Chapter 1

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 153.

SEPTEMBER 5, 1917.

CHARIVARIA.

The Kaiser has again visited the High Seas Fleet in security at Wilhelmshaven. Enthusiastic applause greeted the brief speech in which he urged them "to stick to it."

***

There is no truth in the rumour that one of the recently escaped Huns got away disguised as Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD.

***

Some commotion was caused in the Strand last week when a policeman accused a man of whistling for a taxi-cab. Later, however, the policeman accepted the gentleman's plea that he was not whistling, but that was his natural face.

***

From the latest reports from Dover we gather that this year the Channel has decided to swim Great Britain.

***

As a result of the excessive rain a nigger troupe at Margate were seen to pale visibly.

***

Fortunately for the Americans there is one man who will stand by them in their hour of trouble. According to a Spanish news message Mr. JACK JOHNSON has decided not to return to America.

***

Owing to the scarcity of matches we understand that many smokers now adopt the plan of waiting for the fire-engine to turn out and then proceed to the conflagration to get a light.

***

A catfish has been caught at Hastings. It died worth a lady's gold bracelet and a small pocket-knife.

***

The Norwegian explorer, ROALD AMUNDSEN, is preparing for a trip to the North Pole in 1918. Additional interest now attaches to this spot as being the only territory whose neutrality the Germans have omitted to violate.

***

Russian tea is being sold in London at 12s. 7d. a pound. It is remarkable that, with the country in its present disorganised condition, the Russian merchants can still hold their own without the assistance of a Food Controller.

***

A room for quick luncheons, not to cost more than 1s. 3d., has been opened in Northumberland Avenue for busy Government officials. It is hoped eventually to provide room to enable a few other people to join the GEDDES family at their mid-day meal.

***

KING CONSTANTINE, says a despatch, has rented an expensive villa overlooking Lake Zurich. Just the thing for an ex-pensive monarch.

***

We are requested to say that the man named Smith, charged at Bow Police Court the other day, is in no way connected with the other Mr. Smiths.

***

At a vegetable show at Godalming, 5,780 dead butterflies were exhibited by children. It is understood that the pacifists are protesting against this encouragement of the martial spirit among the young.

***

Considerable annoyance has been caused in Government circles by the announcement that "at last the War Office has been aroused." Officials there, however, deny the accusation.

***

The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER has received four hundred pounds from an anonymous donor towards the cost of the War. The donor, it appears, omitted to specify which part of the War he would like to pay for.

***

Germany has at last addressed a reply to the Argentine Republic, pointing out that strict orders have been issued to U-boat commanders that ships flying the Argentine flag must always be torpedoed by accident.

***

Mammoth marrows have been reported from several districts, and it is now rumoured that Sir DOUGLAS HAIG is busy developing a giant squash.

***

An official report states that there are three hundred and forty-three ice-cream shops in Wandsworth. Unfortunately this is not the only indication of an early winter.

***

A potato closely resembling the German CROWN PRINCE has been dug up at Reading. This is very good for a beginning, but our amateur potato-growers must produce a HINDENBURG if we are to win the War.

***

A woman walked into a shop at Cuckfield and settled a bill sent to her twenty-four years ago, but it is not stated whether she was really able to obtain any sugar.

***

The R.S.P.C.A. grows more and more alert. A man who hid three and a half pounds of stolen margarine in his horse's nose-bag has just been fined five pounds.

***

"Dogs," says the Acton magistrate, "are not allowed to bite people they dislike." All the same there have been times when we have felt that it would have been an act of supererogation to explain to the postman that our dog was really attached to him.

***

A taxi-cab driver has been fined two pounds for using abusive language to a policeman. Only his explanation, that he thought he was addressing a fare, saved him from a heavier penalty.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A WAR BARGAIN.

"BRIGHTON.--A small General for Sale through old age. No reasonable offer refused."--_West Sussex Gazette_.

* * * * *

"An enormous burden of detail is thus taken off the shareholders of the Munitions Minister."--_Liverpool Daily Post_.

This will strengthen the belief that Mr. CHURCHILL is not a man but a syndicate.

* * * * *

"From that successful German campaign sprang the United Terrific Peoples--the Modern German Empire."--_Nigerian Pioneer_.

The author wrote "Teutonic Peoples," but the native compositor thought he knew better--and perhaps he did.

* * * * *

ONE STAR.

Occasionally I receive letters from friends whom I have not seen lately addressed to Lieutenant M---- and apologising prettily inside in case I am by now a colonel; in drawing-rooms I am sometimes called "Captain-er"; and up at the Fort the other day a sentry of the Royal Defence Corps, wearing the Créçy medal, mistook me for a Major, and presented crossbows to me. This is all wrong. As Mr. GARVIN well points out, it is important that we should not have a false perspective of the War. Let me, then, make it perfectly plain--I am a Second Lieutenant.

When I first became a Second Lieutenant I was rather proud. I was a Second Lieutenant "on probation." On my right sleeve I wore a single star. So:

* (on probation, of course).

On my left sleeve I wore another star. So:

* (also on probation).

They were good stars, none better in the service; and as we didn't like the sound of "on probation" Celia put a few stitches in them to make them more permanent. This proved effective. Six months later I had a very pleasant note from the KING telling me that the days of probation were now over, and making it clear that he and I were friends.

I was now a real Second Lieutenant. On my right sleeve I had a single star. Thus:

* (not on probation).

On my left sleeve I also had a single star. In this manner:

*

This star also was now a fixed one.

From that time forward my thoughts dwelt naturally on promotion. There were exalted persons in the regiment called Lieutenants. They had two stars on each sleeve. So:

* *

I decided to become a Lieutenant.

Promotion in our regiment was difficult. After giving the matter every consideration I came to the conclusion that the only way to win my second star was to save the Colonel's life. I used to follow him about affectionately in the hope that be would fall into the sea. He was a big strong man and a powerful swimmer, but once in the water it would not be difficult to cling round his neck and give an impression that I was rescuing him. However, he refused to fall in. I fancy that he wore somebody's Military Soles which prevent slipping.

Years rolled on. I used to look at my stars sometimes, one on each sleeve; they seemed very lonely. At times they came close together; but at other times, as, for instance, when I was semaphoring, they were very far apart. To prevent these occasional separations Celia took them off my sleeves and put them on my shoulders. One on each shoulder. So:

*

And so:

*

There they stayed.

And more years rolled on.

One day Celia came to me in great excitement.

"Have you seen this in the paper about promotion?" she said eagerly.

"No; what is it?" I asked. "Are they making more generals?"

"I don't know about generals; it's Second Lieutenants being Lieutenants."

"You're joking on a very grave subject," I said seriously. "You can't expect to win the War if you go on like that."

"Well, you read it," she said, handing me the paper. "It's a committee of Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S."

I took the paper with a trembling hand, and read. She was right! If the paper was to be believed, all Second Lieutenants were to become Lieutenants after eighteen years' service. At last my chance had come.

"My dear, this is wonderful," I said. "In another fifteen years we shall be nearly there. You might buy two more stars this afternoon and practise sewing them on, in order to be ready. You mustn't be taken by surprise when the actual moment comes."

"But you're a Lieutenant _now_," she said, "if that's true. It says that 'after eighteen months--'"

I snatched up the paper again. Good Heavens! it was eighteen _months_--not years.

"Then I _am_ a Lieutenant," I said.

We had a bottle of champagne for dinner that night, and Celia got the paper and read it aloud to my tunic. And just for practice she took the two stars off my other tunic and sewed them on this one--thus:

** **

And we had a very happy evening.

"I suppose it will be a few days before it's officially announced," I said.

"Bother, I suppose it will," said Celia, and very reluctantly she took one star off each shoulder, leaving the matter--so:

* *

And the months rolled on.

And I am still a Second Lieutenant ...

I do not complain; indeed I am even rather proud of it. If I am not gaining on my original one star, at least I am keeping pace with it. I might so easily have been a corporal by now.

But I should like to have seen a little more notice taken of me in the _Gazette_. I scan it every day, hoping for some such announcement as this:

"_Second Lieutenant M---- to remain a Second Lieutenant._"

Or this:

"_Second Lieutenant M---- to be seconded and to retain his present rank of Second Lieutenant._"

Or even this:

"_Second Lieutenant M---- relinquishes the rank of Acting Second Lieutenant on ceasing to command a Battalion, and reverts to the rank of Second Lieutenant._"

Failing this, I have thought sometimes of making an announcement in the Personal Column of _The Times_:

"Second Lieutenant M---- regrets that his duties as a Second Lieutenant prevent him from replying personally to the many kind inquiries he has received, and begs to take this opportunity of announcing that he still retains a star on each shoulder. Both doing well."

But perhaps that is unnecessary now. I think that by this time I have made it clear just how many stars I possess.

One on the right shoulder. So:

*

And one on the left shoulder. So:

*

That is all.

A.A.M.

* * * * *

THE FOUNTAIN.

Upon the terrace where I play A little fountain sings all day A tiny tune: It leaps and prances in the air-- I saw a little fairy there This afternoon.

The jumping fountain never stops-- He sat upon the highest drops And bobbed about. His legs were waving in the sun, He seemed to think it splendid fun, I heard him shout.

The sparrows watched him from a tree, A robin bustled up to see Along the path: I thought my wishing-bone would break, I wished so much that I could take A fairy bath.

R.F.

* * * * *

"LIBRARY NOTES.

"Mr. Buttling Sees It Thru, H.G. Wells." --_Citronelle Call_ (_Alabama, U.S.A._).

Rumours that Mr. WELLS is a convert to the "nu speling" may now be safely contradicted.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

I am living at present in one of those villages in which the retreating Hun has left no stone unturned. With characteristic thoroughness he fired it first, then blew it up, and has been shelling it ever since. What with one thing and another, it is in an advanced state of dilapidation; in fact, if it were not that one has the map's word for it, and a notice perched on a heap of brick-dust saying that the Town Major may be found within, the casual wayfarer might imagine himself in the Sahara, Kalahari, or the south end of Kingsway.

Some of these French towns are very difficult to recognise as such; only the trained detective can do it. A certain Irish Regiment was presented with the job of capturing one. The scheme was roughly this. They were to climb the parapet at 5.25 A.M. and rush a quarry some one hundred yards distant. After half-an-hour's breather they were to go on to some machine-gun emplacements, dispose of these, wait a further twenty minutes, and then take the town. Distance barely one thousand yards in all. Promptly at zero the whole field spilled over the bags, as the field spills over the big double at Punchestown, paused at the quarry only long enough to change feet on the top, and charged yelling at the machine guns. Then being still full of fun and _joie de vivre_, and having no officers left to hamper their fine flowing style, they ducked through their own barrage and raced all out for the final objective. Twenty minutes later, two miles further on, one perspiring private turned to his panting chum, "For the love of God, Mike, aren't we getting in the near of this damn town yet?"

I have a vast respect for HINDENBURG (a man who can drink the mixtures he does, and still sit up and smile sunnily into the jaws of a camera ten times a day, is worthy of anybody's veneration) but if he thought that by blowing these poor little French villages into small smithereens he would deprive the B.E.F. of headcover and cause it to catch cold and trot home to mother, he will have to sit up late and do some more thinking. For Atkins of to-day is a knowing bird; he can make a little go the whole distance and conjure plenty out of nothingness. As for cover, two bricks and his shrapnel hat make a very passable pavilion. Goodness knows it would puzzle a guinea-pig to render itself inconspicuous in our village, yet I have watched battalion after battalion march into it and be halted and dismissed. Half an hour later there is not a soul to be seen. They have all gone to ground. My groom and countryman went in search of wherewithal to build a shelter for the horses. He saw a respectable plank sticking out of a heap of débris, laid hold on it and pulled. Then--to quote him _verbatim_--"there came a great roarin' from in undernath of it, Sor, an' a black divil of an infantryman shoved his head up through the bricks an' drew down sivin curses on me for pullin' the roof off his house. Then he's afther throwin' a bomb at me, Sor, so I came away. Ye wouldn't be knowin' where to put your fut down in this place, Sor, for the dhread of treadin' in the belly of an officer an' him aslape."

Some people have the bungalow mania and build them _bijoux maisonettes_ out of biscuit tins, sacking and what-not, but the majority go to ground. I am one of the majority; I go to ground like a badger, for experience has taught me that a dug-out--cramped, damp, dark though it maybe--cannot be stolen from you while you sleep; that is to say, thieves cannot come along in the middle of the night, dig it up bodily by the roots and cart it away in a G.S. waggon without you, the occupant, being aware that some irregularity is occurring to the home. On the other hand, in this country, where the warrior, when he falls on sleep suffers a sort of temporary death, bungalows can be easily purloined from round about him without his knowledge; and what is more, frequently are.

For instance, a certain bungalow in our village was stolen as frequently as three times in one night. This was the way of it. One Todd, a foot-slogging Lieutenant, foot-slogged into our midst one day, borrowed a hole from a local rabbit, and took up his residence therein. Now this mud-pushing Todd had a cousin in the same division, one of those highly trained specialists who trickles about the country shedding coils of barbed wire and calling them "dumps"--a sapper, in short. One afternoon the sapping Todd, finding some old sheets of corrugated iron that he had neglected to dump, sent them over to his gravel-grinding cousin with his love and the request of a loan of a dozen of soda. The earth-pounding Todd came out of his hole, gazed on the corrugated iron and saw visions, dreamed dreams. He handed the hole back to the rabbit and set to work to evolve a bungalow. By evening it was complete. He crawled within and went to sleep, slept like a drugged dormouse. At 10 P.M. a squadron of the Shetland Ponies (for the purpose of deceiving the enemy all names in this article are entirely fictitious) made our village. It was drizzling at the time, and the Field Officer in charge was getting most of it in the neck. He howled for his batman, and told the varlet that if there wasn't a drizzle-proof bivouac ready to enfold him by the time he had put the ponies to bye-byes there would be no leave for ten years. The batman scratched his head, then slid softly away into the night. By the time the ponies were tilting the last drops out of their nosebags the faithful servant had scratched together a few sheets of corrugated, and piled them into a rough shelter. The Major wriggled beneath it and was presently putting up a barrage of snores terrible to hear. At midnight a battalion of the Loamshire Light Infantry trudged into the village. It was raining in solid chunks, and the Colonel Commanding looked like Victoria Falls and felt like a submarine. He gave expression to his sentiments in a series of spluttering bellows. His batman trembled and faded into the darkness _à pas de loup_. By the time the old gentleman had halted his command and cursed them "good night" his resourceful retainer had found a sheet or two of corrugated iron somewhere and assembled them into some sort of bivouac for the reception of his lord. His lord fell inside, kicked off his boots and slept instantly, slept like a wintering bear.

At 2 A.M. three Canadian privates blundered against our village and tripped over it. They had lost their way, were mud from hoofs to horns, dead beat, soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone, fed up to the back teeth. They were not going any further, neither were they going to be deluged to death if there was any cover to be had anywhere. They nosed about, and soon discovered a few sheets of corrugated iron, bore them privily hence and weathered the night out under some logs further down the valley. My batman trod me underfoot at seven next morning, "Goin' to be blinkin' murder done in this camp presently, Sir," he announced cheerfully. "Three officers went to sleep in bivvies larst night, but somebody's souvenired 'em since an' they're all lyin' hout in the hopen now, Sir. Their blokes daresent wake 'em an' break the noos. All very 'asty-tempered gents, so I'm told. The Colonel is pertickler mustard. There'll be some fresh faces on the Roll of Honour when 'e comes to."

I turned out and took a look at the scene of impending tragedy. The three unconscious officers on three camp-beds were lying out in the middle of a sea of mud like three lone islets. Their shuddering subordinates were taking cover at long range, whispering among themselves and crouching in attitudes of dreadful expectancy like men awaiting the explosion of a mine or the cracking of Doom. As explosions of those dimensions are liable to be impartial in their attentions I took horse and rode afield. But according to my batman, who braved it out, the Lieutenant woke up first, exploded noisily and detonated the Field Officer who in turn detonated the Colonel. In the words of my batman--"They went orf one, two, three, Sir, for orl the world like a machine gun, a neighteen-pounder and an How-Pop-pop! Whizz-bang! Boom!--very 'eavy cas-u-alities, Sir." PATLANDER.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

"A man who was looking at some sheep under the wire saw the flash pass close to him with simultaneous thunder, the sheep being unharmed. Still one or two complained of their legs feeling numb." --_Parochial Magazine._

Who said Baalamb?

* * * * *

"There is no saying how Kinglake's history might have otherwise read had not a round shot put a premature end to Korniloff's career at the Malakoff whence M'Mahon was to send his famous message, 'J'y, j'reste.'"--_Manchester Evening Chronicle._

There is no saying how anybody's history will read if time-honoured sayings may be treated like this.

* * * * *

"We are inclined to attribute the form as well as the substance of the Note to the aloofness from the practical affairs of the outside world which seems to exist in the Vatican."--_Times._

The POPE may or may not be behind the times, but as our contemporary signed the Papal Peace Note, "BENEDICTUS XVI." it is plain that _The Times_ is ahead of the POPE.

* * * * *

Extract from a letter recently received by a manufacturing firm:--

"We are pleased to be able to inform you that we have seen the Munitions Area delusion officer at ----, and he has informed us that he would not hesitate to grant Protection Certificates for these men."

We sympathise too much with Labour to care to see it labouring under a delusion officer.

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

(_Herr MICHAELIS: Marshal VON HINDENBURG_.)

_Herr M._ Good morning, my dear Marshal. I am glad we have been able to arrange a meeting, for there are certain points I wish to settle with you.

_Von H._ I am, as always, at your Excellency's service; only I beg that the interview may not be prolonged beyond what is strictly needful. Time presses, and much remains to be done everywhere.

_Herr M._ But I have the commands of the ALL-HIGHEST to speak with you on some weighty matters. He himself, as you know, has several speeches to make to-day.

_Von H._ Oh, those speeches! How well I know them. I could almost make them myself if I wanted to make speeches, which, God be thanked, I do not need to do.

_Herr M._ No, indeed. Your reputation rests on foundations firmer than speeches.

_Von H._ You yourself, Excellency, have lately discovered how fallacious a thing is a speech, even where the speaker honestly tries to do his best to please everybody.

_Herr M._ You are very kind, my dear Marshal, to speak thus of my humble effort. The result of it has certainly disappointed me.

_Von H._ What was it that LEDEBOUR said of it? Did he not describe it as "a political hocus-pocus"? Such men ought to be at once taken out and shot. But we Prussians have always been too gentle in our methods.

_Herr M._ We have. It is perhaps our only fault; but this time we must see that we correct it. In any case, to be so misunderstood is most painful, especially when one has employed all one's tact.

_Von H._ Ah, tact. That is what you are celebrated for, is it not?

_Herr M._ HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY has more than once been graciously pleased to compliment me upon it. And he, if anyone, is a judge of tact, is he not?

_Von H._ I have not myself any knowledge of it, so I cannot say for certain. Does it perhaps mean what you do when you entirely forget in one speech what you have said or omitted to say in a previous speech?