Chapter II: The New Book of Beauty (1)

A hundred years ago the Books of Beauty had line engravings by Charles Heath, and long-necked, ringleted ladies looked wistfully or simperingly at you. I have several examples: _Caskets_, _Albums_, _Keepsakes_. The new Book of Beauty has a very different title. It is called _The Pekingese_, and is the revised edition for 1914.

The book is different in other ways too. The steel engravers having long since all died of starvation, here are photographs only, in large numbers, and (strange innovation!) there are more of gentlemen than of ladies. For this preponderance there is a good commercial reason, as any student of the work will quickly discover, for we are now entering a sphere of life where the beauty of the sterner sex (if so severe a word can be applied to such sublimation of everything that is soft and voluptuous and endearing) is more considered than that of the other. Beautiful ladies are here in some profusion, but the first place is for beautiful and guinea-earning gentlemen.

In the old Books of Beauty one could make a choice. There was always one lady supremely longer-necked, more wistful or more simpering than the others. But in this new Book of Beauty one turns the pages only to be more perplexed. The embarrassment of riches is too embarrassing. I have been through the work a score of times and am still wondering on whom my affections and admiration are most firmly fixed.

How to play the part of Paris where all the competitors have some irresistibility, as all have of either sex? Once I thought that Wee Mo of Westwood was my heart's chiefest delight, "a flame-red little dog with black mask and ear-fringes, profuse coat and featherings, flat wide skull, short flat face, short bowed legs and well-shaped body." But then I turned back to Broadoak Beetle and on to Broadoak Cirawanzi, and Young Beetle, and Nanking Fo, and Ta Fo of Greystones, and Petshé Ah Wei, and Hay Ch'ah of Toddington, and that superb Sultanic creature, King Rudolph of Ruritania, and Champion Howbury Ming, and Su Eh of Newnham, and King Beetle of Minden, and Champion Hu Hi, and Mo Sho, and that rich red dog, Buddha of Burford. And having chosen these I might just as well scratch out their names and write others, for every male face in this book is a poem.

The ladies, as I have said, are in the minority, for the obvious reason that these little disdainful distinguished gentlemen figure here as potential fathers, with their fees somewhat indelicately named: since there's husbandry on earth as well as in heaven.

Such ladies as are here are here for their beauty alone and are beyond price. Among them I note with especial joy Yiptse of Chinatown, Mandarin Marvel, who "inherits the beautiful front of her sire, Broadoak Beetle"; Lavender of Burton-on-Dee, "fawn, with black mask"; Chi-Fa of Alderbourne, "a most charming and devoted little companion"; Yeng Loo of Ipsley; Detlong Mo-li of Alderbourne, one of the "beautiful red daughters of Wong-ti of Alderbourne," Champion Chaou Chingur, of whom her owner says that "in quaintness and individuality and in loving disposition she is unequalled," and is also "quite a 'woman of the world,' very _blasée_ and also very punctilious in trifles"; Pearl of Cotehele, "bright red, with beautiful back"; E-Wo Tu T'su; Berylune Tzu Hsi Chu; Ko-ki of Radbourne and Siddington Fi-fi.

Every now and then there is an article in the papers asking and answering the question, What is the greatest benefit that has come to mankind in the past half-century? The answer is usually the camera, or matches, or the Marconi system, or the cinema, or the pianola, or the turbine, or the Röntgen rays, or the telephone, or the bicycle, or Lord Northcliffe, or the motor-car. Always something utilitarian or scientific. But why should we not say at once that it was the introduction of Pekingese spaniels into England from China? Because that is the truth.

The Listener

Once upon a time there was a man with such delicate ears that he could hear even letters speak. And, of course, letters lying in pillar-boxes have all kinds of things to say to each other.

One evening, having posted his own letter, he leaned against the pillar-box and listened.

"Here's another!" said a voice. "Who are you, pray?"

"I'm an acceptance with thanks," said the new letter.

"What do you accept?" another voice asked.

"An invitation to dinner," said the new letter, with a touch of pride.

"Pooh!" said the other. "Only that."

"It's at a house in Kensington," said the new letter.

"Well, _I'm_ an acceptance of an invitation to a dance at a duchess's," was the reply, and the new letter said no more.

Then all the others began.

"I bring news of a legacy," said one.

"I try to borrow money," said another, rather hopelessly.

"I demand the payment of a debt," said a sharp metallic voice.

"I decline an offer of marriage," said a fourth, with a wistful note.

"I've got a cheque inside," said a fifth, with a swagger.

"I convey the sack," said a sixth in triumph.

"I ask to be taken on again, at a lower salary," said another, with tears.

"What do you think I am?" one inquired. "You shall have six guesses."

"Give us a clue," said a voice.

"Very well. I'm in a foolscap envelope."

Then the guessing began.

One said a writ.

Another said an income-tax demand.

But no one could guess it.

"I'm a poem for a paper," said the foolscap letter at last.

"Are you good?" asked a voice.

"Not good enough, I'm afraid," said the poem. "In fact I've been out and back again seven times already."

"A war poem, I suppose?"

"I suppose so. I rhyme 'trench' and 'French.'"

"Guess what I am," said a sentimental murmur.

"Anyone could guess that," was the gruff reply. "You're a love-letter."

"Quite right," said the sentimental murmur. "But how clever of you!"

"Well," said another, "you're not the only love-letter here. I'm a love-letter too."

"How do you begin?" asked the first.

"I begin 'My Darling,'" said the second love-letter.

"That's nothing," said the first; "I begin 'My Ownest Own.'"

"I don't think much of either of those beginnings," said a new voice. "I begin, 'Most Beautiful.'"

"You're from a man, I suppose?" said the second love-letter.

"Yes, I am," said the new one. "Aren't you?"

"No, I'm from a woman," said the second. "I'll admit your beginning's rather good. But, how do you end?"

"I end with 'A million kisses,'" said the new one.

"Ah, I've got you there!" said the second. "I end with 'For ever and ever yours.'"

"That's not bad," said the first, "but my ending is pretty good in its way. I end like this: 'To-morrow will be Heaven once more, for then we meet again.'"

"Oh, do stop all this love talk," said the gruff voice again, "and be sensible like me. I'm a letter to an Editor putting everything right and showing up all the iniquities and ineptitudes of the Government. I shall make a stir, I can tell you. I'm It, I am. I'm signed 'Pro Bono Publico.'"

"That's funny!" said another letter. "I'm signed that too, but I stick up for the Government."

But at this moment the listener was conscious of a hand on his arm and a lantern in his face.

"Here," said the authoritative tones of a policeman, "I think you've been leaning against this pillar-box long enough. If you can't walk I'll help you home."

Thus does metallic prose invade the delicate poetical realm of supernature.

The Dark Secret

It was the most perfect September day that anyone could remember. The sun had risen in a dewy mist. The early air was pungent with yellowing bracken.

Then the mist cleared, the dew disappeared from everywhere but the shadows, and the Red Admirals again settled on the Michaelmas daisies.

A young man walked up and down the paths of the garden and drank in its sweetness; then he passed on to the orchard and picked from the wet grass a reddening apple, which he ate. Something pulled at his flannel trousers: it was a spaniel puppy, and with it he played till breakfast-time.

He was staying with some friends for a cricket match. It was the last of the season and his only game that year. As one grows older and busier, cricket becomes less and less convenient, and on the two occasions that he had arranged for a day it had been wet.

He had never been a great hand at the game. He had never made 100 or even 70, never taken any really good wickets; but he liked every minute of a match, so much so that he was always the first to volunteer to field when there was a man short, or run for some one who was lame, or even to stand as umpire.

To be in the field was the thing. Those rainy interludes in the pavilion which so develop the stoicism of the first-class cricketer had no power to make a philosopher of him. All their effect on him was detrimental: they turned him black. He fretted and raged.

But to-day there was not a cloud; nothing but the golden September sun.

It was one of the jolly matches. There was no jarring element: no bowler who was several sizes too good; no bowler who resented being taken off; no habitual country-house cricketer whose whole conversation was the jargon of the game; no batsman too superior to the rest; no acerbitous captain with a lost temper over every mistake; no champagne for lunch. Most of the players were very occasional performers: the rest were gardeners and a few schoolboys. Nice boys--boys who might have come from Winchester.

He was quickly out, but he did not mind, for he had had one glorious swipe and was caught in the deep field off another, and there is no better way of getting out than that.

In the field he himself stood deep, and the only catch that came to him he held; while in the intervals between wickets he lay on the sweet grass while the sun warmed him through and through. If ever it was good to be alive....

And suddenly the sun no longer warmed him, and he noticed that it had sunk behind a tree in whose hundred-yard-long shadow he was standing. For a second he shivered, not only at the loss of tangible heat, but at the realization that the summer was nearly gone (for it was still early in the afternoon), and this was the last cricket match, and he had missed all the others, and he was growing old, and winter was coming on, and next year he might have no chance; but most of all he regretted the loss of the incredible goodness of this day, and for the first time in his life the thought phrased itself in his mind: "No sooner do we grasp the present than it becomes the past." The haste of it all oppressed him. Nothing stands still.

"A ripping day, wasn't it?" said his host as they walked back.

"Perfect," he replied, with a sigh. "But how soon over!"

They stopped for a moment at the top of the hill to look at the sunset, and he sighed again as his thoughts flew to that print of the "Melancholia" which had hung on the stairs in his early home.

"Notice the sunset," some visitor had once said to him. "Some day you will know why Dürer put that in."

And now he knew.

That evening he heard the Winchester boys making plans for the winter sports at Pontresina in the Christmas vac.

The Scholar and the Pirate

In an old bookshop which I visit, never without making a discovery or two--not infrequently, as in the present case, assisted in my good fortune by the bookseller himself--I lately came upon an edition of Long's _Marcus Aurelius_ with an admirable prefatory note that is, I believe, peculiar to this issue--that of 1869. And since the eyes of the present generation have never been turned towards America so often and so seriously as latterly, when our Trans-Atlantic cousins have become our allies, blood once more of our blood, the passage may be reprinted with peculiar propriety. Apart, however, from its American interest, the document is valuable for its dignity and independence, and it had the effect of sending me to that rock of refuge, _The Dictionary of National Biography_, to inquire further as to its author. There I found that George Long, whose translation of the Imperial Stoic is a classic, was born in 1800; educated at Macclesfield Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge; in 1821 was bracketed Craven scholar with Macaulay and Professor Malden, but gained a fellowship over both of them; and in 1824 went to Charlotteville, Virginia, as professor of ancient languages. Returning in 1828 to profess Greek at University College, London, he was thenceforward, throughout his long life, concerned with the teaching and popularizing of the classics, finding time, however, also to be called to the Bar, to lecture on jurisprudence and civil law, and to help to found the Royal Geographical Society. His _Marcus Aurelius_ is his best-known work, but his edition of Cicero's Orations, his discourse on Roman Law, and his Epictetus also stand alone. After many years' teaching at Brighton College, Long retired to Chichester, where he died in 1879.

Late in life he brought out anonymously a book of essays, entitled _An Old Man's Thoughts about Many Things_, in which I have been dipping. I do not say it would bear reprinting now, but anyone seeing it on a friend's shelf should borrow it, or in a bookshop should buy it, because such kindly good sense, such simple directness and candour and love of the humanities are rare. It has its mischief, too. The old scholar's opinion on statue-making in general and on London's statues in particular are expressed with a dry frankness that is refreshing. I make no effort to resist quoting a little:

"It is in the nature of things that statues should be made.
They were made more than two thousand years ago, and I
believe the business has never stopped, for when people
could not get good statues, they were content with bad, as
we are now.

"If I might give advice to the men now living, who look
forward to the honour, if it is an honour, of being set up
in bronze in the highways, or in marble in Westminster Abbey
or St. Paul's; if I might advise, I would say, leave a
legacy in your will for your own statue. It will save much
trouble and people will think better of you when you are
gone, if you cost them nothing. As to their laughing at you
for looking after your own statue, be not afraid of that.

"It is very disagreeable nowadays to see a man standing for
ever on his legs in public, doing nothing but stand, and
seeming as if he were never going to do anything else.

"If a man shall try to persuade me that a statue should be
nothing more than the effigy of a man standing on a
pedestal, I shall never be convinced. I would rather see a
living man standing on an inverted cask, as I have seen a
slave when he was sold, not that the sale is a very pleasant
thing to see, but the man produced a much better effect than
many of our statues, for he expressed something and they
express nothing.

"As we cannot or at least ought not to make our statues
naked or blanket-dressed, and as body and legs are merely
given to a statue in order to support the head, for the legs
and body might be any legs and any body, would it not be
wise to be satisfied with the head only? This would be a
great saving, and though the sculptor would get less for a
head than for a head with body and legs to it, he would have
more heads to make. This is a hint, which I throw out by the
way, for the consideration of committees who sit on
statues, by which I mean men who sit together to talk about
a thing of which most of them know nothing.

"When the negroes of Africa have been brought to the same
state of civilization as the white man, they will make
statues and set them up in public; and as we who are white
make black statues, they who are black will of course make
white statues.

"Can anybody say what sin Dr. Jenner committed for which he
does perpetual penance, not in white, but in black, his face
black and his hands too, seated in the most public part of
London, fixed to his chair, with no hope of rising from it?

"This seated figure might be anybody. I see nothing by which
I recognize Dr. Jenner; to say nothing of a cow, there is
not even a calf by his side, with the benevolent physician's
hand on the animal.

"I cannot approve of a seated black statue in the open
air--a black man sitting, and no more.

"I sincerely pity our seated gentlemen in London, poor
Cartwright, who looks like an old cobbler on his stool, and
Fox, worse treated still, blanket-dressed, fat and black. No
wonder some shortsighted man from the new Confederate States
once took Fox for a negro woman, the emblem of British
philanthropy and a memorial of the abolition of the slave
trade.

"The only beasts on which we can now place our heroes are
horses. I may be wrong in my opinion, but I see no beauty in
a horse standing still and a man's legs dangling down from
the beast's back; nor do I think that the matter is mended
by the horse and rider being of colossal size, though they
ought to be larger than life. Perhaps we shall not have any
more of these statues; but is it impossible to remove those
that we have?

"As we are a fighting people, we have been great makers of
statues of fighting men. We put them even in churches. This
reminds that when the time shall come for finishing and
adorning the inside of St. Paul's, there will be an enormous
quantity of old stone to dispose of, which is now in the
shape of generals, captains, admirals, lions and other
animals.

"It is singular, or it is not singular, I can't say which,
that we who box, wrestle, run and in many ways work our
bodies, more than any other nation, have not employed our
sculptors to immortalize our athletic heroes. Some of them
would make good subjects for the artist. He might strip the
boxer or runner naked, if he liked, and exhibit his art in
the representation of strength and beauty of form. I have
some misgivings about the faces of boxers, which are not
remarkable for beauty, but the artist may improve them a
little without destroying the likeness; and besides, in a
naked figure we look less at the face than at the body and
limbs. The champion of England would certainly have had a
statue by Lysippus or some artist as good, if he had been
lucky enough to live in ancient times.... We shall, of
course, want a place to put these statues in, for we may be
sure they will not get into the churches, which are only
made for statues of fighting men who have killed somebody or
ordered somebody to kill somebody.

"I could go on much longer, but I don't choose. I write to
amuse myself, and also to instruct, and when I am tired, I
stop. I see no reason why I should exhaust the subject. I
should only be giving my ideas to people who have none, who
make a reputation out of other folks' brains, who pounce on
anything that they find ready to their hand, and flood us
with books made only to sell."

It is already, I imagine, abundantly clear that Long would not have much liked many things that we do to-day. Writing of "Place and Power," he says: "At that very distant time when all members of Parliament shall be Andrew Marvells and will live on two hundred a year, poor men may do our business for us; but for the present I prefer men who are rich enough to live without the profits of place. I wish somebody would move for a return of all the visible and invisible means of support which every member of the Commons has. I want to know how much every man in the House receives of public money, whether he is soldier, sailor, place-holder, sinecurist, or anything else; and also how much he has by the year of his own." Elsewhere he says: "There is no occasion to print any more sermons.... I have always wondered why so much is written on the doctrines and principles of Christianity and on good living, when we have it done long ago in a few books which we all refer to as our authority." And this is good: "I wish Euclid could have secured a perpetual copyright. It might have helped the finances of the Greeks."

But I am not proposing to dissect Long's essays; it is the fine rebuke to an American publisher that I want to bring to your notice, for there Long's habitual serenity takes an edge. His protest runs thus:

"I have been informed that an American publisher has printed
the first edition of this translation of M. Antoninus. I do
not grudge him his profit, if he has made any. There may be
many men and women in the United States who will be glad to
read the thoughts of the Roman Emperor. If the American
politicians, as they are called, would read them also, I
should be much pleased, but I do not think the emperor's
morality would suit their taste.

"I have also been informed that the American publisher has
dedicated this translation to an American. I have no
objection to the book being dedicated to an American, but in
doing this without my consent the publisher has transgressed
the bounds of decency. I have never dedicated a book to any
man, and if I dedicated this, I should choose the man whose
name seemed to me most worthy to be joined to that of the
Roman soldier and philosopher. I might dedicate the book to
the successful general who is now the President of the
United States, with the hope that his integrity and justice
will restore peace and happiness, so far as he can, to those
unhappy States which have suffered so much from war and the
unrelenting hostility of wicked men.

"But, as the Roman poet said,

Victrix causa Deis placuit, sed victa Catoni;

and if I dedicated this little book to any man, I would
dedicate it to him who led the Confederate armies against
the powerful invader, and retired from an unequal contest
defeated, but not dishonoured; to the noble Virginian
soldier, whose talents and virtues place him by the side of
the best and wisest man who sat on the throne of the
Imperial Cæsars.--GEORGE LONG."

That is excellent prose, is it not? The general to whom Long would dedicate the edition was Robert Edward Lee, who had then become head of the Washington College and survived only until 1870. The President at the time that Long wrote was General Grant, to whom Lee surrendered.

One or two anecdotes of Long which have recently come my way would alone convince me, apart from the evidence of his record and his writings, that here was a very sterling and very independent "character" of whom much more should be known. Some day I hope to know more. Meanwhile I relate one of the stories. An appeal for cast-off clothing for the poor clergy being made, some one took the line that such an appeal was _infra dig_. Long smoked, pondered, and thus delivered himself: "But is it not paramount that these gentlemen should have trousers?"

A Set of Three

The other day I saw three sights, and, although they have no connexion with each other, each was in its way sufficiently evocative of thought to make that day a little more interesting than most.

It was the first day of the tardy spring of 1917, or rather the first day into which had crept those hints that the power of the long, cruel war-winter must some day be broken. The sun was almost visible, and a tenderness now and then touched the air, and no one who is at all responsive to weather conditions could fail to be a little elated and believe once more not only in a future of sorts but also in a lurking benignancy somewhere. Stimulated myself in this way, even although I was approaching a rehearsal of a _revue_, I came suddenly in the King's Road upon that disused burial-ground opposite the Six Bells, and was aware that, sitting there on seats facing the road, in white aprons and caps, with shawls over their shoulders, were five of the saddest old ladies I have ever seen--occupants, I presume, of a neighbouring workhouse. There they sat, saying nothing, and watching without enthusiasm the passers-by and the 'buses and the taxis and all the hurry and scurry of an existence from which they are utterly withdrawn and which they will soon leave for ever. Being on my frivolous errand, I was pulled up very short by the spectacle of five such stallholders as these whom the bigger _revue_ which we call life had left so cold; and not only cold, but so tired and so white, as life loves to do. There was a poignancy in their very placidity, in the folded hands and the incommunicableness of them, that was very searching. There was criticism too. Hardly more sentient than the mummies which were displayed to the guests at Egyptian feasts, they were equally admonitory....

I was glad again to be in the theatre listening to the familiar tones of the producer wondering why in thunder no one but himself had the faintest respect for punctuality.

Later in the day I saw a blinded officer, with both eyes bandaged, being led along Sloane Street. Blinded men are, alas! not rare, and it was not the officer himself that attracted my notice, but two fine, upstanding young soldiers who as they passed him saluted with as much punctilio as though he could see them. Of this salute he was, of course, wholly unconscious, but the precision with which it was given, and, indeed, the fact that it was given at all, could not but make an impression on the observer. It seemed to comprise so thoroughly both the spirit and the letter of discipline.

And late that night I watched in the Tube, after the theatres, a man and a small eager-faced boy talking about something they had been to see. Although sitting exactly opposite them, I have no idea what they said, but they amused each other immensely as they recalled this joke and that. Nothing extraordinary in this, you will say. But there was. The reason why I was so profoundly interested to be a witness of the scene was that they were deaf and dumb, and the whole conversation was carried on by signs; not by the alphabet that one learnt at school in order to communicate during class, but a rapid synthetic improvement upon it, where two or three lightning-quick movements--gesture grammalogues--sufficed to convey whole sentences of meaning. It is perhaps curious, but I had never before been brought into such close contact with the deaf and dumb; I have never even been--as, since I profess to explore and study London, I should have been--to that church in Oxford Street, opposite the great secret emporium, where the deaf and dumb worship and by signs are exhorted to be good. Beyond watching that boys' school which one sees gesticulating on the Brighton front, I had never until this night seen these afflicted creatures in intimate and sparkling talk. I found the sight not only interesting, but as cheering as those poor old things in the King's Road oasis had been saddening. Because the unfortunates were making such a splendid fight for it. No boy with every faculty about him could have been gayer or merrier than this mute with the dancing eyes; nor can I conceive of a spoken conversation that contained a completer interchange of ideas in the same space of time.

At Oxford Circus they got out, and left me pondering on deafness and dumbness. To be dumb, of course, is, comparatively speaking, nothing; for most of the perplexities of life come from talk. But to be deaf--to live ever in silence, to see laughing lips moving, to see hands wandering over the keys, to see birds exulting, and be denied the resultant harmonies: that must be terrible. Yet terrible only to those who have known what the solace and gaiety of words and the beauty of sound can be. To have been born deaf is different, and I have no doubt whatever that the deaf and dumb have delectable lands of their own into which we can never stray, where wonderful flowers of silence grow. It is even possible, since all the visible world is theirs, that they never envy us at all.

A Lesson

God--it is notorious--works in a mysterious way to get morality and decency into us; which is another way of saying that not all light is communicated by the Episcopal bench, by clerks in holy orders, by divines who do not conform, or by editors at Whitefield's Tabernacle.

The other day, for example, I had lunch with a very charming actress in a pleasant restaurant.

"Rather a funny thing happened the last time I was here," she remarked.

"Yes?" I replied languidly.

"About you."

"Oh!" I said with animation. "Do tell me."

"It was also at lunch," she explained. "The people at the next table were talking about you. I couldn't help hearing a little. A man there said he had met you in Shanghai."

"Not really!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. He met you in Shanghai."

"That's frightfully interesting," I said. "What did he say about me?"

"That's what I couldn't hear," she replied. "You see, I had to pay some attention to my own crowd. I only caught the word 'delightful.'"

Ever since she told me this I have been turning it over in my mind; and it is particularly vexing not to know more. "Delightful" can be such jargon and mean nothing--or, at any rate, nothing more than amiability. Still, that is something, for one is not always amiable, even when meeting strangers. On the other hand, it might be, from this man, the highest praise.

The whole thing naturally leads to thought, because I have never been farther east than Athens in my life.

What did the man mean? Can we possibly visit other cities in our sleep? Has each of us an _alter ego_, who can really behave, elsewhere?

Whether we have or not, I know that this information about my Shanghai double is going to be a great nuisance to me. It is going to change my character. In fact, it has already begun to change it. Let me give you an example.

Only yesterday I was about to be very angry with a telegraph boy who brought back a telegram I had dispatched about two hours earlier, saying that it could not be delivered because it was insufficiently addressed. Obviously it was not the boy's fault, for he belonged to our country post office, and the telegram had been sent to London and was returned from there; and yet I started to abuse that boy as though he were not only the Postmaster-General himself but the inventor of red-tape into the bargain. And all for a piece of carelessness of my own.

And then suddenly I remembered Shanghai and how delightful I was there. And I shut up instantly, and apologized, and rewrote the message, and gave the boy a shilling for himself. If one could be delightful in Shanghai one must be delightful at home too.

And so it is going to be. There is very little fun for me in the future, and all because of that nice-mannered double in Shanghai whom I must not disgrace. For it would be horrible if one day a lady told him that she had overheard some one who had met him in London and found him to be a bear.

=ON BELLONA'S HEM=

(SECOND SERIES)

ON BELLONA'S HEM

A Revel in Gambogia

There are certain ebullitions of frivolity about which, during the war, one has felt far from comfortable. To read reports of them, side by side with the various "grave warnings" which every one has been uttering, is to be almost too vividly reminded of England's capacity for divided action. But there are also others; and chief among these I should set the fancy-dress carnival of munition-workers at which I was privileged to be present one Saturday night. Here was necessary frivolity, if you like, for these myriad girls worked like slaves all the week, day and night, and many of them on Sundays too--and "National filling," as their particular task is called, is no joke either--and it was splendid to see them flinging themselves into the fun of this rare careless evening.

Fancy dress being the rule, it was only right and proper that there should be prizes for the best costumes; and since the lady who shed her beneficence over this prismatic throng does nothing by halves, she had called in the assistance of two artists to adjudicate. I will not make public their names; that would be to overstep the boundaries of decorum and turn this book into sheer journalism. But I will say that one of them is equally renowned in Chelsea for his distinguished brushwork and his wit; and that the other's extravaganzas cheer a million breakfast-tables daily. How I, who am not an artist, and so little of a costumier that I did not even wear evening dress, got into this _galère_ is the mystery. I can explain it only by a habit of good fortune, for I chanced to be in the studio of the Chelsea artist at the moment when the beneficent lady arrived to put her request to him, and, noticing my pathetic look, she in her great kindness included me in the invitation.

Deciding on the best costume when there are many hundreds of them, and they pass before the dazzled eye in a swift procession of couples, is not easy; and only very remarkable men could perform the task. Women might find it easier, because they would not be influenced, as one of our judges obviously was, by the external claims of personal beauty. A woman would look at the costume and nothing else, make her notes with scientific precision, and prepare for the next. But when the competitors are all--or almost all--girls, and most of them pretty and all jolly, why, how can you expect impartiality, especially in artists, and at any rate without a struggle? But in spite of the difficulties set up by the impact of so much charm upon the emotional susceptibilities of at any rate one judge, the process of selecting a first, second, and third was accomplished with, I should say--speaking as a calm, detached spectator, with all my feelings well under control--absolute equity.

The first prize went to a slender lady of whose features I can say nothing because I never saw them, her Eastern costume including a veil that covered her face. But it seemed to these not too discerning eyes that she was otherwise of an attractive shapeliness. As to her, the judges were unanimous; but when it came to the second they were divided. The Chelsea judge, again swayed by passion, and possibly recalling old triumphs in his Latin Quarter days, preferred a French costume; the other was firm for an Indian. What would have happened I dare not think, for each was a powerful and determined man, ready to stick at nothing, had I not, in my cool-headedness, been inspired to suggest tossing up for it, and the result was that, the coin showing heads, the Indian won, and the French costume naturally took the third prize. There were then two prizes to be awarded for the most original costumes, the previous ones having been for the prettiest costumes, and here the winner was a jovial lady who with her own hands had transformed herself into an advertisement for a certain soup powder.

The iron laws of etiquette (or is it finance?) which so cramp the style of any writer who refers to advertisements forbid me to state what particular soup powder this was; but according to the hoardings, the way in which a pennyworth will nourish and rejoice the human frame is, as the Americans say, something fierce. If the applause of the company was a guide, this prizewinner is a very popular figure among our "National fillers." The second prize went to a very ingenious costume called "Tommy's Parcel," consisting of most things that a soldier likes to receive, and so thorough in design as to comprise, tied to the lady's shoes, two packets of a harmful necessary powder without a copious sprinkling of which no trench is really like home. If the approving glances at "Tommy's Parcel" from a young officer who was at my side are any indication, there are few of our warriors who would not welcome it with open arms.

And then--the prizes being all awarded--all these nice girls, on whose activities England has been so largely depending for safety, set again to partners.

But why, you ask, Gambogia? I thought you would want to know that. It is because in the making of munitions at the factory from which these girls all come there are certain chemicals which have the effect of turning the skin yellow. And among these merry revellers were some thus--but, I hope and believe, only temporarily--disfigured. The cheerfulness with which they are prepared to run these risks, not to mention others more perilous but less menacing to personal vanity, is not the least of the finenesses of character which the war has brought out; and the thought of that and of their hard work and their gay courage made the spectacle of the happy high spirits of this evening of playtime even more a satisfaction.

The Misfire

When I entered the third smoker there was, as there now always is, a soldier in one corner.

Just as we were starting, another soldier got in and sat in the opposite corner; and within two minutes they knew all about each other's camp, destination and regiment, and had exchanged cigarettes.

The first soldier had not yet left England and was stolid; the new-comer had been in the trenches, had been wounded in the leg, had recovered, was shortly going back, and was animated. His leg was all right, except that in wet weather it ached. In fact he could even tell by it when we were going to have rain. His "blooming barometer" he called it. Here he laughed--a hearty laugh, for he was a genial blade and liked to hear himself talk.

The first soldier did not laugh, but was interested. He thought it a convenient thing to have a leg that foretold the weather.

"Which one is it?" he asked.

"The left."

The first soldier was disproportionately impressed.

"The left, is it?" he said heavily, as though he would have understood the phenomenon in the right easily enough. "The left."

Completely unconscious of the danger-signals, the second soldier now began to review his repertory of stories, and he started off with that excellent one, very popular in the early days of the war, about the wealthy private.

For the sake of verisimilitude he laid the scene in his own barracks. "A funny thing happened at our place the other day," he began. He had evidently had great success with this story. His expression indicated approaching triumph.

But no anticipatory gleam lit the face of his new friend. It was in fact one of those faces into which words sink as into sand--a white, puffy, long face, with a moustache of obsolete bushiness.

"I thought I should have died of laughing," the narrator resumed, utterly unsuspicious, wholly undeterred.

In the far corner I kept my eye on my book but my ears open. I could see that he was rushing to his doom.

"We were being paid," he went on, "and the quartermaster asked one of the men if he did not wish sixpence to be deducted to go to his wife. The man said, 'No.' 'Why not?' the quartermaster asked. The man said he didn't think his wife would need it or miss it. 'You'd better be generous about it,' the quartermaster said; 'every little helps, you know.'"

He paused. "What do you think the man said to that?" he asked his new friend. "He said," he hurried on, "'I don't think I'll send it. You see, I allow her four thousand a year as it is.'"

The raconteur laughed loudly and leaned back with the satisfaction--or at least some of it--of one who has told a funny story and told it well.

But the other did not laugh at all. His face remained the dull thing it was.

"You see," said the story-teller, explaining the point, "there are all sorts in the Army now, and this man was a toff. He was so rich that he could afford to allow his wife four thousand pounds a year. Four thousand pounds! Do you see?"

"Oh yes, I see that. He must have been very rich. Why was he just a private?"

"I don't know."

"Funny being a private with all that money. I wonder you didn't ask him."

"I didn't, anyway. But you see the point now. No end of a joke for the quartermaster to try and get a man who allowed his wife four thousand a year to deduct sixpence a week to send to her! I thought I should have died of laughing."

The first soldier remained impassive. "And what happened?" he asked at last.

"What happened?"

"Yes, what was done about it? The sixpence, I mean. Did he agree to send it?"

The second soldier pulled himself together. "Oh, I don't know," he said shortly. "That's not the point."

"After all," the other continued, "the regulations say that married men have to deduct sixpence for their wives, don't they?"

"Yes, of course," the other replied. "But this man, I tell you, already gave her four thousand a year."

"That doesn't really touch it," said the first soldier. "The principle's the same. Now----"

But I could stand the humiliation of the other honest fellow, so brimming with anecdote and cheerfulness, no longer; and I came to his rescue with my cigarette case. For I have had misfires myself.

A Letter

(_From Captain Claude Seaforth to a novelist friend_)

MY DEAR MAN,--You asked me to tell you if anything very remarkable came my way. I think I have a story for you at last. If I could only write I would make something of it myself, but not being of Kitchener's Army I can't.

The other day, while I was clearing up papers and accounts, and all over ink, as I always get, the Sergeant came to me, looking very rum. "Two young fellows want to see you," he said.

Of course I said I was too busy and that he must deal with them.

"I think you'd rather see them yourself," he said, with another odd look.

"What do they want?" I asked.

"They want to enlist," he said; "but they don't want to see the doctor."

We've had some of these before--consumptives of the bull-dog breed, you know. Full of pluck but no mortal use; knocked out by the first route march.

"Why don't you tell them that they must see the doctor and have done with it?" I asked the Sergeant.

Again he smiled queerly. "I made sure you'd rather do it yourself," he said. "Shall I send them in?"

So I wished them farther and said "Yes"; and in they came.

They were the prettiest boys you ever saw in your life--too pretty. One had red hair and the other black, and they were dressed like navvies. They held their caps in their hands.

"What's this rubbish about not seeing a doctor?" I asked. You know my brutal way.

"We thought perhaps it could be dispensed with," Red Hair said, drawing nearer to Black Hair.

"Of course it can't," I told them. "What use to the Army are weaklings who can't stand the strain? They're just clogs in the machinery. Don't you see that?"

"We're very strong," Red Hair said, "only----"

"Only what?"

"Only----" Here they looked at each other, and Red Hair said, "Shall we?" and Black Hair said, "Yes"; and they both came closer to me.

"Will you promise," said Red Hair, "that you will treat as confidential anything we say to you?"

"So long as it is nothing dangerous to the State," I said, rather proud of myself for thinking of it.

"We want to fight for our country," Red Hair began.

"No one wants to fight more," Black Hair put in.

"And we're very strong," Red Hair continued.

"I won a cup for lawn-tennis at Devonshire Park," Black Hair added.

"But----" said Red Hair.

"Yes," I replied.

"Don't you believe in some women being as strong as men?"

"Certainly," I said.

"Well, then," said Red Hair, "that's like us. We are as strong as lots of men and much keener, and we want you to be kind to us and let us enlist."

"We'll never do anything to give ourselves away," said Black Hair; but, bless her innocent heart, she was giving herself away all the time. Every moment was feminine.

The rum thing is that, although I had been conscious of something odd, I never thought they were girls. Directly I knew it, I knew that I had been the most unobservant ass alive; for they couldn't possibly be anything else.

"My dear young ladies," I said at last, "I think you are splendid and an example to the world; but what you ask is impossible. Have you thought for a moment what it would be like to find yourselves in barracks with the ordinary British soldier? He is a brave man and, when you meet him alone, he is nearly always a nice man; but collectively he might not do as company for you."

"But look at this," said Red Hair, showing me a newspaper-cutting about a group of Russian girls known as "The Twelve Friends," who have been through the campaign and were treated with the utmost respect by the soldiers.

"And there's a woman buried at Brighton," said Black Hair, "who fought as a man for years and lived to be a hundred."

"And think of Joan of Arc," said Red Hair.

"And Boadicea," said Black Hair.

"Well," I said, "leaving Joan of Arc and Boadicea aside, possibly those Russians and that Brighton woman looked like men, which it is certain you don't!"

"Oh!" said Black Hair, who was really rather peculiarly nice. "Then why didn't you spot us before?"

One for me.

"I have no doubt I should have done so in a moment more," I said. "The fact is"--what cowards we are!--"I was preoccupied when you came in."

Black Hair looked adorably as if she didn't believe it.

"But anyway," I went on, "we must be serious. What would your people say?"

"We left word," said Red Hair, "that we were going off to do something for our country. They won't worry. Oh, please be kind and help us!"

Here all four of their beautiful eyes grew moist.

I could have hugged both of them, especially perhaps Black Hair, but I kept an iron hand on myself.

"You nice absurd creatures," I said, "do be reasonable. To begin with, passing the doctor is an absolute necessity. That shuts you out. But even if you got through, how do you think you would be helping your country? All the men would be falling in love with you; and that's bad enough as it is after working hours; it would be the ruin of discipline. And you could not bear the fatigue. No, go back and learn to be nurses and let your lovely hair grow again."

They were very obstinate and very unwilling to entertain the thought of drudgery such as nursing after all their dreams of excitement; but at last they came to reason, and I sent for a cab and packed them off in it (I simply could not bear the idea of other people seeing them in that masquerade), and told them that the sooner they changed the better.

After they had gone the Sergeant came in about something.

I said nothing, and he said nothing, each of us waiting for the other.

He moved about absolutely silently, and I dared not meet his glance because I knew I should give myself away. The rascal has not been running his eye over young women all these years without being able to tell them in a moment, even in navvy's clothes.

At last I could stand it no longer. "Damn it," I said, "what are you doing? Why don't you go? I didn't send for you." But still I didn't dare look up.

"I thought perhaps you had something to say to me, sir," he said.

"No, I haven't," I replied. "Why should I? What about?"

"Only about those two young men, sir," he replied.

"Get out," I said; but before he could go I had burst into laughter.

"Better not mention it," I managed to say.

He promised.

There--won't you find that useful?

Yours, C. S.

A Manor in the Air

The stately homes of England have ever numbered some very odd names. Every one remembers that beautiful Southern retreat whither, to the delight of the wags, Mr. Balfour often journeyed for his week-end holiday--"Clouds," the seat of the Wyndhams. Could there be a much more fascinating name than "Clouds"? And then there is "Wrest," the late Lord Lucas's Bedfordshire home, afterwards transformed, how suitably, into a hospital for soldiers. And there is that Midland paradise which, in the days of placid, even life, the editors of illustrated weeklies always recollected with gratitude when they were short of other pictures--"Compton Wynyates."

But the new name which I have just discovered, and which fills the inward eye with joy, is a house on a smaller scale than these--a manor-house rather than a mansion, perhaps one of the smallest that can be described as a "gentleman's place," but assuredly that. Somewhere in Sussex, western Sussex.

It is not near the station, and to reach it you walk or drive along winding roads just now sodden with rain, but smelling of the good wet Sussex leaves and mast and soil, with the Downs rising not too many miles away in the South. Then a turn into a narrow lane, with the bare trees of a copse on either side and a scurrying pheasant in front of you, and behold the white gate! There is no lodge--the house is just too small for that, as you can now see for yourself, for there it is, under the protection of the wood that rises behind it, so quiet and self-contained that you almost gasp.

Very old it is, but good for many years more. The frame is of timber and plaster, and a Horsham stone roof. These stones are a little damp and moss-covered (for our ancestors insisted on building in a hole, or where would Friday's fish come from?), and the place is as Tudor as Queen Bess herself, in whose reign its foundations were dug. The chimney stacks, all smoking with the thin blue smoke of logs, are of tiny Tudor bricks, and the chimneys are set not square with the house but cornerways. A long low façade with the central door in a square porch; the whole grave but serene.

A path of more Horsham stone leads to the door, with thyme and lavender springing from the interstices undismayed by the feet of man, and smooth lawns on each side, and under the diamond-paned windows a bed where in summer would be night stock and lemon verbena and tobacco plant and mignonette. On the roof a few white fantails; a spaniel near the door; and a great business of rooks in the sky. Through the windows of the lower rooms you see the greenery at the back of the house and a suggestion here and there of books and pictures--everything that makes a house a home.

Beside the house on the right are the stables; and on the other side is a dark shrubbery, and beyond that are more lawns and gardens and the fish-pond.

Do you see it? Perhaps you have already seen it differently; for how could you help forming some mental picture of it when in every carriage on the L.B. & S.C.R. is posted up the notice, "Passengers to Lower Blinds"?

To me "Lower Blinds," whither all these fortunate passengers are journeying, is just such a manor-house as that.

Rivalry