Chapter 3

_The Marshal_. All right, all right, I'm coming. Yes, I'm Marshal VON HINDENBURG. Who are you? What? I can't hear a single word. You really must speak up. Louder--louder still, you fool. What? Oh, I really beg your Majesty's pardon. I assure you it was impossible to hear distinctly, but it's all right now. I thank your Majesty, I am in my usual good health. Yes. No, not at all. Yes, I have good hope that we shall now maintain ourselves for at least two days. Yes, if we are forced to retire we must say it is according to plan. No, I don't like it either, but what is to be done? Their guns are more numerous and heavier than ours, and weight of metal must tell. Will I hold the line? Yes, certainly, till your Majesty returns and graciously resumes the conversation. Oh, you didn't mean that line? You meant the Siegfried line, or the Wotan line, or the Hindenburg line? Yes, I see, it was a _Witz_, a play of words. Yes, I am sorry I could not at once see what your Majesty was driving at, but now I see it is good. I must practise my joking. Ha-ha-ha! Are you there? No, he's gone (_rings off_). (_To himself_) He is a queer Emperor who is able to make jokes while his soldiers are dying by thousands and thousands. It can't last like this--and as for the Hindenburg line, I'm perfectly tired to death of the words; and the thing itself doesn't exist.

_The Telephone_. Rr-rr-rr-rr.

_The Marshal_. What, again? This is too much--who are you? Who? WHO? General VON KLUCK? Impossible. General VON KLUCK's dead. What--not dead? Anyhow, nobody's heard of him for months. If you're really General VON KLUCK I'm afraid we must consider you to be dead. The EMPEROR won't regard it as very good taste on your part to come to life again like this. He's very unforgiving, you know. You don't care? But, my dear dead General VON KLUCK, you must care. What is it you say you wanted to do? Congratulate me? What on? My splendid defence of the Hindenburg line? Now, look here. As one German General to another do you mean to tell me you believe in the Hindenburg line? No, of course you don't. You thought I believed in it? Was that what you said? Come, don't wriggle, though you are a dead man. Yes, that was what you said. Well, then understand henceforth that there is no Hindenburg line and there never was anything of the sort. Why am I retreating then? Because I must. That's the whole secret. Why did _you_ retreat after your famous oblique march during the Battle of the Marne? Because you had to, of course. There--that's enough. I can't waste any more time. What? Oh, yes, you can congratulate me on anything you like except that. And now you had better return to the grave of your reputation and remain there (_rings off_).

_The Telephone_. Rr-rr-rr-rr.

_The Marshal_. To h-ll with the telephone! Who is it now? What--an editor of a newspaper? That's a little bit too thick. What is it you want? To thank God for that masterpiece of bold cunning, the Hindenburg line? Is that what you want? Well, make haste, for the masterpiece doesn't exist. No, I'm not joking. I can't joke. Enough (_rings off_).

* * * * *

* * * * *

=THE HOUSE-MASTER.=

Four years I spent beneath his rule, For three of which askance I scanned him, And only after leaving school Came thoroughly to understand him; For he was brusque in various ways That jarred upon the modern mother, And scouted as a silly craze The theory of the "elder brother."

Renowned at Cambridge as an oar And quite distinguished as a wrangler, He felt incomparably more Pride in his exploits as an angler; He held his fishing on the Test Above the riches of the Speyers, And there he lured me, as his guest, Into the ranks of the "dry-flyers."

He made no fetish of the cane As owning any special virtue, But held the discipline of pain, When rightly earned, would never hurt you; With lapses of the normal brand I think he dealt most mercifully, But chastened with a heavy hand The sneak, the liar and the bully.

We used to criticise his boots, His simple tastes in food and fiction, His everlasting homespun suits, His leisurely old-fashioned diction; And yet we had the saving _nous_ To recognise no worse disaster Could possibly befall the House Than the removal of its Master.

For though his voice was deep and gruff, And rumbled like a motor-lorry, He showed the true angelic stuff If any one was sick or sorry; So when pneumonia, doubly dread, Of breath had nearly quite bereft me, He watched three nights beside my bed Until the burning fever left me.

He served three Heads with equal zeal And equal absence of ambition; He knew his power, and did not feel The least desire for recognition; But shrewd observers, who could trace Back to their source results far-reaching, Saw the true Genius of the Place Embodied in his life and teaching.

The War's deep waters o'er him rolled As he beheld Young England giving Life prodigally, while the old Lived on without the cause for living; And yet he never heaved a sigh Although his heart was inly riven; He only craved one boon--to die In harness, and the boon was given.

* * * * *

=Vicarious Parenthood.=

"DABRERA.--Yesterday, at 6.55 a.m. 'Shernery,' Bambalapitiya, to Mr. and Mrs. Ossy Dabrera a daughter. Grand parents doing well."--_Ceylon Independent_.

* * * * *

"Mr. J.H. Minns (Carlisle) charged the brewers of his city with allowing their tenants to be placed under the heel of the Control Board.... It was the cloven hoof of the unseen hand that the trade had to face in Carlisle."--_Derby Daily Express_.

Mr. MINNS must cheer up. The Trade has only to wait for

"That auspicious day when the velvet glove will be stripped for ever from the cloven hoof of the German Eagle."--_London Opinion_.

* * * * *

"The fact that a few girls earn abnormal wages has obscured in the public mind the the Board to accept the gift a Bill is to be age girl working 48 hours a week earned only 18s. or 19s. a week."--_Daily Paper_.

This statement should go far to clear up the obscurity in the public mind.

* * * * *

"Mr. ---- gave one of his popular lectures on 'Alcohol' and its effects on March the 30th in the Wesleyan school."--_True Blue Magazine_.

What exactly did happen on March 30th in the Wesleyan school?

* * * * *

"WANTED, Smart Workman, aged 80, and exempt from military service, as handy man; must be steady; a job for life for careful man."--_Cambria Daily Leader_.

He must be particularly careful to guard against premature decease.

* * * * *

* * * * *

=EMILY'S MISSION.=

It was all through Emily that I am to-day the man I am.

We were extraordinarily lucky to get her; there was no doubt about that. Her testimonials or character or references or whatever it is that they come to you with were just the last word. Even the head of the registry-office, a frigid thin-lipped lady of some fifty winters, with an unemotional cold-mutton eye, was betrayed, in speaking of Emily, into a momentary lapse from the studied English of her normal vocabulary.

"Madam," she said to my wife, "I have known many housemaids, but never one like this. She is, I assure you, Madam, absolutely IT."

So we engaged her; and ere long I came to hate her with a hatred such as I trust I shall never again cherish for any human being.

In almost every respect she proved perfection. She was honest, she was quick, she was clean; she loved darning my socks and ironing my handkerchiefs; she never sulked, she never smashed, her hair never wisped (a thing I loathe in housemaids). In one point only she failed, failed more completely than any servant I have ever known. She would not make my shaving-water really hot.

Cursed by nature with an iron-filings beard and a delicate tender skin, I was a man for whom it was impossible to shave with comfort in anything but absolutely boiling water. Yet morning after morning I sprang from my bed to find the contents of my jug just a little over or under the tepid mark. There was no question of re-heating the water on the gas stove, for I never allowed myself more than the very minimum of time for dressing, swallowing my breakfast and catching my train. It was torture.

I spoke to Emily about it, mildly at first, more forcibly as the weeks wore on, passionately at last. She apologised, she sighed, she wrung her hands. Once she wept--shed hot scalding tears, tears I could gladly have shaved in had they fallen half-an-hour earlier. But it made no difference; next morning my water was as chill as ever. I could not understand it. Every day my wrath grew blacker, my reproaches more vehement.

Finally an hour came when I said to my wife, "One of two things must happen. Either that girl goes or I grow a beard."

Mildred shook her head. "We can't possibly part with her. We should never get another servant like her."

"Very well," I said.

On the morrow I started for my annual holiday, alone. It was late summer. I journeyed into the wilds of Wiltshire. I took two rooms in an isolated cottage, and on the first night of my stay, before getting into bed, I threw my looking-glass out of the window. Next morning I began. Day by day I tramped the surrounding country, avoiding all intercourse with humanity, and day by day my beard grew.

I could feel it growing, and the first scrubbiness of it filled me with rage. But as time slipped by it became softer and more pliable, and ceased to irritate me. Freed, too, from the agony of shaving, I soon found myself eating my breakfast in a more equable frame of mind than I had enjoyed for years. I began also to notice in my walks all sorts of things that had not struck me at first--the lark a-twitter in the blue, the good smell of wet earth after rain, the pale gold of ripening wheat. And at last, before ever I saw it, very gradually I came to love my beard, to love the warm comfort and cosiness of it, and to wonder half timidly what it looked like.

When I left, just before my departure for the six-miles-distant station, I called for a looking-glass. They brought me a piece of the one I had cast away. It was very small, but it served my purpose. I gazed and heaved a sigh of rapturous content; a sigh that came from my very heart. My beard was short and thick, its colour a deep glorious brown, with golden lights here and there where the sunbeams danced in some lighter cluster of its curling strands. A beard that a king might wear.

I have never shaved again. Every morning now, while untold millions of my suffering fellows are groaning beneath their razors, I steal an extra fifteen minutes from the day and lie and laugh inside my beard.

"And what of Emily?" you ask.

Almost immediately after my return she left us. She gave no reason. She was not unhappy, she said. She wished to make a change, that was all. To this day my wife cannot account for her departure. But I know why she went. Emily was a patriot with a purpose. A month after she parted from us I received a letter from her:--

"Dear Sir,--May I ask you to take into consideration the fact that by having ceased to shave you will in future be effecting a slight economy in your daily expenditure? Might I also suggest to you that during the remainder of the War you should make a voluntary contribution to the national exchequer of every shilling saved under this head? The total sum will not be large, but everything counts. Yours is, if I may be allowed to say so, the finest beard I have been instrumental in producing during my two and a half years' experience in domestic service. I am now hard at work on my sixth case, which is approaching its crisis.

Apologising for any temporary inconvenience I may have caused you, I am,

Yours faithfully, EMILY JOHNSON,

_Foundress and President of the Housemaids' Society for the Promotion of Patriotic Beards._"

I never showed the letter to my wife, but I have acted on Emily's suggestion. I often think of her still, her whole soul afire with her patriotic mission, flitting, the very flower of housemaids, from home to home, lingering but a little while in each, in each content for that little while to be loathed and stormed at by an exasperated shaver, whom she transforms into a happy bearded contributor to her fund.

* * * * *

=Another Impending Apology.=

"This terrible fire roused hundreds of people from their beds, and a great crowd gathered in the adjoining streets; but Sub-divisional Inspector Stock and Inspector Ping were on the spot within a few months after receiving the call."--_Westminster and Pimlico News_.

* * * * *

* * * * *

=THE FIFTEEN TRIDGES.=

Once upon a time there was a flourishing covey of fifteen: Pa Tridge, Ma Tridge, and thirteen little Tridges, all brown and speckled and very chirpy. They had been born in a hollow under some big leaves beside a hedge, and they now moved about the earth, pushing their way through the grass, all keeping close together when they could, and setting up no end of a piping when they couldn't and thought they were lost.

It was a large family from our point of view, and larger perhaps than a prudent French partridge would approve, but the world is wide, and there are no butcher's or baker's or tailor's or dress-maker's bills to pay for little birds. All that a Pa and Ma Tridge have to do after fledging is complete is to look out for cats and hawks and foxes, to beware of the feet of clumsy cattle, and to administer correction and advice. Above all there are no school bills, made so doubly ridiculous among ourselves by German measles and other epidemics during which no learning is imparted, but for which, educationalists being a wily crew, no rebate is offered.

There being so little to be done for their young, it is no wonder, in a didactic and over-articulate world, that parent Tridges take almost too kindly to sententiousness; and young Tridges, being so numerous as to constitute a public meeting in themselves, are specially liable to admonishment.

It was therefore that, strolling aimlessly amid the herbage or the young wheat with their audience all about them, Pa and Ma Tridge got into a habit of counsel which threatened to become so chronic that there was a danger of its dulling their sensibility to the approach of September the first.

"Never," Pa Tridge would say, "criticise anyone or anything on hearsay. See for yourself and then make up your own mind; but don't hurry to put it into words."

"Tell the truth as often as possible," Pa Tridge would say. "It is not only better citizenship to do so, but it makes things easier for yourself in the long run."

"Always bear in mind," Ma Tridge would say, "that after one has married one's cook she ceases to cook."

"Never tell anyone," Pa Tridge would say, "who it was you saw in the spinney with Mr. Jay or Mrs. Woodpecker."

"Indeed," he would add, "you might make a note that the world would not come to a miserable end if everyone was born dumb"--but he was very glad not to be dumb himself.

"Even though you should get on intimate terms with a pheasant," Ma Tridge would say, "don't brag about it."

"Forgive, but don't forget," Pa Tridge would say.

"Remember," Pa Tridge would say, "that, though it may be wiser to say No, most of the fun and all the adventure of the world have come from saying Yes."

"Bear in mind," Ma Tridge would say--but that is more than enough of the tiresome old bores.

And after each piece of advice the little Tridges would all say, "Right-O!"

And then one night--these being English Tridges in an English early summer--a terrible frost set in which lasted long enough to kill the whole covey, partly by cold and partly by starvation, so that all the good counsels were wasted.

But on the chance that one or two of them may be applicable to human life I have jotted them down here. One never knows which is grain and which chaff until afterwards.

* * * * *

=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)

We have had many studies of the War, in various aspects, from our own army. Now in _My ·75_ (HEINEMANN) there comes a record of the impressions of a French gunner during the first year of fighting. It is a book of which I should find it difficult to speak too highly. PAUL LINTIER, the writer, had, it is clear, a gift for recording things seen with quite unusual sharpness of effect. His word-pictures of the mobilisation, the departure for the Front, and the fighting from the Marne to the Aisne (where he was wounded and sent home) carry one along with a suspense and interest and quite personal emotion that are a tribute to their artistry. His death (the short preface tells us that, having returned to the Front, he was killed in action in March, 1916) has certainly robbed France of one who should have made a notable figure in her literature. The style, very distinctive, shows poetic feeling and a rare and beautiful tenderness of thought, mingled with an acceptance of the brutality of life and war that is seen in the vivid descriptions of incidents that our own gentler writers would have left untold. The horror of some of these passages makes the book (I should warn you) not one for shaken nerves. But there can be no question of its very unusual interest, nor of the skill with which its translator, who should surely be acknowledged upon the title-page, has preserved the vitality and appeal of the original.

* * * * *

The author of _Helen of Four Gates_ (JENKINS) has chosen to hide her identity and call herself simply "An Ex-Mill Girl." I am sufficiently sorry for this to hope that, if the story meets with the success that I should certainly predict for it, a lady of such unusual gifts may allow us to know her name. Of these gifts I have no doubt whatever. As a tale _Helen of Four Gates_ is crude, unnatural, melodramatic; but the power (brutality, if you prefer) of its telling takes away the critical breath. Whether in real life anyone could have nursed a lifelong hatred as old _Mason_ did (personally I cherish the belief that hatred is too evanescent an emotion for a life-tenancy of the human mind; but I may be wrong); whether he would have bribed a casual tramp to marry and torment the reputed daughter who was the object of his loathing, or whether _Day_ and _Helen_ herself would actually so have played into his hands, are all rather questionable problems. Far more real, human and moving is the wild passion of _Helen_ for _Martin_, whom (again questionably as to truth) her enemies frighten away from her. A grim story, you begin to observe, but one altogether worth reading. To compare things small (as yet) with great, I might call it a lineal descendant of _Wuthering Heights_, both in setting and treatment. There is indeed more than a hint of the BRONTË touch about the Ex-Mill Girl. For that and other things I send her (whoever she is) my felicitations and good wishes.

* * * * *

I wonder if Mr. (or Mrs. or Miss) E.K. WEEKES would understand me if I put my verdict upon _The Massareen Affair_ (ARNOLD) into the form of a suggestion that in future its author would be well advised to keep quiet. Not with any meaning that he or she should desist from the pursuit of fiction; on the contrary, there are aspects of _The Massareen Affair_ that are more than promising--vigorous and unconventional characters, a gift of lively talk, and so on. But all this only operates so long as the tale remains in the calm waters of the ordinary; later, when it puts forth upon the sea of melodrama, I am sorry to record that this promising vessel comes as near shipwreck as makes no difference. To drop metaphor, the group of persons surrounding the unhappily-wedded _Anthony Massareen_--_Claudia_, who attempts to rescue him and his two boys, the boys themselves, and the clerical family whose fortunes are affected by their proximity to the _Massareens_--all these are well and credibly drawn. But when we arrive at the fanatic wife of _Anthony_, in her Welsh castle, surrounded by rocks and blow-holes, and finally to that last great scene, where (if I followed events accurately) she trusses her ex-husband like a fowl, and trundles him in a wheel-barrow to the pyre of sacrifice, not the best will in the world could keep me convinced or even decorously thrilled. So I will content myself with repeating my advice to a clever writer in future to ride imagination on the curb, and leave you to endorse this or not as taste suggests.

* * * * *

I am seriously thinking of chaining _Grand Fleet Days_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) to my bookcase, for it is written by the author of _In the Northern Mists_, a book which has destroyed the morality of my friends. Be assured that I am not formulating any grave charge against the anonymous Chaplain of the Fleet who has provided us with these two delightful volumes; I merely wish to say that nothing can prevent people from purloining the first, and that drastic measures will have to be taken if I am to retain the second. In these dialogues and sketches I do not find quite so much spontaneity as in the first volume; once or twice it is even possible to imagine that the author, after taking pen in hand, was a little perplexed to find a subject to write about. But that is the beginning and the end of my complaint. Once again we have a broad-minded humour and the revelation of a most attractive personality. Above all we see our Grand Fleet as it is; and, if the grumblers would only read and soundly digest what our Chaplain has to say their question would be, "What is our Navy _not_ doing?"

* * * * *

"The sight was wonderful. From the grand lodge entrance to the lake-side quite 3,000 blue-breeched khaki-coated men and nurses lined one side of the long drive."--_Manchester Evening News_.

It must indeed have been a wonderful sight. Nevertheless we hope that nurses generally will stick to their traditional uniform.

* * * * *