Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920
Then at last, all my efforts having failed, I reluctantly took my pen and
wrote to Filmer. In reply I received another of his scrawls:--
"What's this about a raven? Don't let it grow on you. The Victory Croquet
Club is taking my ROLLER, L7 carriage forward. I gave L3 10s. for it
second-hand ten years ago.
"N.B.--I had great difficulty in reading your writing. Don't cultivate
illegibility; it's tiresome for your friends."
* * * * *
[Illustration: NO, THIS IS NOT A CELEBRATED COMEDIAN TELLING A FUNNY STORY;
IT'S MERELY A PRIVATE CITIZEN THREATENING TO REPORT TO THE PROFITEERING
COMMITTEE.]
* * * * *
"Referring to charges of drunkenness the Chairman said there were 13
men and five women fined for drunkenness and residing at Chiswick."--
_Local Paper._
To reside at Chiswick may be an eccentricity, but surely is not an offence.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Auctioneer._ "COME, GENTS, HOW MUCH FOR THESE DOZEN
BRACES?"
_Tommy._ "CAN'T TAKE MORE'N ELEVEN, GUV'NOR. LOST MY SECOND-BEST EVENING
TROUSERS ON THE SOMME."]
* * * * *
AT THE PLAY.
"JOHN FERGUSON."
After the unsatisfying theatre-diet which has fallen to me of late I was
doubly glad to get my teeth into Mr. St. JOHN ERVINE'S good meaty ration at
the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. His theme is as old and new as Job. _John
Ferguson_ is a saintly Ulster farmer, apostle of the doctrine of non-
resistance (rare type in those parts, I understand) and eager justifier of
the ways of God to men. _Ferguson's_ beloved farm is mortgaged; foreclosure
imminent. Help is confidently expected from brother _Andrew_ in America,
but does not come. Daughter _Hannah_, sent with a message to the brutal
mortgagee, is outraged by him. Prospective son-in-law _James_, man of great
words but little heart, rushes into the night to kill the ravisher. But it
is silent son _Andrew_ (destined for the ministry) who does the killing,
because he knows _James_ to be a craven.
_John Ferguson_ urges confidently the will of God that _James_, whom he
believes blood-guilty, should not avoid arrest, and refuses to hide him.
But when young _Andrew_ insists on giving himself up to save _James_ and
his own peace the old man's faith, weakened, falters; he protests in his
anguish, but rallies to accept this last blow from the hand of God--made
none the easier to bear by the arrival, just a fatal fortnight late, of the
money from his brother, a forgetful sort of man, who had mistaken the date
of the mail. The tragic irony of the whole is skilfully heightened by the
fact that it is half-witted "_Clutie_," with his penny whistle and his
random words, who goads young _Andrew_ to his vengeance.
A grim tale finely (perhaps just a little too diffusely) told and admirably
presented. Mr. ERVINE'S most effective stroke was, I think, the character
of _James Caesar_, with his pathetic yet revolting self-condemnation,
interpreted with a real mastery of art without artifice by Mr. J.M.
KERRIGAN, of the old band of "Irish Players." Miss MOYNA MACGILL (a name
new to me) played her _Hannah_ with an exquisite sincerity and restraint. A
particular moment when, from her hysterical laughter at the careful choice
made by her father's God of the moment for the arrival of the money, she
breaks into a passionate "It's not right! It's not just!" was very fine.
The whole character was skilfully built up. The part by no means played
itself.
Mr. HERBERT MARSHALL'S _Andrew_ was also an excellent performance. Was it
quite right, however, that the morning after the murder he should appear so
completely unruffled? (I admit I don't know my Ulster intimately). I rather
think that Mr. MILES MALLESON'S well-studied "_Clutie_" might have been a
little less coherent, with more fawning in his manner. He seemed something
too normal for his purpose in the piece. The way in which the other
characters staved off his piping was beyond all praise. I should guess,
from specimens submitted, that his repertory was not extensive.
Mr. REA, as the father, was of course competent, but surely a little
overplacid throughout. He accepted the blow of his daughter's dishonour
with scarcely a sign that submission caused him any serious pang--a seeming
indifference shared by Miss MAIRE O'NEILL (_Hannah's_ mother), who appeared
quite untroubled a few minutes after the harrowing relation, and indeed
seemed throughout to be playing too easily. Mr. RAYMOND VALENTINE had a
"fat" part as the villain, and well and fatly he played it.
I realise more than ever the difficulties of an Irish Settlement.
T.
* * * * *
[Illustration: OUR ANIMAL ARTIST, AFTER A HARD DAY AT THE ZOO, GOES HOME IN
A NON-SMOKER AND FALLS ASLEEP.]
[Illustration: HE SLEEPS SO SOUNDLY THAT THE ENTRY OF A BIG-GAME HUNTER'S
FAMILY FAILS TO DISTURB HIM.]
[Illustration: THE ROAR OF A PASSING TRAIN FITS IN WITH HIS DREAMS OF WILD
ANIMALS, AND--HE WAKES!]
* * * * *
FAME.
For a long time past I had felt that something ought to be done about it,
and then one evening as I opened my paper in the Tube I came suddenly upon
the following paragraph:--
"Lunching yesterday with Jack Poppington at the Bitz, where, by the way, M.
Caramel treated us to a superbly priceless _mousse a la Canadienne_, he
told me that his _Little Pests_ is selling like wildfire and proving a real
bonanza to the lucky publishers, Messrs. Painter and Lilley. Had a pleasant
chat with him about old times in the Army Pay Corps, in which we served
together for nearly sixteen months during one of the hottest periods of
hostilities 'out yonder.' More famous amongst the general public for his
black ribboned tortoiseshell monocle and invariable presence at all truly
semi-smart Bohemian functions, Poppington keeps a brindled bulldog, grows
primulas and is, of course, known to a select circle as the energetic
Organising Secretary of the North Battersea Entomological Society."
The letterpress which I have quoted above was headed "Popular Pap" and
formed a kind of frame for a photograph of Mr. Poppington, which seemed to
show that his luncheon at the Bitz had not really agreed with him after
all, and at the bottom of the column I noted the familiar signature of
"_Marchand du Beurre_."
As usual when I read paragraphs of this kind I first of all blushed
guiltily and glanced round to see whether anyone had noticed how eagerly I
was drinking it all in. Then I put on the faint superior smile of
recognition which I felt that the situation obviously demanded. Good old
Poppington! One of the best. What recollections it stirred! _Marchand_ and
he and I--
When I left the Tube I carefully crumpled the paper up and threw it away,
and in the middle of dinner I took care to remark casually to Araminta, "By
the way, I suppose you put _Little Pests_ on the library list?"
"Awfully sorry," she said, "but I'm afraid I hadn't heard of them."
"Poppington's latest," I said curtly.
"I'm afraid I haven't heard of Poppington either."
I gave a sigh of desperation and leant back in my chair.
"Well, really!" I protested. "Surely the man himself--everybody--I
mean--his--his eye-glass--his bulldog--of course only a few of us fully
appreciate the extent of his actual research work--but still--"
"All right, I'll get it," she replied.
That finished off Araminta easily enough, but the situation none the less
was serious. Paragraphs exactly like this had been meeting my eye in almost
every popular paper for month after month, and, though I use two memory
systems and have an electric scalp shampoo each week, I find them
increasingly difficult to cope with. _Who's Which_ already transgresses the
established canons of literary art. It is almost as tall lying down as
standing up, and fellows like Poppington are not even in _Who's Which_. He
had not, you observed, even obtained an O.B.E. What would happen if I met
him at some public gathering or dinner and by some awful mischance forgot
those salient facts?
It appeared to me that a process for reproducing short biographies of this
nature in a slightly larger type on the shirt-fronts of eminent personages
was badly needed; it should be coupled, I felt, with an arrangement of
periscopes to help one when sitting beside the great man or standing behind
his back. Or he might perhaps wear upon his sleeve something like the
divisional signs which were so useful in France. Old Poppington, for
instance, might have a--might wear an--I mean there might be something or
other on his coat in red or green or blue to indicate the nature and scope
of his secretarial activities and give a fellow the right lead. And to
think that every week dozens and dozens of new Poppingtons are springing up
like crocuses about me! It was a bewildering thought. They were becoming
perhaps the most numerous and influential class in the community. I had
visions of mass meetings of "well-known" men--"well-known" men marching in
procession with flags to Downing Street to demand State recognition,
statues and pensions, and insisting that it should be made a penal offence
not to recognise their well-known features in the street. I made a great
resolve. Why should I be left out of it? I determined to join the crowd.
I had got rather out of touch with old _Marchand_ for some time, and had
indeed forgotten exactly what he looked like, but I persuaded a mutual
friend to point him out to me, and, selecting the psychological moment,
cannoned into him heavily in the street. His spectacles dropped off and his
note-book fell out of his hand.
"Why, if it isn't _Du Beurre_!" I shouted, feigning an ecstatic surprise.
"I am sorry," he said rather stiffly, when he had recovered his breath,
"but I am afraid I haven't the pleasure--"
"I am John Smith," I said.
"I am afraid I still--"
"Allow me to tell you all about myself," I said. And I did.
I was a little nervous as to how he would take it, but the event justified
me. When I opened my paper next evening I found the following words:--
"Ran across John Smith of Ravenscourt Park yesterday afternoon. Chatting
with him about one thing and another, he told me something of the methods
he has employed to bring about his present celebrity in that salubrious
suburb. He has never, it appears, written a book, collaborated in a review,
appeared in a night-club, lunched at the Bitz, sat on a committee, or been
summoned as a witness in a sensational divorce case. His record, I fancy,
must be one of the most thoroughly unique in Greater London."
There was no photograph of John Smith, but, biting partly into this
paragraph and partly into another on the opposite side of the column, was
one of Mortimer Despenser, the new film star, featured in _Scented Sin_,
which really did almost as well. Dear old _Du Beurre_!
EVOE.
* * * * *
MUSIC A LA MODE.
There was a young singer whose moans
Struck a chill to her auditors' bones;
So she had to explain
That she wasn't in pain,
But was trying to sing quarter-tones.
There once was a basso, a swain
Who came from the rolling Ukraine;
He could sing double D
From breakfast till tea
Without any symptom of strain.
There was a benevolent peer
Who wished to make Art less severe,
So he learned the Jazz drum
And bids fair to become
The black man's most terrible fear.
There once was a critic whose bane
Was his dread of a style that was plain,
So, resolved to refresh us,
He strove to be precious,
But sank to the nether inane.
* * * * *
"AMATEUR SNOOKER POOL CHAMPIONSHIP: S.H. FRY DEFLATED."--_Provincial
Paper._
It was noticed even during the Billiard competition that he never really
got the wind up.
* * * * *
"The chief obstacle to the development of water-power is usually the
question of finance, and if the scheme will not hold water from that
point of view it is not likely to float."--_Electrical Review._
And if it holds too much water it is certain to sink.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MORE ADVENTURES OF A POST-WAR SPORTSMAN.
_Irishman_ (_discussing "roarer" recently purchased by P.-W.S._). "VERY
WELL KNOWN, SHE WAS, WID THE WARD UNION STAG HOUNDS. THE BOYS USED TO CALL
HER 'THE WIDDA,' FOR WHY THEY SAID YE COULD ALWAYS HEAR HER SOBBIN' AFTHER
THE DEER DEPARTED."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Undeniably Mr. CARADOC EVANS is the bold boy. No doubt you remember (since
they are so difficult to forget) the two volumes in which he dealt
faithfully (and a bit over) with the manners of his countrymen in the land
of their fathers. I have heard, and can well believe, that some of Mr.
EVANS' own people were moved by this tribute even to the extent of
threatening its author with personal violence. And now he has turned from
Welsh Wales to English London, and gives us in _My Neighbours_ (MELROSE) a
further collection of sketches pleasantly calculated to prove that the
general detestability of his compatriots remains unchanged by their
migration from a whitewashed cottage to a villa in Suburbia. Whatever you
may think of Mr. EVANS' work, whether it attracts or violently repels,
there can be no question of its devastating skill. His sketches, no more
than a few pages in length, contain never an idle word, and the phrases
bite like vitriol. Moreover he employs an idiom that is (I conjecture) a
direct transcription from native speech, which adds enormously to the
effect. Understand me, not for worlds would I commend these volumes
haphazard to the fastidious; I only say they are clever, arresting and
violently individual. Also that, if you have not so far met the work of Mr.
EVANS, here is your opportunity, in a volume that shows it at its best, or
worst. Half-an-hour's reading will give you an excellent idea of it. At the
end of that time you will probably send either to the chemist for a
restorative or to the bookseller for the two previous volumes. Meanwhile,
if I were the writer, I should purchase a bulldog.
* * * * *
Mrs. GEORGE WEMYSS has for some time past specialised in spinster-aunts,
bachelor-uncles and charming nieces. In _Oranges and Lemons_ (CONSTABLE)
she introduces us pleasantly to some more. The plot, in fact, is chiefly
concerned with the violent squabbles of an uncle and aunt, who belong to
different sides of the family, for the good graces of _Diana_ (who is
nineteen, or thereabouts, and radiant), and _Shant_, (who says so--just
like that--and is five). There are also several young men. To test his
abilities in the _Admirable Crichton_ line _Diana_ maroons the most
favoured of these, together with three other aspirants to her hand, and her
bachelor uncle, on an island in a Scottish loch, hamperless, on a soft day.
As the affections of all the lovers remain undimmed, you can guess what
kind of a girl _Diana_ must have been. _Shant's_ even more responsible job
is to tumble off a pony and allay the temporary tartness which existed
between her two elderly admirers, so that nothing but oranges and
orange-blossoms remain. Really, of course, none of the story much matters.
But if you want the sensation of having stayed with delightful people in
delightful places, where rising prices are not even mentioned or thought
of, Mrs. WEMYSS can give it you all the time.
* * * * *
_Night and Day_ (DUCKWORTH) is the title of VIRGINIA WOOLF'S last book; but
there is no night for the author's clarity of vision, or her cleverness in
describing every detail she has seen, or her delicate precision of style;
there is only daylight, temperate, pervading, but at times, I am afraid,
almost irritatingly calm. "Give me one indiscretion of sympathy or emotion
on behalf of your characters," the reader is tempted to implore her; "let
me feel that you are a little bit excited about them and I shall feel
excited too." The story, after all, is the simple one (to put it in the
shudderingly crude language of former days) of a girl's change of heart
from an unreal love to one of whose sincerity she eventually convinces
herself. _Katharine Hilbery_, the granddaughter of a great poet, brought up
by a father whose only interest is in literature, and a charming mother who
wanders in fields of Victorian romance, breaks off her engagement with a
civil servant who has more taste than talent for letters, and chooses
instead a man slightly below her in social position, but with firmness and
decision of character and genuine skill in--what? Ironmongery? No,
literature. All through the book I found myself wondering whether a mind so
finely tempered as _Katharine's_, a perception so acute, was really fitted
for anything so commonplace as, after all, love is. And I longed for the
authoress, who explained every mood so amazingly well, to explain this too.
* * * * *
Mrs. NORRIS is evidently a specialist in unconventional situations. In her
last novel her theme was the intrigue between a man and his step-mother. In
_Sisters_ (MURRAY) it is the passion of a man for his living wife's married
sister, and in neither case does the author seem to be conscious of
anything out of the ordinary. Not that there is any air of naughtiness
about the business. _Peter_, a rich cripple, loved _Cherry_, the youngest
and prettiest of the three _Strickland_ girls. But _Martin_, a casual
impecunious stranger, stepped in and took her in one bite before _Peter_
could quite realise she was no longer a child. So in default he married
_Alix_, who was, incidentally, worth six of her. Meeting his _Cherry_,
disillusioned about an unsatisfactory and unsuccessful _Martin_, he reaches
out his hand for this forbidden fruit. Whereupon _Alix_, the selfless,
drives herself and _Martin_ over a cliff by way of making things smooth for
_Peter_ and _Cherry_, which was inconsiderate, if resourceful; for, while
_Alix_ is happily killed, poor _Martin_ only breaks his back, so that all
may end with the balance on the credit side of the Recording Angel's ledger
with _Cherry_ nursing her hopeless invalid. An unlikely story, pleasantly
and competently told.
* * * * *
My appreciation of _The Ancient Allan_ (CASSELL) may be measured by my keen
disappointment on finding that the concluding pages of the book were absent
in the copy vouchsafed to me, and that (apparently) in their place a double
dose of pages 279-294 was offered. Nevertheless I can safely assert that
you will find this a yarn worth reading, for here Sir RIDER HAGGARD is in
as good form as ever he was, when both he and _Allan Quatermain_ were
younger. _Lady Ragnall_, who is an old friend to readers of _The Ivory
Child_, reappears here, having in her possession a mysterious and potent
herb, which she persuades _Allan_ to inhale. Then the fun takes on a great
liveliness. _Allan_ is wafted back to the days when Egypt was under the
domination of the Persians, and he in his ancient existence performed some
of the very doughtiest of deeds. No one living can tell such a tale with a
greater dexterity and zest than Sir RIDER. And at that I will leave it,
with one more regret that I was not allowed to be present when _Allan_
recovered from the effects of Taduki (the herb that did it).
* * * * *
I find that when the medicine of thought is wrapped up in the jam of
fiction I generally take both more willingly than either alone. But if my
author, holding out the spoonful, protests that the jam isn't jam at all
but part of the dose, then my mouth does not open with quite its usual
happy confidence. Miss W.M. LETTS has said something of the sort about her
great little book, _Corporal's Corner_ (WELLS, GARDNER, DARTON), and I wish
she hadn't. It is cast in the form of letters written by a soldier in
hospital to a nurse who has been good to him and whose lover has been
killed at the Front. Miss Letts introduces it with a foreword which conveys
the impression that a real _Corporal Jack_ wrote these letters to a real
nurse; but the letters themselves convince--or very nearly convince--me
that the foreword itself is a mere device of authorship, and one which
defeats its own intention of adding weight to the wise and tender and often
humorous things the writer has to say. From his own death-bed _Corporal
Jack_, together with his own love-story and that of his chum _Mac_, writes
what he can of comfort to his friend, and whether his hand or Miss LETTS'S
held the pen the book is the work of someone who knows all about sorrow,
and only the initiated--who must be many for a decade to come--will know
quite how well it is done.
* * * * *
Of the late Mr. NOEL ROSS, who, to the infinite loss of British journalism,
died at the early age of twenty-seven, Mr. Punch cannot trust himself to
speak with the cold detachment of the critic. He saw life with the clear
eye of happy youth and set it down with the easy pen of a ready writer.
Coming from New Zealand, through the War, to England, his natural talents
were at once recognised, and he won a position for himself on the staff of
_The Times_. In the leisure moments spared from the service of the Old Lady
of Printing House Square, he would crack a jest, now and then, with the Old
Sage of Bouverie Street. Mr. EDWIN ARNOLD now publishes a collection of his
writings under the title, _Noel Ross and His Work_, and Mr. Punch confines
himself to commending the volume to his readers.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SOUVENIR-HUNTERS OF THE PAST.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S APPLE.]
