In that dim happy past, the Summer of 1913, I first saw him idly seated
in a deck-chair on the firm sands of----, on the East Coast. A quiet
detached figure amid a crowd of joyous children. Hard by a boy and girl
were building a moated fortress, but, alas! the swiftly incoming tide
eroded its foundations until the frowning battlements tottered to
destruction.
Turning, the children faced him. He smiled.
"D'you know this one, Jacky?" he ventured.
"He's Dick," the little maid protested, "and I'm Betty."
"Now we're introduced, do you know this one?" he asked again.
Straightaway he plunged into the new game, moving back to where a smooth
stretch of sand lay invitingly. Immediately two minute shapes were
etched with his stick on its surface.
"What's those?"
"Hairpins, of course! You _always_ start with hairpins. And this,"
indicating a narrow oblong, "why, this must be that silver tray
someone's always leaving her hairpins lying about on. Now for the
hair-brushes--two of those--" (unerringly symmetrical)--"then the
comb--" (equipped with most effective sand-teeth)--"then a powder-box?
Well, a very little one----"
As fast as he thought of them, fresh articles (or their symbols) came
into being. There was no pause. "The shoe-horn, the button-hook, oh! and
a clothes-brush----"
Immediately following the last hair of the clothes-brush a rectangle put
in an appearance around these assorted objects.
"Mummy's dressing-table," asserted Master Dick authoritatively.
"Sound man! What else do we want?"
The children suggested alternately and in chorus the completion of the
plan. An armchair with cushions incredibly soft, a fire-place pokered
and tonged, a wardrobe (disproportionately enormous), two colossal
hat-boxes, and detail after detail, with finally the door, the key-hole
and the key.
* * * * *
The little hamlet somewhere in France had been shelled spasmodically for
months. Possibly there was something faintly familiar in the seated
figure of that Captain of Engineers that caught my eye; one did not
often come across Captains of Engineers sitting on _débris_ in the
village street. He squatted on a pile of granular masonry before a
rudely prepared space surrounded by three small ragged children gazing
round-eyed at something he was drawing with half a Nilgiri cane in the
powdered rubble. I paused to look, and there arose before me the picture
of a man with a boy and girl on a bygone day in happy England.
"On commence avec le sel," he was explaining as he indicated the shape
of a salt-cellar. "Eh b'en, après ça quat' assiettes, des couteaux, des
fourchettes----" All the appurtenances of a homely table were quickly
put in. "Et puis la table, n'est-ce pas? Et surtout faut pas oublier
quelqu'chose à manger, eh, Jeanne?"
"Non, monsieur." But the little girl was busy pointing to where a small
brown bird pecked fruitlessly in the dust. "Regardez, donc, le p'tit
oiseau; il n'a pas mangé, c'lui là."
"Y a pas grande chose à manger; les Boches, vous savez, ont passé par
ici," added one of the two boys quite impersonally.
The Captain of Engineers continued quickly, "Maintenant il faut mettre
le--" he paused for the word--"le--table-cloth." The children grasped
his meaning from the comprehensive gesture. Rapidly he outlined chairs,
a delightful baby's cradle, a clock with cuckoo complete, a fire-place,
until at length a complete pictorial inventory had been made of the
contents of the living-room of just such a cottage as had obviously been
buried beneath the rubbish heap upon which he sat. Those children of the
stricken country-side entered with keenness into the spirit of the
make-believe. The little girl, searching for an appropriate stone to
place on the imaginary table for imaginary bread, thrust her hand down
among the _débris_ and, withdrawing it, exposed a relic. It was the
faded remnant of a baby's shoe, grotesque in the autumn sunshine.
"Oui, par exemple, les Boches ont passé par ici," said the little boy as
impersonally as before.
* * * * *
In a Good Cause.
An auction of stamps will be held on the 13th and 14th of March at 47,
Leicester Square, in aid of the National Philatelic War Fund, the
proceeds to be given to the Societies of the British Red Cross and St.
John of Jerusalem. Collectors should seize this chance, as the Allies
may shortly be arranging to modify the map of the world.
* * * * *
"The year 1914 showed a drop of 441 million eggs in the year."
_Trade Paper._
Taking our population as 46 millions this means 9-1/2 eggs dropped per
head in the year. Under the influence of the thrift campaign a great
effort is being made to drop only half an egg per head this year, but
should there be a General Election there may be a rise in the drop.
* * * * *
[Illustration: WHO PAYS?