Chapter 3

You will easily guess that a comedy (or farce) in which a woman is reduced to advertising in the Press for a husband belongs to the ante-bellum era, before the glad eye of the flapper became a permanent feature of the landscape. Indeed Mr. CYRIL HARCOURT'S play might belong to just any year since the time when women first began to write those purple tales of passion that are so bad for the morals of the servants' hall. It was simply to get copy for this kind of stuff that _Mabel Vere_ (most improbably pretty in the person of Miss GLADYS COOPER) advertised for a husband, for this post had already been assigned to the dullest and stuffiest of _fiancés_. I dare not think how the theme might have been treated in French hands, but Mr. HARCOURT is very firm about the proprieties. My only fear was that the gallery might mistake his rather second-rate people for gentlefolk. In what kind of club, I wonder, do members reply to matrimonial advertisements and make bets about the result of their applications? I should be sorry to think that anybody attributes such conduct to the _habitués_ of the Athenæum.

The types that came to inspect _Mabel Vere_ were sufficiently varied. There was a masterful Colonial (finally ejected by a lady-friend, who performed a jujitsu feat which required a very palpable collusion on his part); a butler; an Army Officer (with a reputation for exploring); a gay naval thruster, and an old gentleman who ought to have known better. To most of them she opposed an air of virgin superciliousness very disappointing to their justifiable anticipations; but the butler promised copy, and she accepted an invitation to tea in his kitchen. This scene furnished some very excellent and natural fun, and there was really no need to introduce, and exploit over and over again, the hallowed device of a trip-mat, that last resort of the bankrupt farceur. The necessary complications ensued with the unexpected arrival of the master (one of the candidates for the lady's hand, I need not say), who makes sudden demand for an early dinner, a thing impossible to execute with the cook in a fit of hysterics induced by jealousy of the lady who had supplanted her in the butler's perfidious affections.

In the third Act we return to _Mabel's_ flat and resume her interviews with the applicants for her hand. This revival of the situation of the First Act was a weakness in the construction. The original _fiancé_--a wooden dummy set up for the purpose of being knocked down--is dismissed, and _Captain Corkoran_, the bold explorer, is appointed to the vacancy. He deserved his luck; but, if I wish him joy of it, I do so without a pang of envy, for she was much too good at back-chat for a quiet life, to say nothing of her taste in literature, which would want a deal of correction.

Of course Miss GLADYS COOPER made her seem much more desirable than she really was. (I speak of her personal charm and not of her agreeable costumes, which are for the pens of more instructed reviewers. I got nothing out of a lady near me, whom I recognised as a dramatic critic by a question that her neighbour put to her. "Do you know this frock," she asked, "or will you have to go behind?") Apart from the delightful picture which Miss COOPER always presents she has a most swift and delicate feeling for the details of her craft. She has the confidence that avoids over-emphasis, and she does her audience the compliment of assuming that they have intelligence enough to understand the least of those little nods of hers that have the true eloquence of an under-statement. Mr. MALCOLM CHERRY was at his best and easiest as _Captain Corkoran_. Mr. HENDRIE handled the broad humour of the butler with imperturbable restraint, and Miss BARBARA GOTT was as fine and human a cook as I ever wish to meet in her native lair. Miss MARGARET FRASER, a most attractive figure, was a model for any housemaid on whose damask cheek the concealment of an unrequited passion for her master feeds like a worm i' th' bud. Altogether a really excellent cast.

The humour of the dialogue was fresh and well sustained. Here and there Mr. HARCOURT permitted himself allusive refinements which deserved a better response, as when _Captain Corkoran_, discussing with _Mabel_ the menu of the dinner that she fails to cook for him, adapts the language of SOLOMON and says, "Fritter me apples, for I am sick of love." This was lost upon an audience insufficiently familiar with the works of that great voluptuary.

O.S.

* * * * *

TASTY DISHES.

(_By Mr. Punch's Food Specialist_.)

Mr. Punch considers it to be his duty at the present time to show how an abundance of excellent and nourishing food may be obtained from the most unlikely materials. In doing this he is aware that he is merely following the example set him by countless culinary experts, who have communicated their ideas to the daily press; but Mr. Punch is not to be deterred from doing a helpful action by any paltry jealousy as to precedence. His readers, he knows, will be grateful to him for his generosity.

NO. I.--FOR GENERAL USE.

Take two Committees--it is not absolutely necessary that they should meet more than once--and, having added to them a Chairman, stew on a slow fire until a Secretary emerges. Turn into an enamelled saucepan and set to simmer over gas. Then boil up twice into resolutions and votes of thanks, and let the whole toast for at least three hours. Sprinkle with amendments and add salt and pepper to taste. Then brown with a salamander and serve up hot in egg-cups.

NO. II.--FOR A HOUSEHOLDER IN STREATHAM OR CAMDEN TOWN.

To half a tennis-lawn add two ounces of croquet-mallet and three arches of pergola, and reduce the whole to a fine powder. Drench with still lemonade and boil into a thick paste. Add two hundredweight of dandelions and plantains together with at least three pounds of garden-roller and five yards of wire-netting carefully grilled. Let this be roasted and basted for an hour and then flavoured with vantage. Turn out into a mould, and serve overhand as fast as possible, having first shred into the mixture half a ton of daisies or buttercups, according to taste.

NO. III.--BEESTING JELLY FOR APIARIANS.

Catch one thousand bees and extract their stings. Then throw away the bees and lay the stings gently but firmly on a mash composed of the breasts of five Buff Orpington cockerels. Sift the whole through a fine cloth and add the yolks of a hundred poached eggs. Beat up together for an hour and ten minutes. Flavour with coffee and dilute with elderberry wine. Allow the mixture to simmer in a hot oven and serve with fresh asparagus cut before breakfast.

NO. IV.--PUNTPOLE PIE FOR RIPARIAN OWNERS.

Chop into small pieces three or four puntpoles, having first melted down the metal shoes, and spread thin over as many canoe paddles as can be obtained for the purpose. Immerse the whole suddenly in the river and dry before a quick fire. Add one boat's rudder and twenty-four dab-chicks, and season with three yards of grated swans' necks, six barbel, four dace and a dozen gudgeon, close time for these fish being strictly observed. Sprinkle with cowslips and willow leaves, insert in a pie-dish and cover with a thick paste of bulrushes and marsh grass. Then set to bake for three hours, and stick four pigeons' claws into the crust. Picnic baskets from which the salt has been omitted may be shredded over the surface instead of parsley.

Mr. Punch has many more recipes equally cheap and excellent, and is prepared to disclose them to those of his readers who may desire to practise a rigid economy and at the same time to enjoy an abundance of good food.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE END OF THE STORY.

"Will the soldier who assisted the Gentleman with a motor cycle and sidecar on the Downs on Tuesday communicate with him at Greenbank Cemetery."--_Bristol Evening News_.

* * * * *

"Harry Wilson, milkman, of Devonport, has no connection of any kind with Woodrow Wilson, of United States of America."_Auckland Paper_.

HARRY is now sorry he wrote.

* * * * *

"The daily rations of the shirkers are:-- Bread . . . . . . . . . . . 9 oz. (uncooked, including bone)." _Daily Mail_.

The conscientious objector doesn't seem to be having such a soft time after all.

* * * * *

TYRTÆUS.

When Sparta's heroes, tired of truce, The fires of battle woke, TYRTÆUS sang them golden lays And bravely on their marching days His queenly Muse outspoke. TYRTÆUS' name's come down the years And did deserve to do, For so he dried men's eyes of tears, So loosed their hearts from idle fears, Stouter they thrust their ashen spears, Their javelins further threw.

In those fair days TYRTÆUS' song Was all men had to trust, But while he hymned the coming fight They did not wail, "He can't be right," They heard and cried, "He must!" When men of craven soul came in-- Which now may Heaven forbid-- Then stout TYRTÆUS would begin:-- "Mere argument can be no sin, But whining is; we're going to win." And so, of course, they did.

TYRTÆUS' heart has ceased to beat, But still his measures run, And still abides the British Press, Which men must credit, more or less, To tell how things are done. So by all bards with hearts of fire Cheerfully be it sung, That still our people may not tire In doing well, but yet aspire; Let these renew TYRTÆUS' lyre, Let others hold their tongue.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)

A volume called _Curious Happenings_ (MILLS AND BOON) can boast at least a highly attractive, open-and-see title; to which is added, in the present instance, a wrapper-picture of the most intriguing brand. Perhaps not quite all the contents of Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S book of short stories fully live up to the promise of its outside (what stories could?), but they have amongst them one, from which both title and picture are taken, of very unusual and haunting quality. So, if you should only be able to snatch so much time from work of National importance as suffices to read a single tale, begin at the start, and be assured of having the best. Not that the others are without their attractions, though one is rather gratuitously revolting. Laid in the picturesque eighteenth century, they all exhibit Miss BOWEN'S very pretty gift for costume-drama at its happiest. The trouble is that, with a volume of such short tales, stories of situation, one gets too familiar with the method--as, for example, in "The Folding Doors," where a lady's husband and lover had played out their scene before the closed doors (with an alleged cut finger for the husband), and I knew only too well in what state the flinging open of the doors would reveal the lady herself. But perhaps I am exceptionally cursed in this matter; and, anyhow, a volume that contains even one story so good as "The Pond" is a thing for gratitude and rejoicing.

* * * * *

I may have been wrong in turning to a novel for mental relief; anyhow, I have just come through one of the toughest bouts of relaxation I can remember, and my only solace for the slight weariness of such repose is the thought how much more tired the author, Mr. BASIL CREIGHTON, must be. With such a hail-storm of metaphor and epigram constantly dissolving in impalpable mist of mere words has he assaulted _The History of an Attraction_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) that the poor thing, atomised, vaporised and analysed to the bone, lies limp and lifeless between the covers, with hardly a decent rag of incident or story to cover it. And there one might perhaps be content to let it rest, but for the fact that _Anita_, the lady of the "Attraction," is worthy of a better fate. The principal man of the book, who, after much wobbling consideration, and in spite of his quite fortuitous marriage with some one else in the meantime, discovers at last that he does love _Anita_, is the merest peg on which to hang endless philosophisings; and so is his impossible wife _Janet_ herself, the lady who, after having accepted his dubious courtship for no particular reason, fortunately deserts him without any better excuse, thus clearing the way for a most decorous divorce and readjustment. Neither is the writer's inner thesis--the immoralness of ordinary morality, so far as I can make out--particularly agreeable; but _Anita_, though far from being the sort of person one would look to meet in real life, is intriguing after a fashion, and just possibly repays the hard work needed for the making of her acquaintance.

* * * * *

Miss M.E.F. IRWIN, whose previous books I remember to have greatly enjoyed, has produced for her third a story of much originality and power, called _Out of the House_ (CONSTABLE). The title may perplex you at first. It comes from the struggles of the heroine to wrench herself free from encompassing family ties and the tradition of intermarriage, in order to join her life to the outside lover who calls to her. You might therefore consider it, in some sense, a story of eugenics, but that its outlook is emotional rather than scientific. Yet the _Pomfrets_, as a result of family pride and over-specialization, had become a sufficiently queer lot to warrant a normal girl in any violence of house-breaking to be free of them. Therein of course lies the cleverness of the book; it is full of atmosphere, and the atmosphere is full of dust, _Pomfret_ dust. You can feel how heavy to rebellious lungs must have been the air of the _Pomfret_ houses, where lived _Philip_, the intriguing father, and his sons _Anthony_ (a little mad) and _Charles_ (much more mad, but with at least the instincts of a lunatic gentleman). It is not, you will guess, precisely a lively tale, but the force of it is undeniable. Miss IRWIN has now more than ever proved herself a fastidious and careful artist, with a touch of austerity that gives weight to a tale so frankly one of sentiment, and she will, I hope, continue to keep her work above the ordinary level.

* * * * *

_The Wane of Uxenden_ (ARNOLD) seems to be one of those novels which may be classed as worthy in intention without being exactly happy in execution. Miss LEGGE has a desire to warn us all against the perils of monkeying with spiritism, and she has chosen the method of making it tiresome even to read about. Well, it is a method certainly. _Uxenden_ was a nice old family, which had come down to cutting its timber while a rich Jewish soap-and-scent-manufacturer sat rubbing his hands on a slice of the property, waiting for the rest of it to come his way. _Uxenden_ eventually waned entirely, and without tears so far as I was concerned. I feel sure _Mr. La Haye_ (_né Levinstein_) would make a better landlord than the old squire, in spite of the prejudices of the countryside.... No, I am afraid it would be stretching a point to promise you any great entertainment from this well-intentioned but rather woolly book. _Brother Jenkins_, the fraud, of the Society of Seven, is about the most entertaining of the marionettes.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR KINDLY CRITICS.

"It is Mr. Wells's great advantage as a preacher that he has a prose style instinct with life and beauty. Somewhere he speaks of a cathedral as a 'Great, still place, urgent with beauty'; somewhere else he says, 'The necessary elements of religion can be written on a postcard.'"--_Daily Chronicle_.

"Callisthenes" must look to his laurels.

* * * * *

Extract from the letter of a lady who helps in parish work and is full of agricultural enthusiasm:--

"Next week I am going to start digging for the vicar."

Assuming that the reverend gentleman was inadvertently buried alive, we deprecate this delay.

* * * * *