Chapter 2

"Ah," said Mrs. Bloggins, speaking with deep emotion, "you may well call 'em Americans, for I've never bin so troubled about anythink before. Some people seem to git the notion into their 'eads that bed-makers do no work. Why we're arst to slave from mornin' till night, and our pay is paltry. Things in Cambridge isn't like what they was. Time was when our young gentlemen used to 'ave big dinners in their rooms, and a careful bed-maker could save a bone or two. Nowadays they,'re only cheese-parers, that's what I call 'em. You won't believe me, I know, but my mother, who was a bed-maker afore me, used to 'ave a month at the seaside every year, all paid for out of money give to 'er by 'er young gentlemen. To be sure there was a wrangler, or somethink of that kind, who didn't come up to the mark, so she soon got rid of 'im; 'e used to find 'is butter was took by the cat, and accidents of that kind.

"Mind yer," she continued, "I ain't got nothink to say against the Americans. They may be the most liberal-'earted gentlemen in the world for all I know. But it's the principle of the thing I'm objectin' to. It's a case of kill me quick or cure me to-morrow, and if President WILSON was to talk till next week 'e couldn't make it no different. You can't make a silk sock out of a side of bacon, and that's true whichever way you look at it."

"But what steps," we urged, "does your Association intend to take, Mrs. Bloggins, over this matter?"

"I don't know nothink about no 'sociations," said Mrs. Bloggins, "but I do know that we're all in it, and Mrs. Pledger and Mrs. 'Uggins, and the rest of 'em, we knows our power and we intends to use it."

"In what way do you mean?" I said.

She looked at me cunningly.

"Now you're spyin'. It's dirty work and I won't 'ave it 'ere. You might be the Proctor hisself for all I cares--you're not going to ferret nothink out of me."

Hereupon she rose with great dignity and plainly indicated that the interview was at an end.

* * * * *

La Haute Cuisine.

"Cook; French; age 38; wages £25-£30 week."--_Morning Post._

* * * * *

TO THE DEATH.

[According to the papers, two Frenchmen have agreed to fight a duel in aeroplanes.]

"Cauliflower!" shrieked Gaspard Volauvent across the little table in the _estaminet_. His face bristled with rage.

"Serpent!" replied Jacques Rissolo, bristling with equal dexterity.

The two stout little men glared ferociously at each other. Then Jacques picked up his glass and poured the wine of the country over his friend's head.

"Drown, serpent!" he said magnificently. He beckoned to the waiter. "Another bottle," he said. "My friend has drunk all this."

Gaspard removed the wine from his whiskers with the local paper and leant over the table towards Jacques.

"This must be wiped out in blood," he said slowly. "You understand?"

"Perfectly," replied the other. "The only question is whose."

"Name your weapons," said Gaspard Volauvent grandly.

"Aeroplanes," replied Jacques Rissole after a moment's thought.

"Bah! I cannot fly."

"Then I win," said Jacques simply.

The other looked at him in astonishment.

"What! You fly?"

"No; but I can learn."

"Then I will learn too," said Gaspard with dignity. "We meet--in six months?"

"Good." Jacques pointed to the ceiling. "Say three thousand feet up."

"Three thousand four hundred," said Gaspard for the sake of disagreeing.

"After all, that is for our seconds to arrange. My friend Épinard of the Roullens Aerodrome will act for me. He will also instruct me how to bring serpents to the ground."

"With the idea of cleansing the sky of cauliflowers," said Gaspard, "I shall proceed to the flying-ground at Dormancourt; Blanchaille, the instructor there, will receive your friend."

He bowed and walked out.

Details were soon settled. On a date six months ahead the two combatants would meet three thousand two hundred feet above the little town in which they lived, and fight to the death. In the event of both crashing, the one who crashed last would be deemed the victor. It was Gaspard's second who insisted on this clause; Gaspard himself felt that it did not matter.

The first month of instruction went by. At the end of it Jacques Rissole had only one hope. It was that when he crashed he should crash on some of Gaspard's family. Gaspard had no hope, but one consolation. It was that no crash could involve his stomach, which he invariably left behind him as soon as the aeroplane rose.

At the end of the second month Gaspard wrote to Jacques.

"My friend," he wrote, "the hatred of you which I nurse in my bosom, and which fills me with the desire to purge you from the sky, is in danger of being transferred to my instructor. Let us therefore meet and renew our enmity."

Jacques Rissole wrote back to Gaspard.

"My enemy," he wrote, "there is nobody in the whole of the Roullens aerodrome whom I do not detest with a detestation beside which my hatred for you seems as maudlin adoration. This is notwithstanding the fact that I make the most marvellous progress in the art of flying. It is merely something in their faces which annoys me. Let me therefore see yours again, in the hope that it will make me think more kindly of theirs."

They met, poured wine over each other and parted. After another month the need of a further stimulant was felt. They met again, and agreed to insult each other weekly.

On the last day of his training Gaspard spoke seriously to his instructor.

"You see that I make nothing of it," he said. "My thoughts are ever with the stomach that I leave behind. Not once have I been in a position to take control. How then can I fight? My friend, I arrange it all. You shall take my place."

"Is that quite fair to Rissole?" asked Blanchaille doubtfully.

"Do not think that I want you to hurt him. That is not necessary. He will hurt himself. Keep out of his way until he has finished with himself, and then fly back here. It is easy."

It seemed the best way; indeed the only way. Gaspard Volauvent could never get to the _rendezvous_ alone, and it would be fatal to his honour if Jacques arrived there and found nobody to meet him. Reluctantly Blanchaille agreed.

At the appointed hour Gaspard put his head cautiously out of his bedroom window and gazed up into the heavens. He saw two aeroplanes straight above him. At the thought that he might have been in one of them he shuddered violently. Indeed he felt so unwell that the need for some slight restorative became pressing. He tripped off to the _estaminet_.

It was empty save for one table. Gaspard walked towards it, hoping for a little conversation. The occupant lowered the newspaper from in front of his face and looked up.

It was too much for Gaspard.

"Coward!" he shrieked.

Jacques, who had been just going to say the same thing, hastily substituted "Serpent!"

"I know you," cried Gaspard. "You send your instructor up in your place. Poltroon!"

Jacques picked up his glass and poured the wine of the country over his friend's head.

"Drown, serpent," he said magnificently. He beckoned to the waiter. "Another bottle," he said. "My friend has drunk all this."

Gaspard removed the wine from his whiskers with Jacques' paper and leant over him.

"This must be wiped out in blood," he said slowly. "Name your weapons."

"Submarines," said Jacques after a moment's thought.

A.A.M.

* * * * *

THE SWANS OF YPRES.

Ypres was once a weaving town, Where merchants jostled up and down And merry shuttles used to ply; On the looms the fleeces were Brought from the mart at Winchester, And silver flax from Burgundy.

Who is weaving there to-night? Only the moon, whose shuttle white Makes silver warp on dyke and pond; Her hands fling veils of lily-woof On riven spire and open roof And on the haggard marsh beyond.

No happy ghosts or fairies haunt The ancient city, huddling gaunt, Where waggons crawl with anxious wheel And o'er the marshland desolate Win slowly to the battered gate That Flemings call the Gate of Lille.

Yet by some wonder it befalls That, where the lonely outer walls Brood in the silent pool below, Among the sedges of the moat, Like lilies furled, the two swans float; "The Swans of Ypres" men call them now.

They have heard guns and many men Come and depart and come again, They have seen strange disastrous things, When fire and fume rolled o'er their nest; But changeless and aloof they rest, The Swans of Ypres, with folded wings.

* * * * *

"Will Treasury notes ever be displaced by boxes of chocolates? "--_Daily Paper_.

Certainly. Ours often are.

* * * * *

From the report of the Committee on the Staffing of Government Offices we gather that there has been a good deal of overflapping.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE SCHLOSS BILLET.

We had not expected much of a billet in a defeated and starving country; that was probably why everybody was enthusiastic over it--at first. I, as billeting officer, was especially proud of having discovered it. The very thing for Brigade Headquarters--secluded, dignified, commanding and spacious.

A couple of kilos from the gates through the drive brings you to the Schloss. Entering a hall about the size of a modern theatre you journey to the ante-room, a vast apartment, which for space compares favourably with the Coliseum at Rome. A world-exhibition of pictures and tapestries covers the walls of the Schloss, while an acre or two of painted ceiling shows the chief events of German history, from the Creation to the Franco-Prussian War.

In the Dining-room, reached by a progress over carpets and rugs representative of all the best periods of Oriental art, it would be fairly easy to stage a review on the table itself; while in the Music-room a hundred or so lorries could be parked without attracting observation too glaringly. Should the need arise, the Library could accommodate a battalion on parade, a rifle range or sufficient office room for Q branch of a division. A labyrinth of corridors and servants' bedrooms harbours the rank and file, and it is said that the number of kitchens, pantries and cellars in the north and east wings runs into three figures.

The Divisional Commander called it "homely"; the Corps Commander remarked that its style was "not cramped, anyhow--what?" and the Army Commander pronounced it very "cosy."

The first two days I did not see my servant at all. On Wednesday he turned up just before lunch. On Monday and Tuesday, he explained, he had wandered through corridors and passages trying to find my room, and, by rising an hour before _reveille_, he thought he would be able to get from his quarters to mine by about breakfast-time.

We used to adjourn to the billiard-room after dinner, but gave it up because it was necessary to stop play at half-past ten in order to be in bed by midnight. Signals is worried because he has not enough line left to reach Battalions, all available supplies having been used up in connecting the General's room with various parts of the Schloss. We are continually late for dinner owing to errors in judging the distances from one room to another. Our once happy family has dissolved into silent morose individuals, for we have grown strange and distant to one another. Liaison between departments has broken down, and the Staff-Captain whom I saw yesterday in the distance is suffering from premature decay.

But a solution has been found, for the Engineers are unloading a couple of Nissen huts to put up in the hall, and we shall soon be a united family once more.

* * * * *

"The surveyor said that as things were at present he had little or no authority over the men who, for the most part, simply considered him his equal."--_Trade Paper._

If he doesn't take a stronger line the men will consider him his inferior.

* * * * *

From a short story:--

"She was a slip of a thing, with the sort of eyes that go well with curly long lashes--if they are blue, as hers were."--_Weekly Paper._

Our local _coiffeur_ only stocks the old-fashioned peroxide.

* * * * *

* * * * *

_Monday, March 17th_.--Mr. GEORGE TERRELL, always a little inclined to look upon the black side of things, was apprehensive about the spread of Bolshevism in this country. Not so Lord HENRY BENTINCK, who genially exploded with "Is not Bolshevism in this country a pure bogey?" Not quite that, perhaps; but I gathered that in Mr. BONAR LAW'S opinion it hasn't a ghost of a chance.

Great cheers from the Wee Frees greeted the advent of Mr. A.E. NEWBOULD, the victor of West Leyton, whose defeat of the Coalition candidate has increased the size of their party by something like four per cent. As the new Member is understood to be connected with the film business his colleagues are hoping that they will soon have Ministers on the "movies."

We know on high authority that evil communications corrupt good manners. Sir ERIC GEDDES goes further and believes that they corrupt everything. That was the text of his capital speech on the second reading of the Transportation Bill. Dispensing on this occasion with his usual typescript, he discoursed at large for an hour and a-half on the paralytic condition of our railways, roads, canals and docks.

We all had our pleasant morning dreams, he said, but they usually disappeared after we had had our cold bath; and the country, which was no longer rich, but poor, must take its douche. His own dream is of a beautifully centralised control, directing all our traffic agencies (save tramways and shipping) into the most convenient channels; and he won't be happy till he gets it. But judging by some of the speeches that followed he too may have a frigid disillusionment when the Bill comes up against the "interests" in Committee. Mr. T.P. O'CONNOR, on behalf of Liverpool, described it as the product of "an old bureaucracy and a young Parliamentarian," and Mr. RENWICK declared that, if it passed, the Manchester Ship Canal would be "between the devil and the deep sea," surely an uncalled-for attack on Cottonopolis.

Upon the adjournment, Col. CLAUDE LOWTHER again raised the question of the payment of German indemnities, and Mr. BONAR LAW again declared that the policy of the Government was to demand the largest amount that Germany could pay, but not to demand what we knew she couldn't pay. It would have saved him a lot of trouble if at the General Election the Government spokesmen had insisted as much upon the second half of the policy as they did upon the first.

_Tuesday, March 18th_.--GILBERT'S fanciful description of the "most susceptible Chancellor" is justified by the way in which the present occupant of the Woolsack and his predecessors vie with one another in the endeavour to secure the favour of the fair sex. Today it was Lord HALDANE'S turn to oblige, and he brought in a Bill to enable Scotswomen to become Advocates and Law Agents. Lord HALSBURY'S contribution to the work of feminine emancipation has not yet been announced. The rumour that a deputation of ladies recently approached him with a proposal that they should be eligible for judicial office--"Scarlet and ermine are _so_ becoming"--and that he put them off with the old joke about there being "enough old women on the Bench already" is, of course, apocryphal.

Not infrequently in the official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord ---- (_who was indistinctly heard_)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged the use of the English language in the Egyptian Courts, but all we could hear of the _sotto voce_ conversation between him and his interrogator was that "er--er--language--er--had--been--er--er--misunderstood."

Some savages, travellers tell us, are unable to count beyond five. Some Ministers, on the other hand, show an inability to reckon except in millions. Mr. CHURCHILL, when asked how many soldiers were not receiving the recent increase of pay, remarked casually that the numbers were "not so very great--half-a-million would cover them." Happily these "sloppy statistics" (to recall a phrase used by Mr. ASQUITH during the Tariff Reform controversy) do not appeal to the FOOD-CONTROLLER. He, being invited to say whether the Government had made "approximately £2,400,000" by the charge on cattle-sales, replied that the amount was "approximately" £3,449,939; and we felt that he was cut to the heart at not being able to give the odd shillings and pence.

The renewed debate on the Transportation Bill revealed a good deal of opposition. Roadmen thought it an excellent project for railways; railwayman were all in favour of its being applied to docks; and dockmen had no objection to its being tried on the roads. But none of them wanted it for his own particular interest. Sir EDWARD CARSON'S objections were both particular and general. Belfast would be ruined if its port were controlled by "a nest of politicians" in Dublin, but apart from that he doubted whether the promised economies would be realised in any direction. Ministers were "gluttons for centralisation," and would, he prophesied, incur the usual fate of gluttons, acute indigestion.

Mr. BONAR LAW, while admitting that he himself would not have voted for the Bill five years ago, declared that the War had made it essential. That seemed to be the general opinion, for the second reading was agreed to without a division.

_Wednesday, March 19th_.--Lord MALMESBURY, who has lately been the victim of a burglary, attributed it to housebreakers having been demobilised before policemen. Whether this was done on the ground that they conducted "one man businesses," or because someone in Whitehall assumed that the wielders of the centre-bit must be "pivotal," I do not know, but an Army Order requiring Commanding Officers to keep the balance even between criminals and coppers seems to be urgently needed.

The Bishops were delighted to hear from Lord ERNLE that his department includes a Hop-Controller, and are going to ask him to turn his attention to the Jazz.

Museums could not be opened just yet, said Lord STANMORE, because some eight thousand officials of various departments were at present lodged in these buildings. To judge by the comments of the public Press, there are several hundreds more who ought to be kept there.

_Thursday, March 20th_.--Lord WINTERTON wanted to know what the Government was doing to counteract Mr. BERNARD SHAW'S alleged anti-British propaganda in the United States. Mr. CECIL HARMSWORTH thought Professor OMAN'S recent memorandum would prove a sufficient counterblast. He had, however, no objection to adding Mr. SHAW'S latest pamphlet to "the large budget of Shavian literature" already at the Foreign Office, where, it is said, the clerks on night-duty like to beguile their leisure with light fiction.

Late in the evening Mr. BONAR LAW announced the intentions of the Government with regard to the coal industry. It would adopt Mr. Justice SANKEY'S report, giving the men a large portion of their demands. If the miners still persisted in striking--well, the State would strike too, with all its might; otherwise there was an end of government in this country. The cheers which greeted this statement seriously annoyed Mr. JACK JONES, who sits for Silvertown, and maintains the explosive reputation of his constituency.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE CROSSING-SWEEPER.

Five years ago he swept the snow, Or the mud, or the dust or the leaves that blow, Or stood at the corner "dossing"; Picking up rubbish and dangerous rind That careless people had left behind, He swept the crossing.

And still he sweeps and clears the way In blizzard and mist and soaking spray, Out on the Channel tossing; Picking up mines of a devilish kind That unscrupulous people have left behind, He sweeps the crossing.

* * * * *

"COAL STRIKE POPSTONED."

_Provincial Paper_.

Much the best thing to do with it.

* * * * *

DRAMATISTS TO THE RESCUE.

In view of the theory developed by the Ministry of Reconstruction's Sub-Committee on Organisation and Conditions of Domestic Service, that "the attitude adopted by the Press and the Stage is usually an unfortunate one, as servants are frequently represented as comic or flippant characters, and are held up to ridicule," a meeting of our leading dramatists was hastily convened last evening by Lady HEADFORT (who, it will be remembered, is all for calling her maids "Home-birds") to engage their sympathetic co-operation in aid of mistresses, housekeepers and employers generally. What the stage has taken away the stage must give back: that is Lady HEADFORT'S contention. Not that the domestic problem will even then be settled; there will probably still be difficulty in persuading W.A.A.C.s and Land Women and Munitioners who have tasted blood to descend below stairs again; but perhaps a little help will be forthcoming. Hence this influential gathering.

Sir SQUIRE BANCROFT, who presided, said that the domestic problem was one of great seriousness. Personally he rarely descended to the servants' hall, but he did not pretend to be unaware of the usefulness of such regions and of our dependence upon them. There must be give and take. If the stage had been guilty of too much levity in its portraiture of domestic servants, then, in the interests of all of us, it must make what our lively neighbours call the _amende honorable_.

Sir JAMES BARRIE said that no one could hold him personally to blame. His plays had always exhibited domestic servants in a most favourable light. Not only was a butler the hero of _The Admirable Crichton_, a maidservant the heroine of _A Kiss for Cinderella_ and a charwoman the heroine of _The Old Lady Shows Her Medals_, but the actual authorship of _Peter Pan_ was given to the smallest nursemaid on record.

Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM also claimed to be on the side of the home-birds. Had he not in _Smith_ written a part of strong parlour-maid interest for Miss MARIE LÖHR?

Mr. G.B. SHAW said that there was no need for the meeting at all, because he was just putting the finishing touches to a witty drama which would settle the whole question. In this play, which, he could tell them on the best authority in the world, his own, was a work of surpassing genius, the Irish Question, which had baffled statesmen and philosophers for centuries, is settled once and for all by the wisdom and presence of mind of a Kerry kitchenmaid.

The Chairman said that perhaps the meeting might as well proceed with its discussion, since there was always the possibility that the run of Mr. SHAW'S play might not equal that of his last, which, he understood, had just been produced in New York and had come off almost at once.