Chapter 3

* * * * *

THE LETTERS THAT COUNT.

["Meanwhile one sighs for the letters which do not exist."--C.K.S., in "_The Sphere_."]

I never have felt any hunger, Apart from my shortage of gold, For the spoils of the autograph-monger, The screeds of the sages of old; By envy unvexed and unsmitten I study the connoisseur's list, But I sigh for the letters unwritten, Or those that no longer exist.

The notes, for example, that Hector Despatched to his Andromache, When, tied to a troublesome sector, He couldn't get home to his tea; Or the messages CÆSAR kept sending To pacify QUEEN CLEOPAT, When, simply from fear of offending The mob, he avoided her flat.

But even more impetus giving, More apt to inspire and refresh, Are the letters addressed to the living By writers no more in the flesh-- The epistles to WILCOX from SHELLEY, From LANDOR to Mrs. JOHN LANE, From SWIFT to Miss MARIE CORELLI, From POPE to Sir THOMAS HALL CAINE;

The instructions to NORTHCLIFFE from BONEY, The comments of SHAKSPEARE on SHAW, COLUMBUS'S hints to MARCONI, TOM HUGHES'S to young ALEC WAUGH, Or a letter to cheer her supporter In CHARLOTTE'S own delicate fist, Enclosing her photo to SHORTER-- A letter which does not exist.

For relics of _this_ sort I hanker, For these, when they're offered for sale, I will beg overdrafts from my banker And bid on a liberal scale; For the arts of the DOYLES and the LODGES Are bound to contribute new grist To SOTHEBY'S mills and to HODGE'S In the letters which do not exist.

* * * * *

AN AID TO GENUFLEXION.

"The Rev. ----, minister of ---- U.F. Church, was yesterday presented with pulpit robes, hassock, hood and cap by his congregation."--_Scotch Paper_.

* * * * *

"Schools of cokery are being 'snowed' under with applications,"--_Evening Paper_.

We ourselves call almost every day to ask for more cokery.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"BOTCHES."

AN APPEAL FOR GOD-PARENTS.

For many years the village of Chailey, in Sussex--famous topographically for possessing that conical tree which is said to mark the centre of the county, and for a landmark windmill of dazzling whiteness--has been famous sociologically for its Heritage Craft Schools of crippled boys and girls. Among the ameliorative institutions of this country none has a finer record than these schools, where ever since 1897 the work of converting helplessness into helpfulness has been going bravely on. Entering as complete dependents, the inmates leave fully equipped to earn their living unassisted, the boys chiefly as carpenters, and the girls as needlewomen. In some cases the cures effected have been remarkable. In the late War seven-and-twenty Guild boys fought in the ranks, four of whom were killed and are now proudly commemorated on the wall of the School church.

This contribution of fighting men, together with a certain activity in munition-making, is not, however, Chailey's only share in the War, for the Government are using its experience for the education of cripples of a larger growth. The boys have, in short, surrendered their comfortable old quarters--now transferred to a War Hospital, named, after the Heritage's chief patron, the Princess Louise Special Military Surgical Hospital--to companies of maimed soldiers, who are sent to Chailey to learn how much of usefulness and fun can still remain when limbs are missing; and, by a charming inspiration, their teachers in this great lesson are the boys themselves. It is no doubt encouraging for a soldier who has lost both arms to be told by a kindly and enthusiastic visitor at his bedside that all will be well, and he will be able to manage without them; but a certain measure of scepticism and despair may remain to darken his waking hours. But when a little fellow in precisely the same plight shows him how the disabilities have been conquered, his zest in life begins to return. Seeing is believing, and believing means new endeavour. The result is that the crippled soldiers at Chailey, taught by the crippled boys, have been transformed into happy and active men, and not a few of them have discovered themselves to possess faculties of which they had no notion. There is even an armless billiard-player among them; and I could not wish him a happier setting for the exercise of his skill. For here is one of the finest Y.M.C.A. recreation halls in the country, with a view of the South Downs that probably no other can boast. Whether or not the method of learning from a young cripple the art of being an old one is novel, I cannot say, but it has been proved to be eminently successful; and one of its attractions is the pride taken not only in their mature pupils by the immature masters but in the boys by the men.

Meanwhile, what became of the boys whose nest was thus invaded? (The Girls' School and Babies' Montessori School is half-a-mile away.) They immediately showed what they are made of by themselves erecting on the ground beside the windmill a series of Kitchener huts. There they sleep and eat, coming hobbling down to headquarters for carpentering and to perform their strange new duties as guides, philosophers and friends.

Another development in the Chailey scheme of altruism that arose from the War was, as readers of _Punch_ will no doubt remember, the sudden establishment of the St. Nicholas Home for child victims of the air-raids. So sudden was it that within seven days of the inception of the idea a house had been found and furnished, a staff engaged and a number of the beds were occupied. Here, throughout the last years of the War, terrified children were soothed back to serenity and a sense of security in the sky above.

And now for "Botches." It had long been one of the many aspirations of the founder of the Heritage Schools, and the founder also of the Guild of Brave Poor Things and the Guild of Play--Mrs. C.W. KIMMINS--who in her quiet practical way is probably as good a friend as London ever had--it had long been one of her dreams that the word "cripple" should be enlarged from its narrower meaning to include the crippled mind no less than the crippled limbs. In her work in Southwark, where the Guild of the Brave Poor Things began, she has seen too many children stunted and enfeebled by lack of pure food and fresh air, who would under better conditions grow naturally into health and strength and even power: "little mothers" taxed beyond their capacity by thoughtless parents, and all the other types of "cripple" which the mean streets of a great city can only too easily produce. If a house at Chailey or near by could be found or built where this wasted material might be nourished into happy efficiency, how splendid! Such was the desire of the founder, and it is now within sight of fruition; for, through the generosity of a friend of the Heritage, the house has been acquired and is ready for occupation.

Strange are the vicissitudes of fortune; stranger the links in the chain of life. CLAUDE and ALICE ASKEW, who wrote popular serial novels in the daily papers, lived in a rambling old home at Wivelsfield Green, in Sussex, known as "Botches." This they enlarged and modernised; they developed the gardens and filled the grass with bulbs. Then came the War. Mr. and Mrs. ASKEW threw themselves into foreign work, and on one of their voyages were drowned through an enemy torpedo, and "Botches" became tenantless. It is "Botches" which has now been given to the Heritage for the reception of Southwark children.

For the peopling and maintenance of the Home a novel and very pretty device has been invented. Everyone has heard of the _marraines_ of France during the War--those ladies who made themselves responsible each for the comfort of a _poilu_, sending him gifts of food and cigarettes, writing him letters and so forth. It is the _marraine_--or godmother--system which is being adopted and adapted for "Botches." The house can accommodate fifty children, and as many godmothers or godfathers are needed, each of whom will be responsible for one child for a year, at a minimum cost of fifty pounds. The Duchess of MARLBOROUGH, who has just been elected a Southwark County Councillor, was the first to accept this honourable privilege, and other ladies and gentlemen have already joined her; but there are still many vacancies. Mr. Punch, who has very great pleasure in giving publicity to Mrs. KIMMINS'S most admirable scheme, would be proud indeed if the other godparents were found among his readers. All communications on the subject should be addressed to the Hon. Treasurer, Miss A.C. RENNIE, the Heritage Craft Schools, Chailey, Sussex.

"Botches," it should be added, is not to be the Home's final name. The final name--something descriptive of the work before it and its ideal of restoration--has yet to be found. Perhaps some of Mr. Punch's readers have suggestions.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"NAVAL SQUADRON IN ROME.

ROME, Sunday.

The special Brazilian naval squadron, comprising the cruiser Bahia and four destroyers, under the command of Admiral Defrontin, arrived to-day."--_Evening Paper_.

Like the British Army, it looks as if the Brazilian Navy can "go anywhere."

* * * * *

A WASTED TALENT.

Fresh knowledge of a varied kind While in the army I acquired, Some useful, which I didn't mind, And much that made me tired; But one result was undesigned; It cost me neither toil nor care: Swiftly and surely, with the ease Of drinking beer or shelling peas, War taught me how to swear.

Widely my power was recognised; The hardiest soldier shook like froth, And even mules were paralysed To hear me voice my wrath; Unhappy he and ill-advised Who dared withstand when I reviled; Have I not seen a whole platoon Wilt and grow pale and almost swoon When I was really wild?

But now those happy days are past; A mild civilian once again, I dare not even whisper "----!" If something gives me pain; Barred are those curses, surging fast, That swift and stinging repartee; Instead of words that peal and crash I breathe a soft innocuous "Dash!" Or murmur, "Dearie me!"

Yet sometimes still, when on the rack And past all due forbearance tried, The ancient fierce desire comes back, I seem to boil inside; And then I take a hefty sack, I place my head within, and thus Loose off, in some secluded niche, A deep, whole-hearted, grateful, rich, Sustained, delirious cuss.

* * * * *

THE SLUMP IN MONARCHY.

From a publisher's advertisement:--

THE PRICE OF A THRONE ----- 1/6 NETT

* * * * *

"The scratching of the hydroplane Sutnrise for the Atlantic Flight Stakes must tempt her captain to change his name from Sunstedt to Sunsttd."--_Provincial Paper_.

We fear the printer did not appreciate the sub-editor's humour.

* * * * *

"Until they get a barber the Islington Board of Guardians are employing a gardener to do hair-cutting and shaving work in his spare time at a remuneration of 1s. 3d. per hour."--_Daily Express_.

But we understand that he is expected to provide his own scythe.

* * * * *

THE OLD SHIPS.

They called 'em from the breakers' yards, the shores of Dead Men's Bay, From coaling wharves the wide world round, red-rusty where they lay, And chipped and caulked and scoured and tarred and sent 'em on their way.

It didn't matter what they were nor what they once had been, They cleared the decks of harbour-junk and scraped the stringers clean And turned 'em out to try their luck with the mine and submarine ...

With a scatter o' pitch and a plate or two, And she's fit for the risks o' war--- Fit for to carry a freight or two, The same as she used before; To carry a cargo here and there, And what she carries she don't much care, Boxes or barrels or baulks or bales, Coal or cotton or nuts or nails, Pork or pepper or Spanish beans, Mules or millet or sewing-machines, Or a trifle o' lumber from Hastings Mill ... She's carried 'em all and she'll carry 'em still, The same as she's done before.

And some were waiting for a freight, and some were laid away, And some were liners that had broke all records in their day, And some were common eight-knot tramps that couldn't make it pay.

And some were has-been sailing cracks of famous old renown, Had logged their eighteen easy when they ran their easting down With cargo, mails and passengers bound South from London Town ...

With a handful or two o' ratline stuff, And she's fit for to sail once more; She's rigged and she's ready and right enough, The same as she was before; The same old ship on the same old road She's always used and she's always knowed, For there isn't a blooming wind can blow In all the latitudes, high or low, Nor there isn't a kind of sea that rolls, From both the Tropics to both the Poles, But she's knowed 'em all since she sailed sou' Spain, She's weathered the lot, and she'll do it again, The same as she's done before.

And sail or steam or coasting craft, the big ships with the small, The barges which were steamers once, the hulks that once were tall, They wanted tonnage cruel bad, and so they fetched 'em all.

And some went out as fighting-craft and shipped a fighting crew, But most they tramped the same old road they always used to do, With a crowd of merchant-sailormen, as might be me or you ...

With a lick o' paint and a bucket o' tar, And she's fit for the seas once more, To carry the Duster near and far, The same as she used before; The same old Rag on the same old round, Bar Light vessel and Puget Sound, Brass and Bonny and Grand Bassam, Both the Rios and Rotterdam-- Dutch and Dagoes, niggers and Chinks, Palms and fire-flies, spices and stinks-- Portland (Oregon), Portland (Maine), She's been there once and she'll go there again, The same as she's been before.

* * * * *

Their bones are strewed to every tide from Torres Strait to Tyne-- God's truth, they've paid their blooming dues to the tin-fish and the mine, By storm or calm, by night or day, from Longships light to Line.

With a bomb or a mine or a bursting shell, And she'll follow the seas no more, She's fetched and carried and served you well, The same as she's done before-- They've fetched and carried and gone their way, As good ships should and as brave men may ... And we'll build 'em still, and we'll breed 'em again, The same good ships and the same good men, The same--the same--the same as we've done before!

C.F.S.

* * * * *

A FIRST-CLASS MISDEMEANANT.

Cozens has a conscience--a conformist conscience--and is a first-class season-ticket holder.

The other morning we were travelling up to town together as usual. He was evidently bursting with the anticipatory pride of telling me something very much to his credit. Presently, at a gap in my reading, he said:--

"I left my season at home this morning, so I bought a return."

"What on earth for?" I expostulated. "You've already paid the company once by taking out a season; why pay twice? And anyhow it's only the Government."

"It's the first duty of a citizen to obey the laws of his country," he proclaimed sententiously.

"Oh, all right; but you'll never get your money back--not from the Government. Besides, you could easily have got through without a ticket."

"How?"

"By taking out your note-case at the barrier and showing the girl the back of a Bradbury. Dazzled by the display of so much wealth, she'd pass you without a murmur."

"A miserable subterfuge," Cozens protested.

"Or you and I might walk up to the barrier deep in conversation. I should then get in front, and the examiner would pull me up for my ticket. I should fumble before producing my season. Meantime you would have passed beyond recall."

"I simply couldn't do it."

"Or why not pay at the barrier, if you _must_ pay?"

"Yes, and lose the return ticket rate. How should I get down to-night?"

"That's easy. Buy a platform ticket. The man at the gate at home will pass you; he knows you."

"All underhand work," said Cozens. "It's much more dignified to buy a ticket."

Just then a travelling inspector entered our carriage.

"Tickets, gentlemen, please!"

And Cozens, looking supremely undignified, produced a third-class return, and tried to explain.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)

MR. COMPTON MACKENZIE gives us in _Sylvia and Michael_ (SECKER) a continuation--I hesitate to say a conclusion--of the adventures of that amazing heroine, _Sylvia Scarlett_, which, being not a sequel but a second volume, needs some familiarity with the first for its full enjoyment. Not that anyone even meeting _Sylvia_ for the first time in mid-course could fail to be intrigued by the astounding things that are continually happening to her. The variety and piquancy of these events and the general brilliance of Mr. MACKENZIE'S colouring must keep the reader alert, curious, scandalized (perhaps), but always expectant. His scheme starts with an invigorating plunge (as one might say, off the deep end) into the cabaret society of Petrograd in 1914, where _Sylvia_ and the more than queer company at the pension of _Mère Gontran_ are surprised by the outbreak of war. Incidentally, _Mère Gontran_ herself, with her cats, whose tails wave in the gloom "like seaweed," and her tawdry spiritualism--"key-hole peeping at infinity" the heroine (or the author) rather happily calls it--is one of the least forgettable figures in the galaxy. I have no space to indicate what turns of this glittering kaleidoscope eventually bring _Sylvia_ and _Michael_ together during the Serbian retreat, though there are scenes upon which I should like to dwell, notably that of the death of _Guy Hazlewood_, an incident whose admirable restraint shows Mr. MACKENZIE at his best. One question I have to ask, and that is how has _Sylvia_ learnt to imitate so bewilderingly the mannerisms of _Michael_? Her soliloquies especially might have come straight from the first volume of _Sinister Street_, so much more do they suggest the cloistered adolescence of Carlington Road than a development from her own feverish youth. While I cannot pretend that she has for me the compelling vitality of _Jenny Pearl_, her adventures certainly make (for those who are not too nice about the morals or the conversation of their company) an exhilarating, even intoxicating entertainment, the end of which is, I am glad to think, still remote.

* * * * *

The publishers, in their preface to Mr. HUGH SPENDER'S new novel, _The Seekers_ (COLLINS), led me to believe that it was written with the object of denouncing the dangers and the frauds of spiritualism. This, however, is by no means the case. To be sure the first few chapters do contain an account of a _séance_, which serves not so much to lay bare the mysteries of spiritualism as to bring together a few of the characters in the novel. From that point onward there is nothing more about spooks, save for an occasional reference. It is when the _dramatis personæ_ have been well collected in and about a Yorkshire vicarage that things really get a move on and begin to hum. No reader is entitled to complain of a lack of excitement; the mortality, indeed, is almost Shakspearean. _Rudge_, a medium, who must not be confused with our old friend, _Mr. Sludge_, perishes in a snowstorm. _John Havering_ batters in the head of _Hubert Kenyon_, and later on commits suicide, while _Beaufort_, a Labour leader, is wrongfully charged with the murder of _Hubert_ and barely escapes with his life. Everything however ends comparatively well, owing to a strong female interest. Mr. SPENDER is usually a careful workman, but sometimes his sentences get the better of him. Here is one such: "She wondered if Peter, who must have seen Mary as he came into the vicarage disappear into the study, had gone in, hoping to find her there as he left the house." It is not often however that Mr. SPENDER leaves his clauses to fight it out together like that.

* * * * *

In _The Golden Rope_ (LANE) Mr. J.W. BRODIE-INNES has tried to combine a tale of mystery and murder with the love-story of a man of fifty; and, on the whole, it is a fairly successful effort. _Alan Maclean_, the middle-aged one, who tells the tale, was a celebrated artist, and, when he made his way to Devon to paint Pontylanyon Castle, he little expected to find himself involved in a maze of intrigue and adventure. The castle, however, was owned by a lady of great but unfortunate possessions. In the first place she had a dual personality (and, believe me, it is the very deuce to have a dual personality); and, secondly, she possessed a crowd of relatives (Austrian) who wanted her estate and were ready to remove mountains and men to get it. I know nothing of _Mr. Maclean's_ pictures except that I am assured by the author that they were exquisitely beautiful, but I do know that Mr. INNES'S own canvas suffers from overcrowding, and, although I admire the deft way in which he handles his embarrassment of figures, his task would have been less complicated and my enjoyment more complete if he had managed to do with fewer. Otherwise I can recommend _The Golden Hope_ both for its exciting episodes, lavish of thrills, and for the warning it gives to men of fifty to stick to their pigments, or whatever their stock-in-trade may be.

* * * * *

_The Cinderella Man_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), "a romance of youth," by HELEN and EDWARD CARPENTER, is more suited to the ingenuous than the sophisticated reader. Its hero is a poet, _Tony Quintard_, very poor and deathly proud. The scene is set in New York and largely in _Tony's_ attic verse-laboratory, which _Marjorie_, the rugged millionaire's daughter, visits by way of the leads in a perfectly proper if unconventional mood. The idiom occasionally soars into realms even higher. Thus when _Tony's_ father dies he is "summoned, by the Great Usher of Eternity." When the gentle _Marjorie_, reading out one of _Tony's_ efforts--

"Love whose feet are shod with light Lost this ribbon in her flight; Rosette of the twilight sky, Waft to me Love's lullaby!"