Chapter 3

Personally I mean to cling to the old city as long as it will cling to me; but even now across one's aching sight comes a "dream of pastime premature" which shakes such resolves a little. Peter, for example, has been having a disturbing effect on me. Only now and then, of course--when I am not quite myself; when the two and thirty (what remains of them) are not so firmly gritted as they should be; when even London seems unworthy of devotion.

But these moods pass. You will admit, though, that Peter has his lure. I read about him in the _Tavistock Gazette_, one of the few papers, I fancy, which does not belong to Lord NORTHCLIFFE; and this is how the lyric (it is really a lyric, although it masquerades as an advertisement) runs, not only in the paper but in my head: "To be let, by Tender" (this is not an oath but some odd legal or commercial term) "as and from Lady Day all that nice little PASTURE FARM known as HIGHER CHURCH FARM, situate in the village of Peter Tavy." Now what could be more unlike London under the German invasion and all that nasty little tunnel known as Lower Robert Street, than Peter Tavy?

But I must not be tempted. I must stick it out here.

* * * * *

LITERARY GOSSIP À LA MODE.

The mystification practised by authors who have passed off as their own work the compositions of others is familiar to all literary students. SHAKSPEARE'S assumption of borrowed plumes is of course the classic example. But another and more subtle problem is the interchange of functions between two men of letters; and the theory recently advanced by the distinguished critic and occultist, Mr. Pullar Leggatt, deserves at least a respectful hearing.

* * * * *

Briefly stated, it is that during his hermit existence at Putney the late Mr. SWINBURNE effected an interchange of this sort with Sir W. ROBERTSON NICOLL; the Editor of _The British Weekly_ devoting himself to the composition of poems, while the poet assumed editorial control of the famous newspaper. If the theory thus crudely stated sounds somewhat fantastic the arguments on which it is based are extraordinarily plausible if not convincing.

* * * * *

To begin with, experts in anagrams will not fail to notice that the names ALGERNON SWINBURNE and W. ROBERTSON NICOLL contain practically the same number of letters--absolutely the same if SWINBURNE is spelt without an "e"--and that the forenames of both end in "-on," as does also the concluding syllable of WATTS-DUNTON. The fact that the Editor of _The British Weekly_ has never published any poems over his own name only tends to confirm the theory, as the argument conclusively establishes.

* * * * *

For it is impossible to believe that so versatile a polymath should not at some time or other have courted the Muse, and if so, under what name could he have had a stronger motive for publishing his poems than that of SWINBURNE? So austere a theologian would naturally shrink from revealing his excursions into the realms of poesy, and under this disguise he was safe from detection. Lastly, while Sir W. ROBERTSON NICOLL has always championed the Kailyard School, SWINBURNE lived at The Pines. The connection is obvious; as thus: Kail, sea-kale, sea-coal, coke, coker-nut, walnut, dessert, pine-apple, pine.

* * * * *

As regards SWINBURNE'S conduct of _The British Weekly_, it is enough to point to such alliterative and melodious combinations as "Rambling Remarks" and "Claudius Clear." The theological attitude of the paper presents difficulties which are not so easy to overcome, but Mr. Pullar Leggatt has promised to deal with this question later on. Meanwhile the diplomatic silence maintained by Sir W. ROBERTSON NICOLL and Mr. EDMUND GOSSE must not be interpreted as conveying either a complete acceptance or a total rejection of this remarkable theory.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE NEW CRUMMLES.

HERTLING "is not Prussian."

* * * * *

MY PYJAMAS.

A STUDY IN THE FASTIDIOUS.

I hope this is not going to be embarrassing. If so, it is not my fault. This is history, please remember, not fiction. I wanted--I am obliged to say it--pyjamas for winter wear. I know all about pyjamas for summer wear; what I wanted was pyjamas for winter wear, and I decided that Agnes should make them. For years I have been trying to get proper pyjamas--by which I mean pyjamas properly made--but the haberdasher always smiles depreciation and tells me that the goods he offers me are what are always worn. Quite so; but what I say is that out of bed and for the purpose of having your photograph taken Trade pyjamas are all right; but that in bed they commit untold offences. I enter my bed clothed; I settle down in it half-naked. The jacket has run up to my arm-pits; my legs are bare to the knee; my arms to the elbows; the loosely buttoned front is ruckled up into a funnel, down which, whenever I move, the bedclothes like a bellows draw a chill blast of air on to that particular part of my chest which is designed for catching colds. When I turn over in my dreams I wake to find myself tied as with ropes. Slumber's chains have indeed bound me. I am a man in the clothing of a nightmare. The cold, cold sheets catch me in the most ticklesome delicacies of my back and make me jump again. Enough.

"Well," said Agnes, "if I am going to make your pyjamas you must tell me exactly what you want."

"My pyjamas," I said, "shall be buttoned round the ankle and capacious below the waist--there I ask a Turkish touch. The jacket shall be buttoned at the wrists and baggy at the shoulder; at the chest it shall strap me across like an R.F.C. tunic, and it shall be securely clipped to the trousers."

"Why not have it all in one?"

"What!" I cried, "and parade hotel passages in search of the bath looking like a clown out of a circus? No, thank you."

"You must make me a pattern then," said Agnes, "or I shan't know what to do."

I can't make patterns, but I can, and I did, make plans of ground and first-floor levels, a section and back and front elevations, all to a scale of one inch to the foot exactly. I also made a full-size detail of a toggle-and-cinch gear linking the upper storey to the lower.

"I think," Agnes said, "you had better come to the shop and choose the material."

I thought so too. I wanted something gaudy that would make me feel cheerful when I woke in the morning; but I also had another idea in my mind. _Mangle-proof buttons_! Have the things been invented yet?

The archbishop who attended to us deprecated the idea of india-rubber buttons.

"What kind are you now using?" he asked solicitously.

"At present, on No. 2," I said, "I am using splinters of mother-of-pearl. Last week, with No. 1, I used a steel ring hanging by its rim to a shred of linen, two safeties, and a hairpin found on the floor."

I chose a flannel with broad green and violet stripes, and very large buttons of vitrified brick which I hoped might break the mangle. These buttons were emerald in colour and gave me a new idea. _Trimmings_.

"I want to look right if the house catches fire," I told Agnes. "Green sateen collar to match the buttons--"

"And for the wristbands," said Agnes, catching my enthusiasm.

"And for the wristbands," I agreed; "but," I added, "not at the ankles. That would make the other people in the street expect me to dance to them, and I don't know how to."

And now the good work is complete. Toggle and cinch perform their proud functions, and I sleep undisturbed by Arctic nightmares, for I have substituted green ties for the stoneware buttons which reduced my vitality by absorbing heat. My only trouble is my increasing reluctance to rise in the morning. I don't like changing out of my beautiful things so early in the day. I am beginning to want breakfast in bed.

* * * * *

AT THE DUMP.

(_LINES TO THE N.C.O. IN CHARGE._)

Now is the hour of dusk and mist and midges, Now the tired planes drone homeward through the haze, And distant wood-fires wink behind the ridges, And the first flare some timorous Hun betrays; Now no shell circulates, but all men brood Over their evening food; The bats flit warily and owl and rat With muffled cries their shadowy loves pursue, And pleasant, Corporal, it is to chat In this hushed moment with a man like you.

How strange a spectacle of human passions Is yours all day beside the Arras road, What mournful men concerned about their rations When here at eve the limbers leave their load, What twilight blasphemy, what horses' feet Entangled with the meat, What sudden hush when that machine-gun sweeps, And--flat as possible for men so round-- The Quartermasters may be seen in heaps, While you sit still and chuckle, I'll be bound!

Here all men halt awhile and tell their rumours; Here the young runners come to cull your tales, How Generals talked with you, in splendid humours, And how the Worcestershires have gone to Wales; Up yonder trench each lineward regiment swings, Saying some shocking things; And here at dark sad diggers stand in hordes Waiting the late elusive Engineer, While glowing pipes illume yon notice-boards, That say, "No LIGHTS. YOU MUST NOT LOITER HERE."

And you sit ruminant and take no action, But daylong watch the aeroplanes at play, Or contemplate with secret satisfaction Your fellow-men proceeding towards the fray; Your sole solicitude when men report There is a shovel short, Or, numbering jealously your rusty store, Some mouldering rocket, some wet bomb you miss That was reserved for some ensuing war, But on no grounds to be employed in this.

For Colonels flatter you, most firm of warders, For sandbags suppliant, and do no good, And high Staff officers and priests in orders In vain beleaguer you for bits of wood, While I, who have nor signature nor chit, But badly want a bit, I only talk to you of these high themes, Nor stoop to join the sycophantic choir, Seeing (I trust) my wicked batman, Jeames, Has meanwhile pinched enough to light my fire.

A.P.H.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)

"In a few days," says the puff preliminary of _The Coming_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS), "you and all your friends will be reading and discussing this most strange and prophetic novel." Perhaps. But what we shall be saying about it depends largely, I suppose, upon our definition of the term prophetic; also a little upon our feeling with regard to good taste and the permissible in fiction. My own contribution will be a sincere regret that a writer as gifted as Mr. J.C. SNAITH should have attempted the obviously impossible. His theme, symbolised by a wrapper-design of three figures silhouetted against a golden sunrise, is a second advent of the Messiah, embodied in the person of a village carpenter named (with palpable significance) _John Smith_, whom local prejudice sends, not inexcusably, to a madhouse, where he dies, after converting the inmates and instituting a campaign of universal peace. Frankly, the chief interest of such a wildly fantastic idea lies in watching just how far Mr. SNAITH can carry it without too flagrant offence. That his treatment is both sincere and careful hardly lessens my feeling that the whole attempt is one to be deplored. Humour of the intentional kind has, of course, no place in the author's scheme. How remote is its banishment you may judge when I tell you that the Divine message is represented as given to mankind in the form of a wonderful play, which instantly achieves world-wide fame, being performed by no fewer than fifty companies in America alone. The problem (to name but one) of the resulting struggle between plenary inspiration and the conditions of a fit-up tour is only another proof of my contention that there are more things in heaven and earth than can be treated in realistic fiction, and that Mr. SNAITH'S good intentions have unfortunately betrayed him into selecting the least possible.

* * * * *

If _Humphrey Thorncot_ and his sister _Edith_ had not bored one another and grown touchy--I judge by their reported conversations--in a house with green shutters in Chelsea, they would never have gone to St. Elizabeth, which is a Swiss resort, and would never have met the East-Prussian family of the _von Ludwigs_ in the year before the War. And _Humphrey_ would never have fallen (temporarily) in love with _Hulda von Ludwig_, nor would _Karl von Ludwig_ have fallen (permanently) in love with _Edith Thorncot_. The troubles and miseries of this latter couple are related by Mr. HUGH SPENDER in _The Gulf_ (COLLINS). Papa _von Ludwig_ objects so violently to all this love-making that he eventually succumbs to a regular East-Prussian stroke of apoplexy which all but leads to a charge of parricide against _Karl_ by his base brother, _Wilhelm_. _Karl_ is really too good for this world. He objects to atrocities and refuses at the risk of his own life to shoot innocent Belgian villagers. Being imprisoned, he escapes by means of a secret sliding panel and an underground passage which leads him, not immediately, but after many vicissitudes, to America. There he is joined by his faithful _Edith_, who defies the Gulf caused by the War, and marries him. Mr. SPENDER appears to have been in some doubt as to whether he should write the story of two souls or the history of the first few weeks of the War. Eventually he elects to do both, and his novel consequently suffers somewhat in grip. He certainly paints a very vivid picture of events in the first period of active operations. May I hint a doubt, by the way, whether in 1913 a French Professor would have mentioned HINDENBURG as one of Germany's most important men? Whatever he may have been in Germany, HINDENBURG was for the outside world a later discovery.

* * * * *

_Further Memories_ (HUTCHINSON) is justly called by its publishers a "fascinating volume." The designation will not surprise those who enjoyed the late Lord REDESDALE'S former book of recollections. The present collection is a little haphazard (but none the worse for that), its chapters ranging over such diverse subjects as Gardens and Trees, QUEEN VICTORIA, BUDDHA, and the Commune. Certainly not the least interesting is that devoted to the story of the Wallace Collection, of which Lord REDESDALE was one of the trustees. His account of the origin and devolution of the famous treasures will invest them with a new interest in the happy days when they shall again be visible. Mr. EDMUND GOSSE contributes a foreword to the present volume, in which he draws a pathetic picture of the author, still unconquerably young, despite his years, facing the future with only one fear, that of the unemployment to which his increasing deafness, and the break-up of the world as it was before the War, seemed to be condemning him. _Further Memories_ was, we are told, undertaken as some sort of a safeguard against this menace of stagnation. It was a measure for which we may all be glad, as we can share Mr. GOSSE'S thanksgiving that the writer's death, coming when it did, saved him, as he had wished, "from all consciousness of decrepitude."

* * * * *

When an unstable young wife, getting tired of a pedantic husband in the way so familiar to students of novels, goes off with a companion more to her taste, anyone can foresee trouble, or what would there be to write about? When, further, her detestable lover, seeking change and fearing the financial lash of his properly indignant parent, terminates the arrangement, even an observer of real life can guess that her return to her rightful lord and master must entail disagreeables; but only a reader well brazened in modern fiction could expect Don Juan promptly to make love to and marry the husband's sister without a word of apology to anyone. This kind of rather unsavoury dabbling in problems best left to themselves generally concludes with the decease of most of the characters and a sort of clearing up, and to this rule, after many years and pages of discomfort, MARY E. MANN'S new story, _The Victim_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), is no exception. Not a very attractive programme, but all the same the volume has one or two redeeming features. For one thing, the sister is clearly and attractively drawn, and so is the picture on the wrapper, though it represents no particular incident to be traced in the pages of the volume which it adorns. Writing more strongly than is perhaps her wont, Mrs. MANN has taken some trouble to emphasise the fact that in these cases of uncontrolled passion the major penalty of guilt is borne not by the offenders themselves but by the first generation succeeding. This does need saying occasionally, I suppose, and to that extent _The Victim_ redeems itself from the charge of trivial unpleasantness.

* * * * *

Mr. J. RATH has really discovered a new type of heroine, new at least this side the Atlantic. His farm-bred _Sadie_, a Buffalo shirt-packer, classifies men by the sizes of their shirts, has no use for any swain with a chest measurement under forty, and eventually in a most original way finds her hero in _Mister 44_ (METHUEN), an enormous Canadian engineer and sportsman. She is no chicken herself and has a passion to be free of the city and out in the great open. _Sadie_ is more than big; she is beautiful, burnished-copper-haired, sincere and kind, and, though I think the author "gets this over" quite well I liked her best before she found her man and her _Robinson Crusoe_ adventures among the islands of Ontario, and was giving back chat to the little foreman in the factory. Here she is a pure delight; and in these days, when a knowledge of the American language may come in handy at any moment, this amiable romance may well be recommended as an attractive manual of first-aid in the matter.

* * * * *

Without professing to be a student of Mrs. DIVER'S books I know enough about them to be worried by the commonplaceness of _Unconquered_ (MURRAY). Like so many other authors she has succumbed to the lure of the War-novel. There may be a public for tales of this kind, but I have not yet read one that approaches artistic success. Here we are spared nothing. _Sir Mark Forsyth_ goes to France in the early days, is first of all reported "missing, believed killed," and then officially reported "killed." Of course he turns up again, but such a physical wreck that the minx whom he was to have married breaks off the engagement. Naturally the sweet girl, friend of _Mark's_ childhood, undertakes to fill the gap. The minx, _Bel Alison_, is so scathingly drawn that from sheer perversity I found myself hunting for one good point in her character; but without a find. On the other hand, _Lady Forsyth_, _Mark's_ mother, and a quiet, capable man called _Macnair_, are admirably put before us. Yet at best there remains the conviction that the War is terribly real that these attempts to romance about it are almost bound to be as superficial as they are superfluous.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Lost, between Ryde Pier and Southsea, Black Satin Bag, containing keys and eyeglasses. Reward given."--_Portsmouth Paper_.

A chance for the local mine-sweepers.