Maisie was terribly upset when she lost her gold curb bangle (with
padlock attached) between the hospital and the canteen. The first I
knew of it was seeing a handbill offering two pounds' reward on our
front gate, with the ink still damp, when I came home to lunch. There
was a similar bill blowing down the road. My wife had some more under
her arm and she pressed them on me. "Run round to the shops," she
said; "get them put right in the middle of the windows where they'll
catch everybody's eye."
The first shop I entered was a hosier's. Since drilling in the V.T.O.
I have acquired rather a distinguished bearing. Shopkeepers invariably
treat me with attention. The hosier hurried forward, obviously
anticipating a princely order for tweeds at war prices. I hadn't the
courage to buy nothing. I selected the nearest thing on the counter, a
futurist necktie at two-and-six-three, and, as I was leaving the shop,
turned back carelessly. "By the by, would you mind putting this bill
in your window?" I said.
His lip curled. "This is a high-class business. We make it a rule--no
bills," he said.
At the butcher's next door there were several customers. They all gave
way to me. I made purchases worthy of my appearance and carriage, half
an ox tail and some chitterlings. Then I proffered a handbill. The man
in blue accepted it and, before I had opened my lips, returned it to
me wrapped round the ox tail. I was too taken aback to explain. In
fact, when he held out his hand, I mechanically gave him another bill
for the chitterlings.
At the next shop, a fancy draper's, I acted with cunning. In the
centre of the window, on a raised background of silver paper, was
displayed a wreath of orange-blossom veiled with tulle. I bought
it. The young ladies were hysterical. "May I ask permission to put
this little handbill in its place?" I said. They appealed to the
shopwalker. "In the absence of the head of the firm I cannot see my
way to accede to your request," he said. "At present he is on the
Rhine. On his demobilisation I will place the matter before him if you
will leave the bill in my hands." I left it.
I skipped a gramophone emporium and a baby-linen shop and entered a
fishmonger's. Here I adopted tactics of absolute candour. "Look here,"
I said, "I haven't come to buy anything. I don't want any fish, flesh
or red-herring, but I should be no end grateful if you would stick
this bill up for me somewhere."
"Certainly, Sir, as many as you like," said the proprietor heartily.
Gleefully I gave him two. One he stuck on a hook on top of a couple of
ducks, and it flopped over face downwards on their breasts. The other
he laid in the middle of the marble counter, and the next moment his
assistant came along and slapped an outsize halibut on it.
I went into a jeweller's next and purchased a gold curb bangle (with
padlock attached).
"You clever old thing," said Maisie; "you'd never tell one from the
other, would you? Mine's a tiny bit heavier, don't you think? I've
just found it in the soap-dish. I'll change this for a filigree
pendant. All my life I've longed for a filigree pendant"
* * * * *
"For 85 tons of blackberries, gathered last autumn,
Northamptonshire elementary school children were paid
£2,380, 3d. a lb."--_Daily Paper_.
The young profiteers!
* * * * *
"Splendid imitation almond paste for cakes can be made
as follows: Take four ounces of breadcrumbs, one small
teaspoonful of almond essence, four ounces of soft
white sugar, and one well-eaten egg to bind the
mixture."--_Answers_.
The difficulty is to get the egg.
* * * * *
_APRÈS LA GUERRE_.
"_On ne sait jamais le dessous des cartes_," as the perplexing dialect
of the aborigines of this country would put it. William and I, when
we used to discuss after-the-war prospects o' nights in the old
days, were more or less resigned to a buckshee year or two of filling
shell-holes up and pulling barbed wire down. Instead of which we all
go about the country taking in each others' education. No one, we
gather, will be allowed to go home until he has taken his B.A. with
honours. And after that--But it would be better to begin at the
beginning.
It began within ten days of the signing of the armistice, assuming
the shape of an official inquiry from Division, a five-barred document
wherein somebody with a talent for confusing himself (and a great
contempt for the Paper Controller) managed to ask every officer the
same question in five different ways. They cancelled each other out
after a little examination and left behind merely a desire to discover
whether or not each officer had a job waiting for him on his return
to civil life. William and I took the thing at a gallop, stuck down
a succinct "Yes. Yes, No, No. Yes," subscribed our signatures and
returned the documents--or so William proposed to do--"for your
information and necessary inaction."
"They're getting deuced heavy about these jobs, aren't they?" observed
William a day or two later. "The Old Man wants to see us all at
orderly-room for a private interview--he's got to make a return
showing whether his officers have got jobs waiting for them, if not,
why not, and please indent at once to make good any deficiencies.
Hullo, what's this?"
It happened to be William's mail for the day--one large
official-looking envelope. It turned out to be a document from his old
unit (he had entered the Army from an O.T.C.), headed, "Resettlement
and Employment of ex-Officers: Preliminary Enquiry." It was a
formidable catechism, ranging from inquiries as to whether William had
a job ready for him to a request for a signed statement from his C.O.
certifying that he was a sober, diligent and obliging lad and had
generally given every satisfaction in his present situation. In case
he hadn't a job or wanted another one there were convenient spaces in
which to confess the whole of his past--whether he had a liking for
animals or the Colonies, mechanical aptitude (if any), down to full
list of birth-marks and next-of-kin. William thrust the thing hastily
into the stove. But I observed that there was a cloud over him for the
rest of the day.
However, we both of us satisfied the examiner at the orderly-room,
though the renewed evidence of a determined conspiracy to find work
for him left William a trifle more thoughtful than his wont. Shades
of the prison-house began to close about our growing joy, "These
'ere jobs," remarked William, "are going to take a bit of dodging,
dearie. Looks to me as though you might cop out for anything from
a tram-driver to Lord Chief. Wish people wouldn't be so infernally
obliging. And, anyway, what is this--an Army or a Labour Exchange?"
As the days wore on the strain became more and more intense. William's
old school had contrived an association which begged to be allowed to
do anything in the world for him except leave him for a single day in
idleness. And what time the Army was not making inquiries about his
own civil intentions and abilities it was insisting on his extracting
the same information from the platoons. William grew haggard and
morose. He began looking under his bed every night for prospective
employers and took to sleeping with a loaded Webley under his pillow
for fear of being kidnapped by a registry office. He slept in
uneasy snatches, and when he did doze off was tormented by hideous
nightmares.
In one of them he dreamt he was on leave and walking through the City.
At every doorway he had to run the gauntlet of lithe and implacable
managing directors, all ready to pounce on him, drag him within and
chain him permanently to a stool--with the complete approval of
the Army Council. In another he was appearing before a tribunal of
employers as a conscientious objector to all forms of work.
The last straw was when the Brigadier caused it to be made known that
if any officer was particularly unsettled about his future he might be
granted a personal interview and it would be seen what could be done
for him. William sat down with the air of one who has established a
thumping bridgehead over his Rubicon and wrote to the Brigadier direct
and as follows:--
"SIR,--I have the honour to hope that this finds you a good deal
better than it leaves me at present. In case you should be in any
uncertainty over your prospects on return to half-pay, I shall be
happy to grant you a personal interview at my billet (Sheet 45; G 22a
3.7.) and see whether anything can be arranged to suit you. I may
add that I have a number of excellent appointments on my books, from
knife-boy to traveller to a firm of mineral water manufacturers. For
my own part my immediate future is firmly settled, thank you. For
at least three months after my discharge from the Army I have no
intention of taking up any form of work.
"I have the honour to be, Sir,
"YOUR OTHERWISE OBEDIENT SERVANT, ETC."
* * * * *
The court-martial was held last Thursday and sentence will be
promulgated any day now. Medical evidence certified William as sane
enough to understand the nature of his offence, but as the War is
over it is unlikely that he will be shot at dawn. William himself is
confident that he will be cashiered, a sentence which carries with
it automatic and permanent exclusion from all appointments under the
Crown. "That makes a tidy gap in the wire," says William hopefully.
"They won't even be able to make a postman of me. With a bit of luck
I'll dodge the unofficial jobs--I get that holiday after all, old
bean."
* * * * *
"HUNTING. THE DANGER OF KICKING HORSES."--_Times._
Generally the shoe is on the other foot.
* * * * *
"The Falkirk iron fitters, by an overwhelming majority, have
opposed the forty-hour week and have agreed to a forty-four
hour week."--_Provincial Paper_.
Bravo, Falkirk!
* * * * *
"The announcement of the augmentation of the British beet
in the Mediterranean appeared exclusively in the 'Sunday
Express.'"--_Daily Express_.
It doesn't seem anything to boast about.
* * * * *
"WANTED.--On a farm, two capable European young or
middle-aged girls."--_South African Paper_.
There are lots of girls answering this description, but the difficulty
is that most of them are too shy to admit it.
* * * * *
"M. Clemenceau ... speaks English with rare perfection,
having spent years in the United States."--_Daily Paper_.
"M. Clemenceau, speaking in excellent English, said
'Yes.'"--_Sunday Paper_.