress lest the cavalry notions of the soldiers of the old school should make them put their trust in the horsemen rather than the airmen in the break-through. As for "tanks," he offers the alternative of organised world control or a new warfare of mammoth landships, to which the devastation of this War will be merely sketchy; but I doubt if he quite makes his point here. And finally this swift-dreaming thinker proclaims a vision which he has seen of a new world-wide interrelated republicanism founded on a recognition of the over-lordship of God.... You put the book down feeling you have had a long, desultory and intimate conversation with a very interesting fellow-traveller.

* * * * *

Really, if Mr. ROBERT HICHENS continues his present spendthrift course, whatever Board controls the consumption of paper will have to put him on half rations. I believe that his literary health would benefit enormously by such a régime. This was my first thought in contemplating the almost six hundred pages of _In the Wilderness_ (METHUEN), and it persists, strengthened now that I have turned the last, of them. Here is a direct and moving tragedy of three lives, much of the appeal of which is lost in a fog of superfluous words. Of its theme I will tell you only this, that it shows the contrasting loves, material and physical, of two widely divergent types of womanhood. Probably human nature, rather than Mr. HICHENS, should be blamed for the fact that the unmoral _Cynthia_ is many times more interesting than the virtuous but slightly fatiguing _Rosamund_. The former is indeed far the most vital character in the tale, a figure none the less sinister for its clever touch of austerity. Possibly, however, her success is to some extent due to contrast; for certainly both _Rosamund_ and _Dion_, the husband whom she alienated by her unforgiving nature, embody all the worst characteristics of Mr. HICHEN'S creations. Perhaps you know what I mean. Chiefly it is a matter of super-sensibility to surroundings, which renders them so fluid that often the scenery seems to push them about. It is this, coupled with the author's own lingering pleasure in a romantic setting, that delays the conflict, which is the real motive of the book, over long. But once this has come to grips the interest and the skill of it will hold you a willing captive to Mr. HICHENS at his best.

* * * * *

Much as I have enjoyed some previous work by Baroness VON HUTTEN I am glad to say that I consider _Magpie_ (HUTCHINSON) her best yet. It is indeed a long time since I read a happier or more holding story. The title is a punning one, as the heroine's name is really _Margaret Pye_, but I am more than willing to overlook this for the sake of the pleasantly-drawn young woman to whom it refers and the general interest of the tale. Briefly, this has two movements, one forward, which deals with the evolution of _Mag_ from a fat, rather down-at-heel little carrier of washing into the charming young lady of the cover; the other retrospective, and concerned with the mystery of a wonderful artist who has disappeared before the story opens. I have no idea of clearing up, or even further indicating, this problem to you. But I will say that the secret is so adroitly kept that the perfect orgy of elucidation in the final chapter left me a little breathless. Of course the whole thing is a fairy tale, with a baker's dozen of glaring improbabilities; but I am much mistaken if you will enjoy it the less for that. A quaint personal touch, which (to anyone who does not recall the cast of _Pinkie and the Fairies_ on its revival) might well seem an impertinence, produced in me the comfortable glow of superiority that rewards the well-informed. But I can assure Baroness VON HUTTEN that she is all wrong about the acting of that particular part.

* * * * *

As it is not Mr. Punch's habit to admit reviews of periodical publications, I ought to say that the case of _The New Europe_ (CONSTABLE), whose first completed volume lies before me, is exceptional. In thirty years' experience of journalism I never remember a paper containing so much "meat"--some of it pretty strong meat, too--in proportion to its size. In hardly a single week since its first issue in October last have I failed to find between its tangerine-coloured covers some article giving me information that I did not know before, or furnishing a fresh view of something with which I thought myself familiar. And I take it there are many other writers--and even, perhaps, some statesmen--who have enjoyed the same experience. Dr. SETON-WATSON and the accomplished collaborators who march under his orange oriflamme may not always convince us (I am not sure, for example, that _Austria est delenda_ may prove the only or the best prescription for bringing freedom to the Jugo-Slavs of South-Eastern Europe), but they always furnish the reader with the facts enabling him to test their conclusions; and that in these times is a great merit. My own feeling is that if they had begun their concerted labours a few years earlier the War might never have happened; or at least we should have gone into it with a much more accurate notion of the real aims of the Central Powers, and a much better chance of quickly defeating them. The tragedies of Serbia and Roumania would almost certainly have been averted.

* * * * *

I am unable to hold out much prospect that you will find _Frailty_ (CASSELL) a specially enlivening book. The scope of Miss OLIVE WADSLEY'S story, sufficiently indicated by its title, does not admit of humorous relief. But it is both vigorous and vital. Certainly it seemed hard luck on _Charles Ley_ that, after heroically curing himself of the drug habit, he should marry the girl of his choice only to find her a victim to strong drink. But of course, had this not happened, the "punch" of Miss WADSLEY'S tale would have been weakened by half. Do not, however, be alarmed; the author knows when to stop, and confines her awful examples to these two, thereby avoiding the error of Mrs. HENRY WOOD, who (you may recall) plunged the entire cast of _Danesbury House_ into a flood of alcohol. Not that Miss WADSLEY herself lacks for courage; she can rise unusually to the demands of a situation, and I have seldom read chapters more moving of their kind than those that depict the gradual conquest of _Charles_ by the cocaine fiend, and his subsequent struggle back to freedom. Here the "strong" writing seemed to me both natural and in place; ever so much more convincing therefore than when employed upon the love scenes. I have my doubts whether, even in this age of what I might call the trampling suitor, anyone was over quite so heavy-booted over the affair as was _Charles_ when he carried off his chosen mate from a small-and-early in Grosvenor Square. Fortunately the other parts of the story are less melodramatic, and make it emphatically a book not to be missed.

* * * * *

Happy is the reviewer with a book which gives him so much delightful information that he tries to ration himself to so many pages per day. This is what I resolved to do with _In the Northern Mists_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON); but I could not keep to my resolution, so attractive was the fare. These sketches are the work of a Grand Fleet Chaplain, and are packed with wisdom from all the ages. If you haven't the luck to be a sailor you will learn a lot from this admirable theologian about the men and methods and the spirit of the Grand Fleet. His book fills me with pride; yet I dare not express it for fear of offending the notorious modesty of the senior service. So shy indeed is our Fleet of praise that I feel my apologies are due to their Chaplain for my perfectly honest commendation of his book. But he seems human enough to pardon the more venial sins.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Peterborough's youngest investor was Herbert Trollope Gill, barely three months old, who subscribed the whole of his life's savings. He arrived at the bank with his mother, and there was poured out before the astonished gaze of the officials four hundred threepenny pieces."--_Weekly Dispatch_.

We congratulate HERBERT on his patriotism and regret that it should have compelled him to go into liquidation.