Chapter III finds the war over and Celia still at it.

THE SUNNY SIDE

BY A. A. MILNE

Author of "If I May," "The Dover Road," "Mr. Pim Passes By," etc.

1922

TO OWEN SEAMAN

AFFECTIONATELY IN MEMORY OF NINE HAPPY YEARS AT THE "PUNCH" OFFICE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

I. ORANGES AND LEMONS

II. MEN OF LETTERS

III. SUMMER DAYS

IV. WAR-TIME

V. HOME NOTES

VI. A FEW GUESTS

VII. AND OTHERS

INTRODUCTION

My publisher wants me to apologize for--"introduce" was the kindly word

he used--this collection of articles and verses from _Punch_. I do so

with pleasure.

_Among the many interests of a long and varied career_--

No, I don't think I shall begin like that.

_It was early in 1871_--

Nor like that.

Really it is very difficult, you know. I wrote these things for a number

of years, and--well, here they are. But just to say "Here they are" is to

be too informal for my publisher. He wants, not a casual introduction,

but a presentation. Let me tell you a little story instead.

When war broke out, I had published three of these books in England, the

gleanings of nine years' regular work for _Punch_. There are, I

understand, a few Americans who read _Punch_, and it was suggested to me

that a suitable collection of articles from these three books might have

some sort of American sale. So I made such a collection, leaving out the

more topical and allusive sketches, and including those with a more

general appeal. I called the result "Happy Days"--an attractive title,

you will agree--and in 1915 a New York publisher was found for it.

This is a funny story; at least it appeals to _me_; so I won't remind

myself of the number of copies which we sold. That was tragedy, not

comedy. The joke lay in one of the few notices which the book received

from the press. For a New York critic ended his review of "Happy Days"

with these immortal words:

"_Mr. Milne is at present in the trenches facing the German bullets, so

this will probably be his last book_."

You see now why an apology is necessary. Here we are, seven years later,

and I am still at it.

But at any rate, it is the last of this sort of book. As I said in a

foreword to the English edition: "It is the last time because this sort

of writing depends largely upon the irresponsibility and high spirits of

youth for its success, and I want to stop before (may I say 'before'?)

the high spirits become mechanical and the irresponsibility a trick.

Perhaps the fact that this collection is final will excuse its air of

scrappiness. Odd Verses have crept in on the unanswerable plea that, if

they didn't do it now, they never would; War Sketches protested that I

shouldn't have a book at all if I left them out; an Early Article,

omitted from three previous volumes, paraded for the fourth time with

such a pathetic 'I suppose you don't want _me_' in its eye that it could

not decently be rejected. So here they all are."

One further word of explanation. You may find the first section of this

book--"Oranges and Lemons"--a little difficult. The characters of it are

old friends to that limited public which reads my books in England; their

earlier adventures have been told in those previous volumes (and

purposely omitted from "Happy Days" as being a little too insular). I

feel somehow that strangers will not be on such easy terms with them, and

I would recommend that you approach them last. By that time you will have

discovered whether you are in a mood to stop and listen to their chatter,

or prefer to pass them by with a nod.

A.A. M.

THE SUNNY SIDE

I. ORANGES AND LEMONS

I.

THE INVITATION

"Dear Myra," wrote Simpson at the beginning of the year--"I have an

important suggestion to make to you both, and I am coming round to-morrow

night after dinner about nine o'clock. As time is so short I have asked

Dahlia and Archie to meet me there, and if by any chance you have gone

out we shall wait till you come back.

"Yours ever,

"SAMUEL

"P.S.--I have asked Thomas too."

* * * * *

"Well?" said Myra eagerly, as I gave her back the letter.

In deep thought I buttered a piece of toast.

"We could stop Thomas," I said. "We might ring up the Admiralty and ask

them to give him something to do this evening. I don't know about Archie.

Is he--"

"Oh, what do you think it is? Aren't you excited?" She sighed and added,

"Of course I know what Samuel _is_."

"Yes. Probably he wants us all to go to the Zoo together ... or he's

discovered a new way of putting, or--I say, I didn't know Archie and

Dahlia were in town."

"They aren't. But I expect Samuel telegraphed to them to meet him under

the clock at Charing Cross disguised, when they would hear of something

to their advantage. Oh, I wonder what it is. It _must_ be something real

this time."

Since the day when Simpson woke me up at six o'clock in the morning to

show me his stance-for-a-full-wooden-club shot I have distrusted his

enthusiasms; but Myra loves him as a mother; and I--I couldn't do without

him; and when a man like that invites a whole crowd of people to come to

your flat just about the time when you are wondering what has happened to

the sardines on toast--well, it isn't polite to put the chain on the door

and explain through the letter-box that you have gone away for a week.

"We'd better have dinner a bit earlier to be on the safe side," I said,

as Myra gave me a parting brush down in the hall. "If any further

developments occur in the course of the day, ring me up at the office. By

the way, Simpson doesn't seem to have invited Peter. I wonder why not.

He's nearly two, and he ought to be in it. Myra, I'm sure I'm tidy now."

"Pipe, tobacco, matches, keys, money?"

"Everything," I said. "Bless you. Goodbye."

"Good-bye," said Myra lingeringly. "What do you think he meant by 'as

time is so short'?"

"I don't know. At least," I added, looking at my watch, "I do know. I

shall be horribly late. Good-bye."

I fled down the stairs into the street, waved to Myra at the

window ... and then came cautiously up again for my pipe. Life is very

difficult on the mornings when you are in a hurry.

At dinner that night Myra could hardly eat for excitement.

"You'll be sorry afterwards," I warned her, "when it turns out to be

nothing more than that he has had his hair cut."

"But even if it is, I don't see why I shouldn't be excited at seeing my

only brother again--not to mention sister-in-law."

"Then let's move," I said. "They'll be here directly."

Archie and Dahlia came first. We besieged them with questions as soon as

they appeared.

"Haven't an idea," said Archie, "I wanted to bring a revolver in case it

was anything really desperate, but Dahlia wouldn't let me."

"It would have been useful too," I said, "if it turned out to be

something merely futile."

"You're not going to hurt my Samuel, however futile it is," said Myra.

"Dahlia, how's Peter, and will you have some coffee?"

"Peter's lovely. You've had coffee, haven't you, Archie?"

"Better have some more," I suggested, "in case Simpson is merely

soporific. We anticipate a slumbering audience, and Samuel explaining a

new kind of googlie he's invented."

Entered Thomas lazily.

"Hallo," he said in his slow voice. "What's it all about?"

"It's a raid on the Begum's palace," explained Archie rapidly. "Dahlia

decoys the Chief Mucilage; you, Thomas, drive the submarine; Myra has

charge of the clockwork mouse, and we others hang about and sing. To say

more at this stage would be to bring about a European conflict."

"Coffee, Thomas?" said Myra.

"I bet he's having us on," said Thomas gloomily, as he stirred his

coffee.

There was a hurricane in the hall. Chairs were swept over; coats and hats

fell to the ground; a high voice offered continuous apologies--and

Simpson came in.

"Hallo, Myra!" he said eagerly. "Hallo, old chap! Hallo, Dahlia! Hallo,

Archie! Hallo, Thomas, old boy!" He fixed his spectacles firmly on his

nose and beamed round the room.

"We're all here--thanking you very much for inviting us," I said. "Have a

cigar--if you've brought any with you."

Fortunately he had brought several with him.

"Now then, I'll give any of you three guesses what it's all about."

"No, you don't. We're all waiting, and you can begin your apology right

away."

Simpson took a deep breath and began.

"I've been lent a villa," he said.

There was a moment's silence ... and then Archie got up.

"Good-bye," he said to Myra, holding out his hand. "Thanks for a very

jolly evening. Come along Dahlia."

"But I say, old chap," protested Simpson.

"I'm sorry, Simpson, but the fact that you're moving from the Temple to

Cricklewood, or wherever it is, and that somebody else is paying the

thirty pounds a year, is jolly interesting, but it wasn't good enough to

drag us up from the country to tell us about it. You could have written.

However, thank you for the cigar."

"My dear fellow, it isn't Cricklewood. It's the Riviera!"

Archie sat down again.

"Samuel!" cried Myra. "How she must love you!"

"I should never lend Simpson a villa of mine," I said. "He'd only lose

it."

"They're some very old friends who live there, and they're going away for

a month, and the servants are staying on, and they suggested that if I

was going abroad again this year--"

"How did the servants know you'd been abroad last year?" asked Archie.

"Don't interrupt, dear," said Dahlia. "I see what he means. How very

jolly for you, Samuel."

"For all of us, Dahlia!"

"You aren't suggesting we shall all crowd in?" growled Thomas.

"Of course, my dear old chap! I told them, and they're delighted. We can

share housekeeping expenses, and it will be as cheap as anything."

"But to go into a stranger's house," said Dahlia anxiously.

"It's _my_ house, Dahlia, for the time. I invite you!" He threw out his

hands in a large gesture of welcome and knocked his coffee-cup on to the

carpet; begged Myra's pardon several times; and then sat down again and

wiped his spectacles vigorously.

Archie looked doubtfully at Thomas.

"Duty, Thomas, duty," he said, thumping his chest. "You can't desert the

Navy at this moment of crisis."

"Might," said Thomas, puffing at his pipe.

Archie looked at me. I looked hopefully at Myra.

"Oh-h-h!" said Myra, entranced.

Archie looked at Dahlia. Dahlia frowned.

"It isn't till February," said Simpson eagerly.

"It's very kind of you, Samuel," said Dahlia, "but I don't think--"

Archie nodded to Simpson.

"You leave this to me," he said confidentially. "We're going."

II.

ON THE WAY

"Toulon," announced Archie, as the train came to a stop and gave out its

plaintive, dying whistle. "Naval port of our dear allies, the French.

This would interest Thomas."

"If he weren't asleep," I said.

"He'll be here directly," said Simpson from the little table for two on

the other side of the gangway. "I'm afraid he had a bad night. Here,

_garçon_--er--_donnez-moi du café et_--er-" But the waiter had slipped

past him again--the fifth time.

"Have some of ours," said Myra kindly, holding out the pot.

"Thanks very much, Myra, but I may as well wait for Thomas, and--_garçon,

du café pour_--I don't think he'll be--_deux cafés, garçon, s'il

vous_--it's going to be a lovely day."

Thomas came in quietly, sat down opposite Simpson, and ordered breakfast.

"Samuel wants some too," said Myra.

Thomas looked surprised, grunted and ordered another breakfast.

"You see how easy it is," said Archie. "Thomas, we're at Toulon, where

the _ententes cordiales_ come from. You ought to have been up long ago

taking notes for the Admiralty."

"I had a rotten night," said Thomas. "Simpson fell out of bed in the

middle of it."

"Oh, poor Samuel!"

"You don't mean to say you gave him the top berth?" I asked in surprise.

"You must have known he'd fall out."

"But, Thomas dear, surely Samuel's just falling-out-of-bed noise wouldn't

wake you up," said Myra. "I always thought you slept so well."

"He tried to get back into _my_ bed."

"I was a little dazed," explained Simpson hastily, "and I hadn't got my

spectacles."

"Still you ought to have been able to see Thomas there."

"Of course I did see him as soon as I got in, and then I remembered I was

up above. So I climbed up."

"It must be rather difficult climbing up at night," thought Dahlia.

"Not if you get a good take-off, Dahlia," said Simpson earnestly.

"Simpson got a good one off my face," explained Thomas.

"My dear old chap, I was frightfully sorry. I did come down at once and

tell you how sorry I was, didn't I?"

"You stepped back on to it," said Thomas shortly, and he turned his

attention to the coffee.

Our table had finished breakfast. Dahlia and Myra got up slowly, and

Archie and I filled our pipes and followed them out.

"Well, we'll leave you to it," said Archie to the other table.

"Personally, I think it's Thomas's turn to step on Simpson. But don't be

long, because there's a good view coming."

The good view came, and then another and another, and they merged

together and became one long, moving panorama of beauty. We stood in

the corridor and drank it in ... and at intervals we said "Oh-h!" and

"Oh, I say!" and "Oh, I say, _really_!" And there was one particular

spot I wish I could remember where, so that it might be marked by a

suitable tablet--at the sight of which Simpson was overheard to say,

"_Mon Dieu_!" for (probably) the first time in his life.

"You know, all these are olive trees, you chaps," he said every five

minutes. "I wonder if there are any olives growing on them?"

"Too early," said Archie. "It's the sardine season now."

It was at Cannes that we saw the first oranges.

"That does it," I said to Myra. "We're really here. And look, there's a

lemon tree. Give me the oranges and lemons, and you can have all the

palms and the cactuses and the olives."

"Like polar bears in the arctic regions," said Myra.

I thought for a moment. Superficially there is very little resemblance

between an orange and a polar bear.

"Like polar bears," I said hopefully.

"I mean," luckily she went on, "polar bears do it for you in the polar

regions. You really know you're there then. Give me the polar bears, I

always say, and you can keep the seals and the walruses and the penguins.

It's the hallmark."

"Right. I knew you meant something. In London," I went on, "it is

raining. Looking out of my window I see a lamp-post (not in flower)

beneath a low, grey sky. Here we see oranges against a blue sky a million

miles deep. What a blend! Myra, let's go to a fancy-dress ball when we

get back. You go as an orange and I'll go as a very blue, blue sky, and

you shall lean against me."

"And we'll dance the tangerine," said Myra.

But now observe us approaching Monte Carlo. For an hour past Simpson has

been collecting his belongings. Two bags, two coats, a camera, a rug,

Thomas, golf-clubs, books--his compartment is full of things which have

to be kept under his eye lest they should evade him at the last moment.

As the train leaves Monaco his excitement is intense.

"I think, old chap," he says to Thomas, "I'll wear the coats after all."

"And the bags," says Thomas, "and then you'll have a suit."

Simpson puts on the two coats and appears very big and hot.

"I'd better have my hands free," he says, and straps the camera and the

golf-clubs on to himself. "Then if you nip out and get a porter I can

hand the bags out to him through the window."

"All right," says Thomas. He is deep in his book and looks as if he were

settled in his corner of the carriage for the day.

The train stops. There is bustle, noise, confusion. Thomas in some

magical way has disappeared. A porter appears at the open window and

speaks voluble French to Simpson. Simpson looks round wildly for Thomas.

"Thomas!" he cries. "_Un moment_," he says to the porter. "Thomas! _Mon

ami, it n'est pas_--I say, Thomas, old chap, where are you? _Attendez un

moment. Mon ami_--er--_reviendra_--" He is very hot. He is wearing, in

addition to what one doesn't mention, an ordinary waistcoat, a woolly

waistcoat for steamer use, a tweed coat, an aquascutum, an ulster, a

camera and a bag of golfclubs. The porter, with many gesticulations, is

still hurling French at him.

It is too much for Simpson. He puts his head out of the window and,

observing in the distance a figure of such immense dignity that it can

only belong to the station-master, utters to him across the hurly-burly a

wild call for help.

"_Ou est_ Cooks's _homme_?" he cries.

III.

SETTLING DOWN

The villa was high up on the hill, having (as Simpson was to point out

several times later) Mentone on its left hand and Monte Carlo on its

right. A long winding path led up through its garden of olives to the

front door, and through the mimosa trees which flanked this door we could

see already a flutter of white aprons. The staff was on the loggia

waiting to greet us.

We halted a moment out of sight of the ladies above and considered

ourselves. It came to us with a sudden shock that we were a very large

party.

"I suppose," said Archie to Simpson, "they do expect all of us and not

only you? You told them that about half London was coming?"

"We're only six," said Myra, "because I've just counted again, but we

seem about twenty."

"It's quite all right," said Simpson cheerfully. "I said we'd be six."

"But six in a letter is much smaller than six of us like this; and when

they see our luggage--"

"Let's go back," I suggested, suddenly nervous. To be five guests of the

guest of a man you have never met is delicate work.

At this critical moment Archie assumed command. He is a Captain in the

Yeomanry and has tackled bigger jobs than this in his time.

"We must get ourselves into proper order," he said. "Simpson, the villa

has been lent to _you_; you must go first. Dahlia and I come next. When

we arrive you will introduce us as your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Mannering.

Then turning to Myra you say, 'Mr. Mannering's sister; and this,' you

add, 'is her husband.' Then--er--Thomas--"

"It will be difficult to account for Thomas," I said. "Thomas comes at

the end. He hangs back a little at first; and then if he sees that there

is going to be any awkwardness about him, he can pretend he's come on the

wrong night, and apologize and go home again."

"If Thomas goes, I go," said Myra dramatically.

"I have another idea," I said. "Thomas hides here for a bit. We introduce

ourselves and settle in, and have lunch; and after lunch we take a stroll

in the garden, and to our great surprise discover Thomas. 'Thomas,' we

say, '_you_ here? Dear old chap, we thought you were in England. How

splendid! Where are you staying? Oh, but you must stop with _us_; we can

easily have a bed put up for you in the garage.' And then--"

"Not after lunch," said Thomas; "before lunch."

"Don't all be so silly," smiled Dahlia. "They'll wonder what has happened

to us if we wait any longer. Besides, the men will be here with the

luggage directly. Come along."

"Samuel," said Archie, "forward."

In our new formation we marched up, Simpson excited and rehearsing to

himself the words of introduction, we others outwardly calm. At a range

of ten yards he opened fire. "How do you do?" he beamed. "Here we all

are! Isn't it a lovely--"

The cook-housekeeper, majestic but kindly, came forward with outstretched

hand and welcomed him volubly--in French. The other three ladies added

their French to hers. There was only one English body on the loggia. It

belonged to a bull-dog. The bull-dog barked loudly at Simpson in English.

There was no "Cook's homme" to save Simpson this time. But he rose to the

occasion nobly. The scent of the mimosa inspired him.

"_Merci,"_ he said, "_merci. Oui, n'est ce pas_! Delightful. Er--these

are--_ces sont mes amis_. Er--Dahlia, come along--er, _Monsieur et Madame

Mannering_--er--Myra, _la soeur de Monsieur_--er--where are you, old

chap?--_le mari de la soeur de Monsieur._ Er--Thomas--er--" (he was

carried away by memories of his schoolboy French), "_le frère du

jardinier_--er--" He wheeled round and saw me; introduced me again;

introduced Myra as my wife, Archie as her brother, and Dahlia as Archie's

wife; and then with a sudden inspiration presented Thomas grandly as "_le

beau-père du petit fils de mes amis Monsieur et Madame Mannering_."

Thomas seemed more assured of his place as Peter's godfather than as the

brother of the gardener.

There were four ladies; we shook hands with all of them. It took us a

long time, and I doubt if we got it all in even so, for twice I found

myself shaking hands with Simpson. But these may have been additional

ones thrown in. It was over at last, and we followed the staff indoors.

And then we had another surprise. It was broken to us by Dahlia, who, at

Simpson's urgent request, took up the position of lady of the house, and

forthwith received the flowing confidences of the housekeeper.

"Two of us have to sleep outside," she said.

"Where?" we all asked blankly.

We went on to the loggia again, and she pointed to a little house almost

hidden by olive-trees in a corner of the garden below us.

"Oh, well, that's all right," said Archie. "It's on the estate. Thomas,

you and Simpson won't mind that a bit, will you?"

"We can't turn Samuel out of his own house," said Myra indignantly.

"We aren't turning him; he wants to go. But, of course, if you and your

young man would like to live there instead--"

Myra looked at me eagerly.

"It would be rather fun," she said. "We'd have another little honeymoon

all to ourselves."

"It wouldn't really be a honeymoon," I objected. "We should always be

knocking up against trippers in the garden, Archies and Samuels and

Thomases and what not. They'd be all over the place."

Dahlia explained the domestic arrangements. The honeymooners had their

little breakfast in their own little house, and then joined the others

for the day at about ten.

"Or eleven," said Thomas.

"It would be rather lovely," said Myra thoughtfully.

"Yes," I agreed; "but have you considered that--Come over this way a

moment, where Thomas and Simpson can't hear, while I tell you some of the

disadvantages."

I led her into a quiet corner and suggested a few things to her which I

hoped would not occur to the other two.

_Item_: That if it was raining hard at night, it would be beastly.

_Item_: That if you suddenly found you'd left your pipe behind, it would

be rotten. _Item_: That if, as was probable, there wasn't a proper

bathroom in the little house, it would be sickening. _Item_: That if she

had to walk on muddy paths in her evening shoes, it would be--

At this point Myra suddenly caught the thread of the argument. We went

back to the others.

"We think," said Myra, "it would be perfectly heavenly in the little

house; but--" She hesitated.

"But at the same time," I said, "we think it's up to Simpson and Thomas

to be English gentlemen. Samuel, it's your honour."

There was a moment's silence.

"Come along," said Thomas to Simpson, "let's go and look at it."

* * * * *

After lunch, clean and well-fed and happy, we lay in deck-chairs on the

loggia and looked lazily down at the Mediterranean.

"Thank you, Samuel, for bringing us," said Dahlia gently. "Your friends

must be very fond of you to have lent you this lovely place."

"Not fonder than we are," said Myra, smiling at him.

IV.

BEFORE LUNCH

I found Myra in the hammock at the end of the loggia.

"Hallo," I said.

"Hallo." She looked up from her book and waved her hand. "Mentone on the

left, Monte Carlo on the right," she said, and returned to her book

again. Simpson had mentioned the situation so many times that it had

become a catch-phrase with us.

"Fancy reading on a lovely morning like this," I complained.

"But that's why. It's a very gloomy play by Ibsen, and whenever it's

simply more than I can bear, I look up and see Mentone on the left, Monte

Carlo on the right--I mean, I see all the loveliness round me, and then I

know the world isn't so bad after all." She put her book down. "Are you

alone?"

I gripped her wrist suddenly and put the paper-knife to her throat.

"_We_ are alone," I hissed--or whatever you do to a sentence without any

"s's" in it to make it dramatic. "Your friends cannot save you now.

Prepare to--er--come a walk up the hill with me."

"Help! Help!" Whispered Myra. She hesitated a moment; then swung herself

out of the hammock and went in for her hat.

We climbed up a steep path which led to the rock-village above us.

Simpson had told us that we must see the village; still more earnestly he

had begged us to see Corsica. The view of Corsica was to be obtained from

a point some miles up--too far to go before lunch.

"However, we can always say we saw it," I reassured Myra. "From this

distance you can't be certain of recognizing an island you don't know.

Any small cloud on the horizon will do."

"I know it on the map."

"Yes, but it looks quite different in real life. The great thing is to be

able to assure Simpson at lunch that the Corsican question is now closed.

When we're a little higher up, I shall say, 'Surely that's Corsica?' and

you'll say, 'Not _Corsica_?' as though you'd rather expected the Isle of

Wight; and then it'll be all over. Hallo!"

We had just passed the narrow archway leading into the courtyard of the

village and were following the path up the hill. But in that moment of

passing we had been observed. Behind us a dozen village children now

trailed eagerly.

"Oh, the dears!" cried Myra.

"But I think we made a mistake to bring them," I said severely. "No one

is fonder of our--one, two, three ... I make it eleven--our eleven

children than I am, but there are times when Father and Mother want to be

alone."

"I'm sorry, dear. I thought you'd be so proud to have them all with you."

"I _am_ proud of them. To reflect that all the--one, two ... I make it

thirteen--all these thirteen are ours, is very inspiring. But I don't

like people to think that we cannot afford our youngest, our little

Philomene, shoes and stockings. And Giuseppe should have washed his face

since last Friday. These are small matters, but they are very trying to a

father."

"Have you any coppers?" asked Myra suddenly. "You forget their

pocket-money last week."

"One, two, three--I cannot possibly afford--one, two, three, four--Myra,

I do wish you'd count them definitely and tell me how many we have. One

likes to know. I cannot afford pocket-money for more than a dozen."

"Ten." She took a franc from me and gave it to the biggest girl.

(Anne-Marie, our first, and getting on so nicely with her French.)

Rapidly she explained what was to be done with it, Anne-Marie's look of

intense rapture slowly straightening itself to one of ordinary gratitude

as the financial standing of the other nine in the business became clear.

Then we waved farewell to our family and went on.

High above the village, a thousand feet above the sea, we rested, and

looked down upon the silvery olives stretching into the blue ... and more

particularly upon one red roof which stood up amid the grey-green trees.

"That's the Cardews' villa," I said.

Myra was silent.

When Myra married me she promised to love, honour and write all my

thank-you-very-much letters for me, for we agreed before the ceremony

that the word "obey" should mean nothing more than that. There are two

sorts of T.Y.V.M. letters--the "Thank you very much for asking us, we

shall be delighted to come," and the "Thank you very much for having us,

we enjoyed it immensely." With these off my mind I could really

concentrate on my work, or my short mashie shots, or whatever was of

importance. But there was now a new kind of letter to write, and one

rather outside the terms of our original understanding. A friend of mine

had told his friends the Cardews that we were going out to the Riviera

and would let them know when we arrived ... and we had arrived a week

ago.

"It isn't at all an easy letter to write," said Myra. "It's practically

asking a stranger for hospitality."

"Let us say 'indicating our readiness to accept it.' It sounds better."

Myra smiled slowly to herself.

"'Dear Mrs. Cardew,'" she said, "'we are ready for lunch when you are.

Yours sincerely.'"

"Well, that's the idea."

"And then what about the others? If the Cardews are going to be nice we

don't want to leave Dahlia and all of them out of it."

I thought it over carefully for a little.

"What you want to do," I said at last, "is to write a really long letter

to Mrs. Cardew, acquainting her with all the facts. Keep nothing back

from her. I should begin by dwelling on the personnel of our little

company. 'My husband and I,' you should say, 'are not alone. We have also

with us Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Mannering, a delightful couple. Mr. A.

Mannering is something in the Territorials when he is not looking after

his estate. His wife is a great favourite in the county. Next I have to

introduce to you Mr. Thomas Todd, an agreeable young bachelor. Mr. Thomas

Todd is in the Sucking-a-ruler-and-looking-out-of-the-window Department

of the Admiralty, by whose exertions, so long as we preserve the 2 Todds

to 1 formula--or, excluding Canadian Todds, 16 to 10--Britannia rules the

waves. Lastly, there is Mr. Samuel Simpson. Short of sight but warm of

heart, and with (on a bad pitch) a nasty break from the off, Mr. S.

Simpson is a _littérateur_ of some eminence but little circulation,

combining on the cornet intense wind-power with no execution, and on the

golf course an endless enthusiasm with only an occasional contact. This,

dear Mrs. Cardew, is our little party. I say nothing of my husband.'"

"Go on," smiled Myra. "You have still to explain how we invite ourselves

to lunch."

"We don't; we leave that to her. All we do is to give a list of the meals

in which, in the ordinary course, we are wont to indulge, together with a

few notes on our relative capacities at each. 'Perhaps,' you wind up, 'it

is at luncheon time that as a party we show to the best advantage. Some

day, my dear Mrs. Cardew, we must all meet at lunch. You will then see

that I have exaggerated neither my husband's appetite, nor the light

conversation of my brother, nor the power of apology, should any little

_contretemps_ occur, of Mr. Samuel Simpson. Let us, I say, meet at lunch.

Let us--'" I took out my watch suddenly.

"Come on," I said, getting up and giving a hand to Myra; "we shall only

just be in time for it."

V.

THE GAMESTERS

"It's about time," said Simpson one evening, "that we went to the tables

and--er--" (he adjusted his spectacles)--"had a little flutter."

We all looked at him in silent admiration.

"Oh, Samuel," sighed Myra, "and I promised your aunt that you shouldn't

gamble while you were away."

"But, my dear Myra, it's the first thing the fellows at the club ask you

when you've been to the Riviera--if you've had any luck."

"Well, you've had a lot of luck," said Archie. "Several times when you've

been standing on the heights and calling attention to the beautiful view

below, I've said to myself, 'One push, and he's a deader,' but something,

some mysterious agency within, has kept me back."

"All the fellows at the club--"

Simpson is popularly supposed to belong to a Fleet Street Toilet and

Hairdressing Club, where for three guineas a year he gets shaved every

day, and has his hair cut whenever Myra insists. On the many occasions

when he authorizes a startling story of some well-known statesman with

the words: "My dear old chap, I know it for a fact. I heard it at the

club to-day from a friend of his," then we know that once again the

barber's assistant has been gossiping over the lather.

"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could

be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms.

And then when the hairdresser--when your friends at the club ask if

you've had any luck at the tables, you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"

"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "_Quae mensae_?"

But it was obviously no good arguing with him. Besides, we were all keen

enough to go.

"We needn't lose," said Myra. "We might win."

"Good idea," said Thomas. He lit his pipe and added, "Simpson was telling

me about his system last night. At least, he was just beginning when I

went to sleep." He applied another match to his pipe and went on, as if

the idea had suddenly struck him, "Perhaps it was only his internal

system he meant. I didn't wait."

"Samuel, you _are_ quite well inside, aren't you?"

"Quite, Myra. But, I _have_ invented a sort of system for _roulette_,

which we might--"

"There's only one system which is any good," pronounced Archie. "It's the

system by which, when you've lost all your own money, you turn to the man

next to you and say, 'Lend me a louis, dear old chap, till Christmas;

I've forgotten my purse.'"

"No systems," said Dahlia. "Let's make a collection and put it all on one

number and hope it will win."

Dahlia had obviously been reading novels about people who break the bank.

"It's as good a way of losing as any other," said Archie. "Let's do it

for our first gamble, anyway. Simpson, as our host, shall put the money

on. I, as his oldest friend, shall watch him to see that he does it.

What's the number to be?"

We all thought hard for several moments.

"Samuel, what's your age?" asked Myra, at last.

"Right off the board," said Thomas.

"You're not really more than thirty-six?" Myra whispered to him. "Tell me

as a secret."

"Peter's nearly two," said Dahlia.

"Do you think you could nearly put our money on 'two'?" asked Archie.

"I once made seventeen," I said. "On that never-to-be-forgotten day when

I went in first with Archie--"

"That settles it. Here's to the highest score of The Rabbits'

wicket-keeper. To-morrow afternoon we put our money on seventeen.

Simpson, you have between now and 3.30 to-morrow to perfect your French

delivery of the magic word _dix-sept_."

I went to bed a proud but anxious man that night. It was _my_ famous

score which had decided the figure that was to bring us fortune ... and

yet ... and yet....

Suppose eighteen turned up? The remorse, the bitterness! "If only," I

should tell myself--"if only we had run three instead of two for that cut

to square-leg!" Suppose it were sixteen! "Why, oh why," I should groan,

"did I make the scorer put that bye down as a hit?" Suppose it were

thirty-four! But there my responsibility ended. If it were going to be

thirty-four, they should have used one of Archie's scores, and made a

good job of it.

At 3.30 next day we were in the fatal building. I should like to pause

here and describe my costume to you, which was a quiet grey in the best

of taste, but Myra says that if I do this I must describe hers too, a

feat beyond me. Sufficient that she looked dazzling, that as a party we

were remarkably well-dressed, and that Simpson--murmuring "_dix-sept"_ to

himself at intervals--led the way through the rooms till he found a table

to his liking.

"Aren't you excited?" whispered Myra to me.

"Frightfully," I said, and left my mouth well open. I don't quite know

what picture of the event Myra and I had conjured up in our minds, but I

fancy it was one something like this. At the entrance into the rooms of

such a large and obviously distinguished party there would be a slight

sensation among the crowd, and way would be made for us at the most

important table. It would then leak out that Chevalier Simpson--the tall

poetical-looking gentleman in the middle, my dear--had brought with him

no less a sum than thirty francs with which to break the bank, and that

he proposed to do this in one daring _coup_. At this news the players at

the other tables would hastily leave their winnings (or losings) and

crowd round us. Chevalier Simpson, pale but controlled, would then place

his money on seventeen--"_dix-sept_," he would say to the croupier to

make it quite clear--and the ball would be spun. As it slowed down, the

tension in the crowd would increase. "_Mon Dieu_!" a woman would cry in a

shrill voice; there would be guttural exclamations from Germans; at the

edge of the crowd strong men would swoon. At last a sudden shriek ... and

the croupier's voice, trembling for the first time for thirty years,

"_Dix-sept_!" Then gold and notes would be pushed at the Chevalier. He

would stuff his pockets with them; he would fill his hat with them; we

others, we would stuff our pockets too. The bank would send out for more

money. There would be loud cheers from all the company (with the

exception of one man, who had put five francs on sixteen and had shot

himself) and we should be carried--that is to say, we four men--shoulder

high to the door, while by the deserted table Myra and Dahlia clung to

each other, weeping tears of happiness....

Something like that.

What happened was different. As far as I could follow, it was this. Over

the heads of an enormous, badly-dressed and utterly indifferent crowd

Simpson handed his thirty francs to the croupier.

"_Dix-sept_," he said.

The croupier with his rake pushed the money on to seventeen.

Another croupier with his rake pulled it off again ... and stuck to it.

The day's fun was over.

* * * * *

"What _did_ win?" asked Myra some minutes later, when the fact that we

should never see our money again had been brought home to her.

"Zero," said Archie.

I sighed heavily.

"My usual score," I said, "not my highest."

VI.

THE RECORD OF IT

"I shall be glad to see Peter again," said Dahlia, as she folded up her

letter from home.

Peter's previous letter, dictated to his nurse-secretary, had, according

to Archie, been full of good things. Cross-examination of the proud

father, however, had failed to reveal anything more stirring than "I love

mummy," and--er--so on.

We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast--all of

us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not

many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should

not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.

"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to have

done _anything_--except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially

Rivierish. But it's been heavenly."

"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet a

moment I'll tell you some."

These were some of the things:

(1) We had been to the Riviera. (Nothing could take away from that. We

had the labels on our luggage.)

(2) We had lost heavily (thirty francs) at the Tables. (This alone

justified the journey.)

(3) Myra had sat next to a Prince at lunch. (Of course she might have

done this in London, but so far there has been no great rush of Princes

to our little flat. Dukes, Mayors, Companions of St. Michael and St.

George, certainly; but, somehow, not Princes.)

(4) Simpson had done the short third hole at Mt. Agel in three. (His

first had cleverly dislodged the ball from the piled-up tee; his second,

a sudden nick, had set it rolling down the hill to the green; and the

third, an accidental putt, had sunk it.)

(5) Myra and I had seen Corsica. (Question.)

(6) And finally, and best of all, we had sat in the sun, under a blue sky

above a blue sea, and watched the oranges and lemons grow.

So, though we had been to but few of the famous beauty spots around, we

had had a delightfully lazy time; and as proof that we had not really

been at Brighton there were, as I have said, the luggage labels. But we

were to be able to show further proof. At this moment Simpson came out of

the house, his face beaming with excitement, his hands carefully

concealing something behind his back.

"Guess what I've got," he said eagerly.

"The sack," said Thomas.

"Your new bests," said Archie.

"Something that will interest us all," helped Simpson.

"I withdraw my suggestion," said Archie.

"Something we ought to have brought with us all along."

"More money," said Myra.

The tension was extreme. It was obvious that our consuming anxiety would

have to be relieved very speedily. To avoid a riot, Thomas went behind

Simpson's back and took his surprise away from him.

"A camera," he said. "Good idea."

Simpson was all over himself with bon-hommy.

"I suddenly thought of it the other night," he said, smiling round at all

of us in his happiness, "and I was just going to wake Thomas up to tell

him, when I thought I'd keep it a secret. So I wrote to a friend of mine

and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things, just as a

surprise for you."

"Samuel, you _are_ a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.

"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place,

because they're so jolly to look back on, and--er, I'm not quite sure how

you work it, but I expect some of you know and--er--"

"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a

secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.

"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together in

a group. Simpson will send it to one of the picture papers, and we shall

appear as 'Another Merry Little Party of Well-known Sun-seekers. Names

from left to right: Blank, blank, Mr. Archibald Mannering, blank, blank.'

I'd better go and brush my hair."

Simpson returned to us, nervous and fully charged with advice.

"Right, Myra, I see. That'll be all right. Oh, look here, do you--oh yes,

I see. Right. Now then--wait a bit--oh yes, I've got it. Now then, what

shall we have first? A group?"

"Take the house and the garden and the village," said Thomas. "You'll see

plenty of _us_ afterwards."

"The first one is bound to be a failure," I pointed out. "Rather let him

fail at us, who are known to be beautiful, than at the garden, which has

its reputation yet to make. Afterwards, when he has got the knack, he

will be able to do justice to the scenery."

Archie joined us again, followed by the bull-dog. We grouped ourselves

picturesquely.

"That looks ripping," said Simpson. "Oh, look here, Myra, do you--No,

don't come; you'll spoil the picture. I suppose you have to--oh, it's all

right, I think I've got it."

"I shan't try to look handsome this time," said Archie; "it's not worth

it. I shall just put an ordinary blurred expression on."

"Now, are you ready? Don't move. Quite still, please; quite--"

"It's instantaneous, you know," said Myra gently.

This so unnerved Simpson that he let the thing off without any further

warning, before we had time to get our expressions natural.

"That was all right, Myra, wasn't it?" he said proudly.

"I'm--I'm afraid you had your hand over the lens, Samuel dear."

"Our new photographic series: 'Palms of the Great.' No. 1, Mr. S.

Simpson's," murmured Archie.

"It wouldn't have been a very good one anyhow," I said encouragingly. "It

wasn't typical. Dahlia should have had an orange in her hand, and Myra

might have been resting her cheek against a cactus. Try it again,

Simpson, and get a little more colour into it."

He tried again and got a lot more colour into it.

"Strictly speaking," said Myra sadly, "you ought to have got it on to a

new film."

Simpson looked in horror at the back of his camera, found that he had

forgotten to turn the handle, apologized profusely, and wound up very

gingerly till the number "2" approached. "Now then," he said, looking

up ... and found himself alone.

* * * * *

As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should

you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will), and

(which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the

conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is

worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I

shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are

just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives

and cactuses and palms; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and

still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant

backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face

of Simpson.

The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.

But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these

things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.

II. MEN OF LETTERS

MEN OF LETTERS

JOHN PENQUARTO

A TALE OF LITERARY LIFE IN LONDON

(_Modelled on the hundred best Authors_.)

I

John Penquarto looked round his diminutive bed-sitting-room with a

feeling of excitement not unmixed with awe. So this was London! The new

life had begun. With a beating heart he unpacked his bag and set out his

simple belongings.

First his books, his treasured books; where should he put them? It was

comforting to think that, wherever they stood, they would be within reach

of his hand as he lay in bed. He placed them on the window-sill and read

their titles again reverently: "Half-Hours with our Water-Beetles," "The

Fretworker's Companion" and "Strenuous Days in Simla." He owed everything

to them. And what an air they gave the room!

But not such an air as was given by his other treasure--the photograph of

Mary.

Mary! He had only met her once, and that was twenty years ago, at his

native Polwollop. He had gone to the big house with a message for Mr.

Trevena, her ladyship's butler: "Mother's respects, and she has found the

other shirt-front and will send it up as soon as it is dry." He had often

taken a similar message, for Mrs. Penquarto did the washing for the upper

servants at the Hall, but somehow he had known that to-day was going to

be different.

There, just inside the gates, was Mary. He was only six, but even then he

knew that never would he see again anything so beautiful. She was five;

but there was something in her manner of holding herself and the

imperious tilt of her head which made her seem almost five-and-a-half.

"I'm Mary," she said.

He wanted to say that he was John, but could not. He stood there

tongue-tied.

"I love you," she went on.

His heart beat tumultuously. He felt suffocated. He longed to say, "So do

I," but was afraid that it was not good English. Even then he knew that

he must be a writer when he grew up.

She leant forward and kissed him. He realized suddenly that he was in

love. The need for self-expression was strong upon him. Shyly he brought

out his last acid-drop and shared it with her. He had never seen her

since, but even now, twenty years after, he could not eat an acid-drop

without emotion, and a whole bag of them brought the scene back so

visibly as to be almost a pain.

Yes, he was to be a writer; there could be no doubt about that. Everybody

had noticed it. The Vicar had said, "Johnny will never do any good at

Polwollop, I fear"; and the farmer for whom John scared rooks had said,

"Thiccy la-ad seems daft-like," and one after another of Mrs. Penquarto's

friends had given similar testimony. And now here he was, at twenty-six,

in the little bed-sitting-room in Bloomsbury, ready to write the great

novel which should take London by storm. Polwollop seemed a hundred years

away.

Feverishly he seized pen and paper and began

to wonder what to write.

II

It was near the Albert Memorial that the great inspiration came to him

some weeks later. Those had been weeks of mingled hope and despair; of

hope as he had fondled again his treasured books and read their titles,

or gazed at the photograph of Mary; of despair as he had taken off his

belt and counted out his rapidly-decreasing stock of money, or reflected

that he was as far from completing his novel as ever. Sometimes in the

search for an idea he had frequented the restaurants where the great

Samuel Johnson himself had eaten, and sometimes he had frequented other

restaurants where even the great Samuel Johnson himself had been unable

to eat. Often he had gone into the British Museum and leant against a

mummy-case, or taken a 'bus to Chelsea and pressed his forehead against

the brass-plate which marked Carlyle's house, but no inspiration had

come. And then suddenly, quite close to the Albert Memorial, he knew.

He would write a novel about a boy called William who had lived in

Cornwall, and who came to London and wrote a novel, a novel of which "The

Westminster Gazette" said: "This novel undoubtedly places the author in

the front rank of living novelists." William's novel would be a realistic

account of--yes, that was it--of a boy called Henry, who had lived in

Cornwall, and who came to London and wrote a novel, a novel of which "The

Morning Post" said: "By this novel the author has indubitably established

his claim to be reckoned among the few living novelists who count." But

stay! What should this novel of Henry's be about? It would be necessary

to describe it. For an hour he wrestled with the problem, and then he had

another inspiration. Henry's novel would be about a boy called Thomas who

had lived in Cornwall and who came to London and wrote a novel {about a

boy called Stephen who had lived in Cornwall, and who came to London and

wrote a novel (about a boy called Michael who had lived in Cornwall, and

who came to London and wrote a novel (about a boy called Peter, who had

lived in Cornwall, and ...) ...

And so on.

And every one of the novels would establish the author's right to be

reckoned, etc., and place him undoubtedly in the very front rank.

It was a stupendous idea. For a moment John was almost paralysed at

contemplation of it. There seemed to be no end to his novel as he had

planned it. Was it too much for his powers?

There was only one way to find out. He hurried back to his

bed-sitting-room, seized a pen and began to write.

III

It was two years later. For the last fortnight John Penquarto had stopped

counting the money in his belt. There was none left. For a fortnight now

he had been living on the belt itself.

But a great hope had always sustained him. One day he would hear from the

publisher to whom he had sent his novel a year ago.

And now at last the letter had come, and he was seated in the office of

the great Mr. Pump himself. His heart beat rapidly. He felt suffocated.

"Well, Mr. Penquarto," said the smiling publisher, "I may say at once

that we like your novel. We should have written before, but we have only

just finished reading it. It is a little long--about two million eight

hundred thousand words, I reckon it--but I have a suggestion to make

which will meet that difficulty. I suggest that we publish it in half a

dozen volumes, stopping, for the first volume, at the Press notices of

(say) Peter's novel. We find that the public likes these continuous

books. About terms. We will send an agreement along to-morrow. Naturally,

as this is a first book, we can only pay a nominal sum on account of

royalties. Say ten thousand pounds. How will that suit you?"

With a heart still beating John left the office five minutes later and

bought a new belt. Then he went to a restaurant where Goldsmith had never

been and ordered a joint and two veg. Success had come!

IV

I should like to dwell upon the weeks which followed. I should like to

tell of John's emotion when he saw his first proofs and of the printer's

emotion when he saw what a mess John had made of them. I should like to

describe how my hero's heart beat during the anxious days of waiting; to

picture to you his pride at the arrival of his six free copies, and his

landlady's surprise when he presented her with one. Above all, I should

like to bring home to you the eagerness with which he bought and opened

"The Times Literary Supplement" and read his first review:

"'William Trewulliam--The First Phase.' By John Penquarto, 7-1/2 by

5-1/4, 896 pp., Albert Pump. 9s. n."

I have no time to go into these matters, nor have I time in which to give

at length his later Press cuttings, in which there was displayed a

unanimity of opinion that John Penquarto was now in the front rank of

living novelists, one of the limited number whose work really counted. I

must hurry on.

It was a week after the publication of "William Trewulliam," the novel

which had taken all London by storm. In all the drawing-rooms of Mayfair,

in all the clubs of Pall Mall, people were asking each other, "Who is

John Penquarto?" Nobody knew--save one.

Lady Mary knew. It was not the name Penquarto which had told her; it

was--yes, you have guessed--the scene at the beginning of the book,

when William Trewulliam meets the little Anne and shares his last

raspberry-drop with her. Even under this disguise she recognized that

early meeting. She pierced beneath the imagination of the novelist to the

recollection of the man. John Penquarto--of course! Now she remembered

the name.

It had always been a mystery to her friends why Lady Mary had never

married. No girl in Society had been more eagerly courted. It was

whispered that already she had refused more than one Archbishop, three

Newspaper Proprietors and a couple of Dukes. Something, she scarcely knew

what, told her that this was not love. She must wait. As she dressed to

go to the Duchess of Bilberry's "At Home," she wondered if she would ever

meet John Penquarto again, and if he had altered.

"Mary!"

It was John speaking. He had seen her the moment she came in at the door.

Something--was it the Duchess's champagne at dinner?--had reminded him of

the acid-drop they had eaten together and this had brought back his

memories in a flood. To-night he would meet her again. He knew it

instinctively. Besides, it was like this that William Trewulliam had met

Anne again, and Henry Polhenery had met Sarah, and Thomas Pentummas had

met Alice, and--well, anyhow he knew.

"John!"

It was Mary speaking. Perhaps you had guessed.

"You knew me?" (This is John. It was his turn.)

"I knew you." (Said Mary.)

"Do you remember--"

Mary blushed, and John did not deviate from the healthy red colour which

he had maintained throughout the conversation. In spite of his success he

was never quite at ease in society at this period of his life. Nor were

Henry Polhenery and Thomas Pentummas. They remained handsome but awkward,

which was why women loved them so.

"I love you," (John speaking.)

"I think I must have always loved you." (Mary going it.)

He took her hand in his.

Nobody noticed them. They were as much alone as if they had been at the

National Gallery together. Many of the guests were going through similar

scenes of recognition and love-making; others were asking each other if

they had read "William Trewulliam" yet, and lying about it others again

were making for the buffet. John and Mary had the world to themselves....

V

They were married a month later. John, who did not look his best in a

frock-coat, had pleaded for a quiet wedding, and only the Duchess of

Bilberry and Mr. Pump were present at the simple ceremony which took

place at the Bloomsbury registry-office. Then the happy couple drove

away.

And where are they spending the honeymoon?

Ah, do you need to ask?

"At Greenwich?" No, fathead, not at Greenwich.

"At Clacton-on-Sea?" Look here, I don't believe you're trying. Have

another shot....

Yes, dear reader, you are right. They are going back to Polwollop.

It might be a good plan to leave them there.

THE COMPLETE DRAMATIST

I take it that every able-bodied man and woman in this country wants to

write a play. Since the news first got about that Orlando What's-his-name

made £50,000 out of "The Crimson Sponge," there has been a feeling that

only through the medium of the stage can literary art find its true

expression. The successful playwright is indeed a man to be envied.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of super-tax, the prizes which

fall to his lot are worth something of an effort. He sees his name

(correctly spelt) on 'buses which go to such different spots as

Hammersmith and West Norwood, and his name (spelt incorrectly) beneath

the photograph of somebody else in "The Illustrated Butler." He is a

welcome figure at the garden-parties of the elect, who are always ready

to encourage him by accepting free seats for his play; actor-managers nod

to him; editors allow him to contribute without charge to a symposium on

the price of golf balls. In short he becomes a "prominent figure in

London Society"--and, if he is not careful, somebody will say so.

But even the unsuccessful dramatist has his moments. I knew a young man

who married somebody else's mother, and was allowed by her fourteen

gardeners to amuse himself sometimes by rolling the tennis-court. It was

an unsatisfying life; and when rash acquaintances asked him what he did,

he used to say that he was for the Bar. Now he says he is writing a

play--and we look round the spacious lawns and terraces and marvel at the

run his last one must have had.

However, I assume that you who read this are actually in need of the

dibs. Your play must be not merely a good play, but a successful one. How

shall this success be achieved?

Frankly I cannot always say. If you came to me and said, "I am on the

Stock Exchange, and bulls are going down," or up, or sideways, or

whatever it might be; "there's no money to be made in the City nowadays,

and I want to write a play instead. How shall I do it?"--well, I couldn't

help you. But suppose you said, "I'm fond of writing; my people always

say my letters home are good enough for 'Punch.' I've got a little idea

for a play about a man and a woman and another woman, and--but perhaps

I'd better keep the plot a secret for the moment. Anyhow it's jolly

exciting, and I can do the dialogue all right. The only thing is, I don't

know anything about technique and stagecraft and the three unities and

that sort of rot. Can you give me a few hints?"--suppose you spoke to me

like this, then I could do something for you. "My dear Sir," I should

reply (or Madam), "you have come to the right shop. Lend me your ear for

ten minutes, and you shall learn just what stagecraft is." And I should

begin with a short homily on

SOLILOQUY

If you ever read your "Shakespeare"--and no dramatist should despise the

works of another dramatist; he may always pick up something in them which

may be useful for his next play--if you ever read your "Shakespeare," it

is possible that you have come across this passage:

"_Enter_ Hamlet.

_Ham._ To be, or not to be--"

And, so on in the same vein for some thirty lines.

These few remarks are called a soliloquy, being addressed rather to the

world in general than to any particular person on the stage. Now the

object of this soliloquy is plain. The dramatist wished us to know the

thoughts which were passing through Hamlet's mind, and it was the only

way he could think of in which to do it. Of course, a really good actor

can often give a clue to the feelings of a character simply by facial

expression. There are ways of shifting the eyebrows, distending the

nostrils, and exploring the lower molars with the tongue by which it is

possible to denote respectively Surprise, Defiance and Doubt. Indeed,

irresolution being the keynote of Hamlet's soliloquy, a clever player

could to some extent indicate the whole thirty lines by a silent working

of the jaw. But at the same time it would be idle to deny that he would

miss the finer shades of the dramatist's meaning. "The insolence of

office, and the spurns"--to take only one line--would tax the most

elastic face.

So the soliloquy came into being. We moderns, however, see the

absurdity of it. In real life no one thinks aloud or in an empty room.

The up-to-date dramatist must certainly avoid this hallmark of the

old-fashioned play.

What, then, is to be done? If it be granted, first, that the thoughts of

a certain character should be known to the audience, and, secondly, that

soliloquy, or the habit of thinking aloud, is in opposition to modern

stage technique, how shall a soliloquy be avoided without damage to the

play?

Well, there are more ways than one; and now we come to what is meant by

stagecraft. Stagecraft is the art of getting over these and other

difficulties, and (if possible) getting over them in a showy manner, so

that people will say, "How remarkable his stagecraft is for so young a

writer," when otherwise they mightn't have noticed it at all. Thus, in

this play we have been talking about, an easy way of avoiding Hamlet's

soliloquy would be for Ophelia to speak first.

_Oph._ What are you thinking about, my lord?

_Ham._ I am wondering whether to be or not to be, whether 'tis nobler in

the mind to suffer--

And so on, till you get to the end, when Ophelia might say, "Ah, yes," or

something non-committal of that sort. This would be an easy way of doing

it, but it would not be the best way, for the reason that it is too easy

to call attention to itself. What you want is to make it clear that you

are conveying Hamlet's thoughts to the audience in rather a clever

manner.

That this can now be done we have to thank the well-known inventor of the

telephone. (I forget his name.) The telephone has revolutionized the

stage; with its aid you can convey anything you like across the

footlights. In the old badly-made play it was frequently necessary for

one of the characters to take the audience into his confidence. "Having

disposed of my uncle's body," he would say to the stout lady in the third

row of the stalls, "I now have leisure in which to search for the will.

But first to lock the door lest I should be interrupted by Harold

Wotnott." In the modern well-constructed play he simply rings up an

imaginary confederate and tells him what he is going to do. Could

anything be more natural?

Let us, to give an example of how this method works, go back again to the

play we have been discussing.

_Enter_ Hamlet. _He walks quickly across the room to the telephone, and

takes up the receiver impatiently._

_Ham_. Hallo! Hallo! I want double-nine--hal-_lo_! I want double-nine

two--hal-_lo_! Double-nine two three, Elsinore.... Double-_nine_,

yes.... Hallo, is that you, Horatio? Hamlet speaking. I say, I've been

wondering about this business. To be or not to be, that is the question;

whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows--What?

No, Hamlet speaking. _What_? Aren't you Horatio? I want double-nine two

three--sorry.... Is that you, Exchange? You gave me double-_five_, I

want double-_nine_.... Hallo, is that you, Horatio? Hamlet speaking.

I've been wondering about this business. To be or not to be, that is

the--What? No, I said, To _be_ or _not_ to be.... No, "be"--b-e. Yes,

that's right. To be or not to be, that is the question; whether 'tis

nobler--

And so on. You see how effective it is.

But there is still another way of avoiding the soliloquy, which is

sometimes used with good results. It is to let Hamlet, if that happen to

be the name of your character, enter with a small dog, pet falcon,

mongoose, tame bear or whatever animal is most in keeping with the part,

and confide in this animal such sorrows, hopes or secret history as the

audience has got to know. This has the additional advantage of putting

the audience immediately in sympathy with your hero. "How _sweet_ of

him," all the ladies say, "to tell his little bantam about it!"

If you are not yet tired (as I am) of the Prince of Denmark, I will

explain (for the last time) how a modern author might re-write his

speech.

_Enter_ Hamlet _with his favourite_ boar-hound.

_Ham. (to B.-H.)_. To be or not to be--ah, Fido, Fido! That is the

question--eh, old Fido, boy? Whether 'tis nobler in--how now, a rat!

Rats, Fido, _fetch_ 'em--in the mind to suffer the slings and--_down_,

Sir!--arrows--put it down! Arrows of--_drop_ it, Fido; good old dog--

And so on. Which strikes me as rather sweet and natural.

Let us now pass on to the very important question of

EXITS AND ENTRANCES

To the young playwright, the difficulty of getting his characters on to

the stage would seem much less than the difficulty of finding them

something to say when they are there. He writes gaily and without

hesitation "_Enter_ Lord Arthur Fluffinose," and only then begins to bite

the end of his penholder and gaze round his library for inspiration. Yet

it is on that one word "Enter" that his reputation for dramatic technique

will hang. Why did Lord Arthur Fluffinose enter? The obvious answer, that

the firm which is mentioned in the programme as supplying his trousers

would be annoyed if he didn't, is not enough; nor is it enough to say

that the whole plot of the piece hinges on him, and that without him the

drama would languish. What the critic wants to know is why Lord Arthur

chose that very moment to come in--the very moment when Lady Larkspur was

left alone in the oak-beamed hall of Larkspur Towers. Was it only a

coincidence? And if the young dramatist answers callously, "Yes," it

simply shows that he has no feeling for the stage whatever. In that case

I needn't go on with this article.

However, it will be more convenient to assume, dear reader, that in your

play Lord Arthur had a good reason for coming in. If that be so, he must

explain it. It won't do to write like this:---

_Enter_ Lord Arthur. Lady Larkspur _starts suddenly and turns towards

him._

_Lady Larkspur_. Arthur! _You_ here? (_He gives a nod of confirmation.

She pauses a moment, and then with a sudden passionate movement flings

herself into his arms_.) Take me away, Arthur. I can't bear this life any

longer. Larkspur bit me again this morning for the _third_ time. I want

to get away from it all. [_Swoons_.]

The subsequent scene may be so pathetic that on the hundredth night it is

still bringing tears to the eyes of the fireman, but you must not expect

to be treated as a serious dramatist. You will see this for yourself if

you consider the passage as it should properly have been written:--

_Enter_ Lord Arthur Fluffinose. Lady Larkspur _looks at him with

amazement_.

_Lady Larkspur_. Arthur, what are _you_ doing here?

_Lord Arthur_. I caught the 2.3 from town. It gets in at 3.37, and I

walked over from the station. It's only a mile. _(At this point he looks

at the grandfather clock in the corner, and the audience, following his

eyes, sees that it is seven minutes to four, which appears delightfully

natural.)_ I came to tell Larkspur to sell Bungoes. They are going

down.

_Lady Larkspur (folding her hands over her chest and gazing broodingly at

the footlights)_. Larkspur!

_Lord Arthur (anxiously)_. What is it? _(Suddenly.)_ Has he been

ill-treating you again?

_Lady Larkspur (flinging herself into his arms)_. Oh, Arthur, Arthur,

take me away!

And so on.

But it may well be that Lord Larkspur has an intrigue of his own with his

secretary, Miss Devereux, and, if their big scene is to take place on the

stage too, the hall has got to be cleared for them in some way. Your

natural instinct will be to say, "_Exeunt_ Fluffinose _and_ Lady

Larkspur, _R. Enter_ Lord Larkspur _and_ Miss Devereux, _L_." This is

very immature, even if you are quite clear as to which side of the stage

is L. and which is R. You _must_ make the evolutions seem natural.

Thus:--

_Enter from the left_ Miss Devereux. _She stops in surprise at seeing_

Lord Arthur _and holds out her hand_.

_Miss D_. Why, Lord Arthur! Whatever--

_Lord A_. How d'you do? I've just run down to tell Lord Larkspur to--

_Miss D_. He's in the library. At least he--

_Lord A. (taking out his watch_.) Ah, then perhaps I'd better--

[_Exit by door on left._]

_Miss D._ (_to_ Lady L.). Have you seen "The Times" about here? There is

a set of verses in the Financial Supplement which Lord Larkspur wanted

to--(_She wanders vaguely round the room. Enter_ Lord Larkspur _by door

at back._) Why, here you are! I've just sent Lord Arthur into the library

to--

_Lord L_. I went out to speak to the gardener about--

_Lady L_. Ah, then I'll go and tell Arthur--_[Exit to library, leaving_

Miss Devereux _and_ Lord Larkspur _alone_.

And there you are. You will, of course, appreciate that the unfinished

sentences not only save time, but also make the manoeuvring very much

more natural.

So far I have been writing as if you were already in the thick of your

play; but it may well be that the enormous difficulty of getting the

first character on has been too much for you. How, you may be wondering,

are you to begin your masterpiece?

The answer to this will depend upon the length of the play, for upon the

length depends the hour at which the curtain rises. If yours is an 8.15

play you may be sure that the stalls will not fill up till 8.30, and you

should therefore let loose the lesser-paid members of the cast on the

opening scene, keeping your fifty-pounders in reserve. In an 8.45 play

the audience may be plunged into the drama at once. But this is much the

more difficult thing to do, and for the beginner I should certainly

recommend the 8.15 play, for which the recipe is simple.

As soon as the lights go down, and while the bald, stout gentleman is

kicking our top-hat out of his way, treading heavily on our toes and

wheezing, "Sorry, sorry," as he struggles to his seat, a buzz begins

behind the curtain. What the players are saying is not distinguishable,

but a merry girlish laugh rings out now and then, followed by the short

sardonic chuckle of an obvious man of the world. Then the curtain rises,

and it is apparent that we are assisting at an At Home of considerable

splendour. Most of the characters seem to be on the stage, and for once

we do not ask how they got there. We presume they have all been invited.

Thus you have had no difficulty with your entrances.

_As the chatter dies down a chord is struck on the piano_.

_The Bishop of Sploshington_. Charming. Quite one of my favourites. Do

play it again. _(Relapses into silence for the rest of the evening.)_

_The Duchess of Southbridge (to_ Lord Reggie). Oh, Reggie, what _did_ you

say?

_Lord Reggie (putting up his eyeglass)_. Said I'd bally

well--top-hole--what?--don'cherknow.

_Lady Evangeline (to_ Lady Violet, as _they walk across the stage)_. Oh,

I _must_ tell you what that funny Mr. Danby said. (_Doesn't._ Lady

Violet, _none the less, trills with happy laughter.)_

_Prince von Ichdien, the well-known Ambassador (loudly, to an unnamed

gentleman)_. What your country ought to do--_(He finishes his remarks

in the lip-language, which the unnamed gentleman seems to understand. At

any rate he nods several times.)_

_There is more girlish laughter, more buzz and more deaf-and-dumb

language. Then_

_Lord Tuppeny_. Well, what about auction?

_Amid murmurs of_ "You'll play, Field-Marshal?" _and_ "Auction,

Archbishop?" _the crowd drifts off, leaving the hero and heroine alone in

the middle of the stage_.

And then you can begin.

But now I must give you a warning. You will never be a dramatist until

you have learnt the technique of

MEALS

In spite of all you can do in the way of avoiding soililoquies and

getting your characters on and off the stage in a dramatic manner, a time

will come when you realize sadly that your play is not a bit like life

after all. Then is the time to introduce a meal on the stage. A stage

meal is popular, because it proves to the audience that the actors, even

when called Charles Hawtrey or Owen Nares, are real people just like you

and me. "Look at Mr. Bourchier eating," we say excitedly to each other in

the pit, having had a vague idea up till then that an actor lived like a

god on praise and greasepaint and his photograph in the papers. "Another

cup, won't you?" says Miss Gladys Cooper; "No, thank you," says Mr.

Dennis Eadie--dash it, it's exactly what we do at home ourselves. And

when, to clinch matters, the dramatist makes Mr. Gerald du Maurier light

a real cigarette in the Third Act, then he can flatter himself that he

has indeed achieved the ambition of every stage writer, and "brought the

actual scent of the hay across the footlights."

But there is a technique to be acquired in this matter as in everything

else within the theatre. The great art of the stage-craftsman, as I have

already shown, is to seem natural rather than to be natural. Let your

actors have tea by all means, but see that it is a properly histrionic

tea. This is how it should go:--

_Hostess_. How do you do? You'll have some tea, won't you? _[Rings

bell]_.

_Guest_. Thank you.

_Enter_ Butler.

_Hostess_. Tea, please, Matthews.

_Butler (impassively)_. Yes, m'lady. _(This is all he says during the

play, so he must try and get a little character into it, in order that_

"The Era" _may remark, "Mr. Thompson was excellent as_ Matthews."

_However, his part is not over yet, for he returns immediately, followed

by three footmen--just as it happened when you last called on the_

Duchess--_and sets out the tea.)_

_Hostess (holding up the property lump of sugar in the tongs)_. Sugar?

_Guest (luckily)_. No, thanks.

_Hostess replaces lump and inclines empty teapot over tray for a moment;

then hands him a cup painted brown inside--thus deceiving the gentleman

with the telescope in the upper circle_.

_Guest (touching his lips with the cup and then returning it to its

saucer)_. Well, I must be going.

_Re-enter_ Butler _and three_ Footmen, _who remove the tea-things_.

_Hostess (to_ Guest). Good-bye; so glad you could come. [_Exit_ Guest.]

His visit has been short, but it has been very thrilling while it lasted.

Tea is the most usual meal on the stage, for the reason that it is the

least expensive, the property lump of sugar being dusted and used again

on the next night. For a stage dinner a certain amount of genuine

sponge-cake has to be made up to look like fish, chicken or cutlet. In

novels the hero has often "pushed his meals away untasted," but no stage

hero would do anything so unnatural as this. The etiquette is to have two

bites before the butler and the three footmen whisk away the plate. Two

bites are made, and the bread is crumbled, with an air of great

eagerness; indeed, one feels that in real life the guest would clutch

hold of the footman and say, "Half a mo', old chap, I haven't _nearly_

finished"; but the actor is better schooled than this. Besides, the thing

is coming back again as chicken directly.

But it is the cigarette which chiefly has brought the modern drama to its

present state of perfection. Without the stage cigarette many an epigram

would pass unnoticed, many an actor's hands would be much more

noticeable; and the man who works the fireproof safety curtain would lose

even the small amount of excitement which at present attaches to his job.

Now although it is possible, in the case of a few men at the top of the

profession, to leave the conduct of the cigarette entirely to the actor,

you will find it much more satisfactory to insert in the stage directions

the particular movements (with match and so forth) that you wish carried

out. Let us assume that Lord Arthur asks Lord John what a cynic is--the

question of what a cynic is having arisen quite naturally in the course

of the plot. Let us assume further that you wish Lord John to reply, "A

cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of

nothing." It has been said before, but you may feel that it is quite time

it was said again; besides, for all the audience knows, Lord John may

simply be quoting. Now this answer, even if it comes quite fresh to the

stalls, will lose much of its effect if it is said without the assistance

of a cigarette. Try it for yourself.

_Lord John_. A cynic is a man who, etc....

Rotten. Now try again.

_Lord John_. A cynic is a man who, etc.... _[Lights cigarette.]_

No, even that is not good. Once more:---

_Lord John (lighting cigarette)_. A cynic is a man who, etc.

Better, but leaves too much to the actor.

Well, I see I must tell you.

_Lord John (taking out gold cigarette case from his left-hand upper

waistcoat pocket)_. A cynic, my dear Arthur (_he opens case

deliberately, puts cigarette in mouth, and extracts gold match-box

from right-hand trouser_) is a man who (_strikes match_) knows the

price of (_lights cigarette_)--everything, and (_standing with match in

one hand and cigarette in the other_) the value of---pff (_blows out

match_) of (_inhales deeply from cigarette and blows out a cloud of

smoke_)--nothing.

It makes a different thing of it altogether. Of course on the actual

night the match may refuse to strike, and Lord John may have to go on

saying "a man who--a man who--a man who" until the ignition occurs, but

even so it will still seem delightfully natural to the audience (as if he

were making up the epigram as he went along); while as for blowing the

match out, he can hardly fail to do _that_ in one.

The cigarette, of course, will be smoked at other moments than

epigrammatic ones, but on these other occasions you will not need to deal

so fully with it in the stage directions. "_Duke (lighting cigarette_). I

trust, Perkins, that..." is enough. You do not want to say, "_Duke

(dropping ash on trousers_). It seems to me, my love..." or, "_Duke

(removing stray piece of tobacco from tongue_). What Ireland needs

is..."; still less "_Duke (throwing away end of cigarette_). Show him

in." For this must remain one of the mysteries of the stage--What happens

to the stage cigarette when it has been puffed four times? The stage tea,

of which a second cup is always refused; the stage cutlet, which is

removed with the connivance of the guest after two mouthfuls; the stage

cigarette, which nobody ever seems to want to smoke to the end--thinking

of these as they make their appearances in the houses of the titled, one

would say that the hospitality of the peerage was not a thing to make any

great rush for....

But that would be to forget the butler and the three footmen. Even a Duke

cannot have everything. And what his _chef_ may lack in skill his butler

more than makes up for in impassivity.

A POETRY RECITAL

It has always been the privilege of Art to be patronized by Wealth and

Rank. Indeed, if we literary and artistic strugglers were not asked out

to afternoon tea sometimes by our millionaire acquaintances, it is

doubtful if we should be able to continue the struggle. Recently a new

(and less expensive) method of entertaining Genius has become fashionable

in the best circles, and the aspiring poet is now invited to the house of

the Great, not for the purpose of partaking of bodily refreshment

himself, but in order that he may afford spiritual refreshment to others.

In short, he is given an opportunity of reciting his own works in front

of the Fair, the Rich and the Highly Born, and making what he can out of

it in the way of advertisement.

Let us imagine that we have been lucky enough to secure an invitation to

one of Lady Poldoodle's Poetry At-Homes, at her charming little house in

Berkeley Square.

The guests are all waiting, their eyes fixed in eager anticipation on the

black-covered throne at the farther end of the room, whereon each poet

will sit to declaim his masterpiece, when suddenly Lord Poldoodle is

observed to be making his way cautiously towards a side-door. Fortunately

he is stopped in time, and dragged back to his seat next to the throne,

from which he rises a moment later to open the proceeding.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "we are met here this afternoon in order

to listen to some of our younger poets who will recite from their own

works. So far, I have always managed to avoid--so far, I have been

unavoidably prevented from attending on these occasions, but I understand

that the procedure is as follows. Each poet will recite a short sample of

his poetry, after which, no doubt, you will go home and order from your

bookseller a complete set of his works."

Lady Poldoodle goes quickly over to him and whispers vigorously.

"I find I am wrong," says our host. "Full sets of the author's

works can be obtained on the way out. There is, however, no

compulsion in the matter, and, if you take my advice--well, well,

let us get on. Our first poet"--here he puts on his glasses, and reads

from a paper on the table in front of him--"is Mr. Sydney Worple, of

whom you--er--have--er--doubtless all heard. At any rate you will hear

him now."

Mr. Sydney Worple, tall and thin, wearing the sort of tie which makes you

think you must have seen him before, steps forward amidst applause. He

falls back into the throne as if deep in thought, and passes a hand

across his hair.

Mr. Worple (_very suddenly_) "Dawn at Surbiton."

"Where?" says a frightened voice at the back.

"H'sh!" says Lady Poldoodle in a whisper. "Surbiton."

"Surbiton" is passed round the back seats. Not that it is going to matter

in the least.

Mr. Worple repeats the title, and then recites in an intense voice these

lines:

Out of the nethermost bonds of night,

Out of the gloom where the bats' wings brush me,

Free from the crepitous doubts which crush me,

Forth I fare to the cool sunlight;

Forth to a world where the wind sweeps clean,

Where the smooth-limbed ash to the blue stands bare,

And the gossamer spreads her opalled ware--

And Jones is catching the 8.15.

After several more verses like this he bows and retires. Lady Poldoodle,

still mechanically clapping, says to her neighbour:

"How beautiful! Dawn at Surbiton! Such a beautiful idea, I think."

"Wasn't it sublime?" answers the neighbour. "The wonderful contrast

between the great pageant of nature and poor Mr. Jones, catching--always

catching--the 8.15."

But Lord Poldoodle is rising again. "Our next poet," he says,

"is Miss Miranda Herrick, whose work is so distinguished for

its--er--its--er--distinction."

Miss Herrick, dressed in pale green and wearing pincenez, flutters in

girlishly. She gives a nervous little giggle, pushes out her foot,

withdraws it and begins:

When I take my bath in the morning--

The audience wakes up with a start. "When you take your _what_!" says

Lord Poldoodle.

Miss Herrick begins again, starting this time with the title.

LIFE

When I take my bath in the morning,

When I strip for the cool delight,

And the housemaid brings

Me towels and things,

Do I reck of the coming night?

A materially-minded man whispers to his neighbour that _he_ always

wonders what's for breakfast. "H'sh!" she says, for there is another

verse to come.

When my hair comes down in the evening,

And my tired clothes swoon to the ground,

Do I bother my head,

As I leap in bed,

Of the truth which the dawn brings round?

In the uncomfortable pause which follows, a voice is heard saying, "Does

she?" and Lady Poldoodle asks kindly, "Is that all, dear?"

"What more could there be?" says Miss Herrick with a sigh. "What more is

there to say? It is Life."

"Life! How true!" says the hostess. "But won't you give us something

else? That one ended so very suddenly."

After much inward (and outward) wrestling Miss Herrick announces:

A THOUGHT

The music falls across the vale

From nightingale to nightingale;

The owl within the ivied tree

Makes love to me, makes love to me;

But all the tadpoles in the pond

Are dumb--however fond.

"I begin to think that there is something in a tadpole after all,"

murmurs Lord Poldoodle to himself, as the author wriggles her way out.

"After all," says one guest to another, "why shouldn't a tadpole make

love as much as anybody else?"

"I think," says her neighbour, "that the idea is of youth trying vainly

to express itself--or am I thinking of caterpillars? Lord Poldoodle, what

is a tadpole exactly?"

"A tadpole," he answers decisively, "is an extremely immature wriggling

creature, which is, quite rightly, dumb."

Now steps forward Mr. Horatio Bullfinch, full of simple enthusiasm, one

of the London school. He gives us his famous poem, "Berkeley Square."

The men who come from the north country

Are tall and very fair,

The men who come from the south country

Have hardly any hair,

But the only men in the world for me

Are the men of Berkeley Square.

The sun may shine at Colchester,

The rain may rain at Penge;

From low-hung skies the dawn may rise

Broodingly on Stonehenge.

Knee-deep in clover the lambs at Dover

Nibble awhile and stare;

But there's only one place in the world for me,

Berkeley--Berkeley Square.

And so on, down to that magnificent last verse:

The skylark triumphs from the blue,

Above the barley fields at Loo,

The blackbird whistles loud and clear

Upon the hills at Windermere;

But oh, I simply LOVE the way

Our organ-grinder plays all day!

Lord Poldoodle rises to introduce Mr. Montagu Mott.

"Mr. Mott," he says, "is, I am told, our leading exponent of what is

called _vers libre_, which means--well, you will see what it means

directly."

Mr. Mott, a very ugly little man, who tries to give you the impression

that he is being ugly on purpose, and could easily be beautiful if he

were not above all that sort of thing, announces the title of his

masterpiece. It is called "Why Is the Fat Woman's Face So Red?" Well,

what else _could_ you call it?

Why is the fat woman's face so red?

Is it because her stays are too tight?

Or because she wants to sneeze and has lost her pocket handkerchief?

Or only because her second son

(The engineer)

Is dying of cancer.

I cannot be certain.

Yet I sit here and ask myself

Wonderingly

Why is the fat woman's face so red?

It is generally recognized that, in Mr. Mott, we have a real poet. There

are loud cries of "Encore!" Mr. Mott shakes his head.

"I have written no more," he says in a deep voice. "I have given you the

result of three years' work. Perhaps--in another three years--" He shrugs

his shoulders and walks gloomingly out.

"Such a sweet idea," says Lady Poldoodle. "I sit here and ask

myself--wonderingly! How true! How very true!"

"I couldn't quite follow it, dear," says her neighbour frankly. "Did he

marry her after all?"

Lord Poldoodle, looking slightly more cheerful, gets once more on to his

legs.

"You will all be very glad to hear--ah--you will all be sorry to hear

that we have only one more poet on our list this afternoon. Mr. Cecil

Willow, the well-known--er--poet."

Mr. Willow, a well-dressed young man, fair and rather stout, and a credit

to any drawing-room, announces the subject of his poem--Liberty.

"Liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy name!" murmurs Lord

Poldoodle to himself.

LIBERTY

There were two thrushes in a tree,

The one was tamed, the other free.

Because his wings were clipped so small

The tame one did not fly at all,

But sang to Heaven all the day--

The other (shortly after) flew away.

There were two women in a town,

The one was blonde, the other brown.

The brown one pleased a Viscount's son

(Not Richard, but the other one)

He gave her a delightful flat--

The blonde one loved a man called Alfred Spratt.

There were two Kings on thrones of gold,

The one was young, the other old.

The young one's laws were wisely made

Till someone took a hand-grenade

And threw it, shouting, "Down with Kings!"--

The old one laid foundation stones and things.

"How delightful," says everybody. "How very delightful. Thank you, Lady

Poldoodle, for such a delightful afternoon."

THE PERILS OF REVIEWING

A most unfortunate thing has happened to a friend of mine called ---- to

a friend of ---- to a ----. Well, I suppose the truth will have to come

out. It happened to me. Only don't tell anybody.

I reviewed a book the other day. It is not often I do this, because

before one can review a book one has to, or is supposed to, read it,

which wastes a good deal of time. Even that isn't an end of the trouble.

The article which follows is not really one's own, for the wretched

fellow who wrote the book is always trying to push his way in with his

views on matrimony, or the Sussex downs, or whatever his ridiculous

subject is. He expects one to say, "Mr. Blank's treatment of Hilda's

relations with her husband is masterly," whereas what one wants to say

is, "Putting Mr. Blank's book on one side, we may consider the larger

question, whether--" and so consider it (alone) to the end of the column.

Well, I reviewed Mr. Blank's book, "Rotundity." As I expected, the first

draft had to be re-headed "A Corner of old London," and used elsewhere;

Mr. Blank didn't get into it at all. I kept promising myself a sentence:

"Take 'Rotundity,' for instance, the new novel by William Blank, which,

etc." but before I was ready for it the article was finished. In my

second draft, realizing the dangers of delay, I began at once, "This

remarkable novel," and continued so for a couple of sentences. But on

reading it through afterwards I saw at once that the first two sentences

were out of place in an article that obviously ought to be called "The

Last Swallow"; so I cut them out, sent "The Last Swallow: A Reverie" to

another Editor, and began again. The third time I was successful.

Of course in my review I said all the usual things. I said that Mr.

Blank's attitude to life was "subjective rather than objective" ... and

a little lower down that it was "objective rather than subjective." I

pointed out that in his treatment of the major theme he was a

neo-romanticist, but I suggested that, on the other hand, he had nothing

to learn from the Russians--or the Russians had nothing to learn from

him; I forget which. And finally I said (and this is the cause of the

whole trouble) that Antoine Vaurelle's world-famous classic--and I looked

it up in the encyclopedia--world-renowned classic, "Je Comprends Tout,"

had been not without its influence on Mr. Blank. It was a good review,

and the editor was pleased about it.

A few days later Mr. Blank wrote to say that, curiously enough, he had

never read "Je Comprends Tout." It didn't seem to me very curious,

because I had never read it either, but I thought it rather odd of him to

confess as much to a stranger. The only book of Vaurelle's which I had

read was "Consolatrice," in an English translation. However, one doesn't

say these things in a review.

Now I have a French friend, Henri, one of those annoying Frenchmen who

talk English much better than I do, and Henri, for some extraordinary

reason, had seen my review. He has to live in London now, but his heart

is in Paris; and I imagine that every word of his beloved language which

appears, however casually, in an English paper mysteriously catches his

eye and brings the scent and sounds of the boulevards to him across the

coffee-cups. So, the next time I met him, he shook me warmly by the hand,

and told me how glad he was that I was an admirer of Antoine Vaurelle's

novels.

"Who isn't?" I said with a shrug, and, to get the conversation on to

safer ground, I added hastily that in some ways I almost liked

"Consolatrice" best.

He shook my hand again. So did he. A great book.

"But of course," he said, "one must read it in the original French. It is

the book of all others which loses by translation."

"Of course," I agreed. Really, I don't see what else I could have done.

"Do you remember that wonderful phrase--" and he rattled it off.

"Magnificent, is it not?"

"Magnificent," I said, remembering an appointment instead. "Well, I must

be getting on. Good-bye." And, as I walked off, I patted my forehead with

my handkerchief and wondered why the day had grown so warm suddenly.

However the next day was even warmer. Henri came to see me with a book

under his arm. We all have one special book of our own which we recommend

to our acquaintances, regarding the love of it as perhaps the best

passport to our friendship. This was Henri's. He was about to test me. I

had read and admired his favourite Vaurelle--in the original French.

Would I love his darling Laforgue? My reputation as a man, as a writer,

as a critic, depended on it. He handed me the book--in French.

"It is all there," he said reverently, as he gave it to me. "All

your English masters, they all come from him. Perhaps, most of all,

your ---- But you shall tell me when you have read it. You shall tell me

whom most you seem to see there. Your Meredith? Your Shaw? Your ---- But

you shall tell me."

"I will tell you," I said faintly.

And I've got to tell him.

Don't think that I shall have any difficulty in reading the book.

Glancing through it just now I came across this:--

"'_Kate, avez-vous soupé avant le spectacle_?'

'_Non, je n'avais guère le coeur à manger_.'"

Well, that's easy enough. But I doubt if it is one of the most

characteristic passages. It doesn't give you a clue to Laforgue's manner,

any more than "'Must I sit here, mother?' 'Yes, without a doubt you

must,'" tells you all that you want to know about Meredith. There's more

in it than that.

And I've got to tell him.

But fancy holding forth on an author's style after reading him

laboriously with a dictionary!

However, I must do my best; and in my more hopeful moments I see the

conversation going like this:--

"Well?"

"Oh, wonderful." (_With emotion_) "Really wonderful."

"You see them all there?"

"Yes, yes. It's really--wonderful. Meredith--I mean--well, it's

simply--(_after a pause_) wonderful."

"You see Meredith there most?"

"Y-yes. Sometimes. And then (_with truth_) sometimes I--I don't. It's

difficult to say. Sometimes I--er--Shaw--er--well, it's--" (_with a

gesture somewhat Gallic_) "How can I put it?"

"Not Thackeray at all?" he says, watching me eagerly.

I decide to risk it.

"Oh, but of course! I mean--Thackeray! When I said Meredith

I was thinking of the _others_. But Thackeray--I mean Thackeray

_is_--er--" (_I've forgotten the author's name for the moment and

go on hastily_) "I mean--er--Thackeray, obviously."

He shakes me by the hand. I am his friend.

But this conversation only takes place in my more hopeful moments. In my

less hopeful ones I see myself going into the country for quite a long

time.

III. SUMMER DAYS

A SONG FOR THE SUMMER

_Is it raining_? Never mind--

Think how much the birdies love it!

See them in their dozens drawn,

Dancing, to the croquet lawn--

Could our little friends have dined

If there'd been no worms above it?

_Is it murky_? What of that,

If the Owls are fairly perky?

Just imagine you were one--

Wouldn't you _detest_ the sun?

I'm pretending I'm a Bat,

And I know I _like_ it murky.

_Is it chilly_? After all,

We must not forget the Poodle.

If the days were really hot,

Could he wear _one_ woolly spot?

Could he even keep his shawl?

No, he'd shave the whole caboodle.

THE SEASON'S PROSPECTS

The great question in the Mallory family just now is whether Dick will

get into the eleven this year. Confident as he is himself, he is taking

no risks.

"We're going to put the net up to-morrow," he said to me as soon as I

arrived, "and then you'll be able to bowl to me. How long are you

staying?"

"Till to-night," I said quickly.

"Rot! You're fixed up here till Tuesday any how."

"My dear Dick, I've come down for a few days' rest. If the weather

permits, I may have the croquet things out one afternoon and try a round,

or possibly--"

"I don't believe you _can_ bowl," said Bobby rudely. Bobby is

twelve--five years younger than Dick. It is not my place to smack Bobby's

head, but _somebody_ might do it for him.

"Then that just shows how little you know about it," I retorted. "In a

match last September I went on to bowl--"

"Why?"

"I knew the captain," I explained. "Well, as I say, he asked me to go on

to bowl, and I took four wickets for thirteen runs. There!"

"Good man," said Dick.

"Was it against a girls' school?" said Bobby. (You know, Bobby is simply

_asking_ for it.)

"It was not. Nor were children of twelve allowed in without their

perambulators."

"Well, anyhow," said Bobby, "I bet Phyllis can bowl better than you."

"Is this true?" I said to Phyllis. I asked her, because in a general way

my bowling is held to be superior to that of girls of fifteen. Of course,

she might be something special.

"I can bowl Bobby out," she said modestly.

I looked at Bobby in surprise and then shook my head sadly.

"You jolly well shut up," he said, turning indignantly to his sister.

"Just because you did it once when the sun was in my eyes--"

"Bobby, Bobby," I said, "this is painful hearing. Let us be thankful that

we don't have to play against girls' schools. Let us--"

But Bobby was gone. Goaded to anger, he had put his hands in his pockets

and made the general observation "Rice-pudding"--an observation

inoffensive enough to a stranger, but evidently of such deep, private

significance to Phyllis that it was necessary for him to head a pursuit

into the shrubbery without further delay.

"The children are gone," I said to Dick. "Now we can discuss the

prospects for the season in peace." I took up "The Sportsman" again. "I

see that Kent is going to--"

"The prospects are all right," said Dick, "if only I can get into form

soon enough. Last year I didn't get going till the end of June. By the

way, what sort of stuff do you bowl?"

"Ordinary sort of stuff," I said, "with one or two bounces in it. Do you

see that Surrey--"

"Fast or slow?"

"Slow--that is, you know, when I _do_ bowl at all. I'm not quite sure

this season whether I hadn't better--"

"Slow," said Dick thoughtfully; "that's really what I want. I want lots

of that."

"You must get Phyllis to bowl to you," I said with detachment. "You know,

I shouldn't be surprised if Lancashire--"

"My dear man, girls can't bowl. She fields jolly well, though."

"What about your father?"

"His bowling days are rather over. He was in the eleven, you know, thirty

years ago. So there's really nobody but--"

"One's bowling days soon get over," I hastened to agree.

But I know now exactly what the prospects of the season--or, at any rate,

of the first week of it--are.

MR. MALLORY

The prospects here are on the whole encouraging. To dwell upon the bright

side first, there will be half-an-hour's casual bowling, and an hour and

a half's miscellaneous coaching, every day. On the other hand, some of

his best plants will be disturbed, while there is more than a chance that

he may lose the services of a library window.

MRS. MALLORY

The prospects here are much as last year, except that her youngest born,

Joan, is now five, and consequently rather more likely to wander in the

way of a cricket ball or fall down in front of the roller than she was

twelve months ago. Otherwise Mrs. Mallory faces the approaching season

with calm, if not with complete appreciation.

DICK

Of Dick's prospects there is no need to speak at length. He will have two

hours' batting every day against, from a batsman's point of view, ideal

bowling, and in addition the whole-hearted admiration of all of us. In

short, the outlook here is distinctly hopeful.

PHYLLIS

The prospects of this player are, from her own point of view, bright, as

she will be allowed to field for two hours a day to the beloved Dick. She

is also fully qualified now to help with the heavy roller. A new

experiment is to be tried this season, and she will be allowed to bowl

for an odd five-minutes at the end of Dick's innings to _me_.

BOBBY

enters upon the coming season with confidence, as he thinks there is a

chance of my bowling to him too; but he is mistaken. As before, he will

be in charge of the heavy roller, and he will also be required to slacken

the ropes of the net at the end of the day. His prospects, however, are

certainly improved this season, as he will be qualified to bowl for the

whole two hours, but only on the distinct understanding (with Phyllis)

that he does his own fielding for himself.

Of the prospects of

JOAN

I have already spoken above. There remain only the prospects of

MYSELF

which are frankly rotten. They consist chiefly of two hours' bowling to

the batting of Dick (who hits them back very hard), and ten minutes'

batting to the bowling of Phyllis (slow, mild) and Bobby (fast wides);

for Dick, having been ordered by the captain not to strain himself by

trying to bowl, is not going to try. It is extremely doubtful whether

Bobby will approve of my action, while if he or Phyllis should, by an

unlucky accident, get me out, I should never hear the last of it. In this

case, however, there must be added to Bobby's prospects the possibility

of getting his head definitely smacked.

Fortunately--it is my only consolation--the season will be a short one.

It ends on Tuesday.

THE FIRST GAME

There comes a Day (I can hear it coming),

One of those glorious deep blue days,

When larks are singing and bees are humming,

And Earth gives voice in a thousand ways--

Then I, my friends, I too shall sing,

And hum a foolish little thing,

And whistle like (but not too like) a blackbird in the Spring.

There looms a Day (I can feel it looming;

Yes, it will be in a month or less),

When all the flowers in the world are blooming

And Nature flutters her fairest dress--

Then I, my friends, I too shall wear

A blazer that will make them stare,

And brush--this is official: I shall also brush my hair.

It is the day that I watch for yearly,

Never before has it come so late;

But now I've only a month--no, merely

A couple of fortnights left to wait;

And then (to make the matter plain)

I hold--at last!--a bat again:

Dear Hobbs! the weeks this summer--think! the _weeks_

I've lived in vain!

I see already the first ball twisting

Over the green as I take my stand,

I hear already long-on insisting

It wasn't a chance that came to hand--

Or no; I see it miss the bat

And strike me on the knee, whereat

Some fool, some silly fool at point, says blandly,

"How was that?"

Then, scouting later, I hold a hot-un

At deep square-leg from the local Fry,

And at short mid-on to the village Scotton

I snap a skimmer some six foot high--

Or else, perhaps, I get the ball,

Upon the thumb, or not at all,

Or right into the hands, and then, lorblessme, let it fall.

But what care I? It's the game that calls me--

Simply to be on the field of play;

How can it matter what fate befalls me,

With ten good fellows and one good day?

... But still,

I rather hope spectators will,

Observing any lack or skill,

Remark, "This is his first appearance." Yes, I _hope_ they will.

THE COMPETITION SPIRIT

About six weeks ago a Canadian gentleman named Smith arrived in the Old

Country (England). He knew a man who knew a man who knew a man ... and so

on for a bit ... who knew a man who knew a man who knew me. Letters

passed; negotiations ensued; and about a week after he had first set foot

in the Mother City (London) Smith and I met at my Club for lunch.

I may confess now that I was nervous. I think I expected a man in a brown

shirt and leggings, who would ask me to put it "right there," and tell me

I was "some Englishman." However, he turned out to be exactly like

anybody else in London. Whether he found me exactly like anybody else in

Canada I don't know. Anyway, we had a very pleasant lunch, and arranged

to play golf together on the next day.

Whatever else is true of Canada there can be no doubt that it turns out

delightful golfers. Smith proved to be just the best golfer I had ever

met, being, when at the top of his form, almost exactly as good as I was.

Hole after hole we halved in a mechanical eight. If by means of a raking

drive and four perfect brassies at the sixth he managed to get one up for

a moment, then at the short seventh a screaming iron and three consummate

approaches would make me square again. Occasionally he would, by

superhuman play, do a hole in bogey; but only to crack at the next, and

leave me, at the edge of the green, to play "one off eleven." It was, in

fact, a ding-dong struggle all the way; and for his one-hole victory in

the morning I had my revenge with a one-hole victory in the afternoon.

By the end of a month we must have played a dozen rounds of this nature.

I always had a feeling that I was really a better golfer than he, and

this made me friendly towards his game. I would concede him short putts

which I should have had no difficulty in missing myself; if he lost his

ball I would beg him to drop another and go on with the hole; if he got

into a bad place in a bunker I would assure him it was ground under

repair. He was just as friendly in refusing to take these advantages,

just as pleasant in offering similar indulgences to me. I thought at

first it was part of his sporting way, but it turned out that (absurdly

enough) he also was convinced that he was really the better golfer of the

two, and could afford these amenities.

One day he announced that he was going back to Canada.

"We must have a last game," he said, "and this one must be decisive."

"For the championship of the Empire," I agreed. "Let's buy a little cup

and play for it. I've never won anything at golf yet, and I should love

to see a little cup on the dinner-table every night."

"You can't come to dinner in Canada _every_ night," he pointed out. "It

would be so expensive for you."

Well, the cup was bought, engraved "The Empire Challenge Cup," and played

for last Monday.

"This," said Smith, "is a serious game, and we must play all out. No

giving away anything, no waiving the rules. The Empire is at stake. The

effeteness of the Mother Country is about to be put to the proof.

Proceed."

It wasn't the most pleasant of our games. The spirit of the cup hung over

it and depressed us. At the third hole I had an eighteen-inch putt for a

half. "That's all right," said Smith forgetfully; and then added,

"Perhaps you'd better put it in, though." Of course I missed. On the

fifth green he was about to brush away a leaf. "That's illegal," I said

sharply, "you must pick it up; you mayn't brush it away," and after a

fierce argument on the point he putted hastily--and badly. At the

eighteenth tee we were all square and hardly on speaking terms. The fate

of the Mother Country depended upon the result of this hole.

I drove a long one, the longest of the day, slightly hooked.

"Good shot," said Smith with an effort. He pressed and foozled badly. I

tried not to look pleased.

We found his ball in a thick clump of heather. With a grim look on his

face, he took out his niblick....

I stayed by him and helped him count up to eight.

"Where's your ball?" he growled.

"A long way on," I said reproachfully. "I wish you'd hurry up. The poor

thing will be getting cold."

He got to work again. We had another count together up to fifteen.

Sometimes there would be a gleam of white at the top of the heather for a

moment and then it would fade away.

"How many?" I asked some minutes later.

"About thirty. But I don't care, I'm going to get the little beast into

the hole if it takes me all night." He went on hacking.

I had lost interest in the performance, for the cup was mine, but I did

admire his Colonial grit.

"Got it," he cried suddenly, and the ball sailed out on to the pretty.

Another shot put him level with me.

"Thirty-two?" I asked.

"About," he said coldly.

I began to look for my ball. It had got tired of waiting and had hidden

itself. Smith joined gloomily in the search.

"This is absurd," I said, after three or four minutes.

"By jove!" said Smith, suddenly brightening up. "If your ball's lost I

win after all."

"Nonsense; you've given the hole up," I protested. "You don't know how

many you've played. According to the rules, if I ask you how many, and

you give wrong information--"

"It's thirty-five," he said promptly.

"I don't believe you counted."

"Call it forty-five then. There's nothing to prevent my calling it more

than it really is. If it was really only forty, then I'm counting five

occasions when the ball rolled over as I was addressing it. That's very

generous of me. Actually I'm doubtful if the ball did roll over five

times, but I say it did in order to be on the safe side." He looked at

his watch. "And if you don't find your ball in thirty seconds, you lose

the hole."

It was ingenious, but the Mother Country can be ingenious too.

"How many have you played exactly?" I asked. "Be careful."

"Forty-five," he said. "Exactly."

"Right." I took my niblick and swung at the heather. "Bother," I said.

"Missed it. Two."

"Hallo! Have you found it?"

"I have. It's somewhere in this field. There's no rule which insists that

you shall hit the ball, or even that you shall hit near the ball, or even

that you shall see the ball when you hit at it. Lots of old gentlemen

shut their eyes and miss the sphere. I've missed. In five minutes I shall

miss again."

"But what's the point?"

"The point, dear friend," I smiled, "is that after each stroke one is

allowed five minutes in which to find the ball. I have forty-three

strokes in hand; that gives me three hours and thirty-five minutes in

which to look for it. At regular intervals of five minutes I shall swing

my club and probably miss. It's four-thirty now; at eight o'clock, unless

I find my ball before, I shall be playing the like. And if you are a

sportsman," I added, "you will bring me out some tea in half an hour."

* * * * *

At six-thirty I was still looking--and swinging. Smith then came to terms

and agreed to share the cup with me for the first year. He goes back to

Canada to-morrow, and will spread the good news there that the Old

Country can still hold its own in resource, determination and staying

power. But next year we are going to play friendly golf again.

THE FIRST TEE

(MULLION)

It is the place, it is the place, my soul!

(Blow, bugle, blow; sing, triangle; toot, fife!)

Down to the sea the close-cropped pastures roll,

Couches behind yon sandy hill the goal

Whereat, it may be, after ceaseless strife

The "Colonel" shall find peace, and Henry say,

"Your hole" ...

Caddie, give me my driver, caddie,

The sun shines hot, but there's half a breeze,

Enough to rustle the tree-tops, laddie,

Only supposing there were some trees;

The year's at the full and the morn's at eleven,

It's a wonderful day just straight from Heaven,

And this is a hole I can do in seven--

Caddie, my driver, please.

Three times a day from now till Monday week

(Ten peerless days in all) I take my stand

Vested in some _dégagé_ mode of breek

(The chess-board touch, with squares that almost speak),

And lightly sketch my Slice into the Sand,

As based on bigger men, but much of it unique....

Caddie, give me my driver, caddie,

Note my style on the first few tees;

Duncan fashioned my wrist-work, laddie,

Taylor taught me to twist my knees;

I've a beautiful swing that I learnt from Vardon

(I practise it sometimes down the garden--

"My fault! Sorry! I _beg_ your pardon!")--

Caddie, my driver, please.

Only ten little days, in which to do

So much! e.g., the twelfth: ah, it was there

The Secretary met his Waterloo,

But perished gamely, playing twenty-two;

His clubs _(ten little days_!) lie bleaching where

Sea-poppies blow _(ten days_) and wheeling sea-birds mew....

Caddie, give me my driver, caddie,

Let us away with thoughts like these;

A week and a half is a lifetime, laddie,

The day that's here is the day to seize;

_Carpe diem_--yes, that's the motto,

"Work be jiggered!" and likewise "What ho!"

I'M NOT GOING BACK TILL I'VE JOLLY WELL GOT TO!

Caddie, my driver, please.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

There are warm days in London when even a window-box fails to charm, and

one longs for the more open spaces of the country. Besides, one wants to

see how the other flowers are getting on. It is on these days that we

travel to our Castle of Stopes; as the crow flies, fifteen miles away.

Indeed, that is the way we get to it, for it is a castle in the air. And

when we are come to it, Celia is always in a pink sunbonnet gathering

roses lovingly, and I, not very far off, am speaking strongly to somebody

or other about something I want done. By-and-by I shall go into the

library and work ... with an occasional glance through the open window at

Celia.

To think that a month ago we were quite happy with a few pink geraniums!

Sunday, a month ago, was hot. "Let's take train somewhere," said Celia,

"and have lunch under a hedge."

"I know a lovely place for hedges," I said.

"I know a lovely tin of potted grouse," said Celia, and she went off to

cut some sandwiches. By twelve o'clock we were getting out of the train.

The first thing we came to was a golf course, and Celia had to drag me

past it. Then we came to a wood, and I had to drag her through it.

Another mile along a lane, and then we both stopped together.

"Oh!" we said.

It was a cottage, the cottage of a dream. And by a cottage I mean, not

four plain rooms and a kitchen, but one surprising room opening into

another; rooms all on different levels and of different shapes, with

delightful places to bump your head on; open fireplaces; a large square

hall, oak-beamed, where your guests can hang about after breakfast, while

deciding whether to play golf or sit in the garden. Yet all so cunningly

disposed that from outside it looks only a cottage or, at most, two

cottages persuaded into one.

And, of course, we only saw it from outside. The little drive, determined

to get there as soon as possible, pushed its way straight through an

old barn, and arrived at the door simultaneously with the flagged

lavender walk for the humble who came on foot. The rhododendrons were

ablaze beneath the south windows; a little orchard was running wild on

the west; there was a hint at the back of a clean-cut lawn. Also, you

remember, there was a golf course, less than two miles away.

"Oh," said Celia with a deep sigh, "but we must live here."

An Irish terrier ran out to inspect us. I bent down and patted it. "With

a dog," I added.

"Isn't it all lovely? I wonder who it belongs to, and if--"

"If he'd like to give it to us."

"Perhaps he would if he saw us and admired us very much," said Celia

hopefully.

"I don't think Mr. Barlow is that sort of man," I said. "An excellent

fellow, but not one to take these sudden fancies."

"Mr. Barlow? How do you know his name?"

"I have these surprising intuitions," I said modestly. "The way the

chimneys stand up--"

"I know," cried Celia. "The dog's collar."

"Right, Watson. And the name of the house is Stopes."

She repeated it to herself with a frown.

"What a disappointing name," she said. "Just Stopes."

"Stopes," I said. "Stopes, Stopes. If you keep on saying it, a certain

old-world charm seems to gather round it. Stopes."

"Stopes," said Celia. "It _is_ rather jolly."

We said it ten more times each, and it seemed the only possible name for

it. Stopes--of course.

"Well!" I asked.

"We must write to Mr. Barlow," said Celia decisively. "'Dear Mr. Barlow,

er--Dear Mr. Barlow--we--' Yes, it will be rather difficult. What do we

want to say exactly?"

"'Dear Mr. Barlow--May we have your house?'"

"Yes," smiled Celia, "but I'm afraid we can hardly ask for it. But we

might rent it when--when he doesn't want it any more."

"'Dear Mr. Barlow,'" I amended, "'have you any idea when you're going to

die?' No, that wouldn't do either. And there's another thing--we don't

know his initials, or even if he's a 'Mr.' Perhaps he's a knight or a--a

duke. Think how offended Duke Barlow would be if we put '---- Barlow,

Esq.' on the envelope."

"We could telegraph. 'Barlow. After you with Stopes.'"

"Perhaps there's a young Barlow, a Barlowette or two with expectations.

It may have been in the family for years."

"Then we--Oh, let's have lunch." She sat down and began to undo the

sandwiches. "Dear o' Stopes," she said with her mouth full.

We lunched outside Stopes. Surely if Earl Barlow had seen us he would

have asked us in. But no doubt his dining-room looked the other way;

towards the east and north, as I pointed out to Celia, thus being

pleasantly cool at lunch-time.

"Ha, Barlow," I said dramatically, "a time will come when _we_ shall be

lunching in there, and _you_--bah!" And I tossed a potted-grouse sandwich

to his dog.

However, that didn't get us any nearer.

"Will you _promise,"_ said Celia, "that we shall have lunch in there one

day?"

"I promise," I said readily. That gave me about sixty years to do

something in.

"I'm like--who was it who saw something of another man's and wouldn't be

happy till he got it?"

"The baby in the soap advertisement."

"No, no, some king in history."

"I believe you are thinking of Ahab, but you aren't a bit like him,

really. Besides, we're not coveting Stopes. All we want to know is, does

Barlow ever let it in the summer?"

"That's it," said Celia eagerly.

"And, if so," I went on, "will he lend us the money to pay the rent

with?"

"Er--yes," said Celia. "That's it."

* * * * *

So for a month we have lived in our Castle of Stopes. I see Celia there

in her pink sun-bonnet, gathering the flowers lovingly, bringing an

armful of them into the hall, disturbing me sometimes in the library with

"_Aren't_ they beauties? No, I only just looked in--good luck to you."

And she sees me ordering a man about importantly, or waving my hand to

her as I ride through the old barn on my road to the golf course.

But this morning she had an idea.

"Suppose," she said timidly, "you _wrote_ about Stopes, and Mr. Barlow

happened to see it, and knew how much we wanted it, and--"

"Well!"

"Then," said Celia firmly, "if he were a gentleman he would give it to

us."

Very well. Now we shall see if Mr. Barlow is a gentleman.

THE SANDS OF PLEASURE

Ladies first, so we will start with Jenny. Jenny is only nine, but she

has been to the seaside before and knows all about it. She wears the

fashionable _costume de plage_, which consists of a white linen hat, a

jersey and an overcrowded pair of bathing-drawers, into which not only

Jenny, but the rest of her wardrobe, has had to fit itself. Two slim

brown legs emerge to bear the burden, and one feels that if she fell over

she would have to stay there until somebody picked her up.

She is holding Richard Henry by the hand. Richard Henry is four, and this

is the first time he has seen the sea. Jenny is showing it to him.

Privately he thinks that it has been over-rated. There was a good deal of

talk about it in his suburb (particularly from Jenny, who had been there

before) and naturally one expected something rather--well, rather more

like what they had been saying it was like. However, perhaps it would be

as well to keep in with Jenny and not to let her see that he is

disappointed, so every time she says, "Isn't the sea lovely?" he echoes,

"Lovely," and now and then he adds (just to humour her), "Is 'at the

sea?" and then she has the chance to say again, "Yes, that's the sea,

darling. Isn't it lovely?" It is obvious that she is proud of it.

Apparently she put it there. Anyway, it seems to be hers now.

Jenny has brought Father and Mother as well as Richard Henry. There they

are, over there. When she came before she had to leave them behind, much

to their disappointment. Father was saying, "Form fours, left," before

going off to France again, and Mother was buying wool to make him some

more socks. It was a great relief to them to know that they were being

taken this time, and that they would have Jenny to tell them all about

it.

Father is lying in a deck-chair, smoking his pipe. There has been an

interesting discussion this afternoon as to whether he is a coward or

not. Father thought he wasn't, but Mother wasn't quite so sure. Jenny

said that of course he couldn't really be, because the King gave him a

medal for not being one, but Mother explained that it was only a medal he

had over, and Father happened to be passing by the window.

"I don't see what this has to do with it," said Father. "I simply prefer

bathing in the morning."

"Oo, you said this morning you preferred bathing in the afternoon," says

Jenny like a flash.

"I know; but since then I've had time to think it over, and I see that I

was hasty. The morning is the best time."

"I'm afraid he _is_ a coward," said Mother sadly, wondering why she had

married him.

"The whole point is, why did Jenny bring me here?"

"To enjoy yourself," said Jenny promptly.

"Well, I am," said Father, closing his eyes.

But we do not feel so sure that Mother is enjoying herself. She has just

read in the paper about a mine that floated ashore and exploded. Nobody

was near at the time, but supposing one of the children had been playing

with it.

"Which one?" said Father lazily.

"Jenny."

"Then we should have lost Jenny."

This being so, Jenny promises solemnly not to play with any mine that

comes ashore, nor to let Richard Henry play with it, nor to allow it to

play with Richard Henry, nor--

"I suppose I may just point it out to him and say, 'Look, that's a

mine'?" says Jenny wistfully. If she can't do this, it doesn't seem to be

much use coming to the seaside at all.

"I don't think there would be any harm in that," says Father. "But don't

engage it in conversation."

"Thank you very much," says Jenny, and she and Richard Henry go off

together.

Mother watches them anxiously. Father closes his eyes.

"Now," says Jenny eagerly, "I'm going to show you a darling little crab.

Won't that be lovely?"

Richard Henry, having been deceived, as he feels, about the sea, is not

too hopeful about that crab. However, he asks politely, "What's a crab?"

"You'll see directly, darling," says Jenny; and he has to be content with

that.

"Crab," he murmurs to himself.

Suddenly an idea occurs to him. He lets go of Jenny's hand and trots up

to an old gentleman with white whiskers.

"Going to see a crab," he announces.

"Going to see a crab, are you, my little man?" says the old gentleman

kindly.

"Going to see a crab," says Richard Henry, determined to keep up his end

of the conversation.

"Well, I never! So you're going to see a crab!" says the old gentleman,

doing his best with it.

Richard Henry nods two or three times. "Going to see a crab," he says

firmly.

Luckily Jenny comes up and rescues him, otherwise they would still be at

it. "Come along, darling, and see the crab," she says, picking up his

hand; and Richard Henry looks triumphantly at the old gentleman. There

you are. Perhaps he will believe a fellow another time.

Jenny has evidently made an arrangement with a particular crab for this

afternoon. It is to be hoped that the appointment will be kept, for she

has hurried Richard Henry past all sorts of wonderful things which he

wanted to stop with for a little. But the thought of this lovely crab,

which Jenny thinks so much of, forbids protest. Quite right not to keep

it waiting. What will it be like? Will it be bigger than the sea?

We have reached the rendezvous. We see now that we need not have been in

such a hurry.

"There!" says Jenny excitedly. "Isn't he a darling little crab? He's

asleep." (That's why we need not have hurried.)

Richard Henry says nothing. He can't think of the words for what he is

feeling. What he wants to say is that Jenny has let him down again. They

passed a lot of these funny little things on their way here, but Jenny

wouldn't stop because she was going to show him a Crab, a great, big,

enormous darling little Crab--which might have been anything--and now

it's only just this. No wonder the old gentleman didn't believe him.

Swindled--that's the word he wants. However, he can't think of it for the

moment, so he tries something else.

"Darling little crab," he says.

They leave the dead crab there and hurry back.

"What shall I show you _now_?" says Jenny.

GOLDEN MEMORIES

When Memory with its scorn of ages,

Its predilection for the past,

Turns back about a billion pages

And lands us by the Cam at last;

Is it the thought of "Granta" (once our daughter),

The Freshers' Match, the Second in our Mays

That makes our mouth, our very soul to water?

Ah no! Ah no! It is the Salmon Mayonnaise!

The work we did was rarely reckoned

Worthy a tutor's kindly word--

(For when I said we got a Second

I really meant we got a Third)--

The games we played were often tinged with bitter,

Amidst the damns no faintest hint of praise

Greeted us when we missed the authentic "sitter"--

But thou wert always kind, O Salmon Mayonnaise!

Even our nights with "Granta," even

The style that, week by blessed week,

Mixed Calverley and J.K. Stephen

With much that was (I hold) unique,

Even our parodies of the Rubáiyát

Were disappointing--yes, in certain ways:

What genius loves (I mean) the people shy at--

Yet no one ever shied at Salmon Mayonnaise!

Alas! no restaurant in London

Can make us feel that thrill again;

Though what they do or what leave undone

I often ask, and ask in vain.

Is it the sauce which puts the brand of Cam on

Each maddening dish? The egg? The yellow

glaze?

The cucumber? The special breed of salmon?--

I only know we loved, we _loved_ that Mayonnaise!

* * * * *

"Did Beauty," some may ask severely,

"Visit him in no other guise?

It cannot be that salmon merely

Should bring the mist before his eyes!

What of the river there where Byron's Pool lay,

The warm blue morning shimmering in the

haze?"

Not this (I say) ... Yet something else ...

_Creme Brûlée_!

Ye gods! to think of that _and_ Salmon Mayonnaise!

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE

The noise of the retreating sea came pleasantly to us from a distance.

Celia was lying on her--I never know how to put this nicely--well, she

was lying face downwards on a rock and gazing into a little pool which

the tide had forgotten about and left behind. I sat beside her and

annoyed a limpet. Three minutes ago I had taken it suddenly by surprise

and with an Herculean effort moved it an eighteenth of a millimetre

westwards. My silence since then was lulling it into a false security,

and in another two minutes I hoped to get a move on it again.

"Do you know," said Celia with a puzzled look on her face, "sometimes I

think I'm quite an ordinary person after all."

"You aren't a little bit," I said lazily; "you're just like nobody else

in the world."

"Well, of course, you had to say that."

"No, I hadn't. Lots of husbands would merely have yawned." I felt one

coming and stopped it just in time. Waiting for limpets to go to sleep

is drowsy work. "But why are you so morbid about yourself suddenly?"

"I don't know," she said. "Only every now and then I find myself thinking

the most _obvious_ thoughts."

"We all do," I answered, as I stroked my limpet gently. The noise of our

conversation had roused it, but a gentle stroking motion (I am told by

those to whom it has confided) will frequently cause its muscles to

relax. "The great thing is not to speak them. Still, you'd better tell me

now. What is it?"

"Well," she said, her cheeks perhaps a little pinker than usual, "I was

just thinking that life was very wonderful. But it's a _silly_ thing to

say."

"It's holiday time," I reminded her. "The need for sprinkling our remarks

with thoughtful words like 'economic' and 'sporadic' is over for a bit.

Let us be silly." I scratched in the rock the goal to which I was urging

my limpet and took out my watch. "Three thirty-five. I shall get him

there by four."

Celia was gazing at two baby fishes who played in and out a bunch of

sea-weed. Above the seaweed an anemone sat fatly.

"I suppose they're all just as much alive as we are," she said

thoughtfully. "They marry"--I looked at my limpet with a new

interest--"and bring up families and go about their business, and it

all means just as much to them as it does to us."

"My limpet's business affairs mean nothing to me," I said firmly. "I am

only wrapped up in him as a sprinter."

"Aren't you going to try to move him again?"

"He's not quite ready yet. He still has his suspicions."

Celia dropped into silence. Her next question showed that she had left

the pool for a moment.

"Are there any people in Mars?" she asked.

"People down here say that there aren't. A man told me the other day that

he knew this for a fact. On the other hand, people in Mars know for a

fact that there isn't anybody on the Earth. Probably they are both

wrong."

"I should like to know a lot about things," sighed Celia. "Do you know

anything about limpets?"

"Only that they stick like billy-o."

"I suppose more about them _is_ known than that?"

"I suppose so. By people who have made a specialty of them. For one who

has preferred to amass general knowledge rather than to specialize, it is

considered enough to know that they stick like billy-o."

"You haven't specialized in anything, have you?"

"Only in wives."

Celia smiled and went on. "How do you make a specialty of limpets?"

"Well, I suppose you--er--study them. You sit down and--and watch them.

Probably after dark they get up and do something. And of course, in any

case, you can always dissect one and see what he's had for breakfast. One

way and another you get to know things about them."

"They must have a lot of time for thinking," said Celia, regarding my

limpet with her head on one side. "Tell me, how do they know that there

are no men in Mars?"

I sat up with a sigh.

"Celia, you do dodge about so. I have barely brought together and

classified my array of facts about things in this world, when you've

dashed up to another one. What is the connexion between Mars and limpets?

If there are any limpets in Mars they are freshwater ones. In the

canals."

"Oh, I just wondered," she said. "I mean"--she wrinkled her forehead in

the effort to find words for her thoughts--"I'm wondering what everything

means, and why we're all here, and what limpets are for, and, supposing

there are people in Mars, if we're the real people whom the world was

made for, or if _they_ are." She stopped and added, "One evening after

dinner, when we get home, you must tell me all about _everything_"

Celia has a beautiful idea that I can explain everything to her. I

suppose I must have explained a stymie or a no-ball very cleverly once.

"Well," I said, "I can tell you what limpets are for now. They're like

sheep and cows and horses and pheasants and--and any other animal.

They're just for _us_. At least so the wise people say."

"But we don't eat limpets."

"No, but they can amuse us. This one"--and with a sudden leap I was

behind him as he dozed, and I had dashed him forward another eighteenth

of a millimetre--"this one has amused _me_."

"Perhaps," said Celia thoughtfully, and I don't think it was quite a nice

thing for a young woman to say, "perhaps we're only meant to amuse the

people in Mars."

"Then," I said lazily, "let's hope that they _are_ amused."

* * * * *

Ten days later the Great War began. Celia said no more on the subject,

but she used to look at me curiously sometimes, and I fear that the

problem of life left her more puzzled than ever. At the risk of betraying

myself to her as "quite an ordinary person after all" I confess that

there are times when it leaves me puzzled too.

IV. WAR-TIME

O.B.E.

I know a Captain of Industry,

Who made big bombs for the R.F.C.,

And collared a lot of £ s. d.--

And he--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I know a Lady of Pedigree,

Who asked some soldiers out to tea,

And said "Dear me!" and "Yes, I see"--

And she--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I know a fellow of twenty-three,

Who got a job with a fat M.P.--

(Not caring much for the Infantry.)

And he--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I had a friend; a friend, and he

Just held the line for you and me,

And kept the Germans from the sea,

And died--without the O.B.E.

Thank God!

He died without the O.B.E.

ARMAGEDDON

The conversation had turned, as it always does in the smoking-rooms of

golf clubs, to the state of poor old England, and Porkins had summed the

matter up. He had marched round in ninety-seven that morning, followed by

a small child with an umbrella and an arsenal of weapons, and he felt in

form with himself.

"What England wants," he said, leaning back and puffing at his

cigar,--"what England wants is a war. (Another whisky and soda, waiter.)

We're getting flabby. All this pampering of the poor is playing the very

deuce with the country. A bit of a scrap with a foreign power would do us

all the good in the world." He disposed of his whisky at a draught.

"We're flabby," he repeated. "The lower classes seem to have no

sense of discipline nowadays. We want a war to brace us up."

* * * * *

It is well understood in Olympus that Porkins must not be disappointed.

What will happen to him in the next world I do not know, but it will be

something extremely humorous; in this world, however, he is to have all

that he wants. Accordingly the gods got to work.

In the little village of Ospovat, which is in the southeastern corner of

Ruritania, there lived a maiden called Maria Strultz, who was engaged to

marry Captain Tomsk.

"I fancy," said one of the gods, "that it might be rather funny if Maria

jilted the Captain. I have an idea that it would please Porkins."

"Whatever has Maria--" began a very young god, but he was immediately

suppressed.

"Really," said the other, "I should have thought it was sufficiently

obvious. You know what these mortals are." He looked round to them all.

"Is it agreed then?"

It was agreed.

So Maria Strultz jilted the Captain.

Now this, as you may imagine, annoyed Captain Tomsk. He commanded a

frontier fort on the boundary between Ruritania and Essenland, and his

chief amusement in a dull life was to play cards with the Essenland

captain, who commanded the fort on the other side of the river. When

Maria's letter came, he felt that the only thing to do was to drown

himself; on second thoughts he decided to drown his sorrows first. He did

this so successfully that at the end of the evening he was convinced that

it was not Maria who had jilted him, but the Essenland captain who had

jilted Maria; whereupon he rowed across the river and poured his revolver

into the Essenland flag which was flying over the fort. Maria thus

revenged, he went home to bed, and woke next morning with a bad headache.

("_Now we're off," said the gods in Olympus_.)

In Diedeldorf, the capital of Essenland, the leader-writers proceeded to

remove their coats.

"The blood of every true Essenlander," said the leader-writer of the

"Diedeldorf Patriot", after sending out for another pot of beer, "will

boil when it hears of this fresh insult to our beloved flag, an insult

which can only be wiped out with blood." Then seeing that he had two

"bloods" in one sentence, he crossed the second One out, substituted "the

sword," and lit a fresh cigarette. "For years Essenland has writhed under

the provocations of Ruritania, but has preserved a dignified silence;

this last insult is more than flesh and blood can stand." Another "blood"

had got in, but it was a new sentence and he thought it might be allowed

to remain. "We shall not be accused of exaggeration if we say that

Essenland would lose, and rightly lose, her prestige in the eyes of

Europe if she let this affront pass unnoticed. In a day she would sink

from a first-rate to a fifth-rate power." But he didn't say how.

The Chancellor of Essenland, in a speech gravely applauded by both sides

of the House, announced the steps he had taken. An ultimatum had been

sent to Ruritania demanding an apology, an indemnity of a hundred

thousand marks, and the public degradation of Captain Tomsk, whose

epaulettes were to be torn off by the Commander-in-Chief of the Essenland

Army in the presence of a full corps of cinematograph artists. Failing

this, war would be declared.

Ruritania offered the apology, the indemnity, and the public degradation

of Captain Tomsk, but urged that this last ceremony would be better

performed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ruritanian Army; otherwise

Ruritania might as well cease to be a sovereign state, for she would

lose her prestige in the eyes of Europe, and sink to the level of a

fifth-rate power.

There was only one possible reply to this, and Essenland made it. She

invaded Ruritania.

_("Aren't they wonderful?" said the gods in Olympus to each other_.

"_But haven't you made a mistake?" asked the very young god. "Porkins

lives in England, not Essenland_."

"_Wait a moment," said the others.)_

* * * * *

In the capital of Borovia the leader-writer of the "Borovian Patriot" got

to work. "How does Borovia stand?" he asked. "If Essenland occupies

Ruritania, can any thinking man in Borovia feel safe with the enemy at

his gates?" (The Borovian peasant, earning five marks a week, would have

felt no less safe than usual, but then he could hardly be described as a

thinking man.) "It is vital to the prestige of Borovia that the integrity

of Ruritania should be preserved. Otherwise we may resign ourselves at

once to the prospect of becoming a fifth-rate power in the eyes of

Europe." And in a speech, gravely applauded by all parties, the Borovian

Chancellor said the same thing. So the Imperial Army was mobilized and,

amidst a wonderful display of patriotic enthusiasm by those who were

remaining behind, the Borovian troops marched to the front....

_("And there you are," said the gods in Olympus.

"But even now--" began the very young god doubtfully.

"Silly, isn't Felicia the ally of Essenland; isn't Marksland the ally of

Borovia; isn't England the ally of the ally of the ally of the Country

which holds the balance of power between Marksland and Felicia?"

"But if any of them thought the whole thing stupid or unjust or--"

"Their prestige," said the gods gravely, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, I see," said the very young god.)_

* * * * *

And when a year later the hundred-thousandth English mother woke up to

read that her boy had been shot, I am afraid she shed foolish tears and

thought that the world had come to an end.

Poor short-sighted creature! She didn't realize that Porkins, who had

marched round in ninety-six the day before, was now thoroughly braced up.

_("What babies they all are," said the very young god.)_

GOLD BRAID

Same old crossing, same old boat,

Same old dust round Rouen way,

Same old narsty one-franc note,

Same old "Mercy, sivvoo play";

Same old scramble up the line,

Same old 'orse-box, same old stror,

Same old weather, wet or fine,

Same old blooming War.

_Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,

It's just as it used to be, every bit;

Same old whistle and same old bang,

And me out again to be 'it._

'Twas up by Loos I got me first;

I just dropped gently, crawled a yard

And rested sickish, with a thirst--

The 'eat, I thought, and smoking 'ard....

Then someone 'ands me out a drink,

What poets call "the cooling draft,"

And seeing 'im I done a think:

"_Blighty,"_ I thinks--and laughed.

I'm not a soldier nacheral,

No more than most of us to-day;

I runs a business with a pal

(Meaning the Missis) Fulham way;

Greengrocery--the cabbages

And fruit and things I take meself,

And she has dafts and crocuses

A-smiling on a shelf.

"Blighty," I thinks. The doctor knows;

'E talks of punctured damn-the-things.

It's me for Blighty. Down I goes;

I ain't a singer, but I sings.

"Oh, 'oo goes 'ome?" I sort of 'ums;

"Oh, 'oo's for dear old England's shores?"

And by-and-by Southampton comes--

"Blighty!" I says, and roars.

I s'pose I thort I done my bit;

I s'pose I thort the War would stop;

I saw meself a-getting fit

With Missis at the little shop;

The same like as it used to be,

The same old markets, same old crowd,

The same old marrers, same old me,

But 'er as proud as proud....

* * * * *

The regiment is where it was,

I'm in the same old ninth platoon;

New faces most, and keen becos

They thinks the thing is ending soon;

I ain't complaining, mind, but still,

When later on some newish bloke

Stops one and laughs, "A blighty, Bill,"

I'll wonder, "Where's the joke?"

Same old trenches, same old view,

Same old rats as blooming tame,

Same old dug-outs, nothing new,

Same old smell, the very same,

Same old bodies out in front,

Same old _strafe_ from 2 till 4,

Same old scratching, same old 'unt.

Same old bloody War.

_Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,

It's just as it used to be, every bit;

Same old whistle and same old bang.

And me to stay 'ere till I'm 'it._

TOBY

It will save trouble if I say at once that I know nothing about horses.

This will be quite apparent to you, of course, before I have finished,

but I don't want you to suppose that it is not also quite apparent to me.

I have no illusions on the subject; neither, I imagine, has Toby.

To me there are only two kinds of horse. Chestnuts, roans, bay rums--I

know nothing of all these; I can only describe a horse simply as a nice

horse or a nasty horse. Toby is a nice horse.

Toby, of course, knows much more about men than I do about horses, and no

doubt he describes me professionally to his colleagues as a "flea-bitten

fellow standing about eighteen hoofs"; but when he is not being technical

I like to think that he sums me up to himself as a nice man. At any rate

I am not allowed to wear spurs, and that must weigh with a horse a good

deal.

I have no real right to Toby. The Signalling Officer's official mount is

a bicycle, but a bicycle in this weather--! And there _is_ Toby, and

somebody must ride him, and, as I point out to the other subalterns, it

would only cause jealousy if one of _them_ rode him, and--"

"Why would it create more jealousy than if _you_ do?" asked one of them.

"Well," I said, "you're the officer commanding platoon number--"

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen. Now, why should the officer commanding the fifteenth platoon

ride a horse when the officer commanding the nineteenth--"

He reminded me that there were only sixteen platoons in a battalion. It's

such a long time since I had anything to do with platoons that I forget.

"All right, we'll say the sixteenth. Why shouldn't _he_ have a horse? Of

all the unjust--Well, you see what recriminations it would lead to. Now I

don't say I'm more valuable than a platoon-commander or more effective on

a horse, but, at any rate, there aren't sixteen of me. There's only one

Signalling Officer, and if there _is_ a spare horse over--"

"What about the Bombing Officer?" said O.C. Platoon 15 carelessly.

I had quite forgotten the Bombing Officer. Of course he is a specialist

too.

"Yes, quite so, but if you would only think a little," I said, thinking

hard all the time, "you would--well, put it this way. The range of a

Mills bomb is about fifty yards; the range of a field telephone is

several miles. Which of us is more likely to require a horse?"

"_And_ the Sniping officer?" he went on dreamily.

This annoyed me.

"You don't shoot snipe from horseback," I said sharply. "You're mixing up

shooting and hunting, my lad. And in any case there are reasons, special

reasons, why I ride Toby--reasons of which you know nothing."

Here are the reasons:--

1. I think I have more claim to a horse called Toby than has a

contributor to "Our Feathered Friends" or whatever paper the Sniping

Officer writes for.

2. When I joined the Army, Celia was inconsolable. I begged her to keep a

stiff upper lip, to which she replied that she could do it better if I

promised not to keep a bristly one. I pointed out that the country wanted

bristles; and though, between ourselves, we might regard it as a

promising face spoilt for a tradition, still discipline was discipline.

And so the bristles came, and remained until the happy day when the War

Office, at the risk of losing the war, made them optional. Immediately

they were uprooted.

Now the Colonel has only one fault (I have been definitely promised my

second star in 1927, so he won't think I am flattering him with a

purpose): he likes moustaches. His own is admirable, and I have no wish

for him to remove it, but I think he should be equally broad-minded about

mine.

"You aren't really more beautiful without it," he said. "A moustache

suits you."

"My wife doesn't think so," I said firmly. I had the War Office on my

side, so I could afford to be firm.

The Colonel looked at me, and then he looked out of the window, and made

the following remarkable statement.

"Toby," he said gently to himself, "doesn't like clean-shaven officers."

This hadn't occurred to me; I let it sink in.

"Of course," I said at last, "one must consider one's horse. I quite see

that."

"With a bicycle," he said, "it's different."

And so there you have the second reason. If the Bombing Officer rode

Toby, I should shave again to-morrow, and then where would the Battalion

be? Ruined.

So Toby and I go off together. Up till now he has been good to me. He has

bitten one Company Commander, removed another, and led the Colonel a

three-mile chase across country after him, so if any misunderstanding

occurs between us there will be good precedent for it. So far my only

real trouble has been once when billeting.

Billeting is delightful fun. You start three hours in advance of the

battalion, which means that if the battalion leaves at eight in the

morning, you are up in the fresh of the day, when the birds are singing.

You arrive at the village and get from the Mayor or the Town Major a list

of possible hostesses. Entering the first house (labeled "Officers 5")

you say, "_Vous avez un lit pour un Officier ici, n'est-ce pas? Vive la

France_!" She answers, "_Pas un lit_," and you go to the next house.

"_Vous avez place pour cent hommes--oui?" "Non_," says she--and so on.

By-and-by the battalion arrives, and everybody surrounds you. "Where are

_my_ men going?" "Where is _my_ billet?" "Where's 'C' Company's mess?"

"Have you found anything for the Pioneers?" And so one knows what it is

to be popular.

Well, the other day the Major thought he'd come with me, just to give me

an idea how it ought to be done. I say nothing of the result; but for

reasons connected with Toby I hope he won't come again. For in the middle

of a narrow street crowded with lorries, he jumped off his horse, flung

(I think that's the expression)--flung me the reins and said, "Just wait

here while I see the Mayor a moment."

The Major's horse I can describe quite shortly--a nasty big black horse.

Toby I have already described as a nice horse, but he had been knee-deep

in mud, inspecting huts, for nearly half an hour, and was sick of

billeting.

I need not describe two-hundred-lorries-on-a-dark-evening to you.

And so, seeing that you know the constituents, I must let you imagine how

they all mixed....

* * * * *

This is a beastly war. But it has its times; and when our own particular

bit of the battle is over, and what is left of the battalion is marching

back to rest, I doubt if, even in England (which seems very far off), you

will find two people more contented with the morning than Toby and I, as

we jog along together.

COMMON

Seated in your comfortable club, my very dear sir, or in your delightful

drawing-room, madam, you may smile pityingly at the idea of a mascot

saving anybody's life. "What will be, will be," you say to yourself (or

in Italian to your friends), "and to suppose that a charm round the neck

of a soldier will divert a German shell is ridiculous." But out there,

through the crumps, things look otherwise.

Common had sat on the mantelpiece at home. An ugly little ginger dog,

with a bit of red tape for his tongue and two black beads for his eyes,

he viewed his limited world with an air of innocent impertinence very

attractive to visitors. Common he looked and Common he was called,

with a Christian name of Howard for registration. For six months he sat

there, and no doubt he thought that he had seen all that there was to see

of the world when the summons came which was to give him so different an

outlook on life.

For that summons meant the breaking up of his home. Master was going

wandering from trench to trench, Mistress from one person's house to

another person's house. She no doubt would take Common with her; or

perhaps she couldn't be bothered with an ugly little ginger dog, and he

would be stored in some repository, boarded out in some Olympic kennel.

"Or do you _possibly_ think Master might--"

He looked very wistful that last morning, so wistful that Mistress

couldn't bear it, and she slipped him in hastily between the revolver and

the boracic powder, "Just to look after you," she said. So Common came

with me to France.

His first view of the country was at Rouen, when he sat at the entrance

to my tent and hooshed the early morning flies away. His next at a

village behind the lines, where he met stout fellows of "D" Company and

took the centre of the table at mess in the apple orchard; and moreover

was introduced to a French maiden of two, with whom, at the instigation

of the seconds in the business--her mother and myself--a prolonged but

monotonous conversation in the French tongue ensued, Common, under

suitable pressure, barking idiomatically, and the maiden, carefully

prompted, replying with the native for "Bow-wow." A pretty greenwood

scene beneath the apple-trees, and in any decent civilization the great

adventure would have ended there. But Common knew that it was not only

for this that he had been brought out, and that there was more arduous

work to come.

Once more he retired to the valise, for we were making now for a

vill--for a heap of bricks near the river; you may guess the river. It

was about this time that I made a little rhyme for him:

There was a young puppy called Howard,

Who at fighting was rather a coward;

He never quite ran

When the battle began,

But he started at once to bow-wow hard.

A good poet is supposed to be superior to the exigencies of rhyme, but I

am afraid that in any case Common's reputation had to be sacrificed to

them. To be lyrical over anybody called Howard Common without hinting

that he--well, try for yourself. Anyhow it was a lie, as so much good

poetry is.

There came a time when valises were left behind and life for a fortnight

had to be sustained on a pack. One seems to want very many things, but

there was no hesitation about Common's right to a place. So he came to

see his first German dug-out, and to get a proper understanding of this

dead bleached land and the great work which awaited him there. It was to

blow away shells and bullets when they came too near the master in whose

pocket he sat.

In this he was successful; but I think that the feat in which he takes

most pride was performed one very early summer morning. A telephone line

had to be laid, and, for reasons obvious to Common, rather rapidly. It

was laid safely--a mere nothing to him by this time. But when it was

joined up to the telephone in the front line, then he realized that he

was called upon to be not only a personal mascot, but a mascot to the

battalion, and he sat himself upon the telephone and called down a

blessing on that cable, so that it remained whole for two days and a

night when by all the rules it should have been in a thousand pieces.

"And even if I didn't _really_ do it all myself," he said, "anyhow I

_did_ make some of the men in the trench smile a little that morning, and

there wasn't so _very_ much smiling going on just then, you know."

After that morning he lived in my pocket, sometimes sniffing at an empty

pipe, sometimes trying to read letters from Mistress which joined him

every day. We had gone North to a more gentlemanly part of the line, and

his duties took but little of his time, so that anything novel, like a

pair of pliers or an order from the Director of Army Signals, was always

welcome. To begin with he took up rather more than his fair share of the

pocket, but he rapidly thinned down. Alas! in the rigours of the campaign

he also lost his voice; and his little black collar, his only kit,

disappeared.

Then, just when we seemed settled for the winter, we were ordered South

again. Common knew what that meant, a busy time for him. We moved down

slowly, and he sampled billet after billet, but we arrived at last and

sat down to wait for the day.

And then he began to get nervous. Always he was present when the

operations were discussed; he had seen all the maps; he knew exactly what

was expected of us. And he didn't like it.

"It's more than a fellow can do," he said; "at least to be certain of. I

can blow away the shells in front and the shells from the right, but if

Master's map is correct we're going to get enfiladed from the left as

well, and one can't be _everywhere_. This wants thinking about."

So he dived head downwards into the deepest recesses of my pocket and

abandoned himself to thought. A little later he came up with a smile....

Next morning I stayed in bed and the doctor came. Common looked over his

shoulder as he read the thermometer.

"A hundred and four," said Common. "Golly! I hope I haven't over-done

it."

He came with me to the clearing station.

"I only just blowed a germ at him," he said wistfully--"one I found in

his pocket. I only just blowed it at him."

We went down to the base hospital together; we went back to England. And

in the hospital in England Common suddenly saw his mistress again.

"I've brought him back, Missis," he said. "Here he is. Have I done well?"

* * * * *

He sits now in a little basket lined with flannel, a hero returned from

the War. Round his neck he wears the regimental colours, and on his chest

will be sewn whatever medal is given to those who have served faithfully

on the Western Front. Seated in your comfortable club, my very dear sir,

or in your delightful drawing-room, madam, you smile pityingly....

Or perhaps you don't.

GEORGE'S V.C.

(THE LAST OF THE WAR STORIES)

I

The Colonel of the Nth Blankshires was seated in his office. It was not

an imposing room to look at. Furnished simply but tastefully with a

table, officers, for use of, one, and a chair, ditto, one, it gave little

evidence of the distressing scenes which had been enacted in it, and

still less evidence of the terrible scene which was to come. Within these

walls the Colonel was accustomed to deal out stern justice to offenders,

and many a hardened criminal had been carried out fainting upon hearing

the terrible verdict, "One day's C.B."

But the Colonel was not holding the scales of justice now, for it was

late afternoon. With an expression of the utmost anxiety upon his face

he read and re-read the official-looking document which he held in his

hand. Even the photograph of the Sergeant-Major (signed, "Yours ever,

Henry"), which stood upon his desk, brought him no comfort.

The door opened and Major Murgatroyd, second in command of the famous

Blankshires, came in.

"Come in," said Colonel Blowhard.

The Major saluted impressively, and the Colonel rose and returned his

salute with the politeness typical of the British Army.

"You wished to see me, Colonel?"

"I did, Major." They saluted each other again. "A secret document of

enormous importance," went on the Colonel, "has just reached me from the

War Office. It concerns the Regiment, the dear old Regiment." Both men

saluted, and the Colonel went on hoarsely, "Were the news in this

document to become public property before its time, nothing could avert

the defeat of England in the present world-wide cataclysm."

"Is it as important as that, Colonel?" said the Major, even more hoarsely

if anything.

"It is, Major."

The Major's voice sank to a whisper.

"What would not Hindenburg give to see it," he muttered.

"Ay," said the Colonel. "I say that to myself day and night: 'What not

what--what would what--' Well, I say it to myself day and night. For this

reason, Major, I have decided to entrust the news to no one but yourself.

Our Officers are good lads and a credit to the dear old Regiment"--they

saluted as before--"but in a matter of this sort one cannot be too

discreet."

"You are right, Colonel."

The Colonel looked round the room apprehensively and brought his chair a

little closer to the Major.

"The secret contained in this document--Are we alone?"

"Except for each other, Colonel."

"The secret," went on the Colonel, "is this: that, on and after the 23rd

of the month, men in category X3 are to be included in category X2."

"My God," gasped the Major, "if Hindenburg knew!"

"He must not know, Major," said the Colonel simply. "I can trust you not

to disclose this until the time is ripe?"

"You can trust me, Colonel."

They grasped hands and saluted.

At this moment the door opened and an orderly came in.

"You're wanted by the Sergeant-Major, sir," he told the Colonel.

"Ah, excuse me a moment," said the latter to his second in command,

knowing how much it annoys a sergeant-major to be kept waiting. He

saluted and hurried out.

"Just a moment, orderly," said the Major.

The orderly came back. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Did you give that message to Miss Blowhard?"

"Yes, sir. She says she cannot play golf with

you to-morrow because she is playing with Second-Lieutenant

Lord Smith." He saluted and withdrew.

Left alone the Major gave vent to his rage. "Lord Smith!" he stormed.

"Curse him! What can she see in that puppy? Thrice have I used my

influence to send him away on a musketry course, and thrice has he

returned. Could I but turn him out of the Regiment for good, I might win

the love of the fair Miss Blowhard, the Colonel's daughter." In a sudden

passion he picked up the "Manual of Military Law" and flung it to the

ground.

All at once an idea struck him and a crafty look came into his eyes.

"By jove," he cried, "the secret document! The very thing."

To put the document into an envelope was the work of a moment. Taking up

a pen he printed on the outside in large capitals these words:

FOR HINDENBURG,

GERMANY

With a diabolical smile he sealed the envelope up, rang the bell, and

ordered Second-Lieutenant Lord Smith to be brought before him.

"You wanted me, sir?" said Lord Smith on his arrival.

Of all the distinguished officers in the Nth Battalion, Lord Smith was

perhaps the most brilliant. Although he had held his commission for three

years he had only been arrested twice by the Provost-Marshal--the first

time for wearing a soft cap when, as an officer and gentleman, he

should have worn a hard one, and the second time, three months later, for

wearing a hard cap when, as an officer and gentleman, he should have worn

a soft one. Nobody can deny that these were serious blots on his career,

but it was felt in the trenches that his skill with the rifle partially

atoned for them.

"Ah, Smith, my boy," said the Major genially, "I just wanted to know the

address of your tailor. Wonderfully well-cut tunic this of yours." He

went over to him and, under pretence of examining the cut of his tunic,

dropped the envelope cautiously into one of the pockets.

Somewhat surprised at the compliment paid to his tailor, but entirely

unsuspicious, Lord Smith gave him the required address.

"Thanks," said the Major. "By the way, I've got to go out now; would you

mind waiting here till the Colonel comes back? He has left an extremely

important document on his table and I do not like to leave the room

unoccupied."

"Certainly, sir," said Lord Smith.

Left alone, our hero gave himself up to thought. For some reason he

distrusted the Major; he felt that they were rivals for the hand of

Rosamund Blowhard. On ten Sundays in succession he had been forced to

attend Church Parade, what time the Major and Rosamund were disporting

themselves on the golf links. It was only on Saturday afternoons that he

had a chance of seeing her alone, and yet he felt somehow that she loved

him.

"Ah, Smith, my boy," said the Colonel as he bustled in. "Always glad to

see you. My favourite subaltern," he went on, with his hand on the young

man's shoulder; "the best officer who ever formed a four at bridge--I

mean, who ever formed fours; and a holder of no fewer than three musketry

certificates."

Lord Smith smiled modestly.

"There, I must get on with my work," went on the Colonel, sitting down

at his table and turning over his papers. "You find me very--you find

me--you find--good Heavens!"

"What is it, sir?"

"I _don't_ find it--I've lost it; the secret document!"

"Was it very important, sir?"

"Important!" cried the Colonel. "If Hindenburg--but we must get to work.

Summon the guard, blow the fire-alarm, send for the Orderly Sergeant."

In less than a minute the room was full of armed men, including the

Major.

"Men of the Nth Blankshires," said the Colonel, addressing them, "a

document of enormous importance has been stolen from this room. Unless

that document is recovered the fair name of the Regiment will be

irretrievably tarnished."

"Never!" cried a Corporal of the Signalling Section, and there was a deep

murmur of applause.

"May I suggest, sir," said the Major, "that the pockets of all should be

searched? I myself am quite ready to set the example," and as he spoke

he drew out three receipted bills and a price list of tomatoes, and

placed them before the Colonel.

One by one they followed his example.

Suddenly all eyes were fixed on Second-Lieutenant Lord Smith, as

with horror and amazement upon his face he drew from his pocket the

official-looking envelope.

"I swear I never put it there, sir," he gasped.

"Perhaps I ought to tell you, sir," said the Major, "that I asked Lord

Smith to keep an eye upon the document during my absence. No doubt he

placed it in his pocket for safety."

Several men applauded this suggestion, for Lord Smith was a general

favourite.

The Colonel gave one glance at the envelope, and then, with fire flashing

from his eyes, held it up for all to see.

"How do you account for _this_?" he cried in a voice of thunder, and with

a gasp of horror they read the fatal words:

FOR HINDENBURG,

GERMANY

The Colonel and the other officers drew their swords, the rank and file

fixed bayonets; they hacked the buttons off Lord Smith's tunic, they dug

the stars out of his sleeves, they tore the regimental badge from his

cap; they tore his collar, they tore his tie, they took his gold

cigarette-case; and still he stood there, saying proudly, "I am

innocent."

"Go!" said the Colonel, pointing with his sword to the door.

Suddenly there was a commotion outside and a breathless figure pushed its

way into the room.

"Father," cried Rosamund Blowhard, "spare him. He is innocent."

"Rosamund," said George, for so we must call him now, "I am innocent.

Some day the truth will be known." Then he took a tender farewell of her

and, casting a glance of mingled suspicion and hatred at the Major, he

strode from the room.

II

The patient in the Xth bed at the Yth Base Hospital stirred restlessly.

"Water," he murmured, "water."

A soft-footed nurse rose and poured some over him. "Rosamund," he

breathed, and with a smile of content dropped peacefully asleep again.

Who was he, this mysterious patient in Number X bed? Obviously a

gentleman from the colour of his pyjamas, his identity disc proclaimed

him to be Private Smithlord of the Qth Blankshires. There was something

strange about him. Only that morning he had received the V.C. from Sir

Douglas Haig, the R.S.V.P. from General Pétain, the Order of the Golden

Elephant from our Japanese Allies, the Order of the Split Haddock from

the President of Nicaragua, and the Order of the Neutral Nut from Brazil.

Yet he cared for none of these things; he only murmured, "Rosamund!" Who

was Private Smithlord?

Though so little was known of him, the story of his prowess was on every

lip. An officer from his regiment who had gone out alone to an

observation post had been surrounded and cut off by the enemy. Threatened

on all sides by guns and bombs of every calibre, he had prepared to sell

his life dearly. To attempt a rescue would have been madness; even the

most reckless Town Major would have blenched at the idea; and the

Regiment, in the comparative safety of their trench, could only look on

helplessly.

All but Private Smithlord. Hastily borrowing the Colonel's horse, he

urged the gallant animal up the trench and away over the top. And then

began a race such as had never been seen at Epsom or Melton Mowbray.

"Gad," said a sporting subaltern, who in peace days had frequently

entered for a Derby sweepstake at the National Liberal Club, "the beggar

can ride--what?"

An answering cheer rang out from all ranks.

Over wire entanglements and across shell holes dashed Private Smithlord,

firing rapidly with his revolver all the while. Nearer to the ill-fated

officer he drew, and then suddenly he was in the midst of the enemy.

Lashing out right and left, he fought his way to the man he had come to

rescue, pulled him up behind him and, amidst a hurricane of bullets,

charged back to the British lines. Nor did he pause till he arrived at

the Colonel's dug-out.

"I have brought him back, sir," he said, and fainted. When he awoke it

was to find himself in the Xth bed of the Yth Base Hospital.

And who is it in the next bed? It is the officer whom he rescued. Do we

recognize him? Alas, no. Although unwounded by the enemy, the exposure of

that terrible day had brought on a severe attack of mumps. We cannot

recognize him. But the nurse assures us that it is our old friend, Major

Murgatroyd.

"A visitor to see you," said the nurse, coming in and waking Private

Smithlord up.

"Can't you say I'm out?" said Smithlord, expecting it was another foreign

decoration and wondering what language he would have to speak this time.

"It's an English Colonel," said the nurse.

Smithlord saluted and begged the nurse to show him up at once. In another

minute Colonel Blowhard had entered.

"I want to thank you," said the Colonel, "for so gallantly rescuing an

old friend of mine--Major Murgatroyd, belonging to the Nth Battalion

Blankshires, but now attached to the Qth."

Smithlord could hardly repress a start. In the excitement of the moment

he had not recognized the features of the man he had saved. It was his

old rival.

"It is curious," went on the Colonel, "that in features you resemble

another old friend of mine, Lord Smith."

"My name is Smithlord, sir."

"Ah! Any relation?"

"None," said Smithlord, crossing his thumbs under the bedclothes.

"Do you mind ringing the bell?" he went on, feeling that at all costs he

must turn the conversation. "I think it is time for my medicine."

In answer to the Colonel's ring a nurse appeared.

"Nurse Brown has just gone out," she said. "Can I do anything for you?"

"Good Heavens! Rosamund!" cried the Colonel.

"Yes, father, it is I," she replied simply. "I have come to France to

find the man I love."

"Murgatroyd?" said the Colonel. "But this gallant fellow was the man

who--By the way, let me introduce you. Private Smithlord, my daughter,

Rosamund."

The two looked at each other face to face. The intuition and ready wit of

the woman pierced the disguise which had baffled the soldier.

"Father," she cried, "it's not Smithlord, it's Lord Smith. George!"

"Rosamund!" cried George. We cannot keep the secret any longer from our

readers; it _was_ Lord Smith.

"Tut, tut, sir, what is this?" said the Colonel. "I turned you out of the

Regiment three weeks ago. What the deuce," he said, for, like all

military men, he was addicted to strong language--"what the deuce does

this mean?"

"I was innocent, sir."

"Father, he was innocent."

"He was innocent," said a hollow voice from the next bed.

In amazement they all looked at the officer lying there.

"Rosamund," he cried, "am I so greatly changed?"

The Colonel handed him his pocket mirror.

"Yes," sighed the Major, "I understand. But I am Major Murgatroyd."

"Major Murgatroyd!" they all cried.

"This gallant fellow here, whom I now know to be Lord Smith, saved my

life; I cannot let him suffer any longer. It was I who hid the secret

document in his pocket. I did it for love of you, Rosamund." He held out

his hand. "Say you forgive me, my dear Lord Smith."

Lord Smith shook his hand warmly.

But little more remains to tell. A month later our hero was back in

England. Fortunately the Quartermaster had kept his buttons; and in a

very short time he was back in the dear old uniform, and the wedding of

Second-Lieutenant Lord Smith to Rosamund Blowhard was one of the events

of the season.

And what of Major Murgatroyd? He has learnt his lesson; and as commandant

of a rest camp on the French coast he is the soul of geniality to all

who meet him.

THE BALLAD OF PRIVATE CHADD

I sing of George Augustus Chadd,

Who'd always from a baby had

A deep affection for his Dad--

In other words, his Father;

Contrariwise, the father's one

And only treasure was his son,

Yes, even when he'd gone and done

Things which annoyed him rather.

For instance, if at Christmas (say)

Or on his parent's natal day

The thoughtless lad forgot to pay

The customary greeting,

His father's visage only took

That dignified reproachful look

Which dying beetles give the cook

Above the clouds of Keating.

As years went on such looks were rare;

The younger Chadd was always there

To greet his father and to share

His father's birthday party;

The pink "For auld acquaintance sake"

Engraved in sugar on the cake

Was his. The speech he used to make

Was reverent but hearty.

The younger Chadd was twentyish

When War broke out, but did not wish

To get an A.S.C. commish

Or be a rag-time sailor;

Just Private Chadd he was, and went

To join his Dad's old regiment,

While Dad (the dear old dug-out) sent

For red tabs from the tailor.

To those inured to war's alarms

I need not dwell upon the charms

Of raw recruits when sloping arms,

Nor tell why Chadd was hoping

That, if his sloping-powers increased,

They'd give him two days' leave at least

To join his Father's birthday feast ...

And so resumed his sloping.

One morning on the training ground,

When fixing bayonets, he found

The fatal day already round,

And, even as he fixed, he

Decided then and there to state

To Sergeant Brown (at any rate)

His longing to congratulate

His sire on being sixty.

"Sergeant," he said, "we're on the eve

Of Father's birthday; grant me leave"

(And here his bosom gave a heave)

"To offer him my blessing;

And, if a Private's tender thanks--

Nay, do not blank my blanky blanks!

I could not help but leave the ranks;

Birthdays are more than dressing."

The Sergeant was a kindly soul,

He loved his men upon the whole,

He'd also had a father's _rôle_

Pressed on him fairly lately.

"Brave Chadd," he said, "thou speakest sooth!

O happy day! O pious youth!

Great," he extemporized, "is Truth,

And it shall flourish greatly."

The Sergeant took him by the hand

And led him to the Captain, and

The Captain tried to understand,

And (more or less) succeeded;

"Correct me if you don't agree,

But one of you wants _what_?" said he,

And George Augustus Chadd said, "Me!"

Meaning of course that _he_ did.

The Captain took him by the ear

And gradually brought him near

The Colonel, who was far from clear,

But heard it all politely,

And asked him twice, "You want a _what_?"

The Captain said that _he_ did not,

And Chadd saluted quite a lot

And put the matter rightly.

The Colonel took him by the hair

And furtively conveyed him where

The General inhaled the air,

Immaculately booted;

Then said, "Unless I greatly err

This Private wishes to prefer

A small petition to you, Sir,"

And so again saluted.

The General inclined his head

Towards the two of them and said,

"Speak slowly, please, or shout instead;

I'm hard of hearing, rather."

So Chadd, that promising recruit,

Stood to attention, clicked his boot,

And bellowed, with his best salute,

"_A happy birthday, Father_!"

THE VISITORS' BOOK

"As man of the world," said Blake, stretching himself to his full height

of five foot three, and speaking with the wisdom of nineteen years, "I

say that it can't be done. In any other company, certainly; at

headquarters, possibly; but not in D Company. D Company has a

reputation."

"All I say," said Rogers, "is that, if you can't run any mess in the

trenches on four francs a day, you're a rotten mess president."

Blake turned dramatically to his company commander.

"Did you hear that, Billy?" he asked.

"Yes," said Billy. "I was just going to say it myself."

"Then, in that case, I have the honour to resign the mess presidency."

"Nothing doing, old boy. You're detailed."

"You can't be detailed to be a president. Presidents are elected by

popular acclamation. They resign--they resign--"

"To avoid being shot."

"Well, anyhow, they resign. I shall send my resignation in to the Army

Council to-night. It will appear in 'The Gazette' in due course. '2nd

Lieut. Blake resigns his mess presidency owing to the enormous price of

sardines per thousand and the amount of lime juice consumed by casual

visitors.' I'll tell you what--I'll run the mess on four francs, if

you'll bar guests."

"Rot, it's nothing to do with guests. We never have any."

"Never have any!" said Blake indignantly. "Then I shall keep a visitors'

book just to show you."

So that was how the D Company Visitors' Book was inaugurated. I had the

honour of opening it. I happened to be mending a telephone line in this

particular trench one thirsty day, and there was the dug-out, and--well,

there was I. I dropped in.

"Hallo," said Blake, "have a drink."

I had a lime juice. Then I had another. And then, very reluctantly, I got

up to go. Army Form Book 136 was handed to me.

"The visitors' book," said Blake. "You can just write your name in it, or

you can be funny, whichever you like."

"What do they usually do?" I asked.

"Well, you're the first, so you'll set the tone. For God's sake don't be

too funny."

It was an alarming responsibility. However, as it happened, I had

something which I wanted to say.

"Thursday, 12.45 p.m.," I wrote. "Pleasantly entertained as usual by D

Company. Refused a pressing invitation to stay to lunch, although

it was a hot day and I had a long walk back to my own mess."

I handed the book back to Blake. He read it; and with one foot on the

bottom step of the dugout I waited anxiously.

"Oh, I say, do stay to lunch," he said.

I gave a start of surprise.

"Oh, thanks very much," I said, and I took my foot off the step. "It

would be rather--I think, perhaps--well, thanks very much."

Once begun, the book filled up rapidly. Subalterns from other companies

used to call round for the purpose of being funny; I suppose that

unconsciously I had been too humorous--anyway, the tone had been set. The

bombing officer, I remember, vowed that Mrs. Blake's hospitality was so

charming that he would bring his wife and family next time. A gunner

officer broke into verse--a painful business. One way and another it was

not long before the last page was reached.

"We must get the General for the last page," said Blake.

"Don't be an ass," said Rogers.

"Whatever's the matter? Don't you think he'd do it?"

"You wouldn't have the cheek to ask him."

"Good lord, you don't stop being a human being, because you command a

brigade. Why on earth shouldn't I ask him?"

I happened to turn up just then. The telephone line from headquarters to

D Company always seemed to want attention, whatever part of the line we

were in.

"Hallo," said Blake, "have a drink."

"Well, I am rather thirsty," I said, and I took out a pencil. "Pass the

visitors' book and let's get it over."

"No, you don't," said Blake, snatching it away from me, "that's for the

General."

"This way, sir," said a voice above, and down came Billy, followed by the

Brigadier. We jumped up.

"You'll have a drink, sir?" said Billy.

"Oh, thanks very much."

"What will you have, sir?" asked Blake, looking round wildly. "Lime juice

or--or lime juice?"

"I'll have lime juice, thank you," said the General after consideration.

Blake produced the book nervously.

"I wonder if you'd mind," he began.

The General looked inquiring, and started feeling for his glasses. He was

just feeling in his fifth pocket when Billy came to the rescue.

"It's only some nonsense of Blake's, sir," he said. "He keeps a visitors'

book."

"Ah, well," said the General, getting up, "another day, perhaps."

When we were alone again Blake turned on Billy.

"You are a silly ass," he said. "If you hadn't interfered, he'd have done

it. Well, I shall fill it in myself now."

He took a pencil and wrote:

"Monday--Hospitably received by 'D' Company and much enjoyed the mess

president's amusing conversation. The company commander and a subaltern

named Rogers struck me as rather lacking in intelligence. R. Blake,

D.S.O., Brig.-Gen."

* * * * *

I had been out of it for a long time, and when quite accidentally I met

an officer of the battalion in London I was nearly a year behind the

news.

"And Blake," I said, after he'd told me some of it, "that nice child in

'D' Company; what happened to him?"

"Didn't you hear? He had rather a funny experience. He went into that

last show as senior subaltern of 'D.' Billy was knocked out pretty early

and Blake took on. After that we had a lot of casualties, and finally we

were cut off from headquarters altogether and had to carry on on our own.

Billy was the senior company commander and took charge of the battalion.

I don't quite know how it happened after that. We all got rather mixed

up, I suppose. Anyway, at one time Blake was actually commanding the

brigade. He was splendid; simply all over the place. He got the D.S.O.

He's rather bucked with himself. Young Blake as a Brigadier--funny, isn't

it?"

"Not so very," I said.

FROM A FULL HEART

In days of peace my fellow-men

Rightly regarded me as more like

A Bishop than a Major-Gen.,

And nothing since has made me warlike;

But when this age-long struggle ends

And I have seen the Allies dish up

The goose of Hindenburg--oh, friends!

I shall out-bish the mildest Bishop.

_When the War is over and the Kaiser's out of print,

I'm going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint;

When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe,

I'm going to keep a jelly-fish and listen to it breathe_.

I never really longed for gore,

And any taste for red corpuscles

That lingered with me left before

The German troops had entered Brussels.

In early days the Colonel's "Shun!"

Froze me; and, as the War grew older,

The noise of someone else's gun

Left me considerably colder.

_When the War is over and the battle has been won,

I'm going to buy a barnacle and take it for a run;

When the War is over and the German Fleet we sink,

I'm going to keep a silk-worm's egg and listen to it think._

The Captains and the Kings depart--

It may be so, but not lieutenants;

Dawn after weary dawn I start

The never-ending round of penance;

One rock amid the welter stands

On which my gaze is fixed intently--

An after-life in quiet lands

Lived very lazily and gently.

_When the War is over and we've done the Belgians proud,

I'm going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud;

When the War is over and we've finished up the show,

I'm going to plant a lemon-pip and listen to it grow._

Oh, I'm tired of the noise and the turmoil of battle,

And I'm even upset by the lowing of cattle,

And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver,

And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver,

And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting,

And I'm nervous, when standing on one, of alighting--

Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek ...

Say, starting on Saturday week.

ONE STAR

Occasionally I receive letters from friends, whom I have not seen lately,

addressed to Lieutenant M ---- and apologizing prettily inside in case I

am by now a colonel; in drawing-rooms I am sometimes called "Captain-er";

and up at the Fort the other day a sentry of the Royal Defence Corps,

wearing the Créçy medal, mistook me for a Major, and presented crossbows

to me. This is all wrong. As Mr. Garvin well points out, it is important

that we should not have a false perspective of the War. Let me, then,

make it perfectly plain--I am a Second Lieutenant.

When I first became a Second Lieutenant I was rather proud. I was a

Second Lieutenant "on probation." On my right sleeve I wore a single

star. So:

*

(on probation, of course). On my left sleeve I wore another star. So:

*

(also on probation).

They were good stars, none better in the service; and as we didn't like

the sound of "on probation" Celia put a few stitches in them to make them

more permanent. This proved effective. Six months later I had a very

pleasant note from the King telling me that the days of probation were

now over, and making it clear that he and I were friends.

I was now a real Second Lieutenant. On my right sleeve I had a single

star. Thus:

*

(not on probation).

On my left sleeve I also had a single star. In this manner:

*

This star also was now a fixed one.

From that time forward my thoughts dwelt naturally on promotion. There

were exalted persons in the regiment called Lieutenants. They had two

stars on each sleeve. So:

**

I decided to become a Lieutenant.

Promotion in our regiment was difficult. After giving the matter every

consideration I came to the conclusion that the only way to win my second

star was to save the Colonel's life. I used to follow him about

affectionately in the hope that he would fall into the sea. He was a big

strong man and a powerful swimmer, but once in the water it would not be

difficult to cling round his neck and give an impression that I was

rescuing him. However, he refused to fall in. I fancy that he wore

somebody's Military Soles which prevent slipping.

Years rolled on. I used to look at my stars sometimes, one on each

sleeve; they seemed very lonely. At times they came close together;

but at other times as, for instance, when I was semaphoring, they were

very far apart. To prevent these occasional separations Celia took them

off my sleeves and put them on my shoulders. One on each shoulder. So:

*

And so:

*

There they stayed.

And more years rolled on.

One day Celia came to me in great excitement.

"Have you seen this in the paper about promotion?" she said eagerly.

"No; what is it?" I asked. "Are they making more generals?"

"I don't know about generals; it's Second Lieutenants being Lieutenants."

"You're joking on a very grave subject," I said seriously. "You can't

expect to win the War if you go on like that."

"Well, you read it," she said, handing me the paper.

I took the paper with a trembling hand, and read. She was right! If the

paper was to be believed, all Second Lieutenants were to become

Lieutenants after eighteen years' service. At last my chance had come.

"My dear, this is wonderful," I said. "In another fifteen years we shall

be there. You might buy two more stars this afternoon and practise sewing

them on, in order to be ready. You mustn't be taken by surprise when the

actual moment comes."

"But you're a Lieutenant _now_," she said, "if that's true. It says that

'after eighteen months--'"

I snatched up the paper again. Good Heavens! it was eighteen

_months_--not years.

"Then I _am_ a Lieutenant," I said.

We had a bottle of champagne for dinner that night, and Celia got the

paper and read it aloud to my tunic. And just for practice she took the

two stars off my other tunic and sewed them on this one--thus:

** **

And we had a very happy evening.

"I suppose it will be a few days before it's officially announced," I

said.

"Bother, I suppose it will," said Celia, and very reluctantly she took

one star off each shoulder,

leaving the matter--so:

* *

And the years rolled on....

And I am still a Second Lieutenant....

I do not complain; indeed I am even rather proud of it. If I am not

gaining on my original one star, at least I am keeping pace with it. I

might so easily have been a corporal by now.

But I should like to have seen a little more notice taken of me in the

"Gazette." I scan it every day, hoping for some such announcement

as this:

"_Second Lieutenant M_ ---- _to remain a Second Lieutenant_."

Or this:

"_Second Lieutenant M_ ---- _to be seconded and to retain his present

rank of Second Lieutenant_."

Or even this:

"_Second Lieutenant M_ ---- _relinquishes the rank of Acting Second

Lieutenant on ceasing to command a Battalion, and reverts to the rank of

Second Lieutenant_."

Failing this, I have thought sometimes of making an announcement in the

Personal Column of "The Times":

"Second Lieutenant M ---- regrets that his duties as a Second Lieutenant

prevent him from replying personally to the many kind inquiries he has

received, and begs to take this opportunity of announcing that he still

retains a star on each shoulder. Both doing well."

But perhaps that is unnecessary now. I think that by this time I have

made it clear just how many stars I possess.

One on the right shoulder. So:

*

And one on the left shoulder. So:

*

That is all.

THE JOKE: A TRAGEDY

CHAPTER I

The Joke was born one October day in the trench called Mechanics, not so

far from Loos. We had just come back into the line after six days in

reserve, and, the afternoon being quiet, I was writing my daily letter to

Celia. I was telling her about our cat, imported into our dug-out in the

hope that it would keep the rats down, when suddenly the Joke came. I was

so surprised by it that I added in brackets, "This is quite my own. I've

only just thought of it." Later on the Post-Corporal came, and the Joke

started on its way to England.

CHAPTER II

Chapter II finds me some months later at home again.

"Do you remember that joke about the rats in one of your letters?" said

Celia one evening.

"Yes. You never told me if you liked it."

"I simply loved it. You aren't going to waste it, are you?"

"If you simply loved it, it wasn't wasted."

"But I want everybody else--Couldn't you use it in the Revue?"

I was supposed to be writing a Revue at this time for a certain

impresario. I wasn't getting on very fast, because whenever I suggested a

scene to him, he either said, "Oh, that's been done," which killed it, or

else he said, "Oh, but that's never been done," which killed it even more

completely.

"Good idea," I said to Celia. "We'll have a Trench Scene."

I suggested it to the impresario when next I saw him.

"Oh, that's been done," he said.

"Mine will be quite different from anybody else's," I said firmly.

He brightened up a little.

"All right, try it," he said.

I seemed to have discovered the secret of successful revue-writing.

The Trench Scene was written. It was written round the Joke, whose bright

beams, like a perfect jewel in a perfect setting--However, I said all

that to Celia at the time. She was just going to have said it herself,

she told me.

So far, so good. But a month later the Revue collapsed. The impresario

and I agreed upon many things--as, for instance, that the War would be a

long one, and that Hindenburg was no fool--but there were two points upon

which we could never quite agree: (1) What was funny, and (2) which of us

was writing the Revue. So, with mutual expressions of goodwill, and hopes

that one day we might write a tragedy together, we parted.

That ended the Revue; it ended the Trench Scene; and, for the moment, it

ended the Joke.

CHAPTER III

Chapter III finds the war over and Celia still at it.

"You haven't got that Joke in yet."

She had just read an article of mine called "Autumn in a Country

Vicarage."

"It wouldn't go in there very well," I said.

"It would go in anywhere where there were rats. There might easily be

rats in a vicarage."

"Not in this one."

"You talk about 'poor as a church mouse.'"

"I am an artist," I said, thumping my heart and forehead and other seats

of the emotions. "I don't happen to _see_ rats there, and if I don't see

them I can't write about them. Anyhow, they wouldn't be secular rats,

like the ones I made my joke about."

"I don't mind whether the rats are secular or circular," said Celia, "but

do get them in soon."

Well, I tried. I really did try, but for months I couldn't get those rats

in. It was a near thing sometimes, and I would think that I had them,

but at the last moment they would whisk off and back into their holes

again. I even wrote an article about "Cooking in the Great War," feeling

that that would surely tempt them, but they were not to be drawn....