Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 159.
July 7th, 1920.
[Illustration: Punch Vol. Clix.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: VOL. CLIX.]
* * * * *
TIMON.
About a month ago we lost our dog. I can't describe him, although I have
tried from time to time; but Elaine, my wife, said I should not speak in
that fashion of a dumb animal. He stands about two hands high, is of a
reseda-green shade, except when in anger, and has no distinguishing marks
except the absence of a piece of the right ear, which was carried off by a
marauding Irish terrier. He answers with a growl to many names, including
that of Timon. He will also answer to a piece of raw meat, another dog or a
postman.
I do not know if dogs can be said to have a hobby; if so, Timon's hobby is
postmen. He studies them closely. In fact I should not be surprised if he
comes to write a monograph on them some day.
As soon as one of them has daringly passed the entrance gates of Bellevue,
Timon trots forth like a reception committee to meet him. He studies the
bunch of communications that the visitor bears in his hand. If they are all
right--cheques from publishers, editors and missing-heir merchants,
invitations to tea and tennis or dinner and dominoes, requests for
autographs--Timon nods and allows the postman to pass unscathed. On the
other hand, if the collection includes rejected manuscripts, income or
other tax demand notes, tracts or circulars, then I hear the low growl with
which Timon customarily goes into action, and the next moment the postman
is making for the neighbouring county and taking a four-foot gate in his
stride.
Consequently it is to be anticipated that if the Olympic Games are ever
held in our neighbourhood the sprint and the hurdles will be simply at the
mercy of our local post-office. They take no credit for it. It is simply
practice, they say.
But, to return to the main subject, we have lost Timon. One month has
passed without his cheery presence at Bellevue. Reckless postmen have made
themselves free of the front garden and all colour has gone out of life.
We have done everything to win him back. We have inserted numerous
advertisements in the agony columns of the newspapers: "If this should
catch the eye of Timon," or "Come back, Timon. All will be forgiven;" but
apparently we have yet to find his favourite newspaper.
We began with the well-known canine papers, trusting vainly that he might
happen to glance through them some day when he was a bit bored or hadn't an
engagement. After that we went through _The Times_, _The Morning Post_
(he's strongly anti-Bolshevik), _The Daily News_ (his views on vivisection
are notorious) and other dailies, and then took to the weeklies.
We had strong hopes for a time that _The Meat Trade Review_ would find him.
Timon is fond of raw meat. But failure again resulted. We have now reached
_Syren and Shipping_ and _The Ironmongers' Gazette_ and--
* * * * *
I must stop here to inform you of the glad news. Elaine has just hurried in
to tell me that Timon has replied and will be back to-morrow.
How did we catch his eye? Well, of course we should have thought of it
before. It was _The Post Office Gazette_.
* * * * *
THE ROMANCE OF BOOKMAKING.
A VISIT TO MESSRS. PRYCE UNLTD.
(_With acknowledgments in the right quarter._)
A gigantic commissionaire flings wide the doors for us and, passing
reverently inside, we are confronted by the magnificent equestrian statue
of Mr. Bookham Pryce, the founder of the firm. This masterpiece of the
Post-Cubist School was originally entitled, "Niobe Weeping for her
Children," but the gifted artist, in recognition of Mr. Pryce's princely
offer of one thousand guineas for the group, waived his right to the title.
On the left we see the Foreign Department. Here we watch with rapt
attention the arrival of countless business telegrams from all parts of the
world. We choose one or two at random and see for ourselves the
ramifications of Pryce's far-flung booking service. This one from China:
"Puttee fifty taels Boko Lanchester Cup;" another from distant Siberia,
emerging from the primeval forests of that wondrous land of the future:
"Tenbobski Quitter Ebury Handicap." Bets are accepted in all denominations
from Victory Bonds to the cowrie-shells of West Africa.
Passing up the marble staircase and leaving the Home Department on our
right we arrive at the Stumer Section. Here a small army of ex-Scotland
Yard detectives are engaged in dealing with _mala-fide_ commissions--
attempts on the part of men of straw to make credit bets, or telegrams
despatched after a race is over.
Where shall we go next? We ask a courteous shopwalker, who in flawless
English advises us to try the Winter Gardens, where a delightful tea is
served at a minimum cost. Here, whilst sipping a fragrant cup of Orange
Pekoe, we can watch the large screen, on which the results of all races are
flashed within ten seconds of the horses passing the winning-post. At one
time, in fact, it was nothing unusual for Pryce's to have the results
posted before the horses had completed the course, but in deference to the
prejudices of certain purists this practice was abandoned.
Follows a hurried visit to the Library and Museum, where we gaze enthralled
at the original pair of pigeon-blue trousers with which Mr. Bookham Pryce
made his sensational _debut_ on the Lincoln course in the spring of 1894.
We might linger here a moment to muse over the simple beginnings of great
men, but time is pressing and we are all agog to visit the Bargain
Basement.
An express lift flashes us downwards in a few seconds and behold we are in
the midst of rows of counters groaning under bargains that even the New
Poor can scarce forbear to grasp.
Here, for example, is one-hundred-to-eight offered against Pincushion for
the Gimcrack Stakes. This wondrous animal's lineage and previous
performances are carefully tabulated on a card at the side, and,
remembering the form he showed at Gatwick, one wonders, as the man in the
street would say, how it is done.
Or look at Tom-tom, which left the others simply standing in a field of
forty-four at Kempton Park, and carrying eight-stone-seven. Here he has a
paltry four-pound penalty for the Worcester Welter Handicap, yet one can
have seven to one about him.
How the House of Pryce can offer such bargains is a mystery to the old
school of red-necked bookmakers, whose Oxford accent was not pronounced.
They fail to see what courtesy, urbanity and meat-teas at three shillings
per head can do in the way of stimulating business.
From the Bargain Basement we wander at will through the remaining
departments, making inquiries here and there from the expert assistants,
technically known as laymen, without being once importuned to make a bet.
And when at length, refreshed and pleased with a delightful afternoon, we
pass again through the portals of the House of Pryce, we make for home,
confirmed supporters of the modern personal touch, which has transformed a
drab business into a veritable romance.
* * * * *
OUR OPTIMISTIC ADVERTISERS.
"Will Person who took Gent.'s Trenchcoat by mistake whilst motor-cycle
was on fire in ---- Rd., on Wednesday night, please return same."--
_Provincial Paper_.
* * * * *
"Alec Herd, who went round in 72, and who is one of the old school, was
second in the Open Championship no fewer than 28 years ago, and won it
as far back as 19042."--_Provincial Paper_.
_B.C._, of course.
* * * * *
"Yesterday was St. Stephen's Day, and, therefore, the patronal festival
of the Abbey Church. Hence the choice of the date for the issue of the
appeal, though probably not one Englishman in a thousand connects the
Abbey with any particular saint."--_Daily Paper_.
Well, certainly not this one, though we have heard St. PETER alluded to in
this connection.
* * * * *
"THE HENLEY REGATTA.
A remarkable feature of the meeting is the number of ladies rowing, the
ten heats for eight-oared boats in the Ladies' Challenge Cup being
decided to-day."--_Provincial Paper_.
Lest the male element should be entirely forgotten, would it not be well to
call it in future "The Cock-and-henley regatta"?
* * * * *
IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY THE MARYLAND COMPANY, SQUINTING HOUSE SQUARE.
_Ready to-day. An arresting Novel._
By RIZZIO DARNLEY.
_REINCARNATION; OR, THE TWO MARIES._
With eighteen illustrations on superpulp paramount artcraft vellum.
"The story is one of the most gripping that I have ever read. I am
still suffering from its grippe."--_Lord Thanet in "The Daily
Feature."_
* * * * *
_Also ready to-day. The Book of the Year._
_FROM SCREEN TO THRONE._
By HARRY EGBOLD.
"I am glad to pay a tribute to the sincerity, intimate knowledge and
exalted Quixotry of this extraordinary book. It is the best that has
ever been written."--_Lord Thanet in "The Daily Mary."_
* * * * *
_The Novel of the Century._
_THE PERILS OF MAJESTY._
By H. STICKHAM WEED.
In MALLABY-DEELEY cloth, with luminous portraits.
"It is so rich in plums that I do not recommend anyone to read more
than half-a-column at a time. In this way the pleasure and profit can
be spread over several weeks. This wonderful book is the product of a
brilliant thinker and tender-hearted gentleman. My shelves are full,
but I should take down any war-book to make room for this."--_Lord
Thanet (third review in "The Douglas Daily Dispatch.")_
* * * * *
_A Novel of Super-Pathos._
_THE QUEEN'S REST CURE._
By "MR. X."
"_The Queen's Rest-Cure_ is a greater book than _The Rescue_ by JOSEPH
CONRAD, because the sinister thrill of suspense yields to the ever-
fresh romance of young love. I have read and re-read it with tears of
pure delight, punctuated with shrieks of happy laughter."--_Lord Thanet
in "The Maryland Mirror."_
* * * * *
_QUOTES AND CHEERIES._
A medium of instruction and enlightenment for literary gents, gentle
readers and all persons anxious to think about four things at once.
EVERY SATURDAY.
_Mary's Journal of her Trip to England._
The concluding instalment of Mary Queen of Hearts' journal of her trip to
England appears in the current issue of _Quotes and Cheeries_ under the
caption of "Squinting House Square Papers." Reference has already been made
in a preceding instalment to the riots at the Fitz Hotel and the flight of
the Queen to Wimbledon in a taxi driven by Sir Philip Phibbs, afterwards
Lord Fountain of Penn.
* * * * *
[Illustration: L'ENFANT TERRIBLE.
YOUNG TURK. "I WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR OUR NATIONAL HONOUR."
OLD TURK. "WELL, IF YOU MUST. BUT I WASH MY HANDS OF THE WHOLE BUSINESS--
UNLESS, OF COURSE, YOU WIN."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Golfer_. "WHAT'S THE MATTER, SANDY? AREN'T YOU GOING TO
PLAY THIS AFTERNOON?"
_Sandy_. "MAN, HAVE YOU NOT HEARD? I'VE LOST MA BALL."]
* * * * *
ELIZABETH GOES TO THE SALES.
"Are you goin' to the Summer Sales this year, 'm?" inquired Elizabeth,
suddenly projecting herself on the horizon of my thoughts.
I laid down my pen at once. It is not possible to continue writing if
Elizabeth desires to make conversation at the same time.
"Certainly I shall, if I hear of a sale of cheap crockery," I replied
pointedly; "ours badly needs replenishing."
The barbed arrow did not find its mark. It may require a surgical operation
to get a joke into a Scotsman, but only the medium of some high explosive
could properly convey a hint to Elizabeth.
"'Oo wants to go to sales to buy things like pots?" asked Elizabeth
scornfully.
"_People who are always getting their pots broken_," I replied in italics.
"Well, everyone to their tastes," she commented casually. I began to wonder
if even trinitrotoluol could be ineffective at times. "Wot I mean by sales
is buyin' clothes," she continued; "bargins, you know."
"Yes, I know," I answered; "I've seen them--in the advertisements. But I
never secure any."
"Why don't you, then?"
"Because of all the other people, Elizabeth. Those who get the bargains
seem to have a more dominant nature than mine. They have more grit,
determination--"
"Sharper elbows is wot you mean," put in Elizabeth. "It's chiefly a matter
of 'oo pushes 'ardest. My! I love a sale if only for the sake o' the
scrimmage. A friend o' mine 'oo's been separated from 'er 'usband becos
they was always fightin' told me she never misses goin' to a sale so that
she'll be in practice in case 'er and 'er old man make it up again."
"I'm not surprised that I never get any bargains," I commented, "although I
often long to. Look at the advertisement in this newspaper, for instance.
Here's a silk jumper which is absurdly cheap. It's a lovely Rose du Barri
tricot and costs only--"
"'Oo's rose doo barry trick-o when 'e's at 'ome?" inquired Elizabeth.
I translated hurriedly. "I mean it's a pink knitted one. Exactly what I
want. But what is the use of my even hoping to secure it?"
"I'll get it for you," announced Elizabeth.
"You! But how?"
"I'll go an' wait an hour or two afore the doors open, an' when they do I
don't 'arf know 'ow to fight my way to the counters. Let me go, m'm. I'd
reelly like the outin'."
I hesitated, but only for a moment. What could be simpler than sending an
emissary to use her elbows on my behalf? There was nothing unfair in doing
that, especially if I undertook the washing-up in her absence.
Elizabeth set out very early on the day of the sale looking enthusiastic.
I, equally enthusiastic, applied myself to the menial tasks usually
performed by Elizabeth. We had just finished a lunch of tinned soup, tinned
fish and tinned fruit (oh, what a blessing is a can-opener in the absence
of domestics!) when she reappeared. My heart leapt at the sight of a parcel
in her hand.
"You got it after all!" I exclaimed. O thrice blessed Elizabeth! O most
excellent domestic! For the battles she had fought that day on my behalf
she should not go unrewarded.
"I'm longing to try it on," I said as I tore at the outer wrappings.
"Well, I orter say it isn't the one you told me to get," interposed
Elizabeth.
I paused in unwrapping the parcel, assailed by sudden misgivings. "Isn't
this the jumper, then?"
"Not that pertickler one. You see, it was like this: there was a great
'orse of a woman just in front o' me an' I couldn't move ahead of 'er
no'ow, try as I would. It was a case o' bulk, if you know what I mean, an'
elbows wasn't no good. An' 'ang me if she wasn't goin' in for that there
very tricky jumper you wanted! I put up a good fight for it, 'm, I did
indeed. We both reached it at the same time, got 'old of it together,
an'--an'--when it gave way at the seams I let 'er 'ave it," said Elizabeth,
concluding her simple narrative. It sounded convincing enough. I had no
reason to doubt it at the moment.
"The beast!" I said in the bitterness of my heart. "Is it possible a woman
could so far forget herself as to behave like that, Elizabeth?"
"But there's no need for you to be disappointed, as I got a jumper for you
arter all," she continued. She took the final wrappings off the parcel and
drew out a garment. "There!" she remarked proudly, holding it aloft.
The Old Masters, we are told, discovered the secret of colour, but the
colour of that jumper should have been kept a secret--it never ought to
have been allowed to leak out. It was one of those flaming pinks that
cannot be regarded by the naked eye for any length of time, owing to the
strain it puts on the delicate optic nerve. Bands of purple finished off
this Bolshevist creation.
"How dare you ask me to wear that?" I broke out when I had partially
recovered from the shock.
"Why, wot's wrong with it? You said you wanted a pink tricky one. It's
pink, isn't it?"
"Yes, it _is_ pink," I admitted faintly.
"An' it's far trickier nor wot the other was."
"You had better keep the jumper for yourself," I said crossly. "No doubt it
will suit you better than it would me."
She seemed gratified, but not unusually taken aback at my generosity.
"Well, since you ses it yourself, 'm, p'raps it is more my style. Your
complexion won't _stand_ as much as mine."
I was pondering on whether this was intended as a compliment or an insult
when she spoke again.
"I shan't 'arf cut a dash," she murmured as she drifted to the door; "an'
it might be the means o' bringin' it off this time."
"Bringing what off, Elizabeth?"
"Bringin' my new young man to the point, 'm. You see, 'e do love a bit o'
colour; _an' I knew 'e wouldn't 'ave liked the rose doo barry trick-o,
anyhow._"
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Proprietor_ (_to the rescue of his assistants, who have
failed to satisfy customer_). "ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF CAP YOU
DO WANT?"
_New "Blood."_ "WELL, YE SEE, IT'S LIKE THIS--I'VE BOUGHT A MOTOR-BIKE, AND
I THOUGHT AS 'OW I'D LIKE A CAP WI' A PEAK AT THE BACK."]
* * * * *
"Wanted, a General, plain cooking, gas fires, two boys 9 by 5.--South
Streatham."--_Local Paper._
Nothing is said of their third dimensions.
* * * * *
A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE.
"To-day is the birthday of Lord Durham and his twin brother, the Hon.
F.W. Lambton, both of whom are sixty-five." _Provincial Paper_.
* * * * *
"Prince Arthur is well fitted for the high post to which he has been
called. He is the tallest member of the Royal Family."--_Daily Paper_.
But it is only fair to his Royal Highness to say that he has other
qualifications as well.
* * * * *
From the recent debate on "Doctors and Secrecy":--
"If you begin to open the door you take away the sheet anchor upon
which our professional work is based."--_Daily Paper_.
We trust that the speaker mixes his medicines more discreetly than his
metaphors.
* * * * *
ON WITH THE DANCE.
I have been to a dance; or rather I have been to a fashionable restaurant
where dancing is done. I was not invited to a dance--there are very good
reasons for that; I was invited to dinner. But many of my fellow-guests
have invested a lot of money in dancing. That is to say, they keep on
paying dancing-instructors to teach them new tricks; and the dancing-
instructors, who know their business, keep on inventing new tricks. As soon
as they have taught everybody a new step they say it is unfashionable and
invent a new one.
This is all very well from their point of view, but it means that, in order
to keep up with them and get your money's worth out of the last trick you
learned, it is necessary during its brief life of respectability to dance
at every available opportunity. You dance as many nights a week as is
physically possible; you dance on week-days and you dance on Sundays; you
begin dancing in the afternoon and you dance during tea in the coffee-rooms
of expensive restaurants, whirling your precarious way through littered and
abandoned tea-tables; and at dinner-time you leap up madly before the fish
and dance like variety artistes in a highly-polished arena before a crowd
of complete strangers eating their food; or, as if seized with an
uncontrollable craving for the dance, you fling out after the joint for one
wild gallop in an outer room, from which you return, perspiring and
dyspeptic, to the consumption of an ice-pudding, before dashing forth to
the final orgy at a picture-gallery, where the walls are appropriately
covered with pictures of barbaric women dressed for the hot weather.
That is what happened at this dinner. As soon as you had started a nice
conversation with a lady a sort of roaring was heard without; her eyes
gleamed, her nostrils quivered like a horse planning a gallop, and in the
middle of one of your best sentences she simply faded away with some
horrible man at the other end of the table who was probably "the only man
in London who can do the Double Straddle properly." This went on the whole
of the meal, and it made connected conversation quite difficult. For my own
part I went on eating, and when I had properly digested I went out and
looked at the little victims getting their money's worth.
From the door of the room where the dancing was done a confused uproar
overflowed, as if several men of powerful physique were banging a number of
pokers against a number of saucepans, and blowing whistles, and occasional
catcalls, and now and then beating a drum and several sets of huge cymbals,
and ceaselessly twanging at innumerable banjoes, and at the same time
singing in a foreign language, and shouting curses or exhortations or
street cries, or imitating hunting-calls and the cry of the hyena, or
uniting suddenly in the war-whoop of some pitiless Sudan tribe.
It was a really terrible noise. It hit you like the back-blast of an
explosion as you entered the room. There was no distinguishable tune. It
was simply an enormous noise. But there was a kind of savage rhythm about
it which made one think immediately of Indians and fierce men and the
native camps one used to visit at the Earl's Court Exhibition. And this was
not surprising. For the musicians included one genuine negro and three men
with their faces blacked; and the noise and the rhythm were the authentic
music of a negro village in South America, and the words which some genius
had once set to the noise were an exhortation to go to the place where the
negroes dwelt.
To judge by their movements, many of the dancers had in fact been there,
and had carefully studied the best indigenous models. They were doing some
quite extraordinary things. No two couples were doing quite the same thing
for more than a few seconds, so that there was an endless variety of
extraordinary postures. Some of them shuffled secretly along the edge of
the room, their faces tense, their shoulders swaying like reeds in a light
wind, their progress almost imperceptible; they did not rotate, they did
not speak, but sometimes the tremor of a skirt or the slight stirring of a
patent-leather shoe showed that they were indeed alive and in motion,
though that motion was as the motion of a glacier, not to be measured in
minutes or yards.
And some in a kind of fever rushed hither and thither among the thick
crowd, avoiding disaster with marvellous dexterity; and sometimes they
revolved slowly and sometimes quickly and sometimes spun giddily round for
a moment like gyroscopic tops. Then they too would be seized with a kind of
trance, or it may be with sheer shortness of breath, and hung motionless
for a little in the centre of the room, while the mad throng jostled and
flowed about them like the leaves in Autumn round a dead bird.
And some did not revolve at all, but charged straightly up and down; and
some of these thrust their loves for ever before them, as the Prussians
thrust the villagers in the face of the enemy, and some for ever navigated
themselves backwards like moving breakwaters to protect their darlings from
the precipitate seas.
Some of them kept themselves as upright as possible, swaying slightly like
willows from the hips, and some of them contorted themselves into strange
and angular shapes, now leaning perilously forward till they were
practically lying upon their terrified partners, and now bending sideways
as a man bends who has water in one ear after bathing. All of them clutched
each other in a close and intimate manner, but some, as if by separation to
intensify the joy of their union, or perhaps to secure greater freedom for
some particularly spacious manoeuvre, would part suddenly in the middle of
the room and, clinging distantly with their hands, execute a number of
complicated side-steps in opposite directions, or aim a series of vicious
kicks at each other, after which they would reunite in a passionate embrace
and gallop in a frenzy round the room, or fall into a trance or simply fall
down. If they fell down they lay still for a moment in the fearful
expectation of death, as men lie who fall under a horse; and then they
would creep on hands and knees to the wall through the whirling and
indifferent crowd.
Watching them, you could not tell what any one couple would do next. The
most placid and dignified among them might at any moment fling a leg out
behind them and almost kneel in mutual adoration, and then, as if nothing
unusual had happened, shuffle onward through the press; or, as though some
electric mechanism had been set in motion, they would suddenly lift a foot
sideways and stand on one leg. Poised pathetically, as if waiting for the
happy signal when they might put the other leg down, these men looked very
sad, and I wished that the Medusa's head might be smuggled somehow into the
room for their attitudes to be imperishably recorded in cold stone; it
would have been a valuable addition to modern sculpture.