Chapter 3

"We got to 'ave fresh rules," Kippy continued. "Anyone breaking a winder 'as to retire, mend the winder, and 'is side loses ten runs." Only a super mind could in the time have framed a punishment so convincingly deterrent.

The scoop shot from the pergola end was ruled out in a sentence, and we were treated to a masterly and Jessopian demonstration of how to get an off ball past square-leg.

But no completely efficient form of organisation can be encompassed in an hour, nor can man legislate for the unknown factor.

In this case Kippy was not aware that, on the far side of the shrubbery, against an ancient sun-bathed wall, stood the greenhouse which sheltered the Colonel's prize grapes. And so Jim Butcher, playing this time from the rockery end, brought off the double event and caused another new clause to be added to the local rules. With thirty-seven to his credit and still undefeated he was making history in the village, though it must be admitted that no one was ever less anxious to retain the post of honour, and when the gardener laid out the damaged fruit nothing short of Kippy's appeal would have persuaded him to continue his innings.

"Wot, retire jest when you're gettin' popler an' can't do no more 'arm an' I've sent off the 'ole brigade of scouts ter spread the noos, 'Jessop thirty, not out, an' 'arf the Colonel's winders napooed.' Wy, the 'ole blinkin' county will be 'ere as soon as they know wot's goin' on." Kippy leant forward confidentially, "An' them Serbian boxes 'as got ter be filled some'ow." It was an irresistible argument, and Jim Butcher continued his innings under slightly restricted conditions.

At 6.50, with ten minutes to play, the Convalescents, who had shown great form, required only twelve runs to win the match. Kippy and Gunner Toady shared the batting. A pretty glance to leg for two by the Gunner was all that could be taken out of the penultimate over, and Kippy at the pergola end faced Mark Styles, the postman, to take the first ball of the last over. Two singles were run, and then Kippy placed one nicely into the herbaceous border for four. The next one nearly got him, and then, with the seven o'clock delivery, as it were, the postman tossed up a half-volley on the leg side. Forgotten were the rules, the windows and all else. Kippy jumped out and, with every muscle he could bring into action, hit it straight through the plate-glass panel of the billiard-room door. For five petrified seconds we gazed at the wreckage, and then the door opened and the Colonel walked briskly into the garden. Anything else--a bomb or an earthquake--might merely have created curiosity, but this was different.

Quite unostentatiously I vacated my position at fine leg and merged myself with the slips, who, together with point and cover, were bearing a course towards the labyrinthine ways of the kitchen-garden. After vainly searching for an imaginary ball and finding that we were not actually attacked from the rear, we ventured at length to return.

Kippy and the Colonel were conversing on the centre of the well-worn pitch. The Colonel was speaking.

"... Lose ten runs and the match! I never heard such infernal nonsense. That shot was worth six runs on any ground. I shall insist on revising the rules."

At the same time I noticed that Kippy was holding a red-and-white box, and the Colonel was with difficulty thrusting something through the inadequate slit.

It looked like a piece of paper.

* * * * *

* * * * * The Huns at Home.

"In the final figure, all the dancers make bows and curtseys to the Emperor and Empress, who are either standing or sitting at this time on the throne." --_Mr. GERARD'S description of a Court Ball._

Two chiefs with but a single chair to stand on. And yet they call Germany undemocratic!

* * * * *

"M. Painlevé's resemblance to M. Briand (the former Premier) is string."--_Liverpool Daily Post_.

Whereas the tie between British Ministers is generally tape (red).

* * * * *

PRESERVING THEIR PROSPECTS.

[Exemption has been granted by the Warwick Appeal Tribunal to a man who applied on the ground that if he lived long enough he would inherit £200,000.]

_Extract from "The Mid-County Advertiser," July 30th._

Martin Slim, 25, single, categoried A 1, applied for exemption to the Bumpshire Tribunal on the ground that if he were required to do military service he would lose a substantial fortune. Applicant explained that he was engaged in an enterprise which involved the planting of 200 acres of young cork-trees. The trees would be ready for cutting in about 1945, by which time it was estimated the demand for cork legs would enable him to realise a handsome profit on the sale of the bark. Total exemption was granted, the chairman of the Tribunal congratulating the young man on his patriotic foresight.

_"The Snobington Mercury," August 7th._

Among the recent applicants to the Snobington Appeal Tribunal was the Hon. Geoffrey de Knute. Solicitor for the applicant stated that his client, who was already giving all his time to the organisation of hat-trimming competitions for wounded soldiers and other work of national importance, desired exemption for the reason that he expected shortly to succeed to the Earldom of Swankshire. There were, he explained, three brothers who stood between his client and the title, all over military age. It was expected, however, that the age limit would before long be substantially raised, in which case there was every reason to believe that his client, if exempted from military service, might outlive his relatives. After some consultation the chairman stated that ten years' exemption would be granted.

_"The Morning News," August 14th._

Sol. Strunski, 18, single, passed for General Service, applied for exemption yesterday before the Birdcage Walk Tribunal. Applicant's mother, who was observed to be wearing several large diamond rings and a sable jacket, informed the Tribunal that applicant was her sole support; that he had been engaged until recently upon a contract for supplying the Army Ordnance Department with antimacassars, but that, as the result of false charges made against him by persons connected with the police force, the War Office had removed his name from its list of eligible contractors, with the result that he was now out of work. He had, however, been offered the secretaryship of the Russian branch of the No-Conscription Fellowship. It was a great chance for him, she explained, but he would lose it if he were called up. The Tribunal expressed its sympathy with Mrs. Strunski, and stated that the War, important as it might be, could not be allowed to mar the future of such an able youth. Total exemption.

_"The Purrsweet Record," August 21st._

At the Purrsweet Tribunal, Messrs. Prongingham and Co., proprietors of the popular multiple grocery establishments, applied for exemption for their local branch manager, William Dudd (28, B 1). The chairman of the Tribunal, Sir George Prongingham, stated that he had had some doubts as to whether his position as president of Prongingham's, Ltd., did not require him to leave the disposition of this case to his colleagues. They had persuaded him to a contrary view, and certainly his patriotism could not be questioned. His son Reginald had been serving gallantly in the Army Pay Department since the outbreak of war, and he himself had been consulted by the Government on several occasions. In deciding the case of the applicant, William Dudd, he felt no bias of any kind, and the Tribunal's decision to grant total exemption was made wholly out of regard to the young man's prospects, and not in the interest of Prongingham's, Ltd. (Cheers.) ALGOL.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE CONVERT.

There were three of us--a soldier, a _flâneur_ and myself, who am neither but would like to be either. We were talking about the strange appearance--a phenomenon of the day--of French wine in German bottles, and this led to the re-expression of my life-long surprise that bottles should exist in such numbers as they do--bottles everywhere, all over the world, with wine and beer in them, and no one under any obligation to save and return them.

"Well," said the soldier (who may or may not have known that I was one of those writing fellows), "that has never struck me as odd. Of course there are lots of bottles. Bottles are necessary. But what beats me is the number of books. New books and old books, books in shops and books on stalls, and books in houses; and on top of all that--libraries. That's rum, if you like. I most cordially hope," he added, "that there are more bottles than books in the world."

"I don't care how many there are of either," said the _flâneur_; "but I know this--another book's badly wanted."

"Oh, come off it," said the enemy of authorship. "How can another book be needed? Have you ever seen the British Museum Reading Room? It's simply awful. It's a kind of disease. I was taken there once by an aunt when I was a boy, and it has haunted me ever since. Books by the million all round the room, and the desks crowded with people writing new ones. Men _and_ women. Mixed writing, you know. Terrible!"

"All that may be true," said the _flâneur_, "but the fact remains that another book is still needed."

"Impossible," said the soldier, "unless it's a cheque-book. There I'm with you."

"No, a book--a real book. Small, I admit, but real. And I believe I can make you agree with me. I'm full of it, because I discovered the need of it only this last week-end."

"Well, what is it to be called?" the sceptic asked.

"I think a good title would be, _Have I Put Everything in?_"

"Sounds like a manual of bayonet exercise," said the soldier, and he made imaginary lunges at imaginary Huns.

"Very well then, to prevent ambiguity call it _Have I Left Anything Out?_ The sub-title would be 'A Guide to Packing,' or 'The Week-Ender's Friend.'"

"Ah!" said the other, beginning to be interested.

"With such a book," the _flâneur_ continued, "you could never, as I did on Saturday, arrive at a house without any pyjamas, because you would find pyjamas in the list, and directly you came to them you would shove them in. That would be the special merit of the book--that you would get, out of wardrobes and drawers and off the dressing-table, the things it mentioned as you read them and shove them in."

"You would hold the book in the left hand," said the soldier, with almost as much excitement as though he were the author, "and pack with the right. That's the way."

"Yes, that's the way. It would be only a little book--like a vest-pocket diary--but it would be priceless. It would be divided into sections covering the different kinds of visit to be paid--week-end, week, fortnight, and so on. Then the kind of place--seaside, river, shooting, hunting, and so on. Foreign travel might come in as well."

"Yes," said the soldier, "lists of things for Egypt, India, Nairobi."

"That's it," said the _flâneur._ "And there would be some unexpected things too. I guess you could help me there with all your wide experience."

"A corkscrew, of course," said the soldier.

"I said unexpected things," said the _flâneur_ reprovingly, "such as--well, such as a screw-driver for eye-glasses--most useful. And a carriage key. And--"

His pause was my opportunity. "I'll tell you another thing," I said, "something for which I'd have given a sovereign in that gale last week when I was at the seaside--window-wedges. Never again shall I travel without window-wedges."

"By Jove!" said the soldier, "that's an idea. Put down window-wedges at once. It's a great book this," he went on. "And needed--I should jolly well say so. You ought to compile it at once--before any of us has time to go away again. Personally I don't know how I've lived without it. Why, just talking about it makes me feel quite a literary character."

"Let me see," I said sweetly, "what do you call this monumental work? Oh yes, I remember--_Are There Any Important Omissions from my Saturday-to-Monday Equipment?_"

"Rubbish!" said the soldier. "The title is--_Have I Put Everything in?_"

* * * * *

BY THE CANAL IN FLANDERS.

By the canal in Flanders I watched a barge's prow Creep slowly past the poplar-trees; and there I made a vow That when these wars are over and I am home at last However much I travel I shall not travel fast.

Horses and cars and yachts and planes: I've no more use for such; For in three years of war's alarms I've hurried far too much; And now I dream of something sure, silent and slow and large; So when the War is over--why, I mean to buy a barge.

A gilded barge I'll surely have, the same as Egypt's Queen, And it will be the finest barge that ever you have seen; With polished mast of stout pitch pine, tipped with a ball of gold, And two green trees in two white tubs placed just abaft the hold.

So when past Pangbourne's verdant meads, by Clieveden's mossy stems, You see a barge all white-and-gold come gliding down the Thames, With tow-rope spun from coloured silks and snow-white horses three, Which stop beside your river house--you'll know the bargee's me.

I'll moor my craft beside your lawn; so up and make good cheer! Pluck me your greenest salads! Draw me your coolest beer! For I intend to lunch with you and talk an hour or more Of how we used to hustle in the good old days of war.

* * * * *

The Vicar of a country parish was letting his house to a _locum tenens_, and sent him a telegram, "Servants will be left if desired." Promptly came back the reply, "Am bringing my own sermons." And now each is wondering what sort of man the other is.

* * * * *

"Young Man to help weigh and clean widows at chemist's shop." --_Sheffield Daily Telegraph._

To any young man who should be inclined to apply we commend the advice of _Mr. Weller, senior_, "Sammy, beware of the vidders."

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_

In _The Irish on the Somme_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) Mr. MICHAEL MACDONAGH continues the story which he began in _The Irish at the Front_. He gives us more accounts of the heroism of his fellow-countrymen in the titanic battles that have thrilled the minds of men all the world over. He writes with a justifiable enthusiasm of the deeds of these gallant Irishmen. The book stirs the blood like the sound of a trumpet. In a war which has produced so many glorious actions the Irish are second to none. Even those who do not agree in every point with Mr. JOHN REDMOND will admit ungrudgingly that he makes good the claims he puts forward in his introduction to Mr. MACDONAGH'S book. He tells us that from Ireland 173,772 Irishmen are serving in the Army and Navy, and that in addition at least 150,000 of the Irish race have joined the colours in Great Britain--no mean record. Mr. MACDONAGH is as proud of the glory of the Ulstermen as of that of Nationalist Ireland. He dedicates his book to the _carum caput_ of Major WILLIE REDMOND.

* * * * *

Mr. E.B. OSBORN, who has written _The Maid with Wings, and other Fantasies Grave to Gay_ (LANE), will perhaps not altogether thank me for saving that among the _Other Fantasies_ I throughout preferred the grave to the gay. _The Maid with Wings_ itself is a beautiful little piece of imagination--the vision of the Maid of France comforting an English boy during his last moments out in No Man's Land. The thing is well and delicately done, with a reserve that may encourage the judicious to hope for good work in the future from a pen that is (I fancy) as yet somewhat new. On the other hand, I must confess that the Gaiety left me (though this, of course, may be an isolated experience) with sides unshaken. "Callisthenes at Cambridge," for example, is but little removed from the article that, to my certain knowledge, has padded school and 'Varsity magazines since such began to be. Still, I liked the plea for Protection against foreign imports in literature and art by way of helping the native producer, though even here some condensation would, I thought, have sharpened the point. But, after all, reviewers are dull dogs to move to laughter (as no doubt Mr. OSBORN will now agree), so I hope he will rest content with my genuine appreciation of his graver passages, and will be encouraged to give us something more ambitious and less open to the suspicion of book-making.

* * * * *

The _Letters of a Soldier: 1914-1915_ (CONSTABLE) are letters to a mother; letters also of an artist, and full of an exquisite sensibility, a fine candour. I can best give you an impression of the charming personality of this young French soldier (who survived his first great battle, to be reported missing after the counter-attack, since when no news of him has reached his friends), by quoting little sentences of his, and if you don't want to know more of him after reading them then nothing I can say will be of any use: "The true death would be to live in a conquered country, above all for me, whose art would perish.... If you could only see the confidence of the little forest animals, such as the field-mice! They were as pretty as a Japanese print, with the inside of their ears like a rosy shell.... How is it possible to think of Schumann as a barbarian?... I am happy to have felt myself responsive to all these blows, and my hope lies in the thought that they will have forged my soul.... Spinoza is a most valuable aid in the trenches.... We are in billets after the great battle, and this time I saw it all. I did my duty; I knew that by the feeling of my men for me. But the best are dead. We gained our object ... I send you my whole love. Whatever comes to pass, life has had its beauty." And then no more.

* * * * *

If Mr. HAROLD LAKE'S account of the British forces in Macedonia is supposed to supply an answer to a not unnatural query as to what they are doing there, I am afraid one must take it that in fact they are doing nothing in particular. An intelligent British public believes that at least they are immobilising important enemy forces and perhaps accomplishing several other useful things as well, but the writer, who has actually been _In Salonica with Our Army_ (MELROSE), frankly lays aside high considerations of policy and, seeing it all in desperately foreshortened perspective, knows only that he and his fellows, having volunteered to fight, are being called on instead to endure a purgatorial routine of dust and dulness, mosquitoes, malaria and night marches, and the grilling away of useless days in the society of flies and lizards, with only, as a very occasional treat, the smallest glimpse of anything resembling a Front. And all this is in a country so desolated by centuries of war that in spite of obvious natural fertility it is a sullen treeless desert--a desert of blight and thistles, as profitless to our men as their periodically deferred anticipations of a grand advance. A book that sets out to record vacuity can hardly be crammed with thrilling literature, and I am not going to pretend that Mr. LAKE has achieved the impossible. All the same one found points--for instance, his desire that someone (apparently England for choice!) should colonise Macedonia; and his most right and appropriate plea for fairer recognition of those who have sacrificed their health in the national service. A man, he holds, who is to suffer all his life from malarial fever has done his bit no less than plenty who bear the honourable insignia of the wounded in battle and the snout of a mosquito may be as valorously encountered as the bayonet of a Hun. And so say all of us.

* * * * *

I can read Miss MARY WEBB'S studies of the peasant mind with great pleasure, but at the same time I am doubtful whether she is as successful in _Gone to Earth_ (CONSTABLE) as she was in her first novel, _The Golden Arrow_. My difficulty--and I hope it will not be yours--was to believe in the power of _Hazel Woodus_ to make very dissimilar men lose their hearts and heads. That _Jack Reddin_, a dare-devil farmer with love for any sort of a chase in his blood, should pursue her to the bitter end is intelligible enough, but why _Edward Marston_, a rather anæmic minister, married her and then forgave her escapades with _Reddin_ has me bothered. I can admire Edward's forgiving spirit, but cannot altogether pity him when his methodical congregation said straight and disagreeable things. In fact my total inability to see _Hazel_ as _Edward_ saw her somewhat detracted from my enjoyment of her history. That being said the rest is, thank goodness, praise. Miss WEBB is a careful and sincere workman, who, whether you believe or disbelieve in her characters, writes with such real compassion for suffering that she cannot fail to enlist your sympathy. Additionally her vein is original, and she only needs a little more experience to make a great success of it.

* * * * *

Presumably the eleven stories in _The Loosing of the Lion's Whelps_ (MILLS AND BOON) are published for the first time, as we are not given any notice to the contrary, and I can imagine that Mr. JOHN OXENHAM'S many admirers will derive considerable pleasure from them. Mr. OXENHAM'S weak points are that sometimes he fails to distinguish between real pathos and sticky sentimentality, and that when he tries his hand at telling a practical joke he does not know when to stop. There are, however, stories in this volume which deserve unqualified praise. The shortest, "How Half a Man Died," is the best; indeed, it is a real gem. But "The Missing K.C.'s" has a genuine thrill in it; and, in a very different manner, "A By-Product" is proof enough that the author can get his effects all the more readily when he keeps his own feelings under the strictest control. Mr. OXENHAM'S XI. has weak points in it, but on the whole it is a good side.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Another Impending Apology.

"John Kelly, Aughanduff, while going to Dernaseer was attacked on the road by a bull belonging to Thomas Kelly, and knocked down and had three ribs broken. He was attended by Dr. ----, and we think such dangerous animals should not be allowed to wander at large."--_Irish Paper_.

* * * * *

"J.A.M. required for St. Mark's Girls' School, Dublin."--_Irish Times_.

A case for the FOOD CONTROLLER.

* * * * *

From a letter on "How we are to be Governed":--