Chapter 2

+------------------------------------------------------+ | £ s. d. | | B. de M. 6 0 | | Z. X. 5 0 | | Idealist 5 0 | | U. W. K. 5 0 | | A Frenchman who is ashamed of France 4 6 | | Young Communist 4 0 | | Three young Communists 3 6 | | "Great Britain" (collection) 3 3 | | Disgusted 2 6 | | Association of Women Fighters for Justice 2 3 | | O. F. 1 0 | | Down with Capital 9 | | One Who will stick at Nothing 3 | | ------------ | | 2 3 0 | | Previous lists 14 6 8-3/4 | | ------------ | | £16 9 8-3/4 | +------------------------------------------------------+

The grand total of sixteen pounds, nine shillings and eight-pence three-farthings shows a magnificent spirit, but wouldn't keep much more than a couple of square inches of the front page alive for more than one day. Reverting, then, to the more pressing question of the removal of our heads, who is paying for the operation?

He is a heavy-built octopus sort of man of about forty-seven; a red cheery complexion, rather more fat than muscle, long grey hair tending to curl at the extremes, and followed about by a lady who acts as his secretary, calls him "Master" and adores the ground he walks on. They are married, but not, I should hasten to add, to each other; none of your dull orthodox practices for them. About his profile there is an undeniable something which makes his head a suggestive model for sculpture. It is framed in a large, white, soft silk collar, which falls gracefully over the lapels of the coat and is, I am told, of a mode much worn among the _élite_ of the anarchist and atheist world.

I've a friend here in the law-and-order business who thought that, having reported all the movements of this Master of the Black Arts, he might find it worth while to make his acquaintance in the flesh. Indirect enquiry elicited that the desire to get into touch was reciprocated, the attentions of the police being insufficient to satisfy his sense of importance. So the meeting was arranged, and I was allowed to come along too.

We were received in great state in a special suite of the local hotel de luxe. The Lady Secretary was there, overflowing with "Masters" and "Sirs," and obsessed by the fear that her idol might not do himself justice in our presence. A very touching instance of human devotion: the fifth instance in his case, I believe.

This is the gentleman who finances the propaganda of destruction; we asked him if that was not so, and he answered, "Why, of course." Had we any fault to find with his protégé, the admirable halfpenny daily? We had noticed that its news was punctual and exact. Then of what did we complain?

"Of a certain exaggeration in the leading articles," said I, rubbing the back of my neck and wondering how long it would be there to rub and I to rub it.

"But what newspaper leaders are not exaggerated?" he asked.

"Your editors should not be paid to twist everything into an irritant," I protested.

"Of which of your great English dailies is the editor not paid to twist, as you put it?" he asked.

I knew that I had right on my side and he had not. But still somehow I seemed to be in the wrong all the way.

So my friend took the matter in hand. He didn't argue. He just drew his chair up to the Master's and asked him to tell us all about himself, how he came by his great ideals, what was the future of the world as he foresaw it and how he meant to arrange the universe when at length he took over?

The Master, gently smiling his appreciation of this recognition of his Ego, gave voice.

To the lady it was all, of course, above criticism: sublime, adorable. To me the frankness of it and the impudence of it was, I confess, amusing.

The world is out of joint; how good 'twill be When Heaven is sacked and leaves the job to me!

An agreeable, if wrong-headed, crank, was my summary.

And this or something like it was my friend's:--"b. U.S.A. of Eng. parents, 9.5.78; tinned meat business, Chicago; 6 months' h.l. for frauds in connection with packing; went to Mexico, but left to avoid prosecution for similar frauds on larger scale; prison in Belgium, France and England in connection with illegal dealings in rifles (? for Germany); apparently liable to more prison in U.S.A. for crime unknown, if returns there; won't say where he gets his money from, but doesn't seriously pretend it is his own."

And when I came to go back over the Master's two hours' chat about himself, those are about the facts it all boiled down to.

Yours ever, HENRY.

(_To be continued._)

* * * * *

"£40.--Handsome Black Silk Golf Goat (large size)."--_Irish Paper_.

The very thing for the butting-green.

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE KORBAN BATH.

[_Korban_--"It is a gift"--Hebrew (or some such language).]

With some reluctance I return to the subject of baths. I went into the matter of bathrooms pretty carefully a few months ago, but since I have been in this hotel I see that there are one or two aspects of hotel bathing which still require attention.

To begin with, there is the question of the Korban or free bath. It is, of course, a scandal that a bath should be an extra, and an eighteen-penny one at that. After all, what is the bathroom for? We are not charged extra for smoking in the smoking-room or drawing in the drawing-room; why should we be bled for bathing in the bathroom? At the same time this practice does provide the visitor with the wholesome sport of Korban bathing. The object of the game is, of course, to have as many baths as possible which are not put down in your bill; and many are the stratagems which are employed.

The true sportsman attempts the feat just before dinner, because at that time there are sentries posted in every corridor. Ostensibly they are maids waiting to assist any lady who has a crisis while dressing, but no real pretence is made that they are there for any other purpose than to charge you for as many baths as possible. On my corridor there is a post of no fewer than three sentries, and it is extremely difficult to evade them. The only thing to do is to get to know three nice ladies on the same floor and arrange for them to have a dressing crisis simultaneously and go on having it for about a quarter-of-an-hour.

This needs a good deal of organisation. However smoothly the operation begins, one of the dressing crises nearly always collapses too soon, and the sentry catches you on your return journey.

For the lady visitor the problem is comparatively simple. I should mention that it is a perfectly legitimate manoeuvre to get your bath put down to somebody else if you can do it; and the crack lady-player usually wraps herself in an unobtrusive bath-wrap, shrouds her head, modestly conceals her face, slips into a friend's room to borrow some Crème-Limon and, after an interval, rushes noisily out of the friend's room to her bath, which, with any luck, is charged to her friend's account.

The beginner at the game contents himself with less complicated ruses. Sometimes he has his bath late at night, when the sentries have been taken off; but, as the lights go out _en masse_ at eleven, even this operation has to be carefully timed. There is nothing much gloomier than a bath by candle-light, except perhaps a bath in the dark. Hundreds, however, of both sorts are endured in this hotel.

The more brazen or the more timid simply walk into the bathroom fully dressed during the day, carrying a number of dirty golf-balls in their hands, and towels in their pockets and sponges up their sleeves, and issue later fully dressed with clean white golf-balls in their hands. It is generally thought, however, that this device is _just_ a little--I mean it's not exactly--_you_ know what I mean.

The Korban Bath Rules will probably remain unwritten for many a day, but I earnestly hope that before next summer the traditions and etiquette of bath-warfare as between individual hotel-visitors will be codified and issued in an intelligible form. At the moment the most extraordinary confusion prevails, and no one can tell whether any particular stratagem will be hailed with applause as a bold and legitimate operation of war or universally condemned as a barefaced piece of bath-hoggery. Recently, for example, an extremely courteous, not to say gallant, old gentleman was severely lectured by a lady for digging himself in on the mat and maintaining his position there till she emerged. She stated with, I think, considerable force that she had passed the age when a lady likes to be seen coming out of a bathroom with disordered locks; she also said that he was ruining her chance of a Korban bath by drawing attention to the fact that there was somebody inside.

He replied with equal force that, whenever he considerately withdrew from the mat in order to let a lady escape unseen, some less scrupulous combatant (usually one of his own daughters) immediately rushed the position, and he was not going to be had in that way again, though as a matter of fact, while they were arguing the matter out, somebody actually did this, so he was.

Now what is the way out of this dilemma? The only solution I see is the Sponge System, by which every competitor puts down a sponge, as one puts down a ball at the first tee. In this way definite claims can be staked out in rotation without congestion of the avenues of approach. I hope this system will be generally adopted next summer and, if it is used in conjunction with my Progress Indicator (which shows by a moving needle what stage the person bathing has reached), it ought to work very smoothly. But there must be no hanky-panky, no sharp practice with caddies; every sponge must be put down by one of the players in person. And there must be none of that regrettable collusion between husband and wife which has brought such discredit on the present system.

There was a very bad case of this the other day. A certain wife used to entrench herself in the bathroom early and remain in it till her husband--a heavy and persistent sleeper--arrived. When you rattled angrily at the door-knob she said very sharply, "Who is that?"--in itself a sufficiently disturbing thing. Even in the present days of shamelessness and crime there are few men who care to confess openly that they have angrily rattled at the bathroom door. If you said sheepishly, "It is Smith" or "Thompson" or "Lord Bumble," a heavy silence fell, broken only by those gentle watery sounds which it is so maddening to hear from without. When her husband arrived and answered the challenge with "It is I, Arthur," sounds of feverish activity were heard within, and a new bath was immediately turned on.

Casting all scruples to the winds, seven desperate men rehearsed the password, "It is I, Arthur;" seven desperate men presented themselves in a single morning and murmured lovingly, "It is I, Arthur." None of them had a bath. Seven times the good lady opened the door and beheld Smith or Thompson or Lord Rumble or nobody. And seven times she bolted back into the burrow again. She remained undefeated. Her husband got his bath.

I wonder what devilry she would be up to under the Sponge System.

A. P. H.

* * * * *

A NOVELTY FROM THE PAST.

"ANTIQUE, over a hundred years old, oak sideboard, brand new ... Apply after 6.30."

_Evening News_.

Surely after this candour there is no help to be got out of the twilight hour.

* * * * *

"Mr. Robert ----, who is now manager, entered his late employer's service three or four months after he commenced, and remained with him until he gave up."

_Local Paper_.

"They have their exits and their entrances"--the former in this case being the more satisfactory.

* * * * *

* * * * *

WHEN AND IF.

(_It is rumoured that Mr. BALFOUR is shortly going to the House of Lords_.)

When BALFOUR goes to the Lords-- For the Upper Chamber's adorning-- The Lower House, if it has any _nous_, Will have solid reason for mourning; For he has no axes to grind; His strategy injures no man, And his keen sword play in the thick of the fray Is a joy to friend and foeman.

When BALFOUR goes to the Lords, To strengthen that gilded muster, 'Twill be sad and strange if he has to change The name he has crowned with lustre; For already there's "B. of B.," A baron of old creation; And Whittingehame is an uncouth name For daily pronunciation.

If BALFOUR goes to the Lords, Will the atmosphere, I wonder, With the placid balm of its dreamful calm Bring his nimble spirit under? Or will he act on the Peers Like an intellectual cat-fish, Or startle their sleep with the flying leap Of a Caribbean bat-fish?

If BALFOUR goes to the Lords-- But can the Commons spare him? Besides I'm sure that a coronet's lure Is the very last thing to ensnare him; And I'd rather see him undecked With the gauds that merely glister, In the selfsame box with PITT and FOX And GLADSTONE--a simple Mister.

Still if he goes to the Lords, Whatever, his style and title, For the part he has played in his country's aid 'Twill be but a poor requital; For he never once lost his nerve When the outlook was most alarming, And always remained, with shield unstained, Prince ARTHUR, the good Prince Charming.

* * * * *

"Mrs. Hawke would be glad to employ a Wren for domestic work."

_Advt. in Daily Paper_.

Will she have to "live in"?

* * * * *

"If it be true, as SHELLEY said, that 'a thing of beauty is a joy for ever,' the good people of Roydon are to be congratulated on the new bridge over the River Stort."

_Local Paper_.

But, supposing KEATS, for instance, said it, will that make any difference?

* * * * *

* * * * *

PRISCILLA FAILS TO QUALIFY.

"So it runned out of its little grassy place and went all round the garden," said Priscilla, emerging suddenly in pink from under the table.

"What are you playing at now, Priscilla?" I inquired.

"I'm a little pussy-cat."

"And what is this?" I asked, pointing to the waste-paper basket which she had planted beside my chair.

"It's the pussy-cat's basket of milk. It's to drink when she's firsty," she explained.

I sighed. It did not appear to me that the child's education was proceeding upon proper lines. I had been reading portions of the diary of Miss OPAL WHITELEY, written when she was seven years old, a work which has just lifted for America the Child-authoress Cup. I had hoped to find in Priscilla some faint signs that the laurels lost by Miss DAISY ASHFORD might be wrested back. The latest feature in nursery autobiography, so far as I could gather, was to have a profound objective sympathy with vegetables and a faculty for naming domestic animals after the principal figures in classical mythology. If you have these gifts you get published by _The Atlantic Monthly_, with a preface by Viscount GREY. But I doubted whether Priscilla had them. I thought I would try.

"Priscilla," I said, "be a little girl again and tell me what flower you like best."

"Woses."

"What do the roses say to each other when you aren't there?"

"Oh, they don't _say_ anyfing," she said with great contempt.

This was bad.

"Priscilla," I continued, "what do you call the dog next-door?"

"Bill," she said; "but it's runned away."

"There you are!" I exclaimed, turning to the child's mamma. "Bill, indeed! If she were being properly educated she would be calling it Jupiter Agamemnon Wilcox by now. Does she ever speak to you at all of the star-gleams amongst the cabbage-leaves?"

"I don't think there are any star-gleams amongst the cabbages in this garden," she replied. "Only slugs."

"I don't care," I said; "the fact remains that Priscilla ought to be constantly wondering what the cabbages do say to each other when they have lonesome feels at night."

"Priscilla," I began again, "in about three years you will be seven years old and quite a big girl. What will you play at then?"

"Oh, I san't play at all," she said. "I sall go visiting and sopping."

"Anything else?"

"Oh, yes, I sall have a knife."

"A pocket-knife?"

"No, not a pocket-knife, a knife to cut meat wiv, of course."

I had forgotten this goal of maidenly desires.

"And won't you go long walks in the big woods with me and tell me the names of all the flowers and what they are thinking about?"

"Yes," she replied rather doubtfully. "Are there beasts in the woods?"

"Only rabbits, I think."

"We must be very careful, then, 'cos they're _very_ wild creatures, aren't they?"

"Oh, not _very_ wild."

"Will you buy a gun at the gun-sop and soot them and we take them home and eat them?"

Bless the child, I thought, there seems to be no getting her away from this eating business.

"Priscilla," I began again, "in the woods there is a great big lake, with trees and rushes all round it, and there are water-lilies floating about and forget-me-nots at the edge."

Now, I thought, we shall perhaps have something about the lullaby songs of the trees and the willow that does sing by the creek.

"Are there fiss in the lake?" inquired Priscilla.

"Yes," I said, "beautiful shining fish."

"And sall we catch the fiss and put them on the fire?"

"I suppose we might," I admitted.

"And will they sizzle?"

"Araminta," I said, "the child is hopeless. She has no soul. She will never be a great authoress. The Cup must remain in Oregon, and Priscilla will never tell the world how the wind did go walking in the field, talking to the earth voices, with a preface by Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES or Lord READING. She thinks about nothing but her food."

"Perhaps you had better try again after she's said her prayers," suggested Araminta. "She may be feeling a little more soulful then."

I attended the ceremony, which was performed with the utmost decorum and gravity. When it was ended Priscilla looked up.

"I said them very somnly and in rarver a low voice, didn't I?" she announced, and then went off into gurgles of laughter.

I determined to make one last despairing effort.

"Priscilla," I asked, "which of your books do you like the best?"

"_The Gobbly Goblin_," she said.

"Araminta," I cried, "I give it up. She has no bent for literature. There can never have been any great authoress, young or old, who started with such a materialistic mind."

"You forget Mrs. Beeton," she replied.

* * * * *

* * * * *

COLD COMFORT.

(_It is stated that M. KAMENEFF, on his return to Russia, having fallen out of favour with the Soviet Government, has been appointed Commissar at Taganrog_.)

Upon the mighty wheels of life I'm but a very little cog, And, when engaged in active strife, Always the under-dog.

No honours yet have come to me (My name is Ebenezer Blogg); I haven't got an O.B.E. Nor yet the Dannebrog.

A taxi-man the other night Called me a measly little frog; It's true that in respect of height I can't compare with OG.

At school I was the whipping-boy Whom every master used to flog, Although I took no stealthy joy In pipes or cards or grog.

The only time that I bestrode A horse, like _Gilpin_ all agog, The creature bolted from the road And plunged me in a bog.

I never learned to sing or dance, To bowl or bat, to stick or slog; The only time I crossed to France I struck a Channel fog.

I'm old and poor and rather deaf; I'm often very short of prog; Yet still I grudge not KAMENEFF His post at Taganrog.

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR MODEST ADVERTISERS.

"To be Sold, small unexceptionally attractive gentleman's Residential Estate."

* * * * *

There was an American "DAISY" Whose Diary set people crazy; Some called it a fake-- A most venial mistake, For Opals are apt to be hazy.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE MINISTRY FOR HEROES.

_January 1st, 1920._ To the Ministry of Pensions.

When demobilised on 5th November last I applied for a disability pension. Having received no official communication on the subject, may I inquire, please, how the matter stands?

M. C. BROKE, _Capt._

_February 1st, 1920._ To Lieut. C. M. Broke.

I am to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 1/1/20, and to say that you will receive a further communication from this Department in due course.

CUTHBERT RUTT, for Ministry of Pensions.

_March 1st, 1920._ To the Ministry of Pensions.

_Re_ your letter of February 1st, may I inquire how the matter now stands, please? (My rank, by the way, is captain, and my initials are "M. C." not "C. M." I hope you won't mind me mentioning it.)

M. C. BROKE, _Capt._

_April 1st, 1920._ To Mr. M. Brake.

I am to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 1/3/20 and to request that you will be good enough to state the date upon which you last received a payment on account of your pension.

CUTHBERT RUTT, for Ministry of Pensions.

_April 2nd, 1920._ To the Ministry of Pensions.

Replying to your inquiry of yesterday, I have not received any payment--not a bond, not a rouble, not a bean. That, between ourselves, was my idea in initiating this interesting correspondence.

May I direct your attention to my signature?