Chapter 2

"I don't think I should worry. Amongst all your Unexpected Explosives do you happen to condescend to have heard of the gentle horse-chestnut and the school-children that collect them? Here are the two delinquents I wrote to you about, and we've caught them in the act. Just look at them wasting the precious things."

Two small boys were playing at conkers, two small boys with very earnest faces and grubby clothes which never figured in KATE GREENAWAY'S pictures, wasting precious material which five-and-thirty other scholars were diligently collecting and stuffing into sacks. I ought to have given them a lecture on patriotism--the army behind the Army. But we each of us keep one childish passion untamed, even if we are unromantic old bachelors, and I, His Majesty's Deputy Assistant Acting Inspector for All Sorts of Unexpected Explosives and his very loyal subject, who have lived for nearly half-a-century of Octobers in London town--I borrowed the bigger conker and systematically and in deadly earnest I fought and defeated the other small boy.

They say that treason never succeeds; so perhaps I can't be a traitor after all.

* * * * *

THE UNDISMAYED.

In a world of insecurity and change it is good to have one bedrock certainty upon which the mind can rest. Thrones totter and fall; Commanders-in-chief are superseded; Admirals of the High Fleet are displaced; in politics leaders come and go and reputations pass; in ordinary life a thousand mutations are visible. But amid all this flux there remains mercifully one resolute piece of routine that nothing can alter. Whatever may be happening elsewhere in the world--mutinies in the German Navy, revolutions in Russia, advances in France, advances in Flanders--Leicester Square keeps its head. Armageddon may be turning the world upside down, but it cannot cause those old antagonists, STEVENSON and REECE, to cease their perpetual contest; and if the War lasts another ten years you will read in _The Times_ of October 17th, 1927, a paragraph to the effect that "at the close of play yesterday in the billiard match of 16,000 points up between Stevenson and Reece, at the Grand Hall, Leicester Square, the scores were: Reece (in play), 4,676; Stevenson, 2,837."

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NOT CANNIBALS AFTER ALL.

"The first contingent of the American troops brought food for six months, and hence the fears of the peasants in France lest they should be eaten up are groundless."--_Adelaide Advertiser_.

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"If the public continue to spend the same sum of money on bread at 9d. as they did when it was 1s., it is easy to see that the consumption will rise by a quarter or 25 per cent."--_Glasgow Evening News_.

We are always timid about questioning a Scotsman's arithmetic, but we make the increase a third, or 33-1/3 per cent.

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CROSS-TALK WITH PETHERTON.

Petherton and I have just emerged from another bombardment. Certain correspondence in _The Surbury Gazette and North Herts Courier_ gave me a welcome excuse for firing what I may term a sighting shot. I wrote to my genial neighbour as follows:--

DEAR MR. PETHERTON,--No doubt you have seen the recent letters in the local paper anent the remains of the old Cross, which are at once an ornament to Castle Street, Surbury, and a standing menace to the peace of mind of the local antiquarians.

I am exceedingly interested in the matter myself and feel that the views of one who, I am sure, adds a wide knowledge of archæology to the long list of his accomplishments, would be both interesting and instructive to myself and (if you would allow your views to be published) to our little community in general.

If therefore you will write and let me know your opinion on the matter I shall take it as a friendly and cousinly (_vide_ certain eighteenth-century documents in the Record Office) act.

Yours sincerely,

HENRY J. FORDYCE.

Petherton replied with a whizz-bang as thus:--

SIR,--I have read the idiotic correspondence to which you refer, and am informed that you are the author of the screed which appeared in last Saturday's issue of the paper. If my informant is correct as to the authorship of the letter I can only say it is a pity that, with apparently no knowledge of the subject, you should venture into print. Anyone enjoying the least acquaintance with the rudiments of English history would be perfectly aware that the remains have no connection with QUEEN ELEANOR whatever. The whereabouts of all the crosses put up to her memory are quite well known to archæologists.

Yours faithfully,

FREDERICK PETHERTON.

I replied with light artillery:--

DEAR PETHERTON,--Yours _re_ the late Mrs. EDWARD PLANTAGENET to hand.

Though not a professed archæologist I do know something of the ruin in question, having several times examined it and having heard, perhaps, most, if not all, the various theories concerning it. I have been here a good deal longer than you have, I believe, and cannot think that you know more of the subject than I.

Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I invented this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to reload.] If not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the existence of a castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands, and where such shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and butter?

By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your _seizième siècle_ rooster wants his tail remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about new plumage for him till after the War, though it seems like carrying patriotism to absurd lengths.

Yours sincerely,

HENRY J. FORDYCE.

I hope you will allow your letter to be published in _The Gazette_.

In reply to this Petherton discharged with:--

SIR,--I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.

Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries (1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not earlier than the fifteenth century.

Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I am not too sanguine,

I am, Yours faithfully,

FREDERICK PETHERTON.

My views are not for publication. I prefer not to be mixed up in such a symposium.

It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get heated, so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him on, and loosed off with:--

Dear Old Man,--What a historian you are! You have JOHN RICHARD GREEN beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of sight, and even the authoress of the immortal _Little Arthur_ could not have placed EDDY I. with greater chronological exactitude. In fact there seems to be no subject on which you cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry that you will not join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it deprives the natives of a great treat.

But--there is a but, my dear Fred--I cannot admit your claim to superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have grown up with them as it were. Yours ever,

HARRY FORDYCE.

Sir (exploded Petherton),--What senseless drivel you write on the least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury relics or not, you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone that's left of that confounded ruin (probably only a simple market-cross) proclaims the date of its birth. Even the broken finial and the two crockets lying on the ground expose your ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!

Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.

I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the following:--

Dear Freddy,--I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed metaphors were designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did not write, and I do not remember saying that I had written, the letter to the paper which seems to have given you as much pleasure as it has given me. I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you have brought your Chesterfield battery into action has been so masterly that I, for one, can never regret that you were misinformed. I believe the particular letter to _The Gazette_ was written by one of the staff, a native of the place, who probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and has felt a personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this new light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on history and archæology.

Yours ever, Harry.

How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!

But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been knocked out by this direct hit.

* * * * *

* * * * *

SUGAR CONTROL.

Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound of sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per head per-haps.

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"HOGS STILL SOARING." _Headline in Canadian Paper._

The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the roads.

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"Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement that he is saying '----' to the stage."--_Bournemouth Echo._

Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such language.

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"The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or on the German frontier."--_Weekly Dispatch._

But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the hammer-toed to have a chance?

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THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.

CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.

_Mary._ I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking stories in history.

_Mrs. M._ History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human miseries, and one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to the amenities of private life. Shall I tell you something of the domestic habits of the English in the early twentieth century?

_Mary._ Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.

_Mrs. M._ The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer lived shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most of their time in public. They never took their meals at home, but habitually frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up with sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while the guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by minstrels and singers. It was even said that they acquired the habit of eating and drinking in time to the music. They were waited upon for the most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and what with the babel of tongues, the din of the music and the constant popping of corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited, the scene beggared description.

_Richard._ Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat little dining-room, with our silent wireless waiter, than partake of the most extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.

_George._ I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have their own way in everything?

_Mrs. M._ I am afraid, my dear George, that you are animated by a somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism, which in your own best interests you would do well to curb. It is enough to say that some of the peers supported the House of Commons, and the majority were too timid to make any stand against the numbers and violence of the other House. Nowadays, thanks to the wide diffusion of peerages and the fact that they are conferred far more freely on persons of advanced political views, this lack of independence has largely been eliminated.

_Richard._ I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble you took to explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are not too tired will you kindly tell us something about the learned and clever men who lived at this time?

_Mrs. M._ You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to impart information, and am pleased to have such attentive listeners. The authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in this reign. I mean Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS, the famous theologian who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars; the Baroness Corkscrew--to call her by the name under which she was ultimately elevated to the peerage--who wrote so many beautiful historical romances that she quite superseded Sir WALTER SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's greatest poets; and Lord HALL-CAINE, author of _Isle of Man Power_, were commanding figures in this period.

_Richard._ Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the North Pole?

_Mrs. M._ Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is quite possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic explorer, Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL, the great Scots agriculturist who first applied intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC, the illustrious topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and popularized Sir OLIVER LODGE.

_Richard._ Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to feel sure that you have left out a great many things. You have never told us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of America, his introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his building of the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.

_George._ And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity about Sir GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN and other great Leaders of English Society.

_Mrs. M._ True, my dear, but you must read their lives in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, for here is the tea, and I must leave off.

* * * * *

ALLIRAP ASRAS.

It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler, but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition, rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite of _The Daily Mail_) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed, my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme heroism under agonising conditions--one being when a butler (an old and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before) fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that.

It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play _Othello_, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.

But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result?

But what I want to know is--who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway?

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* * * * *

"What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New Ireland._

We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.

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A DECLARATION OF WAR.

This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire, Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire-- A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:--

"'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,' And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow.

"He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead, But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out instead, And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my bed.

"So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did roar, While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves at the door, And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on the floor.

"He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was grand; He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a hand, And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land.

"And one month grew into two months and two months grew into three, And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of the Sea, Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea.

"You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I dunno; I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow to go I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'...

"But at last, when the snows were going and the blue Spring skies were pale, Out after bear in the valley I met a chap on the trail-- A chap coming up from the city, who stopped and told me a tale--

"A tale of a red war raging all over the land and sea, And when he was through I was laughing, for the joke of it seemed to be That Hank was a goldarn German--and Hank was rooming with me!

"So off I hiked to the shanty, and never a word I said, I floated in like a cyclone, I yanked him out of my bed, And I grabbed the concertina and smashed it over his head.

"I shook him up for a minute, I stood him down on the floor, I grabbed the scruff of his trousers and ran him along to the door, And I said, 'This here, if you get me, is a Declaration of War!'

"And I gave him a hoist with my gum-boot, a kind of a lift with my toe; But you can't give a fellow a hiding, as anyone sure must know, When you hauled him out of a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'"

C.F.S.

* * * * *

A GOOD DAY'S WORK.

"He left Flanders on leave at one o'clock yesterday morning and was in London after fourteen months' fighting before sundown."--_Daily News_.

* * * * *

"Why can't we find machies for long-distance raids since Germans can?"--_Evening News_.

Personally, if distance is required, we prefer a brassie. We can only assume that the iron club is chosen in consequence of the number of bad lies there are about.

* * * * *

On the German Naval mutiny:--

"They may be divided into two camps. One holds that it is not an affair to which too much importance can be attached; the other that it is an affair to which one cannot attach too much importance."--_Star_.

We cannot help feeling that these two factions might safely be accommodated in the same camp.

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* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"ONE HOUR OF LIFE."

In Captain DESMOND COKE'S extravaganza a group of philanthropists adopt the time-honoured procedure of ROBIN HOOD and his Greenwood Company, robbing Dives on system to pay Lazarus. Their economics are sounder than their sociology, which is of the crudest. They specialize in jewellery--useless, barbaric and generally vulgar survivals--which they extract from shop and safe, and sell in Amsterdam, distributing the proceeds to various deserving charitable agencies. In this particular crowded hour of life the leader of the group, a fanatical prig with hypnotic eyes, abducts the beautiful _Lady Fenton_, with ten thousand pounds' worth of stuff upon her, from one of the least ambitious of Soho restaurants.

How came she there, thus bedizened? Well, her husband, eccentric peer with a priceless collection of snuffboxes and a chronic deficiency of humour, had arranged the little dinner to effect a reconciliation, away from the prying eyes of their set. It was not a success. She felt that she sparkled too much, was piqued, and dismissed her lord. Enter the hypnotic prig, who adroitly conveys her to his headquarters, preaches to her and converts her to the point of surrendering her jewels without a pang, and offering to assist in the lifting of the snuffboxes. I can't say more without endangering the effect of Captain COKE'S ingenious shifts and spoofs.

The author seemed to me to tempt Providence by placing his perfervid philanthropist and his serious doctrines against a background of burlesque. But he succeeded in entertaining his audience. Miss LILLAH MCCARTHY, looking her very best as _Lady Fenton_, and Mr. COWLEY WRIGHT, looking quite plausible as the irresistible chief of the General Charities Distribution Bureau, shared the chief honours of the evening.

T.

* * * * *

"The views expressed by Mr. Roosevelt are crystallising everywhere, and are bearing excellent fruit."--_Daily Paper._

How does he get his sugar?

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