Chapter 3

That he was in no apologetic mood was shown in almost his first sentence. His declaration that indemnities were a difficult problem, "not to be settled by telegram," evoked resounding cheers. Thenceforward he held the sympathy of the House, whether he was describing the difficulties of the Peace Conference, or reconciling the apparent inconsistencies of its Russian policy, or inveighing against the attempts of certain newspapers to sow dissension among the Allies. "I would rather have a good Peace than a good Press" was one of his most telling phrases, and it was followed by a character-sketch of his principal newspaper-critic which in pungency left nothing to be desired. "What a journalist I could have made of him!" the recluse of Fontainebleau will doubtless remark when he reads the passage.

The PRIME MINISTER'S object, I imagine, was less to impart information than to create an atmosphere; and he was so far successful that the House showed little inclination to listen to other speakers. Nevertheless several of them devoted some hours to saying nothing in particular before the House mercifully adjourned for the Easter Recess.

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"The Postmaster-General, in a written answer, states that arrangements are now in hand for the improvement, where circumstances permit, of postal services which have been curtained as a result of war conditions."--_Scots Paper_.

As for the telephone service, we can well believe that he would prefer the veil to be kept over that.

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A GERMLESS EDEN.

The antiseptic baby and the prophylactic pup Were playing in the garden when the bunny gambolled up; They looked upon the creature with a loathing undisguised, For he wasn't disinfected and he wasn't sterilized. They said he was a microbe and a hotbed of disease; They steamed him in a vapour of a thousand odd degrees, They froze him in a freezer that was cold as banished hope, They washed him with permanganate and carbolated soap,

With sulphuretted hydrogen they bathed his wiggly ears; They trimmed his frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears; Then they donned their rubber mittens and they took him by the hand And elected him a member of the fumigated band. Now there's not a micrococcus in the garden where they play And they bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day, Taking each his daily ration from a hygienic cup, The baby and the bunny and the prophylactic pup.

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* * * * *

RAPID PROMOTION.

"Cpl. A.A.C. Earl of Shaftesbury, K.P., K.C.V.O., relinquishes his appt. (March 1), and is granted the hon. rank of Brig.-Gen."--_Daily Paper_.

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FROM THE STREET OF ADVENTURE.

Journalistic reconstructions and amalgamations have been proceeding so rapidly and extensively of late that there seems no end to the kaleidoscopic possibilities of the future.

Up to the present, however, no confirmation can be obtained of the startling rumor that _The Spectator_ has been purchased by the proprietors of _The Kennel Gazette_, and will henceforth be devoted to the interests of our four-footed friends, the supplements being restricted to purely feline amenities.

Another persistent rumour, which hitherto lacks the seal of official corroboration, is to the effect that _The Guardian_ is to be given a new range of activity as the organ of scientific spiritualism, under the title of _The Guardian Angel_ and the joint editorship of Sir Oliver Doyle and Sir Conan Lodge. The investigations into multiple consciousness conducted by these two eminent _savants_ have proved their mutual convertibility to such an extent that they have decided upon this rearrangement of their names. If the scheme materialises the stimulating collaboration of Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE is a foregone conclusion, and there is even a possibility of contributions from an August Exile somewhere in Holland.

A third report maintains with minute circumstantiality that the proprietors of _The Economist_, having come to the conclusion that this journal needs brightening, have decided to entrust the post of principal leader-writer to "CALLISTHENES," and retain the services of the authoress of _The Tunnel_ as financial _feuilleton_ writer. But on enquiry at the London School of Economics we could not obtain any definite information.

The rumours that _The Morning Post_ is about to be merged in _The Winning Post_, and that Mr. MAXSE is starting an evening paper, to be called _The Job and Caviller_, are extremely interesting, but need to be received with a certain amount of caution.

* * * * *

"Two-seater Motor-car. 7-9 h.p., in perfect running order, Bosch magneto, Michelin tyres, spare wheel and accessories, Axminster and Brussels carpets, stair carpeting, lino., kitchen utensils, dinner service, copper chafing dish, pots, pans, lawn mower, deck chairs, &c., nearly new mangle, and numerous other effects."--_Local Paper_.

Just the car for the _White Knight_ when he takes to motoring.

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* * * * *

BABLINGO.

It has been suggested to me that the time has come for a comprehensive investigation of the interesting language known as Bablingo. Materials for this are ready for use in every home that still possesses a nursery with an inmate not more than two years of age. I must premise that it is the inmate's mother and the inmate's nurse, not the actual inmate, who use the language. Some day, no doubt, there will arise an investigator who will reduce to order and catalogue the inchoate efforts of an infant to make itself understood by talking. These efforts are doubtless of high interest to the etymologist, but the difficulties of the task are at present too great, and in any case I am not the man to undertake it.

I shall content myself for the moment with setting an examination paper in Bablingo for the purpose of testing knowledge. It will differ from most other examinations in having a further object--namely to supply instruction and information to the examiner. Later on it may be possible to construct a grammar, and to append to this a few easy exercises. It must be remembered, however, that there are great difficulties to be overcome in such a task. Every home, for instance, has its own rules for pronunciation. Of these I do not for my immediate purpose propose to take cognisance.

Here, then, is a short Bablingo examination paper for the use of mothers and nurses. I do not at present see my way to including fathers.

(1) On what principles is the language which you use in your nursery formed? Did you (a) acquire it, or (b) find yourself unconsciously in possession of it?

(2) Give a list of the characteristic features which distinguish Bablingo from the dialects employed by Prehistoric Man.

(3) What justification can you allege for the conversion of the words _little thing_ into the words _ickle sing_? Are the spelling and pronunciation of these two words intended to be a concession to the feeble understanding of an infant?

(4) _Wasums and didums, then? Was it a ickle birdie, then?_ Expand the above into a four-line verse with rhymes, and explain why the language as spoken and written is nearly always in the past tense, and rarely in the present or future.

(5)(a) _Did he woz-a-woz, then; a Mum's own woz-man?_ (b) _'Oose queenie-mouse was 'oo?_ Write a short story on one of the above texts.

(6) _Did she try to hit her ickle bruzzer on his nosie-posie wiz a mug? She was a Tartar, and did she want to break him up into bitsy-witsies?_ Construct a scene from a typical nursery drama on the above motive. What theories do you base on the extract with regard to the girl's temper and the boy's courage and endurance?

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A REALLY CANDID CANDIDATE.

"TO THE ELECTORS OF ---- WARD.

"Ladies and Gentlemen,--I beg to thank you for returning me as your member at the Election on Monday last. Nothing shall be wanting on my part to betray the confidence thus reposed in me."--_Provincial Paper_.

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A YEAR'S REPRISALS.

When I sent Aunt Emily--from whom I have expectations--a pincushion at Christmas and she retaliated with a pen-wiper on New Year's Day, I thought that was the end of it.

Not so.

Aunt Emily reopened hostilities on my birthday with a purple satin letter-case embroidered with a sprig of rosemary and the word "Remembrance." That fresh offensive occurred on January 27th, which, I repeat, is my birthday. Readers please note.

When was Aunt Emily's birthday? Frenzied search in antique birthday books revealed not the horrid secret. Probing my diary for other suitable anniversaries, I came to February 1st--"Partridge and Pheasant Shooting ends."

I passed this as being inappropriate, and then--the very thing--February 14th, St. Valentine's. Also Full Moon.

To arrive on that day, I despatched, carefully packed, the white marble clock from the spare-room. When well shaken it will tick for an hour. Aunt Emily had never seen it, I knew.

Then I sounded the All Clear.

But on Easter Eve a heavy packing-case was bumped onto my doorstep. From wrappings of sacking there emerged a large model of Eddystone lighthouse; a thermometer was embedded in its chest, minus the mercury, I noted. And Aunt Emily wished me as per enclosed card "A joyous Easter."

With groans and lamentations another anniversary must be found by me. Ah! Here we have it! KING GEOKGE V. born June 3rd. On the dark roof of my spare-room wardrobe loomed an Indian vase--bright yellow with red blobs--very rare and very hideous, with a bulge in its middle. Obviously unique, because when the Indian made it his fellow-Indians slew him to prevent repetitions of the offence. I packed it in the middle of a crate and much straw, calculated to make an appalling mess when released.

To dear Aunt Emily it went, with love, and a few topical remarks about the Monarchy.

But Aunt Emily evidently had a diary too. On the 21st of October--anniversary of Trafalgar--my heart sank as the railway delivery van drew up at my door. The angry driver toiled into my passage with a packing-case (bristling with splinters and nails). When it was open and the chisel broken I picked the splinters out of my fingers and contemplated the battered horn of a gramophone emerging from sawdust and shavings.

The mess created was indescribable when the horn was drawn forth. Shavings flew everywhere. The sawdust was like a butcher's shop. There were records too, some broken, all scratched. When set going it made a noise like a cockatoo with a cold. Decently covered with a cloth it was interned in the loft.

Next please. One more effort and I should be one up and Aunt Emily to play. And her turn would be Christmas. Once she sent me five pounds at Christmas.

The diary again. A poor hatch of anniversaries for November. A partial eclipse of the moon, partially visible at Greenwich, was down for the 22nd. But eclipses are too ominous.

I fell back on KING EDWARD VII., born November 9th, 1841. Twenty-three volumes of Goodworthy's _History of England_ should commemorate this. There had once been twenty-four, but the puppy ate one.

Gratitude came by return of post, and I sat down in peace to await Christmas and a cheque.

But on December 19th came another dreadful and splintery packing-case. Desperately I gouged it open. Out of it, through a cloud of shavings, emerged my own loathsome yellow-and-red Indian vase! No word with it--not a word, not a note. Not a funeral note.

Rage overtook me. I disinterred Aunt Emily's own gramophone and records. I packed the horn anyhow. Such of the records as seemed difficult to get in I broke into small pieces and shoved in corners. I nailed the packing-case up with the same nails and addressed it in the boldest and fiercest of characters to Aunt Emily and caught the railway-van on the rebound. The deed was done.

I laughed "Ha, ha!" I laughed "Ho, ho!" I would teach Aunt Emily to return me my own vase.

Next morning came a letter. As I read it perspiration burst out on my forehead. Language the most awful burst from my lips.

And yet it was a simple letter--from my little cousin Dolly.

"DEAR BOB," it said,--"I sent you a yellow-and-red vase for Christmas. Your Aunt Emily gave it me as a wedding present. It is not my style and must be yours, because I have seen one like it in your house. Perhaps you collect them. Don't tell your Aunt, but I really couldn't bear it. I forgot to put any note in the box. Happy Christmas.

"Love, DOLLY."

And Aunt Emily would have opened my case by now.

On Christmas Day I received a letter from her which I opened with cold and clammy fingers.

She thanked me for sending back the gramophone. She was sorry I did not care for it. She was now sending it to a hospital for shell-shocked officers. And she wished me a Blithe Yuletide on a penny card. And she was very sincerely mine.

Anyone can have her for aught I care.

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* * * * *

A SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

"I want you," said my hostess, "to take in Mrs. Blank. She is charming. All through the War she has been with her husband in the South Seas. London is a new place to her."

Mrs. Blank did not look too promising. She was pretty in her way--"elegant" an American would have called her--but she lacked animation. However, the South Seas...! Anyone fresh from the Pacific must have enough to tell to see soup, fish and _entrée_ safely through.

I began by remarking that she must find London a very complete change after the sun and placidity that she had come from.

"It's certainly noisier," she said; "but we had our share of rain."

"I thought it was always fine there," I remarked; but she laughed a denial and relapsed into silence.

She was one of those women who don't take soup, and this made the economy of her utterances the more unfair.

Racking my brain for a new start I fell back on those useful fellows, the authors. Presuming that anyone who had lived in that fascinating region--the promised land (if land is the word) of so many of us who are weary of English climatic treacheries--would be familiar with the literature of it. I went boldly to work.

"The first book about the South Seas that I ever read," I said, "was BALLANTYNE'S _Coral Island_."

"Indeed!" she replied.

I asked her if she too had not been brought up on BALLANTYNE, and she said no. She did not even know his name.

"He wrote for boys," I explained rather lamely.

"I read poetry chiefly as a girl," she said.

"But surely you know STEVENSON'S _Island Nights' Entertainment_?" I said.

No, she did not. Was it nice?

"It's extraordinary," I said. "It gives you more of the atmosphere of the South Seas than any other work. And Louis BECKE--you must have read him?" I continued.

No, she had not. She read very little. The last book she had read was on spiritualism.

"Not even CONRAD?" I pursued. "No one has so described the calms and storms of the Pacific."

No, she remembered no story called _Conrad_.

I was about to explain that CONRAD was the writer, not the written; but it seemed a waste of words, and we fell into a stillness broken only by the sound of knife and fork.

"Hang it! you shall talk," I said to myself; and then aloud, "Tell me all about copra. I have longed to know what copra is; how it grows, what it looks like, what it is for."

"You have come to the wrong person," she replied, with wide eyes. "I never heard of it. Or did you say 'cobra'? Of course I know what a cobra is--it's a snake. I've seen them at the Zoo."

I put her right. "Copra, the stuff that the traders in the South Seas deal in."

"I never heard of it," she said. "But then why should I? I know nothing about the South Seas."

My stock fell thirty points and I crumbled bread nervously, hoping for something sensible to say; but at this moment "half-time" mercifully set in. My partner on the other side turned to me suavely and asked if I thought the verses in _Abraham Lincoln_ were a beauty or a blemish; and with the assistance of the London stage, the flight to America, Mrs. FULTON'S _Blight_, Mr. WALPOLE'S _Secret City_ and the prospects of the new Academy, I sailed serenely into port. She was as easy and agreeable a woman as that other was difficult, and before she left for the drawing-room she had invited me to lunch and I had accepted.

As I said Good-night to my hostess I asked why she had told me that my first partner had been in the South Seas. She said that she had said nothing of the sort; what she had said was that during the War she had been stationed with her husband, Colonel Blank, at Southsea.

* * * * *

THE MESSAGE OF HULL.

The Hull Election has been keenly discussed in various papers, but by none with more enthusiasm than _The Daily News_. In a special article from the luminous pen of "A.G.G.," in the issue of April 12th, the true inwardness of the portent is thus revealed:--

"The message of Hull is a message for all the world. It is the announcement that this country, whatever its Government may do, will not have a French peace. It is a declaration to America that the English people are with her in her determination to have a League of Nations' settlement and no other. It is the repudiation of Conscription, of war on Russia, of the permanent military occupation of Germany, of imperialism and grab, of war policy in Ireland, of repression in Egypt, of the reckless profligacy and corruption that are plunging Europe into Bolshevism and hurrying this country to irretrievable ruin."

We confess that we are staggered by the moderation, not to say modesty, of "A.G.G." as an interpreter of the meaning of the Hull Election. He has omitted infinitely more than he has inscribed in his list.

The return of Commander KENWORTHY stands, of course, for all these things, but for many others of at least equal importance.

It means the disappearance of influenza, the ravages of which are clearly traceable to the political virus disseminated by the Coalition.

It means the rehabilitation of Mr. BIRRELL and his return to public life as English Ambassador to the Court of King Valeroso I.

It foreshadows the wholesale gratuitous distribution of cigarettes, marmalade and gramophones.

It means the prohibition of the use of the French horn in orchestras and all places where they play, the reinstatement of the German flute and the restoration of the German Fleet.

Lastly, it means the compulsory prohibition of all Greek except "Alpha of the Plough."

* * * * *

TO A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD

(_WITH HIS FIRST CRICKET SET_).

Here's a gift to take and treasure, England's gift as well as mine, Symbol of her clean-spent leisure, Of her youth and strength a sign; Gleams of sunlight on old meadows O'er these varnished toys are cast, And within that box's shadows Stir the triumphs of the Past.

Still the ancient tale entrances, Giving us in golden dower ULYETT'S drives and IVO's glances, JACKSON'S dash and THORNTON'S power; Skill of LYTTELTONS and LACEYS, Grit of SHREWSBURYS and GUNNS; Pride of STUDDS and STEELS and GRACES Piling up their English runs.

Take these simple toys as token Of the champions that have been, Stalwart in defence unbroken, Hefty hitters, hitting clean; And, when capped in Life's eleven, May you stand as firm as they; May you, little son of seven, Play the game the English way.

W.H.O.

* * * * *

"It seems to be a ruling passion amongst certain writers to portray anybody connected with commerce as being an ungrammatical ignoramus. Even Kipling panders to this notion in his conception of a drapery assistant in the person of 'Kipps.'"--_Draper's Organiser_.

But did not Mr. WELLS do something to redress the balance in _Kim_?

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)

The latest of the now so fashionable short-story volumes to come my way is one called _Our Casualty, Etc._ (SKEFFINGTON). Much virtue in that "_Etc._," which covers other fifteen little tales in the best, or nearly the best, "Birmingham" manner. I say "nearly," because for its happiest expression the art of "Mr. GEORGE BIRMINGHAM" demands space to tangle events into more complicated confusion than can be contrived in the dozen pages of these episodes. But within their limitations they are all excellent fun, partly concerned with the War (usually with an Irishman involved), partly recalled from the piping and whisky-drinking times of peace, at Inishmore and elsewhere. One can only treat them after the manner of the schoolboy who declined to distinguish between the Major and Minor Prophets. But I rather specially enjoyed the title-piece, which tells how the super-patriotism of an aged volunteer defeated the kindly plans of those who would have saved him fatigue by assigning to him the rôle of casualty in a trench-relief practice. Casualties also figure in "Getting Even," an improbable but highly entertaining fiction of the score practised by an ingenious Medical Officer (Irish, I need hardly say) upon an over-zealous C.O., who, to keep him busy during a field day, flooded his "clearing station" with all sorts of complicated imaginary cases, only to find the fictitious victims arranged comfortably in rows under the shade of the trees to await the Padre and a burying party, the M.O. reporting that they had all died before reaching him. It couldn't possibly happen as here told, but that matters little, since, so far as I am concerned, a "Birmingham" tale can always well afford to dispense with credibility.

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