Chapter 3

_Wednesday, November 17th._--The Lords, having welcomed the Bishop of DURHAM--a notable addition to the oratorical strength of the Episcopal Bench--proceeded to show that even the lay peers had not much to learn in the matter of polite invective. Lord GAINFORD invited them to declare that the Government should forthwith reduce its swollen Departmental staffs and incidentally relieve our open spaces from the eyesores that now disfigure them. Perhaps he laid overmuch stress upon the latter part of his motion, for the Ministerial spokesman rode off on this line--Lord CRAWFORD confessing that his artistic sensibility was outraged by these "horrible hutments"--and said very little about cutting down the staffs. This way of treating the matter dissatisfied the malcontents, who voted down the Ministry.

The Front Opposition Bench in the Commons was almost deserted at Question-time. Presently the appearance of Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY in unusually festive attire furnished an explanation. After forty years of bachelorship and four of fighting, WEDGWOOD BENN is Benedict indeed; and his colleagues were attending his wedding-festivities.

The SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY has not yet attained to the omniscience in Naval affairs that his predecessor acquired in the course of twelve years' continuous occupancy of the post. But Sir JAMES CRAIG can handle an awkward questioner no less deftly than "Dr. MAC." Witness his excuse for not replying to a "Supplementary":--"The hon. and gallant gentleman must understand that I attach so much importance to his questions that I wish to be most punctilious in my answers." Who could persist after that?

Mr. BONAR LAW stated that the treaties by which Great Britain and France were responsible for constitutional government in Greece came to an end in August last. Consequently the two Powers have "a completely free hand" in regard to the Greek Monarchy. But he begged to be excused from saying in what manner that "free hand" would be used if TINO should think of returning.

_Thursday, November 18th._--In the Lords the Acquisition of Land Bill had most of its teeth drawn. Lord SUMNER was the most adroit of the many operators employed, and he used no gas.

The usual dreary duel of Nationalist insinuation and Ministerial denial in regard to Irish happenings was lightened by one or two interludes. Mr. JACK JONES loudly suggested that the Government should send for General LUDENDORFF to show them how to carry out reprisals. "He is no friend of _mine_," retorted the CHIEF SECRETARY, with subtle emphasis. Later he read a long letter from the C.-in-C. of the Irish Republican Army to his Chief of Staff discussing the possibility of enlisting the germs of typhoid and glanders in their noble fight for freedom. The House listened with rapt attention until Sir HAMAR came to the pious conclusion, "God bless you all." Amid the laughter that followed this anti-climax Mr. DEVLIN was heard to ask, "Was not the whole thing concocted in Dublin Castle?" Well, if so, Dublin Castle must have developed a sense of humour quite foreign to its traditions. Perhaps that is the reason why the PRIME MINISTER, earlier in the Sitting, expressed the opinion that "things in Ireland are getting much better."

* * * * *

THE BOOT MYSTERY.

DRAMATIC SCENES AT BILBURY QUARTER SESSIONS.

COUNSEL FOR PROSECUTION ARRIVES FROM LONDON.

THE PROCEEDINGS.

NOTES ON THE LEADING PERSONALITIES IN THE GREAT DRAMA.

PRISONER ADKINS' AWKWARD ADMISSION.

[Note.--The author is surprised, not to say pained, at the conspiracy of silence on the part of the daily Press, as a result of which he is left to write this matter up himself. However ...]

A sombre court-house of Quarter Sessions, the light with difficulty penetrating the dusty panes of the windows. On the so-called Bench sits the Bench so-called; in point of fact there are half-a-dozen ripe aldermen sitting on chairs, in the midst of which is an arm-chair, and in it Mr. Augustus Jones, the Recorder of Bilbury.

Born in 1873 of rich but respectable parents; called, with no uncertain voice, to the Bar in 1894; of a weighty corpulence and stormy visage, Mr. Jones now settles himself in his arm-chair to hear and determine all this business about Absalom Adkins and the Boots. How admirably impressive is Mr. Jones's typically English absence of hysteria, his calm, his restfulness. Indeed, give Mr. Jones five minutes to himself and it is even betting he would be fast asleep.

The Clerk of the Court with awful dignity suggests getting a move on. Mr. Blaythwayte{original had "Blathwayte"} who, as well as Clerk of the Court is also Town Clerk of Bilbury, was born in 1850 and, having survived the intervening years, now demands the production of the prisoner from below. Looking at this dignitary one gets the poetic impression of a mass of white hair, white moustache, white whiskers, white beard and white wig, with little bits of bright red face appearing in between. From a crevice in one of these patches come the ominous words, of which we catch but a sample or two: "... Prisoner at the bar ... for that you did ... steal, take and carry away ... pairs of boots ... of our Lord the King, his crown and dignity."

At this moment there arrives in court a sinister figure wearing the wig and gown so much affected by the English Bar. Plainly a man of character and of moment; obviously selected with great care for this highly difficult and delicate matter. His features are sharp, clean-cut. One feels that they have been sharpened and cut clean this very morning. In his hand he holds the fateful brief, pregnant with damnatory facts. He makes his way into the pen reserved "For Counsel only." The usher locks him in for safety's sake.

PERSONS IN THE DRAMA (SO FAR).

_Mr. Augustus Jones._ Recorder. Born in 1873.{missing period in original}

_Mr. Joseph K. Blaythwayte._ Clerk of the Court. Born in 1850.

_Absalom Adkins_, of uncertain age, supposed boot-fancier.

_Our Lord the King_, whose peace, crown and dignity are reported to have been rudely disturbed by the alleged activities of Absalom Adkins.

Who is this strong silent man, this robed counsellor trusted with the case of the Crown? Who is it? It is I! Born in the year--but if I'm to tell my life story it's a thousand pounds I want. Make it guineas and I will include portraits of self and relations, with place of birth, inset.

The scenario (or do we mean the scene?) is now complete. Leading characters, minor characters, chorus, supernumeraries and I myself are all on the stage. Absalom Adkins, clad in a loose-fitting corduroy lounge suit and his neck encased in a whitish kerchief, rises from his seat. Mr. Jones, the Recorder, does much as he was doing before--nothing in particular. Counsel for the prosecution re-reads his brief, underlines the significant points, forgets that his pencil is a blue one and licks it. On a side-table, impervious to their surroundings and apparently unconcerned with their significance, sit the crucial boots.

"How say you, Absalom Adkins"--such the concluding words of the Clerk, the finish of the prologue which rings up the curtain on this human drama--"how say you? Are you guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty," says Absalom, and that ends it.

* * * * *

Later a large and enthusiastic crowd outside (had there been one) might have seen a man with clean and sharp-cut features carrying a bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other, stepping lightly on to a Bilbury corporation tram, station bound. This is the counsel for the prosecution (still me), his grave responsibilities honourably discharged, hurrying back to the vortex of metropolitan life.

F. O. L.

* * * * *

* * * * *

From a stores catalogue:--

"THE ---- WRINGER.

Guaranteed for one year--Fair wear and tear excepted."

There is always a catch somewhere.

* * * * *

"A consignment of Rumanian eggs has arrived in this country. This shipment, which is the first to arrive since the war closed this source of supply in 1914, consists of 100 cases, each containing 1914 eggs."--_Scots Paper._

Referring, we trust, to the number and not the vintage.

* * * * *

"CONTRACTS, TENDERS, &c.

The Great Northern Railway Company.

Allegro moderato } from String } Notturno ....... } Quartet, No. 2, } Borodine. } in D }

STORES CONTRACTS."

_Daily Paper._

It is generally supposed that the company entertains the idea of attempting to "soothe the savage breast" of the MINISTER OF TRANSPORT.

* * * * *

THE LETTERS I NEVER POST.

_I met a philosopher the other day--he is not a philosopher by profession, but an architect--who told me that, when annoyed by the anomalies and petty red-tape restrictions of life or irritated by incompetence and incivility, or even when he feels that he can amend somebody else's error or propose an improvement, it is his habit to write a letter expressing his indignation or embodying his suggestions._

_After remarking that he must be kept very busy I asked him what kind of replies he got._

"_Oh, I don't get any replies," he said, "because, you see, I don't send the letters; I only write them and then I tear them up._"

_This is how I knew that he was a philosopher._

_I propose to take to philosophy myself._

* * *

TO A TAXI-DRIVER.

DEAR SIR,--(You must understand, as must all the people that I address in these epistles, that by "dear" I do not necessarily imply any affection. I employ the word because I am too old to care about breaking down harmless conventions; but I might claim in the present connection that it has more than one meaning. That indeed you will see, if you read on, is the main point of this letter.)--Dear Sir, then, you may remember me. I am the fare who hailed you on your rank at the corner of Fulham Road and Drayton Gardens last Tuesday evening at a quarter to six, and told you to drive to the Marble Arch. You put down the flag and then jumped off the box to wind up the starter. It failed, and after several attempts you had to examine the machinery. I suppose that six minutes were occupied in this way, whether because you are a bad mechanic or a careless fellow or because the engine is defective, I cannot say; all I know is that I was in a hurry and that the flag was down, but we were not moving. If you had not put the flag down I should have got out and taken another cab; but I felt that that would be unfair to you. When, however, at the end of the journey I paid you without adding any tip, and you received the money with an offensive grunt, I wished that I had been less considerate.

It is because nothing that I could have said then, in your horrid hostile mood, would have convinced you that there is any injustice to a fare at all in putting down your flag before you are properly started, that I am writing this letter. My hope is that quiet perusal may demonstrate that the fare has, at any rate, a grain of logic on his side if he looks upon himself as defrauded. We don't, you know, take your cabs for the joy of sitting in them, or for the pleasure of watching you struggling with a crank, but to be conveyed quickly from place to place. It is wrong to ask us to pay for the time spent by you in persuading your engine to behave, and it is indecent to become abusive when we act on that assumption. If I had not been so busy I should have refused to pay at all and forced you to summon me; but who has time for such costly formalities? And I might have had to lose my temper, which I have not done (much) since I read an article by a doctor saying that every such loss means an abbreviation of life. Life in a world made fit for heroes may not be any great catch, but it is better, at any rate, than passing to a region where one is apparently liable to be in constant communication with mediums.

One other thing. I have just returned from Paris, where, amid much that is unsatisfactory and besmirched by Peace, taxis remain trustworthy and plentiful. The price marked on the meter is that which the fare pays, and any number of persons may ride in the cab without extra charge. Nothing exceeds my scorn for the English taxi-driver who demands another ninepence for an additional passenger, even though only a child--nothing except my scorn for the cowardly official who conceded this monstrous imposition.

* * *

TO AN ADMINISTRATOR.

DEAR SIR,--May I implore you to authorise the instant removal of the buildings in the St. James's Park lake? During the War we who find on the suspension bridge, looking West, the most beautiful late afternoon view in London, were content to endure the invasion. But we have passed the second Armistice Day, and still the huts remain, and still there is no water, and still the enchanted prospect is denied us. After all, this lake is part of London, and London ratepayers should be entitled to their city's beauties as well as its necessities.

* * *

TO A PRETTY GIRL.

MY DEAR,--I want you to be a little more merciful. The other day, when your father, over the eggs and bacon, was reading out the news from Greece, with the defeat of VENIZELOS, you said lightly that exile didn't matter very much because VENIZELOS was a very old man. You then returned to the absorbing occupation of identifying Society people, reading from left to right. Now VENIZELOS is fifty-five years of age, and I cannot allow the term "very old" to be applied to him without protest; I am too nearly his contemporary. "Getting on," if you like, "mature," "ripe," but not "very old." You must keep that phrase for the people who--well, who _are_ very old.

* * *

TO A HABERDASHER.

DEAR SIR,--When I came to put on the collar that I bought from you yesterday (I am the tallish customer who takes sixteen and a half by two and was in a hurry to get home to dress) I found that your young man's finger-marks were on it. Why don't you make your assistants wear gloves when they handle collars?

* * *

TO A MINISTER OF RELIGION.

YOUR FAR-FROM-SERENE GLOOMINESS,--Won't you one day be a little cheerful, and wrong? Won't you send out a lifeboat to the wreck instead of watching her through your smoked field-glasses as she sinks? What you seem to forget is that most people at times are their own Gloomy Deans: some of us too often; and there can be too much of a good thing. Hopelessness butters no parsnips and it is a mood not to be encouraged or the world would be as bad as we then think it. Gloomy-deaniness, though salutary for brief intervals, should be sparingly indulged in; but you are at it all the time. There is a Chinese proverb which says, "If you can't smile don't open a shop;" and, after all, St. Paul's Cathedral is in a manner of speaking a kind of shop, isn't it?--the goods, at any rate, should be obtainable there. The phrase "there is no health in us" does not constitute the whole liturgy. Down with facile optimists by all means, but, my dear Sir----

E. V. L.

* * * * *

NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.

THE ERMINE.

The ermine is not quite as grand as he sounds; As a rule he is shot if he comes in the grounds; You have seen him about by the mulberry-tree, Though I very much doubt if you knew it was he.

He is shot with a gun and hung up by the throat, For the ermine, my son, is the same as the stoat; So when Auntie has got just a little more ermine You can tell her (or not) she is covered with vermin.

A. P. H.

* * * * *

ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.

"Col. ---- was unable to be present, and altogether the event was highly successful."

_Local Paper._

* * * * *

* * * * *

MORE NOTES FROM A SYNTHETIC COUNTRY DIARY.

_November 20th._--I have been much struck this morning by a remarkable instance of protective mimicry on the part of a grey squirrel, which assumes attitudes and adopts gestures which at a little distance render him almost indistinguishable from a small monkey. WHITE'S _Selborne_ throws no light on this strange phenomenon, which I can only explain as a result on the animal world of the now fashionable _Tarzan_ cult, which so happily reconciles the old hostility between apes and angels.

Of the habits and customs of the hedgehog mention has already been made in these notes. It may be added that the whistle which these interesting creatures emit from time to time resembles the _timbre_ of a muted piccolo, and their employment in a mixed orchestra is well worth the consideration of our younger and more enterprising composers. Another animal which shares with the hedgehog the defensive faculty of rolling itself up in a ball is the "pill millipede," a myriopod with seventeen pairs of legs, but fortunately exempt from the necessity of wearing trousers, which at present prices would impose an exorbitant demand on its resources.

As winter draws on the evolutions of birds great and small are a never-ending source of surprise and delight. Many hooded crows are now to be seen consorting with the rooks in the field and swelling the sable multitude that flies at evensong towards the park trees. And great congregations of plovers, curiously self-sufficing in their ability to dispense with the services of any feathered parson, lend colour and subconscious uplift to marshland scenes, which would otherwise look extremely _triste_.

Small indigenous birds, such as titmice, chipmunks, pipits and squinches, are constantly seen in coveys or even bevies just now. A party of pipwinks visited my copse yesterday afternoon, and indulged in delicious _morceaux_ of melody before the red sun sank starkly below the horizon....

As long as the weather remains open I find it a good plan to plant flowers and shrubs which bloom in the spring. Proticipation is a cardinal asset in the outfit of the judicious gardener, and no time should be lost in completing the spring beds, as the cost of hair-mattresses is going up by leaps and bounds.

* * * * *

THE PLAGUE OF DOTS.

There are decimal dots which we can't do without In spite of Lord RANDOLPH'S historical flout; There are dots too, with dashes combined, in the mode Familiar in Morse's beneficent code; While some British parents good reasons advance In favour of "_dots_" as they're managed in France. But as for the writers disdainful of plots Who pepper their pages with plentiful dots, They must not complain if the critics of prose Disapprove of a practice which savours of pose, And, searching around for an adequate [Greek: hoti], Proclaim it a sign of a brain that is dotty.

* * * * *

From an article on "Back to Germany":--

"The quiet, old-fashioned restaurants, where in the old days I have seen field-marshals' batons hanging up in the cloak-room, know them no more."--_Daily Paper._

Nowadays the German Field-Marshal takes his baton into the dining-room to stir his soup.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"WILL YOU KISS ME?"

Even before the era of Prohibition (there were cocktails in this play) strange things must have happened in "God's own country" under the banner of the Bird of Freedom. But never so strange as the effects you get on the stage when very English people play at being Americans. You have to be rather young and unsophisticated if such phrases as "He's putting it over on us," or "I'm not going to stand for that," generously peppered about the dialogue and recited in the purest of English accents, can persuade you to believe that you are getting the real local stuff. At the same time you accept cheerfully the most farcical conditions on the vague assumption that all things may be possible over there.

So, when _John W. Brook_, of Fifth Avenue, millionaire, engaged the services of _Alexander Y. Hedge_, plenipotentiary representative of an Efficiency Company, to introduce economic reforms into his motherless household during his temporary absence, we regarded it as a most reasonable experiment. And for a time it made excellent fun. But after a while it began to wear thin for lack of fresh stimulus, and by the end of the Second Act there was a general feeling in the audience that something would have to be done about it.

The same thought seems to have occurred to Mr. CYRIL HARCOURT, the author, and he started, a little late in the day, to introduce an element of sex-romance into what so far had been an absolutely bloodless proposition. But at first it was with sinister intent that _Brook's_ elder daughter made advances to _Alexander Y. Hedge_. As soon as she could induce this monster of inhumanity to become a prey to her charm she would repulse him with scorn, and then he would have to go.

The children's allowances having been cut off on the ground that they did nothing to earn them, she offered her services as his paid secretary. "Propinquity" did its work and she was soon in a position to offer him the privilege of an experimental kiss, thus incidentally justifying the dreadful title of the play.

The first, delivered on the cheek, was a wash-out; but the second, pressed home on the lips, had the desired effect. Then she turned and rent him, telling him exactly what she thought of his treatment of the family. He replied with an eloquent philippic directed at the vices of a bloated aristocracy (this was the ante-bellum age, before things had been made so much safer for democracy). Almost before the applause of the gallery had died down, the father burst upon the scene, furious at the report that this hired commercial had been making love to his daughter.

Explanations follow which appease his wrath, and he is further mollified by the statement that the Master of Efficiency had cut down the expenses of his _ménage_ by some nineteen thousand dollars. But why, when his feats of economy had all the time been the matter of his offence in the children's eyes, the announcement of the total should have favourably affected the girl's heart I cannot say, and I don't think anybody else can. Yet the fact remains that the next moment she undertakes to marry the object of her previous loathing.

To have arrived naturally at such an end would have meant a couple more Acts, in which the man _Hedge_ might have had time to live down the evil effects of his efficiency. But with so much economy in the air the author appears to have caught the infection of it and economised in his processes to save our time. That is the kindest excuse I can find for him.

As for the moral, it would seem to be that, if (as is more than probable) you have no copy of the works of ARISTOTLE in your Fifth Avenue library, and imagine, never having heard of the happy mean, that virtue lies in one of two excesses--an excess of idle luxury or an excess of efficiency--the former is the one to choose.