Various - Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920
V >>
Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920
"Oban is proving an attractive centre, for Lord ----, Lady ---- and
many others have departed thence during the last day or so."--_Daily
Paper._
We think it only kind to suppress the names.
* * * * *
"All new demands for capital, whether for private or public purposes,
had been met out of the sayings of the people."--_Daily Paper._
Mr. Punch may perhaps be permitted to mention that he has himself given
currency to a number of capital stories.
* * * * *
"It is to be hoped that, now that their unhappy country is in the
throes of the most ghastly terror of her history, the irreconcilable
elements in the Irish nation will see an all-compelling reason for
exercising the demon of strife.--_Indian Paper._
Unfortunately they seem to be doing so only too freely.
* * * * *
ANOTHER WAR TO END WAR.
[An address to the League of Nations on learning that it is considering
a scheme to tackle the rat plague.]
Not yours to lure the lands of Cross or Crescent
Back from Bellona where she bangs her drum,
Nor make this Hades, anyhow at present,
The New Elysium.
For still the sword gleams mightier than the pen in
Europe, you'll notice, at the Bolshies' beck;
Confess now that the case of Mr. LENIN
Gets you right in the neck.
So I have read with wondrous satisfaction,
Feeling in this your hands are far from tied,
That you propose to emulate the action
Of _Hamelin's Piper (Pied)_.
And, though the task prove hard and ever harder,
From your crusade, I trust, you'll never cease
Till you've restored good-will to every larder
And to each pantry peace.
Then, when the cocksure critic in his crudeness
Pops you the question while his back he pats,
"What have you done?" you'll find at last, thank goodness,
One ready answer--"Rats!"
* * * * *
"Puccinni's three one-act operas, erroneously described as a
typtich...."--_Evening Paper._
But what about the spelling of "Puccinni"? We fear our contemporary has,
after all, been caught triptyching.
* * * * *
HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE.
The only way to build a house properly is to employ an architect to build
it for you. All the best houses are built by architects--any architect will
tell you that. But of course you will always be allowed to say that _you_
built it, so it will come to the same thing.
The walls of an architect's office are covered with drawings of enormous
public buildings which the architect has erected in every capital of
Europe. There are also a few of the statelier homes of England which he has
put up in his spare time.
While you are waiting you compare these with your own scheme of the
six-roomed villa you propose to build.
At last you are ushered into the presence and unless a stove-pipe
protruding from your waistcoat pocket suggests that you are travelling in
somebody's radiators you will probably be asked to sit down, and may even
be given a cigarette. There is no difficulty in opening your business. The
architect can see at a glance what you have come for and says quite simply,
"You want to build a house?"
"I do," you reply.
"How many reception rooms?"
This rather staggers you. You had not intended to have any reception rooms
at all. You never give receptions. All you wanted was a dining-room and a
drawing-room, and a study with a round window over the fire-place.
But it is evidently impossible to confide this to the architect. All you
can do is to reply as naturally as you can:--
"About half-a-dozen."
"Eight reception rooms," says the architect. "And how many bedrooms?"
"I don't really know; about one each."
"Twenty bedrooms," suggests the architect (there are three in your family).
"And did you say a garage to hold two cars?"
By this time you realise that you are engaged in a game something like
auction bridge and so far your opponent has done all the over-calling.
"Double two cars!" you cry excitedly.
"Five cars," rejoins the Architect.
"Six cars!"
"Garage to hold six cars," repeats the Architect, confessing defeat. "You
are, of course, aware that a house on this scale will cost you at least
twenty thousand pounds?"
"Of course," you reply, and you honestly think it would be cheap at the
price.
After this the only thing to do is to get away as quickly as possible. It
would be pure bathos to suggest any of your wife's labour-saving devices,
or introduce the subject of that circular bath-room with a circular bath
hanging by chains from the ceiling and a spirit-stove under it--your pet
invention. Recall a pressing engagement, shake the architect firmly by the
hand and promise to come and see him next Tuesday about details. In the
interval you can compose a letter at your leisure, informing him that in
view of the high cost of materials, etc., etc., you have decided to
postpone the building of your house, but you desire to build _at once_ a
gardener's cottage (so that the gardener can be getting the grounds into
order) containing one dining-room, one drawing-room, one study (with one
round window), three bedrooms, one circular bathroom (with one circular
bath) and one tool-shed to hold one tool.
Even so you will probably have to make concessions. Your window will be
hexagonal and your bath square. But your worries are over. The architect
will choose a builder and between them they will build your house during
the next six years, which you will spend in lodgings. It is a long time to
wait, certainly, but you will find plenty of amusement in occasionally
counting the number of bricks that have been laid since last time. And then
in 1926, as you smoke your pipe in your study and gaze out of your
hexagonal window, you will not covet the Paradise of ADAM, the first
gardener.
* * * * *
RHYMES OF THE UNDERGROUND.
Adolphus Minns resides at Kew
And does what people ought to do.
In boarding trains his instincts are
To "let 'em first get off the car,"
Then "hurry up" himself to enter,
And "pass along right down the centre."
Though nigh his destination be
No selfish "door-obstructor" he:
Rather than bear such imputation
He'll travel on beyond his station.
His unexceptionable ways
E'en liftmen have been known to praise--
A folk censorious and, as such,
Not given to praising over-much.
Small need have they to shout a grim
"No smoking in the lift" at him,
Or ask if he's the only one
For whom the lift is being run.
Adolphus Minns, who lives at Kew,
Does all that people ought to do--
Retires to bed before eleven,
Is up and shaved by half-past seven--
And, when he dies, he'll go to Heaven.
Perhaps he's gone; I've never met
His like at Kew or elsewhere yet.
* * * * *
THE DISSIMULATION OF SUZANNE.
The telephone bell rang just as I was beginning breakfast.
"What is your number, please?" asked an imperious voice.
In an emergency I never can remember my own number.
"Just hold on a minute while I look it up," I begged. Feverishly I turned
over the leaves of the telephone directory and, cutting with a blunt finger
the page containing the small advertisement that keeps my name before the
public eye, at last found and transmitted the desired information.
"Don't go away," said the voice again, this time with a shade of weariness
in its tone. "Chesterminster wants you."
I wasn't going away, because before Suzanne left me to visit her relatives
in Middleshire I had vowed that nothing would induce me to do so. But
Chesterminster wanted me. What should that portend?
"Tell them," I declaimed into the mouthpiece while I instinctively posed
for the camera, "that I feel greatly honoured by their invitation and in
other circumstances I should have been delighted to come forward as their
Candidate. The Parliamentary history of Chesterminster constitutes one of
the most romantic chapters in the chronicles of England; but just now I am
busy writing verses for next week's _Back Chat_, so--"
"If you will keep on talking to yourself you won't get connected,"
interrupted the voice. "You're thr-r-rough, Chesterminster."
"Are you Chelsea niner-seven-double-seven?" inquired a new voice, a little
more distant but not so haughty.
"No, nine I mean niner-double-seven-seven," I replied.
"Same thing," said the voice of Chesterminster. "Stokehampton wants you."
"Tell them--" I began, but my oratory was drowned by a rapid succession of
small explosions, and out of this unholy crepitation emerged a still small
voice which said, "Is that you, darling?" Then I suddenly remembered that
Stokehampton is Suzanne's relatives' nearest town of call.
"They want you to come tomorrow for the week-end," said Suzanne. "I lied to
them and said you were busy working, but they said you can have the library
to yourself whenever you want it, and spoke so nicely about you that I
couldn't refuse to ring you up. Besides, I want you to come, and the figs
and the mulberries are in splendid form."
Suzanne knows that my idea of Heaven is a garden full of fig-trees and
mulberry-bushes at the appropriate season of the year. But it was raining
hard, and I abominate week-ends; and Suzanne's relatives are well-meaning
folk who always want to arrange your day for you.
"No, Suzanne," I said, "emphatically, no. I can't think of a convincing
excuse at the moment, so you'd better say I'll be delighted to come. But
tomorrow morning you'll get a wire from me announcing that I'm sick of the
palsy--no, malaria, which they know I sometimes get--and that'll give you a
good ground for returning yourself tomorrow. Your three minutes is up.
Good-bye."
With the inspiration still fresh upon me I wrote out the telegram and rang
for Evangeline.
"Evangeline," I said, "I may possibly be detained in bed tomorrow morning.
In case that should happen"--she never betrayed even a flicker of the eye,
although she could, an she would, tell Suzanne some damning tales of late
rising during her absence--please send this telegram off before breakfast;
that is, before _your_ breakfast."
Evangeline curtseyed and withdrew. I had spent my leisure moments during
the week teaching her the trick, as a surprise for Suzanne on her return.
Next morning, as I lay in bed thinking out the subject of my next Message
to the Nation, I was gratified to notice that the rain had ceased and the
sun was shining genially. I thought of Suzanne and the refreshing fruit in
Suzanne's relatives' attractive gardens. Should I go after all? I rang the
bell.
"Has that wire gone yet?" I asked.
"Indeed I took it these two hours back," replied Evangeline.
I looked at my watch and grunted.
"Bring me a telegram-form," I commanded, "and some hotter hot water."
So, having wired to Suzanne: "Malaria false alarm only passing effects of
overwork coming by the one-thirty PERCIVAL," I found myself at tea-time
being nursed back to health on mulberries-and-cream administered by the
solicitous hands of Aunt-by-acquisition Lucy.
"Well," I said to Suzanne a little later as we strolled in the direction of
the fig-trees, "how did it go off--my first wire, I mean?"
"Oh, I think I did it very well," she replied; "I gave a most realistic
exhibition of wifely concern, and the car had just come to take me to the
station when your second wire arrived."
"Then they didn't spot anything?"
"No," said Suzanne--"no, I don't think so."
After dinner that night I was playing billiards with Toby, who is Suzanne's
aunt's nephew-by-marriage. We had the room to ourselves.
"Dull part of the world this," he remarked. "By the way, what about that
malaria of yours?"
"What about it?" I observed shortly.
"Comes and goes rather suddenly, doesn't it?"
"Very," I agreed. "It's one of the suddenest diseases ever invented."
"'Invented' is a good word," said Toby. "You're a bit of an inventor,
aren't you?"
"What do you mean? Are you venturing to imply--"
"I imply nothing. I merely state that this morning Suzanne came down to
breakfast in her travelling-clothes. And that wasn't all."
"Wasn't it?" I inquired weakly. "Tell me the worst."
"All through breakfast," continued Toby with relish, "she was restless and
off her feed, and appeared to be listening for something. Afterwards
nothing could induce her to leave the house, and I myself caught her
surreptitiously studying the time-table. Every time a step was heard coming
up the drive she started to her feet. At last a telegraph-boy arrived.
Before anybody could discover whom the wire was addressed to, Suzanne
snatched it from the boy, tore it open, placed her hand in the region of
her heart and exclaimed, 'Oh, how provoking! Poor Percival's--' then she
turned it the right way up, looked unutterably foolish and meekly handed it
over to Aunt Lucy. It was from the old lady's stockbroker and referred to
some transaction or other in Housing Bonds."
"And what did Aunt Lucy say?" I asked.
"Oh, she just looked the least little bit surprised," replied Toby, "but
she didn't utter. Suzanne had to embrace the muddiest of all the cocker
pups to hide her flaming cheeks."
"Well, what happened then?"
"Then? Oh, then the telegraph-boy fished out another wire from his wallet.
I took it, glanced at the envelope and handed it to Suzanne. This time she
read it very gingerly before exclaiming in a highly unemotional voice: 'Oh,
how provoking! Poor Percival's got one of his sudden attacks of malaria and
can't come. So, if you don't mind, Aunt Lucy, I'll catch the eleven-fifteen
back.' Aunt Lucy was very sympathetic and went up to help her with her
packing, which was accomplished in a surprisingly short time; as a matter
of fact she had practically done it all before breakfast. Just as she was
going to drive off to the station up came another telegraph-boy. That was
your second wire, and Suzanne didn't seem any too pleased to receive it.
I'm not at all convinced," concluded Toby, "that your wife would make her
fortune on the stage."
"Do you think Aunt Lucy suspects?" I asked.
"Bless you, no. The dear old thing has the heart of a child."
Maybe, but I have my doubts. Suzanne's aunt insisted on my staying a week
as a preventive against a nervous breakdown, and the tonic with which she
herself dosed me several times a day was the most repulsive beverage I had
ever tasted, effectually ruining the savour of figs and mulberries. Can it
be that Aunt Lucy is not only of a suspicious but also of a revengeful
nature?
Suzanne ridicules my doublings and declares that she could make her aunt
swallow anything. I wish she could have made her swallow my tonic.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE QUESTION OF THE YACHTING CAP.
HE DIDN'T WANT TO LOOK LIKE EVERY TOM, DICK AND HARRY, HE SAID, SO HE
DECIDED TO GO IN HIS YACHTING CAP.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: BRITISH ASSOCIATION DELEGATES DISCUSSING ORIGIN OF STREET
ARAB'S EJACULATION, "YAH-YAH-YAH-SHR-R-RUP!"]
* * * * *
KAMENEFF to KRASSIN (on applying for passports): "_Cras ingens
iterabimus aequor._"
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Host._ "HALF A MINUTE! I'LL LIGHT YOU TO THE GATE; IT'S
VERY DARK."
_Cheerful Guest._ "THAT'S ALL RIGHT. I CAN SEE IN THE DARK. WHY, WHEN I WAS
IN FLANDERS--"
_Host._ "YES, YES; BUT YOU'RE NOT IN FLANDERS NOW--YOU'RE IN MY CARNATION
BED."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
It would certainly have been a thousand pities if the coming of Peace had
deprived us of anything so cheerfully stimulating as the tales of "SAPPER"
(CYRIL MCNEILE). His _Bull-Dog Drummond_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) shows all
the old breathless invention as active as ever, while the pugnacity--to
give it no stronger term--is wholly unrestrained, even by what might seem
the unpromising atmosphere of Godalming in 1919. It would, of course, be
utterly beyond my scope to give in barest outline any list of the wild and
whirling events that begin when _Captain Hugh Drummond_ selects the most
encouraging of the answers to his "Bored ex-soldier" advertisement and
meets the writer, a cryptic but lovely lady, in the Carlton lounge.
(Judging by contemporary fiction, what histories could those walls reveal!)
After that the affair almost instantly develops into one lurid sequence of
battle, murder, bluff and the kind of ten-minutes-here-for-courtship which
proves that there is a gentler side even to the process of tracking crime.
As usual, though less in this business than most, because of the engaging
humour of the hero, I experienced a mild sympathy for the arch-villains;
and indeed they might well feel some bitterness when, after being described
as the master-intellects of the age, the author required them to conduct
their most secret affairs in a lighted ground-floor room with the curtains
undrawn. Most of them turn out to be Bolshevists, or at least in the
receipt of Soviet subsidies--though I see a well-known Labour Daily
reviewed the plot as unconvincing. Odd! Anyhow, a rattling story.
* * * * *
I am aware that, in confessing to an entire ignorance of any one of the
so-called _Books of Artemas_, I place myself in a minority so small as to
be almost beneath notice. This certainly is how the publishers regard the
matter if one may judge by their ecstatically jubilant, "Artemas has
written a novel! 7s. 6d. net," on the wrapper of _A Dear Fool_ (WESTALL).
Well, I have read the novel carefully, even I trust generously, with the
unhappy result that (knowing how elusive and individual a thing is
laughter) I can hardly bring myself to say how dull I found it. But the
fact remains. It is all about nothing--a preposterous little plot for the
identification, at a wildly inhuman reception, of an anonymous dramatist,
revealed finally as the journalist hero who was nearly sacked for writing
the play's only bad notice. In my day I have met both editors and critics;
even dramatists. I don't say they were all pleasant people; many of them
were not. But--here is my point--practically every one of them had at least
sufficient of our common humanity to prevent them from behaving for one
instant as their representatives do in this book. Let us charitably leave
it at that. Probably the next man I meet will have invited apoplexy over
his enjoyment of the same pages that moved me only to an irritated
bewilderment. You never can tell.
* * * * *
I rather think that _The Man with the Rubber Soles_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON)
is Sir ALEXANDER BANNERMAN'S firstling, at least as far as fiction is
concerned. If so, many others will share my hope that it may prove to be
the eldest of a large family. For the author has not merely the knack of
telling a good mystery story in a way that keeps one interested until the
last page is turned; he tells it in a curiously dry matter-of-fact way that
makes really startling adventures seem the sort of thing that might happen
to anybody. The story concerns the pursuit of a gang of men who are engaged
in importing forged Treasury notes on a large scale and uttering them
through skilfully organised agencies. The police and various civilians
between them--there is no super-sleuth to weary us with his machine-like
prowess--run the thing to earth, partly by skill and partly by good luck,
and the civilians in particular have a stirring time doing it. Bombs,
automatic pistols, even soldiers and a submarine, assist quite naturally in
sustaining the interest. And a pleasant little romance is really woven into
the plot, not just pushed in anyhow. Altogether _The Man with the Rubber
Soles_ is a most excellent story of its kind, a real novel because plot and
treatment are alike new, and one can safely prophesy that when Sir
ALEXANDER BANNERMAN produces his nextling he will find a large and
appreciative circle of readers waiting to welcome it.
* * * * *
Three things charmed me particularly about _Henry Elizabeth_ (HURST AND
BLACKETT), whose remarkable second name was due to the fact that he was
born in the same year as the Virgin Queen and that his father had hoped
that he too would be a girl. In the first place he became the greatest
swordsman of his age and I was thus able to add him to my fine collection
of Elizabethan heroes who have achieved this honour. What happens when two
of these champions meet in those shadowy regions of romance where all
costume novels are merged I do not know. It must be rather like the
irresistible force and the immovable object. In the second place _H.E._ (no
one could better deserve these formidable initials) was given the job of
clearing Lundy Island of its piratical tenants, and I happened to have
Lundy Island just opposite me as I read the book. It is not often that a
reviewer has the chance of checking local colour with so little pains. And
in the third place Mr. JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY informs me, on page 101, that
his hero will "gaze one day upon rivers to which the Thames should seem
little better than a pitiful rivulet." As _Henry_ never gets further from
his native Devon than London in the course of this novel I take it that
this is a delicate allusion to the possibility of a sequel. I hope it is
so, and that I shall hear of _Henry_ in days to come, after a trip or two
with RALEIGH or DRAKE, rebuilding his manor of Braginton, which was
unfortunately burnt to the ground, and settling down to plant potatoes and
tobacco in prosperity and peace.
* * * * *
From the title, _Brute Gods_ (HEINEMANN), you may guess that Mr. LOUIS
WILKINSON'S new novel does not deal with homely topics in a vein of
harmless frolic. In recommending this very serious work of an expert author
and observer, I am bound to make some reservation. Unsophisticated youth,
if such there be in these days, should be kept away from the affair between
_Alec Glaive_ and _Gillian Collett_. _Alec_, a mere boy, was in a
dangerously unsettled condition when the lady crossed his path. His mother
had upset a not too happy family by eloping with a literary _poseur_; the
egoism of his father had been rendered even more oppressive and his sarcasm
even more acid thereby; and a Roman Catholic priest, intent on securing a
convert for his Order, had been plying his young mind with too exciting
conversations and too refreshing wines. Apart from external circumstances,
_Alec_ was tending to quarrel with humanity at large, and so he went the
whole hog, more in search of a desperate ideal than by way of impetuous
sin. Mr. WILKINSON treats the affair with deliberate, cold-blooded, even
cynical analysis; and his portrayal of the snobbery and humbug of the
upper-middle class, social and intellectual, in which his creatures move is
searching and disturbing. But, I ask myself, are people really like that?
Or rather are there enough of these unnaturals, extremists, moral
Bolshevists or whatever you like to call them, to justify their
presentation as a modern type? Always an optimist, I think not; and I
notice that the author gives a no less clever and a much more convincing
impression of the normal, settled and pleasant characters who are
incidental to the plot. Make for yourself the acquaintance of the charming
_Wilfred Vail_ and the most amusing and seductive Cockney artiste, _Betty
Barnfield_, and you will admit, however pessimistic your views, that there
may be something in mine.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ROMANCE AND PROSE.
_The Youth._ "CAN YOU DIRECT ME TO THE CASTLE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN?"
_The Old Man._ "I CAN, YOUNG MAN. BUT PERCHANCE THOU GOEST TO SEEK THE HAND
OF THE PRINCESS? BEWARE, RASH YOUTH! IT IS A PERILOUS ADVENTURE. THOU WILT
BE REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE MANY DANGEROUS TASKS. HAST THOU THOUGHT OF THE
RISK?"
_The Youth._ "NOT MUCH. I'M GOIN' TO MEND THE KITCHEN BOILER."]
* * * * *
PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT.
"The Czecho-Slovaks were greeted this afternoon by a committee of
Vancouver ladies, representing the Red Cross Society. The war-worn
veterans were presented with a package containing cigarettes, an orange
and a chocolate bar, in recognition of valuable services rendered the
Allied cause."--_Canadian Paper._
* * * * *
"PRINCE GEORGE IN SWEDEN.
Prince George has been enjoying the sights of Christiania and its
beautiful surroundings."--_Morning Paper._
He should now visit Stockholm and give Norway a turn.
* * * * *
"Gentleman, no ties, will undertake any mission to anywhere."--
_Provincial Paper._
But surely not where neck-wear is _de rigueur_.
