Chapter 2

I feel like bidding for some of your things, among which I also noted an elegantly-worked pair of braces. With a little grafting on to the remains of those I am now wearing, the result should be something really serviceable. I don't mind confessing to you that I simply can't bring my mind to buying any new wearing apparel just now. I'd like the bowler too. It should help to keep the birds from my vegetables, and incidentally the wolf from the door. And seeing it fluttering in the breeze you would have a continual reminder of your own salad days.

Surely the priceless family portrait in the Oxford oak frame got into the parcel by mistake. I am expecting to acquire that for a song, as it cannot be of interest except to one of the family, and I should be glad to number it among my heirlooms.

Miss G.-L. is awfully braced with the haul, and asked me to thank you, which is one of my objects in writing this.

Yours sincerely,

HARRY FORDYCE.

Petherton was breathing hard by this time, and let drive with:--

SIR,--It is like your confounded impertinence to overhaul the few things I sent to Miss Gore-Langley, and had I known that you would have had the opportunity of seeing what my wife insisted on sending I should certainly not have permitted their despatch.

I have already told you what I think of your ridiculous claims to kinship with my family, and shall undoubtedly try to thwart any impudent attempts you may make to acquire my discarded belongings. The photograph you mention was of course accidentally included in the parcel, and I am sending for it.

Yours faithfully,

FREDERICK PETHERTON.

In the cause of charity I rushed over to the Dower House, and pointed out to Miss Gore-Langley how she might swell the proceeds of the sale. I then wrote thus to Petherton:--

DEAR OLD MAN,--Thanks for your jolly letter. I'm sorry to tell you that Miss G.-L. holds very strong views on the subject of charitable donations, and you will have to go and bid for anything you want back. I'm very keen on that photograph, if only for the sake of your pose and the elastic-side boots you affected at that period. Everyone here is quite excited at the idea of having Cousin Fred's portrait among the family likenesses in the dining-room, and its particular place on the wall is practically decided upon.

I shall probably let the braces go if necessary, but I shall contest the ownership of the bowler up to a point.

Why not have your revenge by buying one or two of my things? There is a choice pair of cotton socks, marked T.W., that I once got from the laundry by mistake; they are much too large for me, but should fit you nicely. There's a footbath too. It leaks a bit, but your scientific knowledge will enable you to put it right. It's a grand thing to have in the house, in case of a sudden rush of blood to the head.

Cheerio!

Yours ever,

HARRY.

Petherton simply replied:--

SIR,--It is, I know, absolutely useless to make an appeal to you, and I shall simply outbid you for the portrait if possible; if not, I shall adopt other measures to prevent your enjoying your ill-mannered triumph.

Yours faithfully,

F. PETHERTON.

The Auction was held last Wednesday. I didn't attend it, but got Miss Gore-Langley to run up the price of the portrait as far as seemed safe, on my behalf, which resulted in Mrs. Petherton getting it for £5 15s. I got the hat, but Mrs. Petherton outbid my agent for the braces.

DEAR FREDDY (I wrote), Wasn't it a roaring success--the Auction, I mean? I didn't manage to attend, but have heard glowing accounts from its promoter.

The most insignificant things, I hear, went for big prices; one patriotic lady, I'm told, even going to £5 15s. for a faded photograph of a veteran in the clothes of a most uninteresting sartorial period. It was in a cheap wooden frame, of a pattern that is quite out of the movement. Fancy, £5 15s.!

Did you buy anything?

In haste,

Yours, H.

If you have any stout safety-pins, lend me a couple, old boy. I failed to secure the braces. They fetched 1s. 9d., which was greatly in excess of their intrinsic value.

There has been no reply from Petherton to date.

* * * * *

JOURNALISTIC CANDOUR.

"Mr. Wells has no master in controversy with ordinary mortals, but I would seriously warn him that arguing with the 'Morning Post' leads after a certain point to softening of the brain."--"_Diarist" in "The Westminster Gazette_."

We have always taken a painful interest in _The Westminster's_ quarrels with _The Morning Post_.

* * * * *

"In 1914-15 there was for the first time a surplus of cereals of about 27,475 tons produced in Egypt."--_Times_.

For the first time? Shade of JOSEPH!

* * * * *

"A Young Lady is desirous of CHANGE. Has wholesale and retail military experience. Also knowledge of practical."--_Daily Telegraph_.

Now, then, HAIG.

* * * * *

* * * * *

BEASTS ROYAL.

I.

QUEEN HATSHEPSU'S APE.

B.C. 1491.

Now from the land of Punt the galleys come, HATSHEPSU'S, sent by Amen-Ra and her To bring from God's own land the gold and myrrh, The ivory, the incense and the gum; The greyhound, anxious-eyed, with ear of silk, The little ape, with whiskers white as milk, And the enamelled peacock come with them.

The little ape sits on HATSHEPSU'S chair, And with a solemn and ironic eye He sees TAHUTMES strap the balsamed hair Unto his royal chin and wonders why; He sees the stewards and chamberlains bow down, Plays with the asp upon HATSHEPSU'S crown, And thinks, "A goodly land, this land of Khem!"

The little ape sits on HATSHEPSU'S knee While the great lotus-fans move to and fro; Outside along the Nile the galleys go And the Phoenician rowers seek the sea; Outside the masons carve TAHUTMES' chin, Tipped with the beard of Ra, and lo, within-- The ape, derisive and ineffable.

The little ape from Punt sits there beside TAHUTMES and HATSHEPSU on their throne, Dissembling courteously his inward pride When the great men of Egypt, one by one, Their oiled and shaven heads before him bend, And thinking, "I was born unto this end; I am the King they honour. It is well."

* * * * *

THE CLINCHOPHONE.

["WANTED.--Loud gramophone (second-hand) for reprisals."--_Advt. in "The Times."_]

It is just to meet such pressing demands as this that the Gramophobia Company have introduced their remarkable instrument or weapon, described as The Clinchophone. No home is complete without it.

It is supplied with little oil bath, B.S.A. fittings and kick start.

A child can set it in motion, but nothing on earth will stop it until its object is achieved and there is peace with honour.

Installed in a neighbourhood bristling with pianos, amateur singers, gramophones, and other grind boxes it saves its cost in doctors' bills.

It is fatal at fifty yards, and there has been nothing like it since the "Tanks." It can do almost everything except stop before its time.

Read the following testimonials:--

"GENTLEMEN,--While the grand piano next door was playing last evening I pressed the button of The Clinchophone. The piano immediately sat back on its haunches, gibbered and then fell on the player."

"DEAR SIR,--At the first trial of my new Clinchophone my neighbour's gramophone rushed out of the house and has not been heard of since."

"SAVED" says: "Last night the _basso profondo_ two doors away started singing, 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.' He sang two bars and then crawled round to my house on his hands and knees and collapsed on the doorstep with the word 'Kamerad!' on his lips."

* * * * *

OUR STYLISTS.

"The look from his eyes, the ashen colour of his face, the passion in his voice, mute though it was, frightened and bewildered her."--_Story in "Home Notes."_

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* * * * *

PATROLS.

The Scout Officer soliloquises:--

The lights begin to leap along the lines, Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out; A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines; _I wish to Heaven that I was not a Scout!_

Time was (in Dorsetshire) I loved the trade; Far other is this battle in the waste, Wherein, each night, though not of course afraid, I wriggle round with ill-concealed distaste,

Where who can say what menace is not nigh, What ambushed foe, what unexploded crump, And the glad worm, aspiring to the sky, Emerges suddenly and makes you jump.

Where either all is still, so still one feels That something huge must presently explode, And back, far back, is heard the noise of wheels From Prussian waggons on the Douai road;

And flares shoot upward with a startling hiss And fall, and flame intolerably close, So that it seems no living man could miss-- How huge my head must look, my legs how gross!--

Or the live air is full of droning hums And cracking whips and whispering snakes of fire, And a loud buzz of conversation comes From Simpson's party putting out some wire.

Or else--as when some soloist is done And the hushed orchestra may now begin-- A sudden rage inflames the placid Hun And scouts lie naked in a world of din.

The sullen bomb dissolves in singing shapes; The whizz-bang jostles it--too fast to flee; Machine-guns chatter like demented apes-- And, goodness, can it _all_ be meant for me?

It can and is. And such are small affairs Compared with Tompkins and his Lewis gun, Or eager folk who play about with flares, And, like as not, mistake me for a Hun;

Compared with when some gunner, having dined, To show his guest the glories of his art 'Poops off a round or two,' which burst behind, But fail to drown the beating of my heart

Sweet to all soldiers is the rearward view; To infanteers how grand the gunners' case! And I suppose men pine at G.H.Q. For the rich ease of people at the Base.

To me is sweet this mean and noisome ditch, When on my belly I must issue out Into the night, inscrutable as pitch-- _I wish to Heaven that I was not a Scout!_

A. P. H.

* * * * *

"Good Donkey for Sale: musical."--_Louth Advertiser_.

Sings "The Vicar of Bray."

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

A LONDON MYSTERY SOLVED.

Everyone must have observed a phenomenon of the London streets which becomes continually more noticeable. And not only must they have observed it, but have suffered from it.

At one time the omnibuses, which are rapidly becoming the only means of street transport for human beings, had regular stopping-places at the corner's of streets, at Piccadilly Circus, at Oxford Circus, and so forth.

The corner was the accepted spot; the crowds gathered there, and the omnibus, stopping there, emptied and refilled. But there has been a gradual tendency towards the abandonment of the corners, causing the omnibuses to pull up farther and farther from them, so that it seems almost as if a time may come when, instead of Piccadilly Circus, for example, the stopping-place for west-bound omnibuses will be St. James's church.

Everyone, as I say, must have noticed this change in traffic habits, and most people believe that police regulations are at the bottom of it.

But I know better; and the reason why I know better is a little conversation I have had with a driver.

It was during one of the finest efforts towards depressing dampness that even this Summer has put up, and the driver dripped. A great crowd of miserable mortals awaited his omnibus at a certain recognised halt, all desperately anxious for a seat or even standing room; but these he disregarded and carefully urged the vehicle on for another twenty yards.

While the wretched people were running along the pavement to begin their struggle for a place, I asked him why he had put them to all that trouble.

"I suppose it's the police," I said, to make it easier for him.

"Not as I know of," he replied.

"But why not stop where the public expect you to?" I asked.

"Why?" he inquired.

"Well, it would be more reasonable, more helpful," I suggested.

"Who wants to help or be reasonable?" he replied. "Here, look at me. I'm driving this bus for hours and hours every day. I'm cold and wet. I'm putting on the brakes from morning to night, saving people's silly lives, until I'm sick of the sight of them. If you was to drive a motor bus in London you'd want a little amusement now and then, too."

"So it's just for entertainment that you dodge about over the stopping-places and keep changing them?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

* * * * *

ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.

"I was sorry to hear that Lady Diana had met with a nasty motor accident; but had escaped with only slight injuries."--_Mrs. Gossip in "The Daily Sketch."_

* * * * *

"STOP-PRESS NEWS.

"GERMAN OFFICIAL.

"Also ran: Julian, The Vizier, Siller and Pennant."--_Manchester Evening Chronicle_.

It is not often that the German official communiqués admit defeat.

* * * * *

"The Poor's Piece appears to be a sort of No Man's Land, and ever since the extinction of Vestrydom has been within the parochial administrative parvenu of the Urban District Council."--_Essex Paper_.

Who is this municipal upstart?

* * * * *

A SIGNIFICANT STEP.

The _Evening Post's_ Washington correspondent states: "Mr. Lloyd George's speech at Glasgow is a significant step in the process of winning the war by liplomatic strategy."--_Sydney Daily Telegraph_.

There's many a slip 'twixt the dip and the lip; but "liplomatic" is not a bad word.

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

Nobody out here seems exactly infatuated with the politicians nowadays. The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes. The bayonet professor indicates his row of dummies and says to his lads, "Just imagine they are Cabinet Ministers--go!" and in a clock-tick the heavens are raining shreds of sacking and particles of straw. The demon bomber fancies some prominent Parliamentarian is lurking in the opposite sap, grits his teeth, and gets an extra five yards into his bowling.

But I am not entirely of the vulgar opinion. The finished politician may not be a subject for odes, but a political education is a great asset to any man. Our Mess President, William, once assisted a friend to lose a parliamentary election, and his experience has been invaluable to us. The moment we are tired of fighting and want billets, the Squadron sits down where it is and the Skipper passes the word along for William. William dusts his boots, adjusts his tie and heads for the most prepossessing farm in sight. Arrived there he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf, salutes the farmer, curtseys to the farmeress, then turning to the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong Jew, kell jolly ong-fong" (Gosh, what a topping kid!), and bending tenderly over it imprints a lingering kiss upon its indiarubber features and wins the freedom of the farm. The Mess may make use of the kitchen; the spare bed is at the Skipper's disposal; the cow will move up and make room for the First Mate; the pig will be only too happy to welcome the Subalterns to its modest abode.

Ordinary billeting officers stand no chance against our William and his political education. "That fellow," I heard one disgruntled competitor remark of him, "would hug the Devil for a knob of coke." Once only did he meet his match, and a battle of Titans resulted.

In pursuit of his business he entered a certain farm-house, to find the baby already in possession of another officer, a heavy red creature with a monocle, who was rocking the infant's cradle seventy-five revolutions per minute and making dulcet noises on a moustache comb.

William's heart fell to his field boots; he recognised the red creature's markings immediately. This was another politician; no bloodless victory would be his; fur would fly first, powder burn--Wow!

The red person must have tumbled to William as well, for he increased the revolutions to one hundred and forty per minute and broke into a shrill lullaby of his own impromptu composition:--

"Go to sleep, Mummy's liddle Did-ums; Go to sleep, Daddy's liddle Thing-ma-jig."

Nevertheless this did not baffle our William. He approached from a flank, deftly twitched the infant out of its cradle by the scruff of its neck, and commenced to plaster it with tender kisses. However the red man tailed it as it went past and hung on, kissing any bits he could reach. When the mother reappeared they were worrying the baby between them as a couple of hound puppies worry the hind leg of a cub. She beat them faithfully with a broom and hove both of them out into the wide wet world, and we all slept in a bog that night, and William was much abused and loathed. But that was his only failure.

If getting billets is William's job, getting rid of them is the Babe's affair. William, like myself, has far too great a mastery of the _patois_ to handle delicate situations with success. For instance, when the fanner approaches me with tidings that my troopers have burnt two ploughshares and a crowbar and my troop horses have masticated a brick wall I engage him in palaver, with the result that we eventually part, I under the impression that the incident is closed, and he under the impression that I have promised to buy him a new farm. This leads to all sorts of international complications.

The Babe, on the other hand, regards a knowledge of French as immoral and only knows enough of it to order himself a drink. He is also gifted with a slight stutter, which under the stress of a foreign language becomes chronic. So when we evacuate a billet William furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into his honest palm.

"Hi," says the worthy fellow, "what is this, then? One hundred francs! Where is the seventy-four francs, six centimes for the fleas your dog stole? The two hundred francs, three centimes for the indigestion your rations gave my pig? The eight thousand and ninety-nine francs, five centimes insurance money I should have collected if your brigands had not stopped my barn from burning?--and all the other little damages, three million, eight hundred thousand and forty-four francs, one centime in all--where is it, _hein_?"

"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins, "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay tut--tut--tut--tut--sh-sh-shiss--" says he, loosening his stammer at rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a red-hot machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the farmer is white in the face and imploring the Babe to let by-gones be by-gones. "N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer p-p-poovay exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub--" and away it goes again like a combined steam-riveter and shower-bath, like the water coming down at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than twenty minutes of this. A quarter-of-an-hour usually sees him bolting and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses of fond farewell through the keyhole.

We are billeted on a farm at the present moment. The Skipper occupies the best bed; the rest of us are doing the _al fresco_ touch in tents and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape. We are on very intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk. Every morning I awake to find half-a-dozen hens and their gentleman-friend roosting along my anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying rent for the roost.

The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since--a moustache must be very ticklish to digest.

Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open, noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower. Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld a gentle milch privily sucking it up behind, his back. There was a strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in the _café au lait_ to-day.

This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face. Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering beside my bed. "Show a leg, quick," he whispered. "Rouse out, and Uncle will show boysey pretty picture."

Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl I followed him tip-toe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call "home."

Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within. It was, as he had promised, a pretty picture.

At the foot of our MacTavish's mattress, under a spare blanket lifted from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig. Both were occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose.

"Heads of Angels, by Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS," breathed Albert Edward in my ear.

PATLANDER.

* * * * *

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.

"1913 Touring Ford, in splendid condition, fitted with new coils, parafin vaporiser; has been little use."--_Irish Times_.

* * * * *

THE TWO LETTERS.

I had as usual two letters to write. There are always two and often twenty, but this morning there were two only. One was to my old friend, A., who had just gone into bankruptcy; the other was to my young friend, B., whose sporting efforts in France have won him very rapid promotion. He was just bringing his new captain's stars to England on a few days' leave.

A. is a somewhat austere and melancholy man; B. is just as different as you can imagine.

I wrote thus. First to A.:--

"MY DEAR MAN,--I am sorry to hear your bad news. The times are sufficiently depressing without such a blow as this having to fall on you. I am certain that you don't deserve such treatment, and you have all my sympathy. As for the disgrace--there is none. You are simply a victim of the War. If there is anything I can do to cheer you up, let me know.

"I am, yours, etc.,--."

To B. I wrote thus:--