Chapter 2

_Flipperty-flipperty_----However, you know all about that now.

Since this great discovery of mine, life has been a more pleasurable business. We feel now that there are romantic possibilities about letters setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter go _flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty_ ... and behold! there is no FLOP ... and still it goes on--_flipperty-flipperty-flipperty- flipperty_--growing fainter in the distance ... until it arrives at some wonderland of its own. One day it must happen so. For we cannot listen always for that FLOP, and hear it always; nothing in this world is as inevitable as that. One day we shall look at each other with awe in our faces and say, "But it's still flipperting!" and from that time forward the Hill of Campden will be a place holy and enchanted. Perhaps on Midsummer Eve--

At any rate I am sure that it is the only way in which to post a letter to Father Christmas.

Well, what I want to say is this: if I have been a bad correspondent in the past I am a good one now; and Celia, who was always a good one, is a better one. It takes at least ten letters a day to satisfy us, and we prefer to catch ten different posts. With the ten in your hand together there is always a temptation to waste them in one wild rush of flipperties, all catching each other up. It would be a great moment, but I do not think we can afford it yet; we must wait until we get even more practised at letter-writing. And even then I am doubtful; for it might be that, lost in the confusion of that one wild rush, the magic letter would start on its way--_flipperty-flipperty_--to the never-land, and we should forever have missed it.

So, friends, acquaintances, yes, and even strangers. I beg you now to give me another chance. I will answer your letters, how gladly. I still think that NAPOLEON (or CANUTE or the younger PLINY--one of the pre-Raphaelites) took a perfectly correct view of his correspondence ... but then _he_ Never had a letter-box which went

_Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty- flipperty-flipperty-flipperty--FLOP._

A.A.M.

* * * * *

THE H.D. AND Q. DEPARTMENT.

"Major-General F.G. Bond is gazetted Director of Quartering at the War Office."

Pacifists beware!

* * * * *

"DIRTY WORK AT DOWNING STREET. BY HORATIO BOTTOMLEY."

_John Bull._

They shouldn't have let him in.

* * * * *

COUNTER TACTICS.

About a year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher with the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide over the remaining months of winter. After the preliminary discussion of atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle of garments was spread about for my inspection. I viewed it dispassionately. Then, discarding the little vesties of warm-blooded youth and the double-width vestums of rheumatic old age, I chose several commonplace woollen affairs and was preparing to leave when my hosier and haberdasher leaned across the counter and whispered in my ear.

"If I may advise you, Sir, you would be wise to make a large selection of these articles. We do not expect to replace them."

He glanced cautiously at an elderly gentleman who was stirring up a box of ties, then, lowering his voice another semitone, added, "The mills are now being used exclusively for Government work." He insinuated the death-sentence effect very cleverly, and at that moment, coming to his support, as it were, the old gentleman tottered up, seized upon two garments and carried them off from under my very fingers. As he went out a middle-aged lady entered and made straight for the residue upon the counter. A feeling of panic came upon me. "Right you are," I exclaimed hurriedly, "I'll take the lot." As a matter of fact she only wanted a pair of gloves for her nephew in France.

A few days later, still having the wool shortage in mind, I approached my hosier and haberdasher on the subject of shirts. For a second or two he looked thoughtfully at the toe of his boot. Then coming suddenly to a decision he disappeared stealthily into the back premises, from which he presently emerged carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the counter.

"There," he said triumphantly, "I don't suppose there's another piece of flannel like that in the country." He fingered it with an expert touch.

"You don't say so," I said as I rubbed it reverently between my finger and thumb, just to show that he wasn't the only one who could do it.

"I'm afraid it's only too true," he confessed, "and I may add that, after we have sold out our present stocks, flannel of any kind will be absolutely unobtainable."

"None at all?" I asked, horror-struck at the vision of my public life in 1920--a bow cravat over a double-width vestum.

He shook his head and smiled wisely.

I am instinctively against hoarding, but I knew that if I did not buy it Jones would, and then some fine day, when nobody else had a shirt left, he would swagger about and make my life intolerable. This decided me and I bought the piece.

A few days later it occurred to me that it might be advisable to lay down some socks. My idea was in perfect unison with that of my hosier and haberdasher. Socks were going to be unprocurable in a few months. I patted myself on the back and bought up the 1916 vintage of Llama-Llama footwear. The following week thirty-seven shirts arrived and I had to buy a new chest-of-drawers.

This, as I have stated before, was about a year ago. Yesterday I paid my hosier and haberdasher another visit. If all the bone factories had not been too exclusively engaged, etc., etc., I wished to buy a collar stud. There was an elderly man standing in the shop. He was quite alone, contemplating a mountain of garments. There were little vesties, double-width vestums, and ordinary woollen affairs.

You could have knocked me over with a dress-sock.

And where was my hosier and haberdasher? Had the stranger--just awakened to the value of his possessions--entered the shop and suddenly cast all this treasure upon the counter? I imagined the shock of this procedure on a man like my hosier and haberdasher, whose heart was perhaps a trifle woolly. Had he collapsed? I glanced surreptitiously behind a parapet of clocked socks.

A moment later, from somewhere in the back premises, he appeared carrying a large bale of flannel, which he cast caber-wise upon the counter. I was dumbfounded.

Then I knew the truth.

"Sir," I said, turning to the stranger, "I believe you are about to make a selection from these articles (I indicated them individually), which you imagine to be the last of their race?"

He nodded at me in a bewildered sort of way.

"In a few months," I continued remorselessly, "they will be absolutely unprocurable" (he gave a start of recognition), "and you, having bought them, will sneak through life with the feelings of a food-hoarder, mingled with those of the man who slew the last Camberwell Beauty. I know the state of mind. But you need not distress yourself. These garments (I indicated them again) will only be unprocurable because they are in your possession. I have about half-a-ton myself, which, until a few minutes age, would have been quite unprocurable. But I have changed my mind and, if you will come with me, you can take your choice with a clear conscience, and (I glanced maliciously at my faded hosier and haberdasher) at the prices which were prevalent a year ago."

I linked my arm with that of the stranger, and together we passed out of the shop into the unpolluted light of day.

* * * * *

* * * * *

PRETENDING.

I know a magic woodland with grassy rides that ring To strange fantastic music and whirr of elfin wing, There all the oaks and beeches, moss-mantled to the knees, Are really fairy princes pretending to be trees.

I know a magic moorland with wild winds drifting by, And pools among the peat-hags that mirror back the sky; And there in golden bracken the fronds that toss and turn Are really little people pretending to be fern.

I wander in the woodland, I walk the magic moor; Sometimes I meet with fairies, sometimes I'm not so sure; And oft I pause and wonder among the green and gold If I am not a child again--pretending to be old.

W.H.O.

* * * * *

It is understood that the FOOD-CONTROLLER has protested against the forcible feeding of hunger-strikers. If they want to commit the Yappy Dispatch, why shouldn't they?

* * * * *

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

_Monday, November 19th._--Such a rush of Peers to the House of Commons has seldom been seen. Lord WIMBORNE, who knows something of congested districts, arrived early and secured the coveted seat over the clock. Lord CURZON, holding a watching brief for the War Cabinet, was only just in time to secure a place; and Lord COURTNEY and several others found "standing room only." If we have many more crises Sir ALFRED MOND will have to make provision for strap-hangers.

There was very little sign of passion in Mr. ASQUITH'S measured criticism of the Allied Council and of the PRIME MINISTER'S speech on the subject in Paris. His foil was carefully buttoned, and though it administered a shrewd thrust now and again it was not intended to draw blood.

At first the PRIME MINISTER followed this excellent example, and contented himself with defending, and incidentally re-composing, his Paris oration. The Allied Council, as now depicted, was a horse of quite another colour from what it seemed in Paris. A further example of _camouflage_, I suppose.

Only when he came to deal with his Press critics did he let himself go, to the delight of the House, which loves him in his swashbuckling mood. As he confessed, however, that he had deliberately made "a disagreeable speech" in Paris in order to get it talked about, the Press will probably consider itself absolved.

_Tuesday, November 20th._--Like John Bull, as represented in last week's cartoon, Lord LAMINGTON has arrived at the conclusion that compulsory rationing must come, and the sooner the better. Lord RHONDDA, however, is still hopeful that John will tighten his own belt, and save him the trouble. "More Yapping and Less Biting" should be our motto. But if we fail to live up to it, the machinery for compulsory rationing is all ready. Indeed, according to Lord DEVONPORT, it has been ready since April last, when an "S.O.S." to the local authorities was on the point of being sent, but a timely increase in imports stopped it.

Nobody doubts Commander WEDGWOOD'S essential patriotism; he has proved it like a knight of old on his body; but he is unfortunate in some of his political associates, who take advantage of his good-nature. A book with a preface by himself had been seized by the police on suspicion of being seditious, and he loudly demanded to be prosecuted. But Sir GEORGE CAVE was not inclined to set up a legal presumption that the writer of a preface is responsible for the rest of the book. If he were, a good many "forewords" would, I imagine, never have been written.

_Wednesday, November 21st._--By a strange oversight the Royal Marines were not specifically mentioned in the recent Vote of Thanks to the Services. Apparently the fact that this country is proud of them is one of those things that must not be told to the Marines. But Dr. MACNAMARA assured the House that the omission should now be repaired.

There has been a shortage of provisions in the city where _Lady Godiva_ suffered from a shortage of clothes. Mr. CLYNES was prompt with a remedy. A representative of the FOOD-CONTROLLER has already been sent to Coventry.

Conscientious Objectors found a doughty champion in Lord HUGH CECIL. Rarely has an unpopular case been fortified with a greater wealth of legal, historical and ethical argument. Only once, when he accused Mr. BONAR LAW of holding the same doctrine as Herr BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, did he lose, for a moment, the sympathy of his audience. But he soon recovered himself, and thereafter held the House rapt with Cecilian harmonies.

To such a lofty plane, indeed, had the debate been lifted that Mr. RONALD MCNEILL, tall as he is, had some difficulty in bringing it down to earth again; and when the division was called the spell was still working, and in a very big House the "Conchies" only lost their votes by thirty-eight.

_Thursday, November 22nd._--Pending the introduction of the promised censorship of Parliamentary Questions, Mr. JOSEPH KING is working overtime. No story is too fantastically impossible to find a shelter under his hospitable hat. To-day it was a secret treaty between the Russian Government (old style) and the French Republic, by which Belgium was to be compensated at the expense of Holland. Lord ROBERT CECIL denounced it as an invention of the enemy. But I don't suppose the denial had the smallest effect upon Mr. KING, who probably went off and dined heartily on a magnum of mare's-nest soup.

A tremendous accession to the ranks of the Sinn Feiners has been narrowly averted. When Members read the menu which, according to Major NEWMAN, the Irish Government has adopted for political prisoners--three good square meals a day, including an egg, ten ounces of meat, a pound and a half of bread, two pints and a half of milk, and real butter--they were strongly minded to enlist under Mr. DE VALERA'S banner and get themselves arrested forthwith. But Mr. DUKE'S emphatic denial shattered their dream of repletion at the taxpayers' expense.

A final attempt to get proportional representation included in the Franchise Bill was heavily defeated. In a dashing attempt to save it Sir MARK SYKES declared that the old Eatanswill methods of electioneering had gone for ever--"no mouth was large enough to kiss thirty thousand babies." But the majority of the House seemed to be more impressed by the self-sacrificing argument of that eminent temperance advocate, Sir THOMAS WHITTAKER, who feared that "P.R." would lead to an increase in "milk-and-water politicians."

* * * * *

ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW FROM AFRICA.

"A Belgian East African communiqué says that before the converging advance of the Anglo-German Belgian columns, the enemy retired to the south bank of the Kilimbero."--_Mombasa Times._

We seem to have met some of these Anglo-German columns in the Pacifist Press.

"Our machines then bombed the General, in which the German Head-quarters at Constantinople are reported to be situated."--_Times._

The General must have been stout, even for a German.

"Not having regained consciousness the police are left with little tangible evidence to work upon."--_Daily Telegraph._

Let us hope they will soon come to.

* * * * *

* * * * *

_LE POILU DE CARCASSONNE._

THE _poilus_ of France on the Western Front are brave as brave can be, Whether they hail from rich Provence or from ruined Picardie; It's the self-same heart from the lazy Loire and the busy banks of Seine, Undaunted by perpetual mud or cold or gas or pain; And all are as gay as men know how whose wealth and friends are gone, But the gayest of all is a little white dog that came from Carcassonne.

He was brought as a pup by a _Midi_ man to a sector along the Aisne, But his man laid the wire one pitch-black night and never came back again. The pup stood by with one ear down and the other a question mark, And at times he licked his dead friend's face and at times he tried to bark, Till the listening sentry heard the sound, and when the daylight shone He looked abroad and cried, "_Bon Guieu! C'est le poilu de Carcassonne!_"

So the dead man's _copains_ kept the dog on the strength of the company. And whoever went short it was not the pup, though a greedy pup was he; They gave him their choicest bits of _sinje_ and drops of _pinard_ too; He was warm and safe when he crept beneath a cloak of horizon-blue; They clipped fresh _brisques_ in his rough white coat as the weary months dragged on, And all the sector knows him now as _le Poilu de Carcassonne_.

And in return he keeps their hearts from that haunting foe, _l'ennui_; He's their plaything, friend, and sentry too, and a lover of devilry; He helps them to hunt out rats or Boches; he burrows and sniffs for mines, And he growls when the murderous shrapnel flies screaming above the lines; His little black nose is a-quiver with glee whenever a raid is on, And they say with pride, "_C'est la guerre elle-même, notre Poilu de Carcassonne!_"

There was none more glad when they went to rest in their billet, a ruined shack, But when they returned to the front-line trench he was just as pleased to be back; He's the spirit of fun itself, and so when other men feel blue, His friends remark, "_Le cafard, quoi? On l'connait pas chez nous!_" So when you drink to the valiant French and the glorious fights they've won Just raise your glass to a little white dog that came from Carcassonne.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"LOYALTY."

If you are a pernickety intellectual (_soi-disant_) you may really permit yourself to be faintly amused at the fiery zeal of the mystery-wrapt author of _Loyalty_ for his (or, quite possibly, her) country's cause in this difficult hour. If you are cast in the common human mould that nowadays is seen for the glorious thing it is, you will respond to many single-minded, wholesome thoughts in the impassioned statement of his thesis. And if you happen to belong to that simple discredited breed, the English, so long overshadowed by the nimbler Britons, you may have quite a nice little private thrill of your own, a thrill of pride in your precious stone, and begin to think with seriousness of the advantages of "home rule all round" in an England-for-the-English mood, and of the value of a nationalism that is as irrational as conjugal or mother love--and as fine.

The author's hero is an Englishman of the wandering type, assistant editor on a crank paper. The play is a protracted debate in four sessions, June, 1914; July, 1914; August, 1914; September, 1916. And here the author makes his most serious mistake, the mistake made by Mr. HENRY ARTHUR JONES in his recent squib. If he had contrived his Little Navy folk, the proprietor, editor and revolving cranks as something more than mere caricatures, brands of straw prepared for his consuming bonfires, he would have strengthened, not weakened, his excellent case. He has quoted his enemies' mistakes without their excuses, their texts without their contexts. And that is a form of propaganda which can only touch the converted, or such of them as are not stirred by a sporting instinct to a certain mood of protest and a wish that the other fellow should be given a better start in the heresy hunt.

The _dramatis personae_, then, divide themselves into the men of straw and the right sort. Of the former you have first _Sir Andrew Craig_, chairman of the party in his constituency and editor of _The New Standard_ (there were indeed altogether new standards of efficiency, mentality and hospitality in that rather imaginative newspaper office of the First Act). Mr. FISHER WHITE gave us the courtly-obstinate old man to the life (this player has a way of removing straw). In the dramatic passage in which, returning after being broken in a German prison, he relates some of the horrors of which it is good for us to be reminded, he rose to the height of his fine talent. His exquisite elocution--a remarkable feat of virtuosity--was in itself a sheer delight.

_Mr. Stutchbury_, the editor, pacifist and sentimental democrat, was dealt to Mr. LENNOX PAWLE. He played his hand well. There was never such an editor outside Bedlam; but Mr. PAWLE is a resourceful person and by a score of clever tricks of gesture and business made a reasonable figure of fun for our obloquy. All but broken in the end, but still claiming that he had "the larger vision" (as he certainly had the larger diameter), there was a certain dignity of pathos in his exit, a late _amende_ by an otherwise remorseless puppet-maker. Mr. SYDNEY PAXTON as a pillar of Nonconformity offered a clever study in the unctuous-grotesque; Mr. VINCENT STERNROYD sketched a portrait of a nut-consuming impenitent disarmamentist. The author is the first, so far as I know, to give public emphasis to the queer fact of natural history that there is some connection between extreme opinions and the prominence of the Adam's apple of the holder of them--a fact on which I have often pondered.

Mr. M. MORAND, the aggressive Scots member of the election committee, inspired to great heights of insobriety by the return of his London-Scottish nephew from the Front, sounded a welcome human note, as did Mr. SAM LIVESEY, the Labour Member of the committee, shaken out of his detachment into an extreme explicitness of language by a Zeppelin raid experience. Mr. GEORGE BELLAMY'S Welsh Disestablisher and Mr. GRIFFITH HUMPHREYS' exuberant German press-agent of the pre-war period were both really shrewd studies.

Of the right sort there were but five--and one of these, the editor's secretary, at heart an honest patriot, but in fact eating the bread of shame, was perhaps not altogether of the right sort. Still he did get off his chest at last the pent-up passion of years, and very well he did it, with the help of Mr. RANDLE AYRTON, whose subtle little touches, building up a picture of a disheartened hack, were very adroit indeed.

Then there was young _Henry Craig_, at the beginning an undergraduate in his last term, at the end a V.C. in his last resting-place. Mr. PERCIVAL CLARKE'S was an adequate pleasant study. So also was Mr. PHILIP ANTHONY'S of a Canadian, full of strange idioms, who butted in to just the wrong corner of Fleet Street to put the editor wise about the intentions of a Germany in which he had spent his last two years. And then there was splendidly English _Frank Aylett_, exile returned, unspoilt by the cynicism of party and paper, whose fortune came to him just at the psychological moment, enabling him to give his proprietor notice and fight and win a by-election in the astonied man's own constituency, besides carrying off his daughter (Miss VIOLA TREE), who was the fifth of the right sort. What more plausible English hero than Mr. C. AUBREY SMITH, except that he had to talk a good deal more than seemed appropriate to his type? There was a well-managed post-election scene when he was at his best (as was the author). And all through there was good and sometimes glorious sense for those to hear who had ears.