Chapter II: Part 2

_I receive every day circulars from gentlemen who assure me that they know for certain the winners of forthcoming races and asking me to let them send me this information for a consideration. Do you think I should be wise in doing so? Naturally I want to make my fortune.--H. M. (Epping)._

We reply to your question by asking another. How is it that these gentlemen, with all their advantages of foreknowledge, are still so anxiously in business?

Our Feathered Friends.

_Can you tell me how I can obtain information as to the means of identifying the songs of birds? I hear a great many near our house in the country, but I cannot put names to them. I am told that when Colonel Roosevelt was last in England Sir Edward Grey took him for a long walk in the New Forest to instruct him in English ornithology. Do you think he would take me? I am a strong Free Trader and have traces of American blood.--B. B. L. (Dorking)._

Sir Edward Grey, we fancy, has other things to do. You had better write to "W. B. T." of _The Daily Mail_, or in his regrettable absence to "P. W. D. I."

A Guide to Manners.

_I have a son for whom I desire a political future. What I should like to get for him is a Member of Parliament who would converse with him on statecraft, the British constitution and so forth, but it would have to be one who was jealous for the honour and dignity of the House, and I need hardly say that I should not care for a Liberal. Can you give me any hints?--J. K. (Henley)._

We strongly recommend Mr. Ronald McNeill, Mr. Amery, Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke, or Lord Winterton.

Aiding his Suit.

_Although an utterly unathletic man I am paying court to a lady who dotes upon male proficiency in games. How would you advise me to forward my cause?--M. L. G. (Harrow)._

We should advise you to put yourself into knickerbockers and a golfing attitude and be photographed. Judging by their present contents, there is not a paper in the country that would not be glad to print the picture, and then you could show it to the lady and win.

* * * * *

A WELCOME FLAW.

"You look worried," said Diana, "very worried, dear."

I smiled sadly. "It can't be helped," I said.

"Did you like my cake?"

"Very much; it wasn't that. I am a little worried, Diana."

"What a pity. Will you have some more, dear?"

"No, thank you."

Diana leant forward and cut a very large slice.

"No, really, thank you," I insisted.

"Right; this is for me."

"Diana," I said, "I've something on my chest." She looked surprised. "Yes, there's something on my chest. I speak in a spiritual sense."

"Well, hadn't you better tell me what it is, dear?"

"I will," I said stoutly. "Diana, this--this engagement can't go on." There was no fire in the room, so I gazed blankly into the radiator.

"What on earth do you mean, Dick?"

"It can't go on," I repeated.

"Why? Dick, you're joking."

"Joking!" I laughed a hollow mocking laugh. "Don't make it hard for me, Diana."

She crossed over and sat on the arm of my chair.

"Are you feeling ill, dear?" she inquired ever so sweetly.

For a moment I nearly gave way; then, with a tremendous effort, I braced back my shoulders.... Diana fell heavily to the floor.

"Darling," I said as I picked her up, "I'm so sorry; I didn't see you were sitting so near the edge. I'm----"

"All right," she replied. "And now what is it? You haven't changed towards me?"

"Diana--I--oh, it's difficult."

"Yes, dear. Go on."

I gazed into the carpet. "I must begin at the beginning. I--it's difficult."

"Yes, dear; we've agreed about that."

"In the first place," I began, "I am a man of the utmost integrity."

"That doesn't matter, and, anyway, you're quite a dear."

I bowed gravely. "I try to look at things from a high standpoint," I continued. "Now, Diana, I consider you are perfect. I love you intensely because you are so perfect."

"Don't be silly, dear."

"I mean it. On the other hand, I know myself very well indeed."

"You think so."

"I do. And I have come to the conclusion, after many racking hours, that I am not worthy of you. The proper course, the only course, is for me to release you." And I sighed heavily.

"Well," said Diana, "of course it's a very pretty idea, and I'm glad you're so fond of me, but the whole thing's absurd. I've accepted you and there's an end of it."

"Diana, you're making it very hard."

"I'm making it impossible."

"No," I declared, "because--I release you now."

Diana fingered her handkerchief. "D--Dick, I refuse to be released. It's too silly for w--words. Come over here."

With a great effort I didn't get up; instead I gazed at the ceiling.

"Diana," I said, "I'm disappointed in you. I'm trying to do the right thing, the noble thing, and you mustn't stand in my way. You've no right to stand in my----"

"Anyhow, I'm going to."

"You know," I said, "this puts me in a very awkward position--very awkward. Diana, you must see my point of view."

"I can't."

"You mean you won't. I had expected more of you."

Diana smiled. "I thought you considered me perfect."

"I did."

"Well, you see, dear, I'm not."

I sighed. "I'm afraid not," I said. "I fear not."

Suddenly I sat up. "Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "Hooray!"

"What is it?"

"Don't you see? This puts matters on an entirely different footing. Darling, you don't want me to do the right thing, therefore you're not perfect."

"No; that's settled."

"Well then, you don't deserve a perfect husband."

"I don't want one."

"That's not the point. You don't deserve one."

"No," said Diana.

"Then that's all right," I said; "because you won't get one." And I cut myself a large slice of cake.

* * * * *

[_Chairman (at Friendly Lead, proposing toast of the performers)._ "All the hartists have give their services free, and I think you'll agree with me, gentlemen, that the labourers are worthy of their hire."]

* * * * *

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

["It is impossible for me to dine out either in private or in
public without having those confounded telephones mentioned to
me."

_Mr. Hobhouse._]

She was so young but fair to see;
Her eye conveyed the glad regard;
She murmured to the P.M.G.
That life was very, very hard
(It never crossed his mind that she
Was double seven five Gerrard).

She spoke of love, as ladies will;
He thought it no affair of his;
"I cannot say," he said, "until
You tell me what your trouble is;"
So while he ate and drank his fill
She told him all about it, viz.:--

"Augustus, handsome, tall and lean,
Excels in every kind of sport;
Such perfect men have rarely been,
And cash with him is never short;
His words are few and far between;
He is the strong and silent sort.

"His courage is sublime, and yet
His manly shyness is absurd;
Of all the girls he ever met
It was myself he most preferred;
He'd try and try, but couldn't get
His wretched tongue to say the word.

"Speech was to him a foreign art.
He hired a poet of repute,
Learnt yards of eloquence by heart,
Came, full of it, to press his suit;
At sight of me forgot his part ...
What could I say when he was mute?

"But there are ways and means for those
Who like to sit and blush alone,
And, undetected, to propose
In phrases other than their own ..."
(The P.M.G.'s suspicions rose;
This sounded like the telephone).

"And this, on second thoughts, was what
Augustus hit upon, and he
Affirmed a passion, strong and hot.
Where one might hear but none might see,
And was accepted on the spot,
But not, confound you, Sir, by me.

"Yours was the fault, you monster, who,
Unmoved, unblushing, dare to dine!"
Her victim turned a little blue
And cleared his throat and muttered, "Mine?"
"Yes, yours!" she cried. "You put him through
(For good) to double seven _nine_!"

* * * * *

THE ABANDONER.

"I am afraid," I said, "that I shall have to withdraw my permission."

"Withdraw your what?" said the lady of the house, emphasising every word scornfully.

"Yes," I said, "I shall have to forbid you to go."

She laughed.

"It's not a bit of good," I said, "laughing like that. Laughter only adds fuel to the fire that is raging in my breast. I am going to forbid you to go."

"Don't waste your forbiddings," she said, "I'm not banns, and I won't be treated as such. Besides, even banns are never forbidden in these days."

"Yes, they are," I said. "A bann was forbidden last week. A father of eighty years, infuriated by the imminent desertion of a daughter of fifty-five, got up in church at the third time of asking and said, 'I object. Who's going to look after me?' The clergyman nearly swooned."

"And the unfortunate objecter was carefully removed by his friends. I don't see that that's much of a help to you."

"Anyhow," I said, "I won't have it."

"It's too late to talk like that. In half-an-hour I start for Sandy Bay to stay with Violet. My luggage is already at the station."

"Yes," I said, "and you leave me here alone to look after everything."

"Well, what of that?" she said. "Don't you often leave _me_ alone here to look after everything?"

"Ah, but that's different. When I go away _rien n'est changé; il n'y a qu'un Anglais de moins_."

"My own Parisian one!" she murmured.

"The mistress-mind remains and things go on being controlled. Lord love you, _my_ absence makes no difference."

"What you mean is," she said, "that you simply can't get on without me. Isn't that it?"

"If you put it in that way," I said, "you can't expect me to admit it."

"Well, it comes to that, doesn't it?"

"What I mean to say is that it's your fault."

"Aha," she said triumphantly, "I knew you'd mean to say that sooner or later. Everything's my fault, of course."

"It is," I said, "an arguable proposition."

"And how do you prove it in this particular case?"

"Easily," I said. "You have neglected to train me for the daily work of a household and a family."

"You never asked to be trained," she said.

"No," I said, "I was too proud and too sensitive. I did not come to you and say, 'Let me beard the cook in her fastness. Let me order the sirloin of beef for the mid-day meal. Let me rebuke the housemaid, or raise her wages, or give her notice,' or whatever it is that one does in the case of a housemaid. I did not ask that I too might be allowed to talk bulbs or Alpine plants to the gardener. I did not plead that I might order dresses or medicine for the girls, or watch over John's putting to bed. All these things, because you were haughty about them, I left to you; and you--what did you do?"

"I generally went and did them."

"And that," I said, "is just what I complain of."

"You wouldn't have liked it," she said, "if I hadn't."

"You ought," I said, "to have taken me into your counsels, instead of leaving me to eat out my heart in total ignorance of all the things that make the world a happier and a better place. Votes for women, indeed! First let there be homes for men."

"Shall I ring for a glass of water?" she said.

"There must be no sarcasm," I said. "This is too serious for sarcasm. Besides, think what will happen."

"Well, what?"

"John," I said, "will fall into the fishpond."

"You can have his clothes dried."

"No," I said, "I shall spank him. It is my only remedy."

"Anything else?"

"Peggy will tumble off her bicycle and cut her knee."

"Anyhow, you can't spank her for that."

"And there will be a message from the kitchen to say that there are no mutton cutlets in England."

"You can eat beef or chicken."

"And Rosie will have to see the dentist, and Helen will want to go out to tea, and there will be holes in all their boots; and ladies whom I have never seen will call on you and will be shown in on me. Oh, it is a terrible prospect!"

"It does sound rather blood-curdling," she said.

"And, after all, why do you want to go to Violet's?"

"She asked me, you know. That's one reason. And I shall be able to look round for lodgings in August."

"Are we going to Sandy Bay in August?"

"Yes; didn't you know? And I shall have four days of perfect peace."

"You won't. You and Violet will disagree about hats, or the colour of a dress, or the education of children, or the true way of putting men in their proper place. It isn't everybody who agrees with you as I do."

"Yes, I know I shall miss you every minute of the time--that's what you wanted me to say, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that was it. You really do know how to lead me by a silken thread."

"And I shall probably get my breakfast in bed. You'll think of me, won't you, when you're breakfasting with the children? And don't let John have jam every day."

"I shall give him," I said, "a pot for himself."

"Good-bye," she said, pressing a paper into my hand. "I've written down some things that _must_ be attended to."

"I shan't attend to them," I shouted, as she walked off.

"Breakfast in bed," she called back.

R. C. L.

* * * * *

THE EARTHLY HADES.

["I could reel out such a list of notorious Yorkshire criminals
... as would put every other county utterly out of the
running."--_Extract from recent letter to "The Pall Mall
Gazette."_]

Bah! to your boasts of the blackguards of Lancashire;
Tush! to your talk of the rascals of Staffs;
Come, let me openly mention as rank a shire
(Yorks) as you'll find for the riffest of ruffs;
Choose all the pick of your Cheese-shire or Pork-shire men,
Men who have sunk in the deepest of mud;
Deuce of a one can come near to us Yorkshiremen
Born with Beelzebub's blue in our blood.

"Nuts" who have long left the strait way or narrow gate
Swarm on each side of the Swale or the Ouse;
Huddersfield vies in its villains with Harrogate;
Satan in Sheffield would shake in his shoes;
Hull?--though you might not be driven to drat it, you'd
Certainly substitute "e" for its "u,"
And, from a purely unprejudiced attitude,
We should pronounce it the worse of the two.

Yorks has a side, you see, surely more sinister
Far than the shires that would snatch at her fame;
So, when you curse at our present Prime Minister,
Calling him every conceivable name,
We shall accept 'em with sangfroid and phlegm, as he
Gives you this practical proof of his powers,
Setting his seal to our sinful supremacy,
Seeing he comes from this county of ours.

* * * * *

A FRUGAL MIND.

_McPhearson._ "Ay, Doctor, and varra expensive. I was wunnerin' if it was worth while at ma time o' life."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

I have reason to believe that Scotland Yard has on occasion displayed considerable intelligence, and I regret that novelists will never allow it to be as cunning even as myself in guessing the identity of the villains of their criminal plots. Mrs. Charles Bryce, for instance, might, without unduly taxing the imagination, have credited the Force with the coup of bringing to justice the murderer of _Mrs. Vanderstein_, but she went out of her way to employ that marvellous amateur, _Mr. Gimblet_, for the purpose. I must believe that he was marvellous, because she says so; but in this case he did nothing and had little opportunity of justifying his references. He merely believed what he had the luck to be told and caused the miscreant to be arrested when of his own motion he practically offered himself for arrest. There are, after all, two phases of crime--the first, its commission, and the second, its detection. Mrs. Bryce would have done better to confine herself to the former, since she has an exciting tale to tell of _Mrs. Vanderstein's Jewels_ (Lane) and shows herself well able to curdle the blood in the telling of it. But, lacking that gift of logic which is essential to the stating and the solving of detective problems, she endeavours to achieve her ends by keeping back what are admitted, and not discovered, facts. She is reduced to telling the same story twice, and I cannot say that I was nearly as excited the second time as I was the first.

Once upon a time King James, being annoyed with the City because it wouldn't lend him money, summoned the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to his presence and, "being somewhat transported," threatened to remove his Court to some other place. To this the Lord Mayor very politely but readily retorted, "Your Majesty hath power to do what you please and your City of London will obey accordingly: but she humbly desires that when your Majesty shall remove your Court you would please to leave the Thames behind you." I think this single instance from the history of the City goes far to explain that peculiar pride in it which the Londoner instinctively feels without exactly knowing why. I have not space to argue with Sir Laurence Gomme upon his main point, its continuity of policy and purpose from the Roman Empire till to-day, shown by the records of London's past. I leave it to the scholar and antiquary. It is my purpose to persuade the man in the street, to whom the names of Palgrave, Freeman and Stubbs are not household words, to buy a copy of _London_ (Williams and Norgate) for inclusion in his permanent library. If I should insist upon his reading it then and there he would reply, as one ignorant fellow to another, that he had not the necessary understanding of the remote past and was too preoccupied with the affairs of the present. Be it so, but none the less let him buy it and at any rate glance at its many curious and admirable illustrations. Later he will dip into it in search of further episodes after the manner of that I quote, and lastly he will do the thing thoroughly, to find that he is much more concerned with the past than ever he supposed; that now he understands that "greatness which is London," and that he is infinitely obliged for the recommendation of a not-too-learned clerk who shared his own diffidence, even reluctance, in approaching so learned and weighty a treatise.

I am sure that Miss Constance Holme has, in _The Lonely Plough_ (Mills and Boon), written a clever and amusing novel. What she has not done is to make herself intelligible. Some of the mist that enwraps the background of her frontispiece has obscured her story and her characters. I know that she is writing about lively and entertaining people because there emerges, now and then, a page of dialogue that is witty and alive; and I know that her story is dramatic because she tells us now that someone "let out a screech," and now that he "uttered sharp little sounds remarkably like oaths." I know, too, that the sea is encroaching upon somebody's dwelling-place, and that someone else tries to keep the waves in their place, but is no more successful than was the great King Knut of blessed memory. Then there is a fine figure of a land-agent and several ladies who talk the snappiest of slang. But the mist and the sea have swept across Miss Holme's pages and blotted out the rest of the affair. Not Meredith nor Robert Browning at their most complex have been more baffling. I must admit, however, that the description of a game of mixed hockey, somewhere in the middle of the book, was delightfully fresh and vivid. Here, for a page or two, I could rest from my grapplings with the story and join in all the excitement and peril, that mixed hockey provides. Then there is _Harriet_, who says, "Stow all that piffle." I should like to know more about _Harriet_, who from that brief glimpse of her seems a lively vigorous person, but the encroaching sea swallows her with the others, and there is an end. I repeat that Miss Holme has written a clever dramatic story, but the title is certainly the clearest thing about it.

When Mr. Calthrop's at his best
He weaves you tales of fauns and elves,
And ancient gods come back to test
Their humour on our modern selves;
He finds romance in common clay;
He lifts the veil from fairy rings,
And points the unfamiliar way
Of looking at familiar things.

And at his second best, or less,
His graceful manner still redeems
With easy charm and cheerfulness
More hackneyed, less seductive themes;
Each page has something witty, wise,
Well-turned, fantastic or jocose--
Each page of _Breadandbutterflies_,
From Mills and Boon, six shillings (gross).

Even though it has been seared by the tragic end of a youthful _liaison_ ("It was in France, you know," and that seems to explain all to _Minella Drake_, daughter of the Vicar of Goldringham) the heart of a Sussex taxidermist appears to be exceptionally tender. Seldom can _Tom Murrow_, through whose eyes we view the scenes and incidents of Mr. Tickner Edwardes' _Tansy_ (Hutchinson), have sealed up badger or squirrel in its glass _morgue_ without shedding on the fur some glistening tribute of tears over a village sorrow. So much of his time in fact is occupied by conversations of a sentimental nature with the two _Wilverleys_ (whose aged father, _Mark_, by the way, having retired from active life on his farm, habitually talks in rhymed couplets) that he can have had as little leisure for stuffing specimens as he had to discern the love gradually growing up for him in the bosom of _Minella_, his guileless _confidante_. The background of _Tansy_ consists in the shepherd's seasons of the Sussex downs (for _Tansy_, a splendid type of advanced though rustic womanhood, is a shepherdess), and the plot of the story is that of _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_, with the convenient variation that the villain of the piece, having his pockets stuffed with cartridges, disappears (as villains should) in a cloud of malodorous smoke. Mr. Tickner Edwardes' knowledge of rural life and scenes is as thorough as his description of them is charming, and, if the general impression conveyed by _Tansy_ is a little too idyllic for those who have been brought up in the rough school of Wessex agriculture, it is pleasant for a moment to lend ourselves to the illusion of his sunny romance.

Unattractive as _Sophia Ree_ was in many ways, I frankly admit that she was a lady of mettle. A stockbroker's typist, with a fortune of £2,000 and a salary of a few shillings a week, she no sooner obtained inside information about the floating of _The South Seas Coastal Rubber Development Company_ than she decided to apply for 2000 shares. They were allotted to her, and in consequence she became a most important person. In fact, she had only to say "_Gugenheim_" to her employers and she had them at her feet. Why this was so you must discover for yourselves; all that I, who am no expert in financial matters, can tell you is that somehow her 2000 shares seem to have given her a position of enormous power in the company, and that the _Gugenheim_ man wanted to buy her out. Her sister _Judith_ kept bees and was an extremely good woman. I never got really to understand her; and her wonderful power of seeing into the future, which does not often go with apiculture, left me unimpressed. The trouble with this book of Mr. E. R. Punshon's is that the parts of it do not seem to fit into a symmetrical whole, but, at any rate, a study of _The Crowning Glory_ (Hodder and Stoughton) has greatly improved my knowledge of the behaviour of bears and bulls and bees.

* * * * *

GOLF AND THE DRAMA.