Chapter 2

"No partner for you this evening, Sir," said the Inspector. "Mr. Tibbits has just telephoned through that he has rheumatism badly again."

I know Tibbits' rheumatism. I also know he plays off his heat in the club billiard handicap to-night. I can imagine him writhing round the table. Still I remember the first rule of the force--under no circumstances give another policeman away.

"You'll have to take Dartmouth Street by yourself, Sir," continues the Inspector.

"What's it like?"

"Bit of a street market. All right--just tact and keep them moving."

I reach Dartmouth Street. It is a thronged smelly thoroughfare. I pass along modestly, hoping that every one will ignore me.

But a gentleman who is selling fish detects me and calls "'Ere, Boss, move this ole geezer on."

"What's the trouble?" I inquire.

The old geezer turns rapidly on me. "'Ere 'e's gone and sold me two 'errings for tuppence 'alfpenny which was that salt my 'usband went near mad, what with the pubs bein' shut all afternoon, an' now 'e's popped the fender jus' to get rid of 'is thirst."

"I told you to soak 'em in three waters," says the fishmonger.

"'Ow much beer is my 'usband to soak 'imself in--tell me that?"

It is time for tact. I whisper in the lady's ear, "Come along--don't argue with a man like that. He's beneath you."

She comes away. I am triumphant. But she turns round and cries, "This gentleman as _is_ a gentleman says I ain't to lower meself by talkin' to a 'ound like you."

I move on. I doubt if the fishmonger will be pleased by the lady's representation of my few words, and I make a mental note to keep away from his stall. All at once another lady, who for some obscure reason is carrying a bucket, grips me by the arm.

"I'm goin' to 'ave the law on my side, I am," she declares emphatically, "an' then I'll smash 'is bloomin' fice in."

I am swayed towards a fruit-stall.

"Look at them," says the irate lady, holding out three potatoes. "Rotten--at thrippence a pound. My 'usband 'e'd 'ave set abaht me if I'd give 'im them for 'is dinner."

The fruiterer takes a lofty moral standard. "I sold yer them fer seed pertaters, I did. If yer 'usband eats them 'e's worse than a Un."

"Seed pertaters, was they? Where was I to grow 'em? In a mug on the mantelpiece?"

"'Ow was I ter know yer 'adn't a 'lotment?"

"You'll need no 'lotment. It's a cemet'ry you'll want when my 'usband knows you've called 'im a Un."

"Now, now," I interpose tactfully. "Perhaps you can exchange them, then you'll have the lady for a regular customer."

"I don't want the blighter fer a reglar customer," says the fruiterer.

Three potatoes whirl past me at the fruiterer. The lady with the bucket departs rapidly.

"Lemme get at 'er," cries the irate fruiterer.

"You wouldn't hit a woman," I protest.

"Wouldn't I?" says the infuriated fruiterer.

I interpose--verbally. "You'll get everything stolen," I say, "from your stall if you leave it."

"I'll leave you in charge."

"I'm needed down my beat," I reply, and stalk on instantly, leaving a sadly disillusioned man behind me.

I reach a queue outside a grocer's shop.

"There now," says a stout lady, "give 'er in charge."

The queue all speak at once.

"She's a 'oarder, she is. Got 'arf-a-pound o' sugar already in 'er basket and only 'erself and 'er 'usband at 'ome, while I got five kids."

A lady down the queue caps this with seven kids, and in the distance a lady in a fur cap claims ten, and is at once engaged by her neighbours in a bitter controversy as to whether three in France should count in sugar buying.

All the time the hoarder stands with nose in the air, the picture of lofty indifference.

Tact--tact--I remember the Inspector's advice.

"Excuse me, Madam," I say, "but in these times we all have to make sacrifices. You already have sugar. Some of your friends have none. Under the circumstances--"

Slowly the lady turns a withering eye on me. "I'll move nowhere no'ow for nobody."

A lady in the background suggests that the female should be boiled in a sugar-sack. A more humane person expresses the hope that she will be bombed that night.

"But, Madam, consider your friends," I proceed.

"Don't you call that lot my friends! I'm 'ere fer a pound of marge, and get it I will if all the bloomin' speshuls come 'oo 're doin' reglar coppers outer jobs."

Public opinion in the queue takes a sudden turn. One lady remarks that these speshuls are that interfering. Another alleges that she has no doubt I have sacks of sugar at home.

I remember the Inspector's counsel about moving on, and move myself on.

There is one man in England who proclaims himself absolutely unfitted to fill the Food-Controller's position.

I am that modest person.

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Broody.

"WHIST DRIVE.--A sitting of eggs was given by Mrs. ---- for the lady or gentleman sitting the greatest number of times consecutively."--_Worcester Daily Times._

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"In Captain ----'s boat all the men survived, although full of water."--_New Zealand Paper._

In the interests of temperance we protest against "although."

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"RUSSIAN TROOPS MUTINY.

Petrograd, Saturday.

The Minister of War has given orders to disband the regiments, and to bring the officers and men responsible before a court-marital." _East Anglian Daily Times._

That's right. Let their wives talk to them.

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=OPEN WARFARE.= Men said, "At last! at last the open battle! Now shall we fight unfettered o'er the plain, No more in catacombs be cooped like cattle, Nor travel always in a devious drain!" They were in ecstasies. But I was damping; I like a trench, I have no lives to spare; And in those catacombs, however cramping, You did at least know vaguely where you were.

Ah, happy days in deep well-ordered alleys, Where, after dining, probably with wine, One felt indifferent to hostile sallies, And with a pipe meandered round the line; You trudged along a trench until it ended; It led at least to some familiar spot; It might not be the place that you'd intended, But then you might as well be there as not.

But what a wilderness we now inhabit Since this confounded "open" strife prevails! It may be good; I do not wish to crab it, But you should hear the language it entails, Should see this waste of wide uncharted craters Where it is vain to seek the companies, Seeing the shell-holes are as like as taters And no one knows where anybody is.

Oft in the darkness, palpitant and blowing, Have I set out and lost the hang of things, And ever thought, "Where _can_ the guide be going?" But trusted long and rambled on in rings, For ever climbing up some miry summit, And halting there to curse the contrite guide, For ever then descending like a plummet Into a chasm on the other side.

Oft have I sat and wept, or sought to study With hopeless gaze the uninstructive stars, Hopeless because the very skies were muddy; I only saw a red malicious Mars; Or pulled my little compass out and pondered, And set it sadly on my shrapnel hat, Which, I suppose, was why the needle wandered, Only, of course, I never thought of that.

And then perhaps some 5.9's start dropping, As if there weren't sufficient holes about; I flounder on, hysterical and sopping, And come by chance to where I started out, And say once more, while I have no objection To other people going to Berlin, Give _me_ a trench, a nice revetted section, And let me stay there till the Bosch gives in!

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=A Judge Speaks Out.=

"Regarding the assertions that the appellant introduced politics into his sermons, it would be a bad day for this country when in a political controversy when a clergyman could conceive cases in which some high ideal was involved in a political controversy when a clergyman could honestly and reasonably preach about it."--_Yorkshire Post._

We have always felt that something like this needed saying.

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=ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.=

_Monday, June 11th_.--I am told that it was WILLIE REDMOND'S ambition to be the Father of the House; indeed, that by some arithmetical process peculiar to himself be claimed, although only elected in 1883, to be already entitled to that venerable honour.

In reality he was the Eternal Boy, from the far-off time when it was his nightly delight with youthful exuberance to cheek Mr. Speaker BRAND until the moment of his glorious death in Flanders, whither he had gone at an age when most of his compeers were content to play the critic in a snug corner of the smoking-room.

Personal affection combined with admiration for his gallantry to inspire the speeches in which the PRIME MINISTER, Mr. ASQUITH and Sir EDWARD CARSON enshrined the most remarkable tribute ever paid to a private Member.

Sir GEORGE GREENWOOD'S affection for the animal creation is commonly supposed to be such that he would not countenance the slaughter of the meanest thing that crawls--not even those miserable creatures who hold that SHAKSPEARE'S plays were written by SHAKSPEARE. It was therefore with pained regret that I heard him attempting to support his objection to the activities of sparrow-clubs by the argument that, if the birds were destroyed, large numbers of grubs and caterpillars would be left alive. After this I shall not be surprised to hear that he has been summoned by the R.S.P.C.A. for brutality to a slug.

What I most admire in the CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND is his wonderful self-restraint. When Mr. GINNELL stridently inquired whether to institute legal process against the police in Ireland was not like bringing an action against Satan in hell, the ordinary man would have been tempted to reply: "The hon. Member probably has sources of information not accessible to me." Mr. DUKE contented himself with mildly suggesting that the hon. Member should "apply his own intelligence to that matter." Perhaps, however, he meant much the same thing.

Half the sitting was taken up with discussing whether Messrs. JOWETT and RAMSAY MACDONALD should be given passports to Russia. Mr. BONAR LAW clinched the matter by saying that the Russian Government wanted them. Well, _de gustibus_, etc.

_Tuesday, June 12th_.--Perhaps the most wonderful revelation of the War has been the adaptability of the British working-man. Mr. CATHCART WASON called attention to the case of a professional gardener who, having been recruited for home service, had first been turned into a bricklayer's assistant, then into an assistant-dresser, and finally into a munition-maker. For some time the Ministry of Munitions seems to have been loth to part with the services of this Admirable Crichton, but having learned from the Board of Agriculture that there was a shortage of food it has now consented to restore him to his original vocation.

It will be a thousand pities if Captain BATHURST should persist in leaving the department of the FOOD-CONTROLLER. If he could only keep down food-prices as effectively as he does irrelevant questioners he would be worth his weight in "Bradburys." His latest victim is Mr. PENNEFATHER, who has developed a keen curiosity on the subject of potatoes. Did not the Government think that the high price would cause premature "lifting"? Were they aware that potatoes could be used for making rubber substitutes and cement; and would they assure the House that there would be an abundance of them for the next twelve months'? Captain BATHURST declined to figure in the _rôle_ of prophet, and, for the rest, remarked that the hon. Member appeared to have an insatiable appetite for _crambe repetita_. Mr. PENNEFATHER is understood to be still searching the Encyclopædia to discover the properties of this vegetable, with the view of putting a few posers on the subject to Captain BATHURST (or his successor) next week.

As the friends of Proportional Representation are wont to refer to their little pet by the affectionate diminutive of "P.R.," they can hardly be surprised that its appearance should lead to combats recalling in intensity the palmy days of the Prize Ring. It was designed that the Front Bench should be content to perform the function of judicious bottle-holder, and leave the issue to be fought out by the rest of the House. But Sir F.E. SMITH, like the Irishman who inquired, "Is this a private fight, or may anyone join in?" could not refrain from trailing his coat, and quickly found a doughty opponent in Mr. HAYES FISHER. The House so much enjoyed the unusual freedom of the fight that it would probably be going on still but for that spoil-sport, the HOME SECRETARY, who begged Members to come to a decision. By 149 votes to 141 "P.R." was "down and out."

Mr. EUGENE WASON entered an anticipatory protest against the possibility that Scotland might be deprived of some of her seventy-two Members. "I myself," he said, "represent two whole counties, Clackmannan and Kinross, and I have a bit of Stirling and Perth and West Fife, and I am told I am to be swept out of existence." Gazing at his ample proportions the House felt that the Boundary Commissioners will have their work cut out for them.

_Wednesday, June 13th_.--Considering that barely three hours before the House met the "Fort of London" had been drenched with the "ghastly dew of aerial navies" Members showed themselves most uncommon calm. They exhibited, however, a little extra interest when any prominent personage entered the House, showing that he at least had escaped the bombs, and were too busy comparing notes regarding their personal experiences to ask many Supplementary Questions.

Even Mr. BONAR LAW'S announcement that KING CONSTANTINE had abdicated the throne of Greece passed almost without remark; except that Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL anxiously inquired whether TINO, having received the Order of the Boot, would be allowed to retain that of the Bath.

The mystery of Lord NORTHCLIFFE'S visit to the United States has been cleared up. Certain journals, believed to enjoy his confidence, had described him as "Mr. Balfour's successor." Certain other journals, whose confidence he does not enjoy, had declined to believe this. The fact, as stated by Mr. BONAR LAW, is that "it is hoped that Lord NORTHCLIFFE will be able to carry on the work begun by Mr. BALFOUR as head of the British Mission in America." He is expected "to co-ordinate and supervise the work of all the Departmental Missions." It was interesting to learn that his Lordship "will have the right of communicating direct with the PRIME MINISTER"--a thing which of course he has never done before.

_Thursday, June 14th_.--Mr. KEATING, having made the remarkable discovery that the War has injured the prosperity of Irish seaside resorts, demanded the restoration of excursion trains and season tickets. Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS stoutly supported the Irish Railway Executive Committee in its refusal to encourage pleasure-traffic. His decision received the involuntary support of Mr. MACVEAGH, who attempted to back up his colleague by the singular argument that the existing trains in Ireland ran half-empty.

The Lords spent the best part of a sunny afternoon in discussing whether or not the South-Eastern Eailway should be allowed to bolster up the Charing Cross railway bridge. In vain Lord CURZON, flying in the face of his Ministerial colleague, the PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE, urged the claims of Art; in vain he assured the House that when WORDSWORTH wrote of the view from Westminster, "Earth has not anything to show more fair," he was not thinking of that maroon-coloured monstrosity. The majority of their lordships, understanding that the proposal had something to do with "strengthening the piers," declined to reject it.

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We have received a copy of _The Glasgow Weekly Herald_, dated "May 56, 1917." Trust a Scot to make a good thing go as far as possible.

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"Great jubilation prevailed amongst the people at finding the children alive, and congratulations were extended to their parents that their little ones were not lost in the cavities and chasms of Knocknatubber Mountain, though straying thereon for upwards of 25 years."--_Nenagh Guardian_.

The young "Rips"!

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="IN PRIZE."=

A ship was built in Glasgow, and oh, she looked a daisy (Just the way that some ships do!) An' the only thing against 'er was she allus steered so crazy (An' it's true, my Johnny Bowline, true!)

They sent 'er out in ballast to Oregon for lumber, An' before she dropped 'er pilot she all but lost 'er number.

They sold 'er into Norway because she steered so funny, An' she nearly went to glory before they drawed the money.

They sold 'er out o' Norway--they sold 'er into Chile, An' Chile got a bargain because she steered so silly.

They chartered 'er to Germans with a bunch o' greasers forrard; Old shellbacks wouldn't touch 'er because she steered so 'orrid.

She set a course for Bremen with contraband inside 'er, An' she might 'ave got there some time if a cruiser 'adn't spied 'er.

She nearly drowned the boarders because she cut such capers, But they found she was a German through inspectin' of 'er papers.

So they put a crew aboard 'er, which was both right an' lawful, An' the prize crew 'ad a picnic, because she steered so awful.

But they brought 'er into Kirkwall, an' then they said, "Lord lumme, If I ever see an 'ooker as steered so kind o' rummy!"

But she'll fetch 'er price at auction, for oh, she looks a daisy (Just the way that some ships do!) An' the chap as tops the biddin' won't know she steers so crazy (But it's true, my Johnny Bowline, true!)

C.F.S.

=TO MR. BALFOUR ON HIS RETURN.=

Our hearts go out with all our ships that plough the deadly sea, But the ship that brought us safely back the only ARTHUR B. Was freighted with good wishes in a very high degree.

There are heaps of politicians who can hustle and can shriek, And some, though very strong in lung, in brains are very weak, But A.J.B.'s equipment is admittedly unique.

His manners are delightful, and the workings of his mind Have never shown the slightest trace of self-esteem behind; Nor has he had at any time a private axe to grind.

For forty years and upwards he has graced the public scene Without becoming sterilized or stiffened by routine; He still retains his freshness and his brain is just as keen.

His credit was not shipwrecked on the fatal Irish reef; He has always been a loyal and a sympathetic chief; And he has also written _The Foundations of Belief_.

As leader of the Mission to our cousins and Allies, We learn with satisfaction, but without the least surprise, That he proved the very cynosure of Transatlantic eyes.

For the special brand of statesman _plus_ aristocratic sage, Like the model king-philosopher described in PLATO'S page, Is uncommonly attractive in a democratic age.

"BALFOUR Must Go!" was once the cry of those who deemed him slack, But now there's not a single scribe of that unruly pack Who is not glad in every sense that BALFOUR has come back.

And as for his "successor"--the Napoleonic peer Whose functions are restricted to a purely business sphere-- We must try to bear his absence in a spirit of good cheer.

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=THE INFANTICIDE.=

From an economic point of view it was inexcusable. I can only hope that the affair will never reach the ear of the new FOOD-CONTROLLER. The chief culprit was undoubtedly Joan minor--I only became an accomplice after the fact--and I can scarcely believe that even a Food-Controller could be very angry with Joan minor. For one thing she really is so very minor. And then there's her manner; in face of it severity, as I have found, is out of the question. Even Joan major, who has been known to rout our charlady in single combat, finds it irresistible. Indeed when I taxed her with having a hand in the crime she secured an acquittal on the plea of duress.

Ever since Joan minor arrived at years of understanding the weeks preceding the great day have been fraught with a mystery in which I have no share. Earnest conversations which break off guiltily the moment I enter the room; strained whisperings and now and again little uncontrollable giggles of ecstatic anticipation from Joan minor--these are the signs that I have learned to look for, and, being well versed in my part, to ignore with a sublime unconsciousness which should make my fortune in a melodrama of stage asides. And then, on the morning of my birthday, the solemn ceremonial of revelation, I would come in to breakfast, to find a parcel lying by my plate. At first I would not see it. In a tense and unnatural silence Joan minor would follow me with her eyes while I opened the window a few inches, closed it again, stroked the cat and generally behaved as though sitting down at table was the last thing I intended. Then, when I did take my place, "The post is early to-day," I would say, pushing the parcel carelessly on one side as I took up the paper, while Joan minor hid her face in Joan major's blouse lest her feelings should betray her into premature speech. And at last I would open it, and my amazement and delight would know no bounds. There was very little acting needed for that. It is no small thing to be spirited back to the age when birthdays really matter.

And so this year it was with a feeling of having been cheated that I left the house for the office, where, in company with other old fogies and girl clerks, I do my unambitious bit towards downing the Hun. The premonitory symptoms had seemed to me unusually acute, but the morning had brought no parcel. My years weighed on my shoulders again, and I am afraid I was more than a little tart with my typist.

I was kept late for dinner, and when I entered the room I found Joan minor sitting in her place, her eyes bright with expectation. Beside my place was a covered muffin dish. There was no dallying with the pleasure this time, for I had suddenly become young again, and could not have waited had I tried. I lifted the cover, and there, about the size of a well-nourished pea, lay the first-fruit of Joan minor's peculiar and personal allotment, prepared, planted and dug by Joan minor's own hands, a veritable and unmistakable potato.

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