Chapter 3

"Khartum has the reputation of being a very hot place this time of year. But last June must have been fairly damp if the meteorological statistics published by the 'Sudan Times' are correct. The rainfall during this month amounted to no less than 33.6 kilometres. No wonder a man I know there wrote to say the other day that sometimes the rain is too heavy for him to go on sleeping on the roof, and this in spite of a waterproof sheet. A life-belt would probably be more useful."--_Egyptian Mail_.

Only NOAH'S Ark would really meet the case.

* * * * *

* * * * *

MATILDA

_(From our Adjutant's Diary)._

The depôt has decided that Matilda is a notable puppy. I could not tell you her particular make, but our motor cyclist artificer described her as a "1917 model; well upholstered but weak in the chassis and unreliable in the differential on hairpin bends; in fact, built for comfort and not speed."

Matilda became a celebrity all in one day. The C.O. wrote the following chit to her master:--

"O.C.-'A' Company.--If your dog _must_ stroll into my orderly-room, will you please see that she is kept reasonably clean? Please take necessary action, initial and return."

Matilda was bathed and sent back for inspection to the C.O., with a chit from O.C. "A" Company, pointing out that, as he couldn't initial her, he had put his office stamp on her tummy and hoped it wouldn't rub off.

The C.O. pronounced Matilda to be moderately clean. As she was conducting the trumpeter back to "A" Company she fell into a vat of by-products near the mess hut. She couldn't be washed again, as the Quartermaster had already written three scathing chits about the previous use of depôt disinfectant. Matilda spent the night licking herself clean in the detention cell.

The staff of "A" Company loved Matilda in spite of the fact that her conduct was prejudicial to good order and military discipline, and that she constantly used abusive language to her superiors. Even the Company Sergeant-Major loved her. He might have loved her still, but ... and that's the story.

Brown was the depôt nuisance. He had a conduct sheet filled up in red and black, and his entries would have been even more numerous if he had not possessed a great gift of cunning. He had had several passages of arms with the C.S.M. of "A" Company and had emerged unscathed more than once.

On the occasion of this story Brown was being tried for using abusive language to a superior officer, to wit, the said C.S.M. The abusive language consisted of one very striking epithet. The charge was read over to Brown, and the C.S.M. was called upon to give evidence. He stepped smartly forward. Matilda loitered between his legs ... and then, I regret to say, the C.S.M. applied the same epithet to Matilda that Brown had applied to him.

The case was reluctantly dismissed, and Matilda is out of favour with the C.S.M.

* * * * *

"It was my first experience of a sandstorm, and I can tell you that the sensation was a most terrible one. With the aid of my assistants I got off the camel, which immediately stretched itself in the sand, and moistening my handkerchief pushed it across my face."

_Sydney Herald (N.S.W.)._

Wise and dexterous creature! We presume it drew the moisture from its internal reservoir.

* * * * *

"The second cook, who is an American citizen, managed when the Germans ordered the lifeboats to be given up to hide one under his raincoat."--_Western Mail_.

One of the collapsible sort, no doubt.

* * * * *

"Some very daring entrances were forced into these fortresses. One single soldier not directly concerned with the attack found 20 bottles of champagne in one, drank a glass or two, and went forward to seek for others. Squeezing into one he discovered a German officer in bed."--_Daily Mail_.

It must have been a bantam who thought of this ingenious ruse.

* * * * *

THE NORTH ATLANTIC TRADE.

As I was walking beside the docks I met a pal o' mine I sailed with once on the Colonies run in Thomson's Blue Star Line; Said I, "What cheer--what brings you here?" "Why, 'aven't you 'eard?" he said; "I'm under the Windsor 'ouse-flag now in the North Atlantic trade. We sweep a bit an' we fight a bit--an' that's what we like the best-- But a towin' job or a salvage job, they all go in with the rest; When we aren't too busy upsettin' old Fritz an' 'is frightfulness blockade, A bit of all sorts don't come amiss in the North Atlantic trade."

"And how does old Atlantic look?" "Oh, round an' about the same; 'E 'asn't seemed to alter a lot since I've been in the game; 'E's about as big as 'e always was, an' 'e's pretty well just as wet (Or, if there's some parts anyway dry, well, I 'aven't struck none yet!), There's the same old bust-up, same old mess, when a green sea breaks inboard, An' the equinoctials roarin' by the same as they've always roared, An' the West Wind playin' the same old larks 'e's been at since the world was made-- They've a peach of a time, 'ave sailormen, in the North Atlantic trade."

"And who's your skipper, and what is he like?" "Oh, well, if you want to know. I'm sailin' under a hard-case mate as I sailed with years ago; 'E's big an' bucko an' full o' beans, the same as 'e used to be When I knowed 'im last in the windbag days when first I followed the sea. 'E was worth two men at the lee fore brace, an' three at the bunt of a sail; 'E'd a voice you could 'ear to the royal-yards in the teeth of a Cape 'Orn gale; But now 'e's a full-blown lootenant an' wears the twisted braid, Commandin' one of 'is Majesty's ships in the North Atlantic trade."

"And what is the ship you're sailin' in?" "Oh, she's a bit of a terror-- She ain't no bloomin' levvyathan, an' that's no fatal error! She scoops the seas like a gravy-spoon when the gales are up an' blowin', But Fritz 'e loves 'er above a bit when 'er fightin' fangs are showin'. The liners go their stately way an' the cruisers take their ease, But where would they be if it wasn't for us, with the water up to our knees? We're wadin' when their soles are wet, we're swimmin' when they wade, For I tell you small craft gets it a treat in the North Atlantic trade!"

"And what is the port you're plying to?" "When the last long trick is done There'll some come back to the old 'ome port--'ere's 'opin' I'll be one; But some 'ave made a new landfall, an' sighted another shore, An' it ain't no use to watch for them, for they won't come 'ome no more. There ain't no 'arbour dues to pay when once they're over the bar, Moored bow an' stern in a quiet berth where the lost three-deckers are, An' there's NELSON 'oldin' 'is one 'and out an' welcomin' them that's made The roads o' Glory an' the port of Death in the North Atlantic trade!"

C. F. S.

* * * * *

SELF-DENIAL.

"And what," I said, "did you do during the Great War, Francesca?"

"In the first place I fine you a sum not exceeding one hundred pounds for asking me such a question. In the second place I retort upon you by telling you that one of the things you're going to do during the Great War is to give up marmalade."

"What! Give up the thing which lends to breakfast its one and only distinction? Never."

"That," she said, "sounds very brave; but what are you going to do if there isn't any marmalade to be obtained for love or money?"

"Mine," I said, "has always been the sort you get for money. I have not hitherto met the amatory variety; but if it's really marmalade I'm prepared to have a go at it."

"And that," she said, "is very kind of you, but it's quite useless. For the moment there's no marmalade of any kind to be had."

"None of the dark-brown variety?"

"No."

"Or the sort that looks like golden jelly?"

"Not a scrap."

"Or the old-fashioned but admirable kind? The excellent substitute for butter at breakfast?"

"That must go like the rest. It has been a substitute for the last time."

"Impossible," I said. "Everything is now a substitute for something else. Marmalade started being a substitute long ago, and it isn't fair to stop it and let the other things go on."

"Well," she said, "what are you going to do about it? If you can't get Seville oranges how are you going to get Seville orange marmalade?"

"Oh, that's it, is it?"

"Yes, that's it, more or less. And now let's have your remedy."

"You needn't think," I said, "that I'm going to take it lying down. I shall go up to London and defy Lord RHONDDA to his face. I shall write pro-marmalade letters to various newspapers. I shall form a Marmalade League, with branches in all the constituencies so as to bring political pressure to bear. I shall head a deputation to the PRIME MINISTER. I shall get Mr. KING or Mr. HOGGE or Mr. PRINGLE, or all three of them, to ask questions in the House of Commons. In short I shall exhaust all the usual devices for giving the Government a thoroughly uncomfortable time."

"In short you will do your patriotic best to help your country through its difficulties and to put the interest of the nation above your own convenience."

"Francesca," I said, "you must not be too serious. I was but attempting a jest."

"This is no time for jests. I can't bear even to think of your joining the Brigade of Grousers who are always girding at the Government. I won't stand your being a girder. So make up your mind to that."

"Very well," I said, "I will endeavour not to be a girder; but you simply _must_ get me a pot or two of marmalade."

"And allow the KAISER to win the War? Not if I know it. Besides, I don't like marmalade."

"There you are," I said. "You don't like marmalade--few women do--and so you're going to make a virtue for yourself by forcing _me_ to give it up. My dear, you've given the whole show away."

"Don't juggle with words," she said, speaking with a dreadful calm. "I may be able to get a pot or two--say at the outside a dozen pots. Well, if I manage it I will inform you--"

"Yes," I said eagerly.

"If I manage it," she repeated, "you shall know of it, and you shall make your self-denial complete and efficacious."

"I don't like the way in which this sentence is turning out."

"You shall have a pot in front of you at breakfast, and you shan't touch a shred of it."

"Francesca," I said, "you're a tyrant. But no, you wouldn't be mean enough to do it--before the children too."

"Perhaps, as a concession, I would allow you a little marmalade in a pudding at luncheon."

"But I don't like marmalade in a pudding at luncheon. I like it on toast at breakfast."

"But you're not going to have it on toast at breakfast."

"Well," I said, "I shall conduct reprisals. For every time you don't allow me to have any I shall destroy something you like--a blouse or a hat. If I'm to give up the essence of Dundee or Paisley you shall at least give up hats."

"But the marmalade will remain."

"Yes, and the hats will all perish. That's where I come in."

"Don't buoy yourself up with that notion," she said. "You'll have to pay for the new ones--or owe."

R. C. L

* * * * *

* * * * *

Commercial Candour.

From a tailor's advertisement:--

"HAVE YOU ANY BLUE SERGES? YES! WE HAVE -- (REGD.) IN STOCK. THE SUIT TO ORDER .. 63/- Will last about another month."

_Southern Daily Echo._

* * * * *

Quotation from an article in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ in praise of sandals:--

"When people saunter through the town without hats--who still wears a hat?--why should they not go without stockings?"

_Times_.

Well, the explanation may be that while the German head is hot the German feet are cold.

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH'S "SPORPOT."

Two Summers ago Mr. Punch gave an account of the Sporpot (or Spaerpot, meaning a savings-box), a familiar institution which our little guests from Belgium brought over with them to England. The idea was taken up by certain schools in South Africa, and a competition was started to see which of them could fill the biggest Sporpot to make a fund for helping to restore the homes of Belgian exiles. This year the Eunice High School for Girls at Bloemfontein comes out first, and the second honours fall to the St. Andrew's Preparatory School for Boys at Grahamstown. The total sum of thirty-two pounds collected by the competing schools has been forwarded to and received by the author of the _Punch_ article and will be used by him for the purpose desired.

Mr. Punch begs to offer his congratulations to the winners and his best thanks to all who have contributed so generously from their personal savings to the needs of the children of our Ally.

* * * * *

A Tough Proposition.

"Ducks (15) For Sale, 7 years old; 4s. each."--_Staffordshire Sentinel_.

* * * * *

WHISPER, AND I SHALL HEAR.

There's nothing like a newspaper for spreading disease. You wake up in the morning, feeling fit to do a day's digging on your allotment; you come down to your breakfast singing a Rhonddalay and eat more than your allowance. Then you open the newspaper, glance at the latest accession to the ranks of the Allied Powers, and suddenly, "Plop!" you find there is a new disease raging, and before you know where you are you discover that you have got it badly.

That is how I discovered that I was the possessor of a heart murmur. By putting my hand on the spot under which I had been taught, and still believed, my heart to be, I felt rather than heard a distinct burbling.

I went to the telephone and fixed up an appointment with a specialist.

"It's only a murmur now," I said when I reached the consulting-room, "only a mere whisper, but----"

The doctor tapped me vigorously. Being very absent-minded I said, "Come in," the first time.

"You were rejected for this, I suppose?" he said.

"No, cow-hocked or spavined, I forget which," I said. "This hadn't started then."

The rite was quite a lengthy one, and at the conclusion the heartsmith said, "M--yes, there is a slight murmuring, certainly."

He wrote me out a prescription, and I felt the murmur myself distinctly when parting with three of the greater Bradburys and three shillings.

On the way home I ran into Beatrice.

"Well, old thing," she said, "what's the matter? I saw you coming out of Dr. Cox's."

"Yes," I said. "I've got a heart murmur. I don't know what the poor things been trying to say, but it's been murmuring like anything all the morning."

"Perhaps you're in love," she suggested.

"By Jove, I never thought of that. I wonder," I said, "if it's anything to do with you. If this were not such a public place you might like to put your head against my top left-hand waistcoat pocket and listen. Perhaps it's saying something about you."

"Have you taken to writing poetry about me?" she said. "That's always a sign."

"Now I come to think of it," I said, "I did feel a bit broody the other day, and hatched a line or two, but I can't say for certain that I had you in my mind. The lines ran like this:--

"Oh, glorious female, like a goddess decked, No wonder that we crawl on bended knee--"

"Rotten," said Beatrice. "You couldn't have been thinking of me. I'm not a female."

"You have the right plumage for the hen-bird," I said. "However, what did me was 'decked.' I could only think of three rhymes, 'wrecked,' 'flecked' and 'stiff-necked.' You're not any of those by any chance?"

"There's 'circumspect', suggested Beatrice.

"Ah! Come and have lunch," I said, "and we'll talk it over. Some place where I can hold your hand and really find out if you are the cause of it all."

"Do you think I ought to?" she said.

"Good heavens! Of course you ought," I said. "It's most important. My heart's only murmuring now, but it may start shouting soon, and a silly ass I shall look walking about in the street with a heart yelling 'Beatrice' at the top of its voice."

As regards meat and drink I consider that Beatrice overdid it for a war-time lunch. She didn't give me any time to hold her hand, she was so busy.

"It's curious," I said, as I watched the amount of food that was going her way, "but my heart seems to have stopped murmuring altogether."

"Has it?" she said. "Oddly enough, mine's begun."

"Your luncheon has overstrained you," I said.

I had a letter from Beatrice the next morning.

DEAR JIMMY (she wrote),--You were wrong. Mine was a real murmur. It's been coming on for some time, but not on your account. It's murmuring for Basil Fludger. He's on leave, and we fixed things up last Tuesday. I didn't tell you when I met you, because I was afraid you wouldn't want to take me to lunch, and I _did_ enjoy it.

Yours ever, BEATRICE.

If my heart gets really noisy I do hope it won't shout for Beatrice. It would be so useless.

"Let us go hence, my heart; she will not hear" (_Swinburne_). * * * * *

* * * * *

CIGARISTICS

["According to an enterprising American scientist a man's character can be told from the way he smokes a cigar."--_Weekly Paper_.]

For, instance, a man who snatches a cigar from somebody else's mouth and smokes it himself may be assumed to be of a grasping disposition.

The man who while smoking a cigar burns his finger is a man of few words and quick of action. Plumbers never burn their fingers like that.

The man who smokes his cigar right through without removing it from his mouth is a deep thinker. Lord NORTHCLIFFE always smokes one cigar right through before deciding what England really wants, and two when he has to decide which Cabinet Minister must go.

The man who accepts a cigar from a friend, lights it, sniffs and drops it behind his chair has no character worth mentioning.

* * * * *

Mem. for Agriculturists.

Protect the birds and the insects will be in their crops. Destroy the birds and the crops will be in the insects.

* * * * *

"S.P. (Lincoln).--Humming-birds don't hum with their mouths. The humming is the vibration of their wings while flying--for the same reason that a blue-bottle or an aeroplane hums."--_Pearson's Weekly_.

So it is not the pilot rubbing his feet together, as we had been taught to believe.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

_The Safety Candle_ (CASSELL) might have been called, but for the fact that the title has been used already, A Comedy of Age. For this is what it is--only perhaps less a comedy than a tragedy. _Agnes Tempest_ was called the Safety Candle, for the ingenious reason that, though attractive, she burnt nobody's wings. Returning as a middle-aging widow, after an unhappy wifehood in Africa, she meets on the boat two persons, _Captain Brangwyn_, a young man, and a girl-mother calling herself _Antonina Pisa_. Hence the tears. _Brangwyn_ she marries, doubtfully, half-defiantly, despite the difference in years between them; _Antonina_ is taken as a companion and very soon developes into a sick-nurse. For in the space between the ship-board engagement and the wedding a railway accident changes poor _Agnes_ from a still beautiful and active woman to a nerve-ridden invalid. But in spite of this she and _Brangwyn_ marry; and (with the much too attractive _Antonina_ always in evidence) you can guess the result. One odd point; you will hardly get any distance into Miss E.S. STEVENS' exceedingly well-written story without being struck by its resemblance to one of Mr. HICHENS' romances. The relative positions of the members of the triangle, middle-aged wife, young husband, and girl are exactly those of _The Call of the Blood_; while the Sicilian setting is identical. But this of course is by no means to accuse Miss STEVENS of plagiarism; her development of the situation, and especially the tragedy that resolves it, is both original and convincing. The end indeed took me wholly unawares, since as a hardened novel-reader I had naturally been expecting--but read it, and see if you also are not startled by a refreshing departure from the conventional.

* * * * *

If there still linger in the remoter parts of Cromarty or the Balls Pond Road certain unsophisticated persons who believe that the stage is one long glad symposium of wine, woman and song they will be interested to know that Mr. KEBLE HOWARD has written his latest novel, _The Gay Life_ (JOHN LANE), with the express object--or so he says--of disillusioning them. He has no use for the cynic who declared that there are three sexes, men, women and actors. His Thespians are gay because they are happy, and happy because (though poor) they are virtuous. The crowning ambition of their lives of honest toil is not unlimited silk-stockings and champagne suppers, but the combined and unqualified approval of Mr. GRANVILLE BARKER and Miss HORNIMAN. I fear the Philistines will not be much impressed with Mr. KEBLE HOWARD'S championship. In the first place he selects for his heroine a girl of what used to be known as the "lower orders." Yet it is more than doubtful if the lower orders have ever done anything for Mr. KEBLE HOWARD except open his cab-doors and bring his washing home on Saturday night. Otherwise he would not make his East End of London heroine talk an argot of which fifty per cent, is pure East Side Noo York. True, "the curtain" finds her in New York in the arms of a faithful and acrobatic American, so perhaps it doesn't matter much. Meanwhile she has become the idol of the Manchester School, enjoyed an unsuccessful season in partnership with the late Sir HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE, and signed a contract with the SCHUBERTS to tour the States, and all without any apparent diminution of the guileless flow of "Whitechapel" with which she won the hearts of her first employers. It is courageous of Mr. HOWARD to place on record his apparent belief that a total absence of the three "R's" and any number of "h's" cannot debar a strong-minded daughter of the slums from the higher rungs of the histrionic ladder.

* * * * *