Chapter 3

"And if you did," added the Adjutant severely, "you'd get leave for rather longer than you bargained for."

"How about funerals?" put in the Equipment Officer hopefully. "Funerals are a fairly sound stunt, aren't they?"

"Funerals," observed the Adjutant, "are played out. If you come to me to-morrow and talk about dead uncles and things I shall have all sorts of inquiries made that will surprise you. I've been had before by funerals. When I was in the Army"--the Adjutant talks like this since he was attached to the Flying Corps--"when I was in the Army there was a fellow who used to come to the orderly-room and talk funerals to me until I was sick of the sight of him. After some months of it I made him give me a written list of all his surviving relations, and then as he killed them off I used to scratch them out. I caught him at last on his third grandmother."

"That's all very nice," said the Stunt Pilot, "but the question at present before the meeting is how are we poor beggars to get any leave?"

"It's no good blaming me," returned the Adjutant blandly. "Command Orders are Command Orders."

There was a brief silence, and then the Stunt Pilot lifted up his voice and spoke eloquently about the War Office and Brass Hats generally. He said that they had hearts of granite and were strangers to all loving-kindness. Their days were spent in idleness in the Metropolis (so said the Stunt Pilot), while he and his fellows drove rotten 'buses for hours together over the beastliest district in Europe. Of an evening the Carlton and the Piccadilly, the Bing Boys and the Bing Girls, all the delights of London were ready to their hands, while poor devils like himself, shorn of leave, were condemned to languish in a moth-eaten Mess in the society of such people as the Adjutant. Where was the sense in it, where the justice, and when the deuce were they, any of them, going to get a chance at the bath-room?

The Adjutant regarded him with amused pity.

"The fact of it is," he observed, "you people have been absolutely spoilt over leave. When I was in the Infantry we used to consider three or four days in six months quite handsome."

The Stunt Pilot inquired sarcastically whether he meant three or four days' work or three or four days' leave.

"I don't mind saying," pursued the Adjutant, ignoring this sally, "at the risk of making myself unpopular, that personally I think it's a very good thing that leave _has_ been cut down. My own opinion is that in the past there's been a lot too much leave flying about. Running up and down to London on leave isn't going to help beat the Germans. What we've got to do if we want to win this War is to--"

At this moment the C.O. entered and put down a hockey-stick in the corner.

"Thanks for the stick, Jervis," he said, and turned to go. "By the way, shall I see you at the orderly-room tomorrow before you go? What train are you catching?"

The Adjutant hesitated for the fraction of a second.

"Well, Sir," he said, "I thought of taking the 9.5."

"I see," said the C.O. "Right-o. You won't be away longer than forty-eight hours, I suppose?"

"Oh, no," said the Adjutant. "That'll do well, Sir."

A brief astonished silence followed the C.O.'s departure, a silence broken by the excited tones of the Stunt Pilot.

"The 9.5?" he cried. "Are you going to _London_?"

The Adjutant lit a cigarette with some deliberation.

"Only just for forty-eight hours," he remarked.

"Forty-eight hours!" gasped the indignant Pilot; then, raising his voice to surmount the din, "Forty-eight hours' leave in London, and you've just been pouring out hot air about--"

"_Leave?_" interrupted the Adjutant, in pained surprise. "What d'you mean by leave? I'm going on _duty_."

A chorus of derisive laughter greeted the announcement. "Duty?" echoed the Stunt Pilot bitterly. "_What_ duty?"

The Adjutant took another furl in his bath-towel.

"If you really must know," he said composedly, "I'm going to buy a vacuum-cleaner for the Mess."

"You infernal old wangler!" cried the outraged Pilot, when at last he was able to make himself heard. "Of course it takes forty-eight hours to buy a vacuum-cleaner, doesn't it?"

"As a matter of fact," said the Adjutant solemnly, "my whole experience of vacuum-cleaners leads me to the conviction that you have to look at a great many of them before you can pick a really good one." He glanced round for his clothes. "And now if you fellows will get on with your baths, I've got an air mechanic coming in a minute or two to cut my hair. I expect I shall be far too busy in town for the next two days to have any time to waste on barbers."

* * * * *

* * * * *

GENERAL POST.

Everything was just as usual. I caught my tram at the corner of the street. It was the six o'clock car--I noticed the usual evening crowd, and they were all as bored and cross and frigid as usual.

The old gentleman of the whiskers was, as usual, reading his evening paper. He looked personally affronted as I sat down beside him. The elderly relative--as I call her--was opposite to me. She had her small attaché-case and her knitting as usual, and she made me feel at a glance that my face bored her intolerably. For the rest, I saw the fat paterfamilias, the wish-I-had-a-motor lady, the pert flapper and all the crew who travel with dejected spirits to and fro on our suburban line.

So far all was in order. Then the conductress came round.

"Tuppenny," I murmured. "Albemarle Road."

"What's your town?" she asked, taking a pencil from behind her ear.

"Town? It's Albemarle Road I want."

"But what town do you choose for Post?" she asked. "You've all got to have a town, you know. Don't make it too long. Hurry up! I've got to write you all down, and it's time to begin."

"Pontresina," I gasped wildly. That seemed to be the only town I had ever heard of.

"And you, Sir?" she was asking the old gentleman.

"Macclesfield," he said very decidedly.

The elderly relative was fidgeting to say hers. I could have guessed it would be St. Ives.

The conductress made her way from one end to the other.

"All got towns?" she asked. "You, Sir? Pernambuco? I do wish you'd stick to English names. Are you all ready?"

She rang the bell.

"Now," she said, "the gentleman on the stool has to catch. The Post is going from Paris to Pontresina."

I rose and looked wildly down the car. The flapper was beckoning slightly. Her contemptuous boredom had vanished, and she looked a merry child again. I rushed, stumbled, rocked into her place; she sank with a gasp into mine.

"York to St. Ives!"

It was the paterfamilias who was up now, and the elderly relative was signing to him. In a breathless scurry she was in his place gasping beside me. For the first time in her life she spoke to me.

"What an escape!" she said. "There, _he'_s caught--York, I mean. I don't know his proper name. It's odd, isn't it, we know each other's faces so well and yet we don't know each other's names. Now that we have towns for names, it will be far more friendly, won't it? I always called you Cicero to myself. Oh, I hardly know why--you looked a little satirical sometimes. But now you're Pontresina, of course."

"Macclesfield to Pernambuco!"

"There!" laughed my companion. "I knew Macclesfield would be caught--he's so stately, isn't he? But look how he's laughing. Do you know I never thought any of the people in this car _could_ laugh, or even smile. I do think this Society for the Abolition of Boredom in Public Conveyances is an excellent thing, don't you?"

"Pontresina to St. Ives!"

Breathlessly we changed places; her black hat was a little crooked, but she only laughed.

"I've lost my knitting, too," she said, "but I don't mind. This exercise keeps one so warm these cold days."

The game was in wild progress; the car rocked and jolted and the conductress shouted the names.

"General Post!" she called. "Those inside change places with those outside."

That was the most breathlessly exciting moment of the whole game. There was a solid struggling mass of humanity on the tram staircase. Those without were pushing frantically to come down; we were shoving to get up.

The lady called St. Ives was thumping my shoulders.

"Climb up the railing," she said.

Somehow I did it, and leaned down to catch her hands and drag her upwards. We launched ourselves breathlessly on to the furthest seat.

Stout old Macclesfield was the next. He had lost his hat and his white hair was ruffled.

"I'm here," he said. "Macclesfield for ever!"

The flapper had scrambled up the front staircase against the rules. She cast herself down beside Macclesfield.

"Here I am, old dear," she exclaimed. "I left York simply _jammed_ in the wedge. Oh, isn't it fun? I never laughed so much. We never _can_ be serious with each other after this, can we?"

St. Ives nodded.

"I'll never forget Pontresina climbing the rail," she said. "I used to think him so haughty; now--"

"Albemarle Road--don't you want Albemarle Road?" the conductress was asking me. She spoke very loudly.

"Pontresina--I'm Pontresina," I answered.

"This is Albemarle Road. If you're going on it'll be another penny," she insisted.

I rose in bewilderment.

St. Ives was looking at me while she knitted. I raised my hat to her and smiled. We had been such good friends all the evening--how could I ever forget it? But she did not smile; she only stared. She seemed to think I was mad. Macclesfield was reading his _Star_ just as if he had never hurled himself on to the top of the 'bus. The flapper was squinting at herself in a little pocket-mirror; she looked contemptuously at me as I passed. Old York was half asleep. One would think they had never been rushing about in that frantic General Post. And we were all inside the car again.

It _was_ odd!

* * * * *

* * * * *

'TWAS FIFTY YEARS AGO.

(_Lines suggested by an old Magazine._)

Published the year I went to school-- The second of life's seven ages-- How fragrant of Victorian rule Are these forgotten pages! When meat and fruit were still uncanned; When good CHARLES DICKENS still was writing; And SWINBURNE'S poetry was banned As rather too exciting.

No murmurs of impending strife Were heard, no dark suggestions hinted; Our novelists still looked on life Through spectacles rose-tinted; And Paris, in those giddy years, Still laughed at OFFENBACH and SCHNEIDER, Blind to the doom of blood and tears, With none to warn or guide her.

The index and the authors' names, Their stories and their lucubrations, Recall old literary aims And faded reputations; We wonder at the influence That SALA'S florid periods had on His fellows, and the vogue immense Of versatile Miss BRADDON.

And yet I read _Aurora Floyd_ In youth with rapture quite unholy-- Not in the way that I enjoyed Mince-pies or roly-poly; While "G.A.S." appeared to me Like a Leonid fresh from starland, Not the young lion that we see Portrayed in _Friendship's Garland_.

And there are tinklings of the lute In orthodox decorous fashion, But altogether destitute Of "elemental" passion; And illustrations which refrain From all that verges on the shady, But glorify the whiskered swain, The lachrymose young lady.

The sirens of the "sixties" showed No inkling of our modern Circes, And swells had not evolved the code That guides our precious Percys; Woman, in short, was grave or gay, But not a problem or a riddle, And maidens still were taught to play The harp and not the fiddle.

And writers in the main eschewed All topics tending to disquiet, All efforts to reorganize Our dogmas or our diet; You could not carp at MENDELSSOHN Without creating quite a scandal, And rag-time on the gramophone Had not supplanted HANDEL.

Blameless and wholesome in their way, At times agreeably subacid, I love these records of a day Long dead, but calm and placid; And with a sigh I now replace This ancient volume of _Belgravia_ And turn the "latest news" to face _Mutans amaris suavia_.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A SLUMP IN MARIONETTES.

"For the first time for centuries the Old Bailey Sessions were opened on Tuesday without the customary ceremonies connected with the summoning of a Grand Judy."--_Lincolnshire Echo._

* * * * *

"Too proud to fight" has now become "Proud to fight too."

* * * * *

"'It was between half-past seven and eight,' said a fireman, 'and as I was off duty I came out on deck for a blow. The force of the explosion threw me along the deck for some yards.'"--_Daily Paper._

"This is indeed a blow," said the gallant stoker--we _don't_ think.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

I have the feeling that when Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING called his new volume _A Diversity of Creatures_ (MACMILLAN) he was rather taking the word out of my mouth, or the sword out of my hand, or whatever one does for the confusion and discomforting of critics. Because it is just the extreme diversity of the tales herein which, while providing (as they say) something for all tastes, makes it very hard to appraise the book as a whole. In form it follows the KIPLING convention, endeared to us by so much pleasure, of sandwiching prose and verse, the poems echoing the idea of the tale that has preceded them, and themselves likely to prove for many the most attractive pages of the book. As for the stories, here we get diversity indeed; and not of theme alone. It is, of course, almost impossible for anything signed by Mr. KIPLING to be wholly commonplace, but I am bound to admit that there is at least one of the collection (which, pardon me, I do not mean to name) that makes a notable effort in that direction. Also there are two of which one can honestly say that no other pen could have written them with anything like such finished art--_The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat_, which one might call a fantasia upon Publicity, and (to my mind the best thing in the volume) _My Son's Wife_, an exquisitely humorous and cunning study in the Influence of Landed Estate upon a Modern. If this definition strikes you as obscure, read the story and you will understand. For the rest, as I said above, all tastes are catered for; so that the rival schools who admire Mr. KIPLING most as the creator of _Plain Tales_, or _Stalky_ or _Puck_, will each receive encouragement and support; while, if there be those who prefer the pot-boiler undisguisable, they too will not find themselves altogether neglected.

* * * * *

I do wish our publishers would grasp the great truth that praise of their own wares needs (to say the least of it) most careful handling. What they, or some anonymous admirer, say on the cover of _The Worn Doorstep_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is that they should like to shout its merits from the housetop. Possibly; but let me protest that it is for me, and not for them, to do the shouting, if any; which said, I will proceed to admit that the book is one of considerable charm. It is told in the form of letters (never to be posted, since they are from a young wife to her soldier-husband, presumed to have been killed before the opening of the book). Miss MARGARET SHERWOOD thus reverts to a convention more popular some few years ago than with our present-day romanticists. The matter of her tale shows how the young wife in question found consolation in befriending others, especially in the love affairs of a Belgian refugee couple, to whom she opens her home and heart. A very pretty idea, developed with many dainty and amiable touches. Perhaps (I set down no dogmatic verdict on the point) the cynical or impatient may find its sweetness something too drawn out. On the other hand, there are many "gentle readers," probably a vast majority, to whom its appeal will prove entirely successful. And as they can be trusted to spread its merits in the right quarters there will be no need for the publishers to shout, either from the house-top or anywhere else, which (as I suggested above) is as it should be.

* * * * *

When we are introduced to _Margaret Grenfield_, the heroine of _Fetters on the Feet_ (ARNOLD), she is living with some Quaker cousins and spending most of her time in mending stockings. So many people make stockings who refuse absolutely to mend them that I imagine there must be something peculiarly unattractive in this work of restoration, and it was a fortunate day for _Margaret_ when the pedantic young man of the house proposed to marry her. After this we discover that she has both a history and a will of her own. She leaves the Quakers, and goes as secretary to a lady who holds eccentric if broadminded views on every conceivable subject, and the change of atmosphere, however delightful in various ways, was too much for _Margaret's_ peace of mind. The young Quaker was an obstinate wooer and followed her up, but his chances of success, which were never rosy, grew dimmer and dimmer as _Margaret_, freeing herself of shackles, gradually began to see life as a whole instead of through the eye of a darning- needle. In the end MRS. FRED REYNOLDS tells us that "the day dawned. The whole earth sang and sparkled in the glad light of it," which is her way of saying that _Margaret_ had found happiness. But all the same I fancy that introspection had become such a habit of this heroine that she is still likely to have days when the dawn is grey and no birds sing.

* * * * *

"He was also the first officer to make a successful flight from the deck of a British warship, and on one occasion he changed an aeroplane propeller blade whilst flying 2,000ft. above the sea."--_Evening Paper._

The above extract has been forwarded by the members of a R.F.C. mess, who are anxious to know what happened when he stopped his engine.

* * * * *

"Wanted, for a Farmhouse, Middle-Aged Person to look an Old Lady; lifting and light duties."--_Newcastle Daily Journal._

We doubt if there will be much response. Most middle-aged persons nowadays prefer to look like flappers.

* * * * *

From a trade prospectus:--

"---- Cubes contain the nourishing proprieties of beef."

We have always been great believers in bovine modesty.