That night at dinner the Mandril, who loves argument better than life,
said _à propos_ of nothing that any man who gave to a beggar was a
public menace and little better than a felon. He was delighted to find
every man's hand against him.
"RUSKIN," said Slip, "decrees that not only should one give to
beggars, but that one should give kindly and deliberately and not
as though the coin were red-hot."
The Mandril threw himself wildly into the argument. He told us
dreadful stories of beggars and their ways--of advertisements he
had seen in which the advertisers undertook to supply beggars with
emaciated children at so much per day. Children with visible sores
were in great demand, he said; nothing like a child to charm money
from the pockets of passers-by, etc., etc. Presently he grew tired
and changed the subject as rapidly as he had started it.
It was at lunch a few days later that the Mess waiter came in with a
worried look on his face.
"There is a man at the door, Sir," he said. "Me and Burler can't make
out what he wants, but he won't go away, not no'ow."
"What's he like?" I asked.
"Oh, he's old, Sir, and none too clean, and he's got a sack with him."
"Stop," said Slip. "Now, Tailer, think carefully before you answer my
next question. Does he wear a yachting cap?"
"Yes, Sir," said Tailer, "that's it, Sir, 'e do wear a sort of sea
'at, Sir."
"This is very terrible," said Slip. "Are we his sole means of support?
However--" and he drew a clean plate towards him and put a franc on
it. The plate went slowly round the table and everyone subscribed.
Stephen, who was immersed in a book on Mayflies, put in ten francs
under the impression that he was subscribing towards the rent of the
Mess. The Mandril appeared to have quite forgotten his dislike of
beggars.
Tailer took the plate out and returned with it empty. "He's gone,
Sir," he said.
"I'm glad for your sake, dear Mandril, that you have fallen in with
our views," said Slip.
"What!" shouted the Mandril. "I quite forgot. A beggar!--the wretched
impostor." He rushed to the window. An old man had rounded the corner
of the house and was crossing the road on his way to a small café
opposite.
"He's going to drink it," screamed the Mandril; "battery will fire a
salvo;" and he seized two oranges from the sideboard. The first was
a perfect shot and hit the target between the shoulder-blades, and
the second burst with fearful force against the wall of the café.
The victim turned and looked about him in a dazed fashion and then
disappeared.
That night I received a note from Monsieur Le Roux, hardware merchant
and incidentally our landlord, thanking me for sixteen francs
seventy-five centimes paid in advance to his workman, and asking me
to name a day on which he could call to mend our broken stove.
* * * * *
"It is not a little pathetic to observe that a year ago, and even
two years ago, _The Daily Mail_ was urging the Government then
in power to introduce compulsory rations. Thus on November 13,
1916, we said: 'Ministers should at once prepare the organisation
for a system of bread tickets. It took the diligent Germans six
months to get their system into action, and it will take our ...
officials quite as long. They ought to be getting to work on it
now, not putting it off.'"--_Daily Mail_.
We dare not guess what was the suppressed adjective that _The Daily
Mail_ applied to "our officials."
* * * * *
[Illustration: OUR UNEMPLOYED.
WAR OFFICE BRASS HAT (_to Volunteer, "A" Class_). "AND MIND YOU, IF
YOU DON'T FULFIL YOUR OBLIGATIONS YOU'LL BE COURT-MARTIALLED!"
MR. PUNCH. "THAT WON'T WORRY HIM. HIS TROUBLE IS THAT, WHEN HE DOES
FULFIL HIS OBLIGATIONS, YOU MAKE SO LITTLE USE OF HIM."]
* * * * *