Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920
At this point there stood up a member whom I recognised as one of the
committee. "I am sure, Sir," he said, "that all present are agreed that you
fired in defence of the purity of English speech, and that the incident was
the outcome of an unfortunate attempt to relieve the financial
embarrassment of the club by relaxing our former rigorous exclusiveness.
Speaking as one of the committee, I have no doubt that the affair will be
dismissed as _justifiable homicide_."
Having bowed my acknowledgments I rang the bell. When the waiter appeared I
bade him "Bring me a black coffee and then clear away the remains of Mr.
Buttinbridge."
* * * * *
Then I was awakened by the voice of Buttinbridge yelling, "Wake up, old
Sport!"
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Grocer._ "NOW, MY MAN, THE BUTTER YOU BROUGHT US LAST
WEEK--EVERY PACKET OF IT WEIGHED ONLY FIFTEEN OUNCES."
_Farmer's Man._ "WELL, TO BE SURE, SIR, WE'D LOST OUR ONE-POUND WEIGHT; BUT
WE TOOK ONE OF YOUR POUND PACKETS OF TEA TO WEIGH IT WITH."]
* * * * *
THE PECULIAR CASE OF TOLLER.
Toller first floated into public notice on the fame of Rodman, who by an
irony of fate is now all but forgotten. Rodman, it may be remembered, was a
promising young poet during the first decade of this century. Out of a
scandalous youth whose verses made their appearance in slim periodicals
that expired before their periodicity could be computed, he was evolving
into a reputable poet who was given a prominent position facing advertising
matter in the heavy magazines when he met with his regrettably early end.
Apart from his poems he left no literary remains, except a few letters too
hideously ungrammatical for publication. The sole materials for a biography
lay in the memory of Toller, who by a stroke of luck happened to have known
him intimately.
By an equal piece of good fortune Toller had taken a course of mind
training and his memory was exceptionally retentive. His _Life of Rodman_
achieved instant success, a far greater than _Rodman's Collected Works_.
The undomesticities of a poet's life naturally excite greater interest in
the cultured than his utterances on Love, Destiny and other topics on which
poets are apt to discourse. Toller, until then a struggling journalist,
became all at once a minor literary celebrity, much in demand at
conversaziones and places where they chatter. Sympathy for Rodman aroused
curiosity which only Toller could satisfy.
His memory, continually stimulated by questions, gained further in
strength. The more he was asked the more he remembered, and so on in a
virtuous circle. His Rodmaniana provided him with a comfortable income. He
removed from Earl's Court to luxurious chambers off Jermyn Street, from
which he poured out article after article on the deceased poet.
Then suddenly, without warning, probably from overstrain, his memory gave
way. Everything in the past, Rodman included, vanished from his mind. A
greater calamity one could not conceive. It was as though a violinist had
lost a hand, a popular preacher his voice. His livelihood was gone. Much as
his babble about Rodman had bored me I could not but feel some sorrow for
him, fallen from his little pinnacle of fame and affluence. Judge, then, of
my surprise when I passed him about a fortnight ago faultlessly dressed and
wearing an air of great prosperity. He showed of course not the smallest
recollection of me.
"How does Toller manage to live?" I asked Cardew, who knows him better than
I do.
"He still writes," was the reply.
"What--without a memory?"
"Yes, he finds it an advantage. You see, since the fusion of the old
parties and the formation of new ones, the possession of a memory is often
a source of considerable embarrassment to a leader writer. Toller now does
the political articles for a prominent morning paper. The proprietors
consider him a wonderful find."
* * * * *
BUCKLER'S.
To acquire an estate is, even in these days of inflated prices and
competitive house-hunters, an easy matter compared with finding a name for
it when it is yours. It is then that the real trouble sets in.
Take the case of my friend Buckler.
A little while ago he purchased a property, a few acres on the very top of
a hill not too far from London and only half-a-mile from his present
habitation, and there he is now building a home. At least the plans are
done and the ground has been pegged out. "Here," he will say, quite
unmindful of the clouds emptying themselves all over us--with all an
enthusiast's disregard for others, and an enthusiast, moreover, who has his
abode close by, full of changes of raiment--"here," setting his foot firmly
in the mud, "is where the dining-room will be. Here," moving away a few
yards through the slush, "is the billiard-room." Then, pointing towards the
zenith with his stick, "Above it"--here you look up into the pitiless sky
as well as the deluge will permit--"are two spare rooms, one of which will
be yours when you come to see us." And so forth.
He then leads the way round the place, through brake fern wetter than
waves, to indicate the position of the tennis-courts, and in course of time
you are allowed to return to the dry and spend the rest of the day in
borrowed clothes.
Everyone knows these Kubla Khans decreeing pleasure domes and enlarging
upon them in advance of the builders, and never are they so eloquent and
unmindful of rain and discomforts as when their listeners are poor and
condemned to a squalid London existence for ever.
But that is beside the mark. It is the naming of these new country seats
that leads to such difficulties.
That night at dinner the question arose again.
"As it is on the top of the hill," said a gentle wistful lady, "why not
call it 'Hill Top'? I'm sure I've seen that name before. It is expressive
and simple."
"So simple," said Buckler, "that my nearest neighbour has already
appropriated it."
"I suppose that would be an objection," said the lady, and we all agreed.
"Why not," said another guest, "call it 'The Summit'? or, more concisely,
just 'Summit'?"
"Or why not go further," said a frivolous voice, "and suggest hospitality
too--and Buckler's hospitality is notorious--by calling it 'Summit-to-
Eat'?"
Our silence was properly contemptuous of this sally.
"If you didn't like that you might call it 'Summit-to-Drink,'" the
frivolous voice impenitently continued. "Then you would get all the
Americans there too."
The voice's glass having been replenished (which, I fancy, was its inner
purpose) we became serious again.
"As it is on the top of the hill," said the first lady, "there will
probably be a view. Why not call it, for example, 'Bellevue'? 'Bellevue' is
a charming word."
"A little French, isn't it?" someone inquired.
"Oh, yes, it's French," she admitted. "But it's all right, isn't it? It's
quite nice French."
We assured her that, for a French phrase, it was singularly free from
impropriety.
"But of course," she said, "there's an Italian equivalent, 'Bella Vista.'
'Bella Vista' is delightful."
"I passed a 'Bella Vista' in Surbiton yesterday," said the frivolous voice,
"and an errand-boy had done his worst with it with a very black lead
pencil."
"What could he do?" the gentle lady asked wonderingly, with big violet eyes
distended.
"It is not for me to explain," said the frivolous voice; "but the final
vowel of the first word dissatisfied him and he substituted another. The
capabilities of errand-boys with pencil or chalk should never be lost sight
of when one is choosing a name for a front gate."
"I am all at sea," said the lady plaintively. Then she brightened. "Is
there no prominent landmark visible from the new house?" she asked. "It is
so high there must be."
Our hostess said that by cutting down two trees it would be possible to see
Windsor Castle.
"Oh, then, do cut them down," said the lady, "and call it 'Castle View.'
That would be perfect."
During the panic that followed I made a suggestion. "The best name for it,"
I said, "is 'Buckler's.' That is what the country people will call it, and
so you may as well forestall them and be resigned to it. Besides, it's the
right kind of name. It's the way most of the farms all over England once
were named--after their owners, and where the owner was a man of character
and force the name persisted. Call it 'Buckler's' and you will help
everyone, from the postman to the strange guest who might otherwise tour
the neighbourhood for miles searching for you long after lunch was
finished."
"But isn't it too practical?" the first lady asked. "There's no poetry in
it."
"No," I said, "there isn't. The poetry is in its owner. Any man who can
stand in an open field under a July rainstorm and show another man where
his bedroom is to be in a year's time is poet enough."
E.V.L.
* * * * *
TO ISIS.
Isis, beside thine ambient rill
How oft I've snuffed the Berkshire breezes,
Or, prone on some adjoining hill,
Thrown off with my accustomed skill
The weekly fytte of polished wheezes;
How oft in summer's languorous days,
With some fair creature at the pole, I
Have thrid the Cherwell's murmurous ways
And dared with lobster mayonnaise
The onslaughts of Bacillus Coli?
Once--it was done at duty's call--
My labouring oar explored thy reaches;
They said I was no good at all
And coaches noting me would bawl
Things about "angleworms and breeches;"
But oh! the shouts of heartfelt glee
That rang on thine astonished marges
As we bore (rolling woundily)
Full in the wake of Brasenose III.
And bumped them soundly at the barges.
That night on Oxenford there burst
A sound of strong men at their revels,
And stroke, in vinous lore unversed,
Retired, if you must know the worst,
On feet that swam at different levels,
Nor knew till morning brought its cares
That, while the cup was freely flowing,
He'd scaled a flight of moving stairs
And commandeered his tutor's chairs
To keep the college bonfire going.
Immortal youth it was that bound
Us twain together, beauteous river;
And, though these limbs just crawl around
That once would scarcely touch the ground,
And alcohol upsets my liver,
Still, in a punt or lithe canoe
I can revive my vernal heyday,
Pretend the sky's ethereal blue,
The golden kingcups' cheery hue,
Spell my, as well as Nature's, Mayday.
The evening glows, the swallow skims
Between the water and the willows;
The blackbirds pipe their evening hymns,
A punt awaits at Mr. Tims'
With generous tea and lots of pillows,
And of all girls the first, the best
To play at youth with this old fossil;
Then Isis, as we glide to rest
Upon thy shadow-dappled breast,
We'll pledge thee in a generous wassail.
ALGOL.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Mistress._ "DID EVERYTHING COME FROM THE STORES THAT I
ORDERED?"
_Maid._ "EVERYTHINK, MUM, 'CEPT THE 'ADDICK, WHICH IS COMING ON BY ITSELF
LATER."]
* * * * *
ENGLAND UNBENDS.
REPORTS FROM SPA AND SHORE.
SCARGATE.--This famous Yorkshire Spa is now in a condition of hectic
activity and offers a plethora of attractions. A recent analysis of the
waters shows that the proportion of sapid ovaloid particles and
sulphuretted trinitrotoluene is larger than ever. Lieutenant Platt-
Stithers' stincopated anthropoid orchestra plays four times daily--in the
early morning and at noon for the relief of the water-drinkers, and in the
afternoon and evening in the rotating Jazz Hall. Special attractions this
week include cinema lectures daily on the domestic life of the Solomon
Islanders by Mr. Nicholas Ould; a recital on the Bolophone on Thursday by
Mr. Tertius Quodling, and, at the Grand Opera House, _Pope Joan_ and _The
Flip-Flappers_. On Saturday the Stridcar Golf Club will hold a series of
competitions in rational fancy dress for the benefit of the Phonetic
Spelling Association.
FALLALMOUTH.--Visitors to this romantic resort are offered a wide field of
entertainment and moral uplift. The steamer excursions embrace trips up the
lovely river Fallal to Gongor, famous for the prehistoric remains of the
shrine of Saint Opodeldoc, and to beauty spots in the harbour like
Glumgallion, Trehenna and Pangofflin Creek. There are also excursions in
armed motor-char-a-bancs to Boscagel, Cadgerack and Flapperack. To-day
visitors can view the gardens at Poljerrick, where many super-tropical
plants, including man-eating cacti, are growing in the most unbridled
luxuriance. There is a fine sporting nine-hole golf-course on the shingle
strand at Grogwalloe, where the test of niblick play is more severe than on
any links save those of the Culbin Sands near Nairn. Among other attractive
features are the brilliant displays of aurora borealis over the Bay, which
have been arranged at considerable cost by the Corporation in conjunction
with the Meteorological Society.
BORECAMBE.--The demand for bathing-machines and tents continues to
increase, though the shopkeepers are complaining of a decreasing spending
power on the part of the visitors and a disinclination to pay more than a
shilling a head for shrimps. The practice of dispensing with head-gear is
also much resented by local outfitters, but otherwise the situation is well
in hand. On Monday last Mr. Silas Pargeter, an old resident, caught a fine
conger-eel, weighing fifty-six pounds, which he has presented to the
Museum. As Borecambe is a good jumping-off ground for the Lake District
there are daily char-a-banc excursions to the land of WORDSWORTH and
RUSKIN, each passenger being supplied with a megaphone and a pea-shooter.
* * * * *
DOWN CHANNEL.
The chime of country steeples,
The scent of gorse and musk,
The drone of sleepy breakers
Come mingled with the dusk;
A ruddy moon is rising
Like a ripe pomegranate husk.
The coast-wise lights are wheeling
White sword-blades in the sky,
The misty hills grow dimmer,
The last lights blink and die;
Oh, land of home and beauty,
Good-bye, my dear, good-bye!
PATLANDER.
* * * * *
HOW TO BE LONELY THOUGH MARRIED.
"Lonely Officer (married, with three children) wants Sealyham Terrier
Dog."--_Times._
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Golfer._ "LET'S SEE--WHAT'S BOGEY FOR THIS HOLE?"
_Caddie_ (_fed up_). "DINNA FASH YERSEL' ABOOT BOGEY. YE'VE PLAYED FUFTEEN
AN' YE'RE NO DEID YET--(_aside_) WORSE LUCK."]
* * * * *
MY DROMEDARY.
I see by _The Times_ that dromedaries are on sale at sixty-five pounds
apiece.
In these days, when commodities of all kinds are so expensive, one cannot
afford to overlook bargains of whatever nature they may be. And it seems to
me that a dromedary at sixty-five pounds is really rather cheap.
For after all sixty-five pounds to-day is little more than thirty pounds in
pre-war times. Considering their trifling cost I am surprised that more
people do not possess dromedaries. Most of my neighbours during the past
two years have built garages, but not one, so far as I am aware, has built
a dromedary-drome.
I think I shall buy one of these attractive pets if my pass-book encourages
me. Cheaper than a motor-car and far more intelligent and responsive to
human affection, a dromedary will add distinction to my establishment and
afford pleasant occupation for my leisure. It brings no attendant annoyance
from the Inland Revenue authorities; there are no tiresome registration
fees or regulations as to the dimensions of a number-plate.
As long as I can remember I have lived in a state of uncertainty as to
whether a dromedary has two humps and a camel one, or a camel two humps and
a dromedary one. With one of these exotic quadrupeds tethered only a few
yards away from the kitchen door that condition of doubt need not exist in
the future for more than a few moments. In a good light it should be
perfectly easy to count the humps or hump. Then again a dromedary will come
for a walk on a fine evening without involving one in a dog-fight. It will
provide quiet yet healthful exercise for the two children. If it turns out
that the type possesses two humps it will be able to convey Edgar and
Marigold at one and the same time, thus saving delay and inconvenience.
It will be a protection to the house. When we have gone to bed the faithful
creature will lie on guard in the hall, and no amount of poisoned liver
thrust through the letter-box will assuage its ferocity or weaken its
determination to protect the hearth and home of its master against
marauders. For the dromedary is not only a strict teetotaler and non-
smoker, but a lifelong vegetarian. Famous for its browsing propensities, a
dromedary about the garden will save untold labour and expense, keeping the
lawn trimmed and the hedges clipped. And indoors its height will serve me
admirably in enabling me, while seated on its hump or one of its humps, to
attend in comfort to a little whitewashing job which will not brook further
postponement.
I will look at my pass-book to-morrow.
* * * * *
FLOWERS' NAMES.
COLT'S FOOT.
When the four Horses of the Sun
Were little leggy things,
When they could only jump and run
And hadn't grown their wings,
The Sun-God sent them out to play
In a field one July day.
Oh, the four Horses of the Sun
They galloped and they rolled,
They leapt into the air for fun
And felt so brave and bold;
And when they'd done their gallopings
They'd grown four splendid pairs of wings.
The Sun-God fetched them in again
To draw his car of gold;
But you can still see very plain
Where each one leapt and rolled;
For from each hoof-mark, every one,
There sprang a little golden sun,
And that same little golden flower
People call Colt's Foot to this hour.
* * * * *
"The stove will stand by itself anywhere. It omits neither smoke nor
smell."--_Provincial Paper._
We know that stove.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Lady._ "CAN YOU SHOW ME SOMETHING SUITABLE FOR A BIRTHDAY
PRESENT FOR A GENTLEMAN?"
_Shopwalker._ "MEN'S FURNISHING DEPARTMENT ON THE NEXT FLOOR, MADAM."
_Lady._ "WELL, I DON'T KNOW. THE GIFT IS FOR MY HUSBAND."
_Shopwalker._ "OH, PARDON, MADAM. BARGAIN COUNTER IN THE BASEMENT."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Not every regiment has the good luck to find for chronicler one who is not
only a distinguished soldier but a practical and experienced man of
letters. This fortune is enjoyed by _The Gold Coast Regiment_ (MURRAY) in
securing for its historian Sir HUGH CLIFFORD, K.C.M.G., from whose book you
may obtain a vivid picture of a phase of the Empire's effort about which
the average Briton has heard comparatively little. The very strenuous
compaigns of the G.C.R., the endurance and achievements of its brave and
light-hearted troops, and the heroism and fostering care of its officers,
make an inspiring story. Almost for the first time one gains some real idea
of the difficulties of the East African campaign, that prolonged tiger
hunt, in which every advantage of mobility, of choice of ground, ambush and
the like lay with the enemy; and over very tough physical obstacles, as,
for example, rivers so variable that, in the author's incisive phrase, they
"can rarely be relied upon, for very long together, either to furnish
drinking-water or to refrain from impeding transport." It is interesting to
note that Sir HUGH, while giving every credit to the remarkable personality
of the German commander, entirely demolishes the theory, so grateful to our
sentimentalists, that the absence of surrenders on the part of the enemy's
black troops was due to any devotion to VON LETTOW-VORBECK as leader; the
explanation being the characteristic German dodge of creating from the
natives a military caste so highly privileged, and consequently unpopular
with their fellows, that surrender, involving return to native civilian
life, became a practical impossibility.
* * * * *
Much the best part, and a good best, of _Sir Harry_ (COLLINS) is the
opening, which is not only delightful in itself but contains almost the
sole example of a chapter-long letter (of the kind usually so unconvincing
in fiction) in which I have found it possible to believe as being actually
written by one character to another. The explanation of which is that this
one is supposed to be sent to his wife by the new _Vicar of Royd_, himself
a successful novelist, on a visit of inspection to his future parish. The
efforts of _Mrs. Grant_, at home, to disentangle essential facts from the
complications of the literary manner form as pleasant and human an
introduction to a story as any I remember. The story itself is one highly
characteristic of its author, Mr. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL, both in charm and
truth to life, as also in one minor drawback, of which I have taken
occasion to speak before. Nothing could be better done than the picture of
the household at Royd Castle, the boy owner, _Sir Harry_, sheltered by the
almost too-encompassing care of the three elder inmates, mother,
grandmother and tutor. When the fictionally inevitable happens and an Eve
breaks into this protected Eden there follow some boy-and-girl love-scenes
that may perhaps remind you--and what praise could be higher?--of the
collapse of another system on the meeting of _Richard_ and _Lucy_. I will
not anticipate the end of a sympathetically told story, which I myself
should have enjoyed even more but for Mr. MARSHALL'S habit (hinted at
above) of following real life somewhat too closely in the matter of
non-progressive discussion. How I should like him to lay his next scene in
a community of Trappists!
* * * * *
_The Haunted Bookshop_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) is a daring, perhaps too daring,
mixture of a browse in a second-hand bookshop and a breathless bustle among
international criminals. To estimate the accuracy of its technical details
the critic must be a secret service specialist, the mustiest of bookworms
and a highly-trained expert in the science and language of the American
advertising business. Speaking as a general practitioner, I like Mr.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY best when he is being cinematographic; he hits a very
happy mean with his spies and his sleuths, giving a nice proportion of
skill and error, failure and success, to both. There is a strong love-
interest which will be made much of and probably spoilt by the purchasers
of the film-rights; and, though strong men will doubtless applaud hoarsely
and women will weep copiously, as the bomb in the bookshop throws the young
lovers into each other's arms, I feel that the book gives a more attractive
portrait of _Titania Chapman_, the plutocrat's daughter, than ever can be
materialised in the film-man's "close-up." I am afraid that Mr. MORLEY will
not thank me for praising his brisk melodrama at the cost of his ramblings
in literature. But, if he has the knowledge, he lacks the fragrance; not to
put too fine a point on it, he is long-winded and tends to bore in his
disquisitions upon books and bookishness; which is no proper material for a
novelist. The story is all about America and is thoroughly American;
inevitably therefore there is some ambitious word-coining. The only novelty
which sticks in my memory and earns my gratitude is the title for the
female Bolshevik, to wit, Bolshevixen.
* * * * *
Wayward and capricious heroines who marry young are entitled, I think, to a
certain amount of introspective treatment by their authors. Without some
knowledge of their mental working it is not very easy for the reader to
have patience with them. I was introduced to _Anne_ (HEINEMANN) when she
was fifteen, and in the act of snatching a loaf of bread from a baker's
cart and running away with it merely to annoy the baker; and, as she had
large blue eyes and two young men as self-appointed guardians, I was
prepared for a certain amount of heart trouble later on. One of these
heroes she married at the age of seventeen, and, after various innocent but
compromising vagaries (including a flight to Paris after the death of her
son in order to study art), she followed the other one, still innocently,
to Ireland, because he had been in prison and she was sorry for him. Both
these guardians discharged their duty to _Anne_ at least as well as OLGA
HARTLEY, who chronicles but does not explain; and this is a pity, for with
a rather different treatment she might have made her heroine a very
likeable person. Looked at from another point of view, _Anne_ may be taken
as a mild piece of propaganda against divorce. I am glad it didn't come to
that, of course, but I do feel that a cross-examining K.C. would have
discovered a good deal more about Anne's soul for me than I learnt from the
writer of her story.