Millie is a "daily help." Who it is that she helps--whether herself or
her employer--I am not in a position to say, for I am only temporarily
a lodger in the house where Millie helps, and she doesn't help me
much. But to-day I have made her hear and understand one whole
sentence. It is the first time during the six days that we have known
each other that I have conveyed anything to her except by graphic
gesticulation and grimace.
I accepted the fact at the outset that my soft and seductive tones
could never penetrate Millie's stone-deafness. Only the loudest and
angriest remarks are audible to Millie, so I preserve an attitude of
silent facial amiability in all my relations with her.
BALAAM could not have looked more surprised than did Millie this
evening when, in the act of clearing away my latest meal, she heard
me say, "Leave the matches."
She stopped dead and looked at me over the tray of dirty crockery. Her
expression was not unfriendly.
"But I got t' look after myself," she explained; "I'd be all done up
if I hadn't they matches in the morning to light the fire and all. You
wouldn't get no bath-water."
"I want to smoke," I said obstinately.
She kept her hand over the box of matches. She had not heard. I made
intelligent signs illustrative of the lighting of a cigarette. Millie
told me, in pure Cornish:
"You can only get a box at a time now, and half-a-pound o' sugar I
gets when I shows my card, and they do say we won't get that--only
quarter soon. I'd like to get at that KAYSER! I'd smash him up, I
would!" She said this in the kindest, most benign way, with a smile
as nearly caressing as a smile without front teeth can be. "He'd
come short off if I got to him! And he deserves it, I'm sure," she
concluded, as she departed--with the matches....
A long walk over the Cornish cliffs in the gusty North wind from
the Atlantic had made me drowsy, and as I sat before the fire my
thoughts wandered from Russian politics and the Italian situation
to Millie--and the "KAYSER": Millie, who was short of stature and
round-backed, who showed her fifty-odd years unflinchingly to the
world; Millie with her felt slippers and her overall and coarse hands;
Millie, the possessor of a sugar-card--and the mighty War Lord, stern
and implacable, trying to subdue the world to his will. And Millie
only wished she could get near him to smash him up--"the KAYSER would
come short off."...
* * * * *
The lamp-lit cottage room faded; the sound of November winds and
swirling leaves outside died away. For a moment I peered through
a greyish-blue moving mist--it might have been cigarette smoke;
gradually I distinguished forms and colours beyond; then the fog
lifted and I looked upon an electrically-lighted room, with the
aspect of an office _de luxe_. There were telephones and file cases,
typewriters and all the appurtenances of business operations; the
furniture was massive and handsome, and carpets and hangings had every
appearance of magnificence and costliness.
I knew without thought that this was the private room of WILHELM of
Prussia. He himself, standing with his back to the roaring log fire in
the deep grate, was too like the cartoons in the English papers to be
mistaken. The iron-grey hair and upturned moustache, the cold eyes and
sardonic mouth were all there "as per invoice." He was even wearing an
aggressively Prussian uniform, and kept his spiked helmet on his head
and his sword hanging at his side.
The CROWN PRINCE was in evidence, disguised as a Death's Head Hussar,
and HINDENBURG was easily recognisable as he bristled with the nails
which the admiring populace had hammered into him; the rest of
the company were unknown to me. They were all engaged in a heated
discussion when suddenly there came a knock at the door, a knock
which, to me, was curiously familiar.
During the silence that ensued Millie walked into the room. She was
still wearing her overall and felt slippers, and she had not waited
to put on a hat or even to straighten her hair. She came forward
unhesitatingly, with her short, shuffling steps and, disregarding the
furious demand of a Bavarian General as to who she was and how she
dared to enter there, she addressed herself to the KAISER himself. She
spoke in her normal tones, but to me there seemed something sinister
about them at this moment, and I noticed that in her right hand she
carried a coal-hammer.
Now above all things Millie hated breaking coal and filling scuttles,
and I knew that she would not be carrying a coal-hammer without a very
special reason. Her words revealed it.
"You, KAYSER, I've been wanting to get near you and smash you up, I
have. You've gone a bit too far, you have ... No sugar without a card,
and then only half-a-pound, and they do say it'll only be a quarter
soon. And _matches!_--only one box at a time, and _they_ don't strike,
and how's a body to light a fire at all?"
With this she lifted her coal-hammer and brought it down with all
her force on the KAISER'S head. Involuntarily I flinched; it was a
terrible blow.
Several Generals, their iron crosses jingling, rushed forward and
seized Millie, uttering guttural sounds of horror and indignation.
But the KAISER stood unmoved--yes, unmoved. Millie gaped at him. He
ordered his satellites to release her and, as they reluctantly did so,
Millie nodded her head at them.
"You leave me where I'm to! He can take up his own part," she told
them.
The KAISER addressed her sternly.
"Presumptuous woman," he said, "it is not written that you shall be
the cause of my death. There is something much higher in store for
me. You deserve worse than death at my hands; but since you are from
England I will squeeze from you all the information I require and bend
you to my uses."
All this was obviously wasted on Millie, who heard nothing. Having
waited politely until his lips stopped moving in speech, she again
cracked him on the head with the coal-hammer.
The KAISER ignored this uncivil retort and spoke again.
"You shall go back to your matchless country and tell them there that
we have plenty of matches in Germany; that we have kept on good terms
with Stockholm, and our matches are made in Sweden. We have all we
need to kindle every fire in hell. Now are you convinced that you are
beaten?"
He was interrupted by another blow from the coal-hammer, which made
him bite his tongue, for Millie was becoming exasperated and put all
her strength into the stroke. The KAISER stepped back.
"Poor fool! You are wasting your strength, even as HAIG wastes _his_
in blow after blow on the Western front."
But even as he uttered the lying boast he tottered and fell back
unconscious into the arms of LITTLE WILLIE.
The Generals and Statesmen gathered round their stricken master,
gabbling purest Prussian.
Millie appeared satisfied at last, although the CROWN PRINCE had
scarcely glanced at her, for she was not his type. She took advantage
of the commotion to procure two boxes of matches which had been thrown
carelessly on the table. These she bestowed mysteriously beneath her
overall.
"He deserved it too!" she muttered contentedly as she hobbled to the
door; "and I don't believe so much about all his matches either. You
can only get two boxes at a time even here." With this reflection she
unostentatiously departed.
* * * * *
Again that familiar knock....
I was back in my little sitting-room in Cornwall and Millie entered
with my candle, which she put down on the table rather noisily. I
gave her the usual grin and nod of acknowledgment, and she wished me
good-night and went.
In the tray of the candlestick there was a box of matches. I picked it
up and turned it over curiously. Could my dream have been true? Or was
it only a coincidence that in blatant red letters on that match-box
were the words:--
"MADE IN SWEDEN."
* * * * *
"Spokane (Washington), Monday.
"Troops raided the I.W.W. headquarters and arrested James
Rowan (leader) and 2½ others on the eve of threatened
disturbances."--_Toowoomba Gazette (Australia)_.
Unfortunately in such cases half-measures are rarely successful.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Sub_ (_to A.P.M., who has severely censured him for
being without gloves, wearing collar of wrong colour, etc._). "OH, BY
THE BY, SIR, HOW DO YOU LIKE THE WAY I DO MY HAIR?"]
* * * * *
"THE AUTUMN MEETING of the WISBECH LOCAL PEACE ASSOCIATION will be
held on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28th, 1917.
"Being full moon, a good attendance is expected."--_Isle of
Ely Advertiser_.
The Gothas would see that it was a peace-meeting and leave it alone.
* * * * *
"The tanks crossed the deep gulf of the Hindenburg main line,
pitching nose downwards as they drew their long bodies over
the parapets and rearing up again with their long forward
reach of body and heaving themselves on to the German paradise
beyond."--_Yorkshire Evening Post_.
That is not what the Germans called it.
* * * * *
"IF CAMBRIA FALLS--
"The possibilities in the New Battle."--_Dublin Evening Herald_.
No wonder Mr. LLOYD GEORGE hurried off to France.
* * * * *
"On the earth, the broken acres; In the heaven, a perfect
ground."--_The Canadian Churchman_.
Of course Canada is before everything an agricultural country, and
we feel sure that BROWNING would be the last man to object to any
adaptation of his lines which would make them more suited to the needs
of the people and the times.
* * * * *