Chapter 3

The dancing, as usual, was rather perfunctory, if one excepts a _pas de deux_ which gave promise of a parody of the Russians and turned out to be just a series of contortionist feats, brilliant but unlovely.

As good wine needs no bush, so good babes need no wood; but Messrs. McCLEERY and HUMPHRIES painted for them a quite nice one, where, after some very pleasant business with a brace of giant mushrooms that went up and down like a lift, the robins came and camouflaged the wanderers under a counterpane of fallen leaves, where they behaved much better than in ordinary beds. But the best scene was M. MARC HENRI's Temple of Peace--very beautiful with its dim perspective, till the garish light of "The Day" was turned on. Here the assertive colours of the Allies were tempered to an exquisite pale harmony, only slightly damaged by a nondescript contingent in pink (possibly neutrals) and the apparition of Mr. ARTHUR COLLINS and other gentlemen in black, who came on to receive the expression of our grateful approbation.

I stayed long enough into the Harlequinade to see little Prince OLAF of Norway, in QUEEN ALEXANDRA's box, capture a large cracker dexterously flung to him by the Pantaloon. So ended for me an evening more jocund than I have had the good grace to admit.

O. S.

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OUR CLASSICAL ADVERTISERS.

"The trade-mark name of tins coat--'Aquascutum'--is a Latin word, and translated into our own good English, 'Aqua,' means water. 'Scutum' means to shed. There you are--Watershed."

_Advt. in Canadian Paper._

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"They belileve that an not inconsiderable number of dddeeeeeddlllllllcleeeeeece cw pavem ponnun _ex-parte_ opinions are given for what they may be worth."

_Manchester Paper._

For our part we belileve this estimate of the value of _ex-parte_ opinions, of the kind indicated, to be sound, if rather scathing.

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"In lieu of the February Sale and Spring Show, hitherto held in April, an important sale of pure-bred bulls will be held in the Show Grounds at Ballsbridge, on Thursday and Friday, 13th and 14th March."--_Cork Examiner._

We trust the above specimen will be duly entered.

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"After the act from _Masks and Faces_ came the letter-reading, the murder and the sleepwalking scenes from _Macbeth_, with Miss Mary Anderson and Mr. Lyn Harding. Tragic poetry of this intensity, of course, knocks everything else endways."--_Times._

Or, as SHAKSPEARE himself is said to have exclaimed, as he penned the last line of it, "That's the stuff to give 'em."

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"There should also be mentioned the merchants' bank, Towarzystwo Pozyczkowe Przemyslowcow Miasta Poznania."

_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society._

We have tried to mention it, but failed miserably.

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"The Major then spoke of battles in which he had taken part. He had been wounded in the back leg and arm."--_Evening News._

Bit of a dog, this Major.

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"PROMOTION.-Rifleman P.R. Shand to be Sergeant Cock."--_Ceylon Paper._

We hope Sergeant Cock was consulted about this.

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* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Not infrequently our novelists will follow success with a boy hero by a sequel showing the same character grown up. Mr. E.F. BENSON, however, has reversed this process, and in a second book about _David Blaize_ introduces him grown not up, but down. So far down, indeed, as to be able to pass through a door conveniently situated under his own pillow and leading to a dreamland of the most varied enchantments. I know, of course, what you are about to say; I can see your lips already forming upon the word _Alice_. But while I admit that _David Blaize and the Blue Door_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is frankly built after that famous plan this means no more than that Mr. BENSON has used, so to speak, the CARROLL formula as a medium for his agreeable fancies. These are altogether original and filled with the proper dream-spirit of inconsequence. Moreover the author has a pretty gift for remembering just the stuff that childhood's dreams are made of--such transfigured delights as swimming like fishes or flying in a company of birds; he knows too the odd tags of speech that linger there from daytime, things meaningless and full of meaning--"Rod-pole-or-perch," for example, or that thrice-blessed word, "Popocatapetl." Best of all, he has resisted the subtle temptation to be even momentarily too clever for his audience (you know the devastating effect that may be produced if a grown-up pauses on the edge of the circle and reminds the story-teller that he has a reputation for wit). In fine, this early dream of _David's_ shows him fortunate in having an old family friend like Mr. Benson to write it down; also--what I must on no account forget--so sympathetic an artist as Mr. H.J. FORD to make it into pictures.

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Those who have learnt to value their "TAFFRAIL" will find matter very much to their mind in his latest book, _A Little Ship_ (CHAMBERS). I do not wish to institute any invidious comparisons between the marine mixture as provided by "TAFFRAIL" and that of other nautical writers, but this much I may say with perfect confidence: the men to be found in "TAFFRAIL'S" stories are true human stuff, sturdy, dogged in doing their duty, and brave almost beyond recklessness; but they are men all the time, and not solemn and consecrated angels. That is, I suppose, why I find that "TAFFRAIL'S" stories go straight to the mark and make their effect with no undue waste of time; and, if a little bit of laughter is occasionally worked in, so much the better. The last chapter in the book gives an account of the Zeebrugge expedition. The story is so bravely told that a man can hardly refrain from shouting in apprehension and exultation as he reads it.

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I have a grudge against the publishers of _Miss Mink's Soldier_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) because they have printed on its wrapper, "By the Author of _Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch_," which led me, perhaps foolishly, to hope that _Mrs. Wiggs_ and I were to foregather once more, and when we didn't made me just a little surly towards a book of short tales which, opened with any other expectation, would have seemed much above the average. There are eight stories in the book, and in almost all of them is found that blend of pathos and humour that Mrs. ALICE HEGAN RICE has taught us to expect. I liked "Cupid Goes Slumming," because it was almost _Cabbage Patch_; but "Hoodooed," the story of an old negro who believed himself the victim of a spell which involved the presence of a cricket in his leg, delighted me even more. His wife removes the charm with a vacuum cleaner, in which she has previously secreted a cricket, and the victim recovers. It pleased me very much to learn that among "white folk's superstitions" is the theory that it is "bad luck to sleep with the windows shet," and, when I come to think of it, I believe that it is very bad luck indeed.

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I should have liked GABRIELLE VALLINGS' _Tumult_ (HUTCHINSON) a good deal better if she could have managed it without the aid of a Pan who wandered, emitting a strong smell, chiefly in the demesne of a very expensive and over-cultivated French noble. It was his daughter (by an Australian wife) who was suffering from an inordinate perplexity as to which half of her blood had the real call. The Australian half suggested that she should marry a gentleman-rider who won the Grand Prix in a canter, but fell at the winning-post because his horse shied at the irrepressible Pan. The French half--and both her parents--urged a dissolute and anaemic aristocrat--blue blood and a gold lining. Her grandfather, a strong unsilent sheep-rancher, was against this inept decadent and converted to his view that saintly worldling, the gorgeous _Cardinal Camperioni_. A neo-futurist of the most bizarre type prances through the pages upon his head, causing enough "tumult" to satisfy any one. So why drag in Pan? Miss VALLINGS can tell a story, cannot keep down the volume of her puppets' talk, has a sense of movement and colour, and ought to win for herself a good circulating library constituency.

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For myself I have never yet lived in a sailing barge, and under the providence of Heaven trust to continue in this immunity. There are however those who regard the matter differently; and for their benefit I have no hesitation in recommending most warmly _A Floating Home_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS), written by CYRIL IONIDES and J.B. ATKINS, and illustrated partly with photographs, partly with water-colour sketches by that various craftsman, Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT. Let me say at once that you have no need to be an amateur bargee, either by practice or desire, to enjoy this most entertaining volume. Witness my own case, who read every page of it with delight. It is a reasonable contention that a writer possessing the enthusiasm, the humour and the persuasive gifts of Mr. IONIDES, with a twelve-and-sixpenny book for their display, could present a case that would give some theoretic and superficial charm to the most uncomfortable conditions of existence. Not that _A Floating Home_ is a work only of theory; on the contrary, nothing could be more practical than its account of the purchase, conversion and enjoyment of the _Ark Royal_. The most prejudiced--again I speak personally--will find pleasure in the author's zestful story of how the dingy, foul-smelling _Will Arding_, full of cement (and worse things), was transformed into the spick-and-span _Ark Royal_, with a piano in the saloon and Queen Anne silver on the breakfast-table; while for the persuadable there are added plans, scales of expense and the like, which bring the whole matter to a working basis. The book, in short, is propaganda at its best (was it perhaps this that attracted Mr. BENNETT?) and as such well entitled to its toll of converts.

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_Warriors and Statesmen_ (MURRAY) is a book selected from the "gleanings" of the late Lord BRASSEY. Such gleanings depend so largely on the personality of the gleaner that they may be worth anything or nothing; so let me say at once that Lord BRASSEY had too sound a taste to be a collector of ill-considered trifles. Although warriors have the place of honour in the title they are given but little space in the book. Still, in these days the soldier can well afford to let the statesman have the advantage in a collection that does not deal with the living. This limitation may explain the absence of all mention of Lord ROBERTS, who was probably still alive when the gleanings were completed. Apart from the evidence it gives of a fine mind the book preserves much that is worth remembering and presents it in a convenient form. For this we have in part to thank Mr. HORACE HUTCHINSON, to whom Lord BRASSEY entrusted the work of selecting these literary sheaves.

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_From the Home Front_ (CONSTABLE) is a further, and rather belated, selection from the War verses that have appeared from week to week on the second page of _Punch_. Conscious of cherishing a natural prejudice in favour of his own productions, Mr. Punch forbears to commend this little volume, but he may permit himself to say that, in the judgment of _The Daily News_, which is above suspicion of bias, it is calculated to provoke "a sorrow chequered by disgust."

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"This royal throne of kings, This sceptical isle, this seat of Mars."

_Quotation by Miss MARIE CORELLI in "The Pall Mall Gazette."_

No man is a prophet in his own country, and this is how Shakespeare gets treated at Stratford-on-Avon.