_Park Lane._
DEAREST DAPHNE,--People are going to the theatre a good deal, but not in
the old way. We wait in the queue now, and work our way up into the
gallery. We leave the stalls and boxes to _ces autres_. "Olga" has
created a simply charming queue-coat, heavy grey frieze, with plenty of
pockets and a cap to match with ear-pieces. You take a parcel of
sandwiches to eat while you're waiting (the _dernier cri_ is to wrap the
parcel in a spotted handkerchief), and, if you want to be immensely and
utterly right, you'll _walk_ home and buy a piece of fried fish on the
way for your supper.
À propos, there's quite a good little story being told about Lady
Goreazure and these topsy-turvy times. She was in the gallery at the
Incandescent the other night, and, on coming down, the gallery people,
finding it was pouring in torrents, crowded into the chief entrance for
shelter, to the enormous disgust of the stalls and boxes, who were just
coming out. A rose-coloured satin gown with ante-war bare arms and
shoulders, an ermine wrap, and a paste hair-bandeau was particularly
furious, and announced loudly that it was "an abominable shame to mix us
up with the gallery people in this way." Lady Goreazure thought she knew
the voice, and, turning, recognised in the angry pink-satin person her
maid, Dawkins, who left her some months ago to go into munition work.
She's a skilled hand now and simply coining money, as she told Lady G.
in a hurried furtive whisper, adding, "Please don't talk to me any more.
I shouldn't like my friends to see that I know anyone from the gallery."
One of the _literally_ burning questions of the moment has been how to
dispose of the little lanterns one's obliged to carry after dark now
that so many people have given their motors to the country and stump it
or bus it everywhere. Your Blanche has solved the difficulty and at the
same time set a fashion. My evening boots (what a different meaning that
phrase has from what it once had, my Daphne!) have darling little
teeny-weeny lamps fixed to their toes, so that one can see exactly where
one's stepping. With these boots is worn a toque with a small lamp
fastened in a velvet or ribbon _chou_ in front. The _boots_ are for
_one's own guidance_; the _toque illuminante_ is to show _other_ gropers
in the darkness that one's coming. Some people add a chic little hooter,
which clears the way quite nicely and is simply _precious_ in crossing
roads.
Speaking of those who've given all their motors to the State and those
who haven't, a new social danger has bobbed up for the latter--the
chauffeuse. She's got to be reckoned with, dearest. In threatening the
single lives of people's eldest sons she's leaving even the eternal
chorus-girl down the course, and in releasing _one_ man for the Front
she's quite likely to capture _another who counts considerably more!_
The Ramsgates thought they'd got a perfect jewel of a chauffeuse--smart,
businesslike, knew town well, knew when she might exceed the speed limit
and when she mightn't, thoroughly understood her car and so on. And then
one day Pegwell came back from the Front on sick leave. As soon as he
was well enough he went for a drive every day. Someone said to his
mother, "I wonder you trust your boy out alone with that chauffeuse of
yours." And Elizabeth Ramsgate _laughed_ at the caution. "I only wish
Thompson were more dangerous," she said. "There's safety in numbers, and
if she were younger and prettier perhaps she'd switch Peggy's thoughts
off that fearful Dolly de Colty of the Incandescent."
And so Pegwell went on with his drives, and one day they were out so
long that his mother was anxious, and when at last they came back she
said, "Oh, Thompson, you've been driving Lord Pegwell too far; he's not
strong enough for such long drives; it was very inconsiderate of you,
Thompson." And the chauffeuse tossed up her chin and cried, "Not so much
'Thompson,' please!" And Pegwell chipped in with, "This is Lady Pegwell,
mother, and in future she'll drive no one but me!"
Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, is even more furious about it than his parents.
"Ramsgate and Elizabeth have behaved like fools," she said to me
yesterday; "they don't know their world in the least, though they've
lived in it nearly half a century. What if the minx _wasn't_
particularly young and pretty. A chauffeuse is a novelty, and when
you've said that you've said everything."
Your Blanche is enormously busy just now editing a book that's going to
be the sensation of the Spring crop of volumes. You're aware, of course,
_m'amie_, that if a book's even to be _looked_ at now it must be either
Somebody's Memories of Everybody Else or Somebody's Experiences in an
Enemy Country. Well, and so Stella Clackmannan and I, in the hostel we
run for poor dears who've lost their situations abroad and have no
friends to go to on coming back here, found among our guests a bright
little Cockney who's been what she calls an up-and-down girl in the
Royal Palace at Bashbang, the capital of Rowdydaria. My dearest, the
things that girl has climbed over and crawled under, and the weather
she's come through, in escaping from the Rowdydarians and getting back
here! And the things she's seen and heard in the Palace! It will throw a
flood of light on all sorts of things, and will certainly make our F.O.
sit up.
With the help of a clever photographer and some imagination we've
reconstructed the up-and-down girl's adventures quite nicely. There are
photos of the King of Rowdydaria as head of his own army; in his uniform
as Colonel of the Hun Räuberundmörder Regiment; and in the Arab burnous
in which he is to lead an attack on Egypt. There's a photo of the
up-and-down girl sweeping a passage and listening through a key-hole to
a wonderful conversation between the King of R. and an Emperor who'd
come to see him (luckily it was in English and she remembers every
word): "You've got to say _you_ did it." "But I haven't got any navy--I
_couldn't_ have done it." "I'll give you the submarine that did it--or
_lend_ it to you. There! now it's yours--for a time. _You_ don't depend
on the Neutralians for any supplies. So you can afford to tell them you
did it--and be quick about it." "But you can't expect even the
_Neutralians_ to swallow that!" "Why, you fool, they'd swallow anything!
That's the meaning of their phrase 'rubber-neck.'" There's a photo of
the Queen of Rowdydaria coming up at this point, snatching the broom
away, and beating the up-and-down girl with it, and calling her "Spying
English Pig." Altogether, my dear, it's positively enthralling! Order
your copy early, for people will be slaying each other for this book.
_Astounding Disclosures of an Up-and-down Girl in the Royal Palace at
Bashbang_ will certainly quite _quite_ eclipse those two other
sensations, _What a Buttons Overheard in the Imperial Pickelhaube
Schloss_ and _Amazing Revelations of a Tweeny in the Perhapsburg Hof_.
Ever thine,
BLANCHE.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "I SAY, OLD GIRL, DO LET ME CARRY SOMETHING."]
* * * * *
How to put People at their Ease.
"The officer in command, Lieut. Berg, was exceedingly
pleasant, and did all in his power to put the passengers
at their ease and make them feel comfortable.... He had
a large bomb placed in the engine-room, and another on
the bridge, which could be exploded easily by
electricity."--_Daily News._
* * * * *
"AMERICA'S LAST WORD FOR
THE HUN.
SIXTEEN PAGES TO-DAY."
_Daily Mirror Poster._
These American last words!
* * * * *