Chapter II: Part 2

It was at this point that the critics began to think of taking notes on their cuffs about Browning's views on the danger of "playing with souls," but found on reflection that the case was not so serious as that. For we knew all the time (by the splendour of her frocks) that the lady was rich, and we had gathered half-way through that she was prepared to accept _Bill_ in marriage and make an honest man of him. Not that their joint adventure had actually achieved immorality. She had simply dined with him, done a play, had supper at the Savoy, gone on to a Covent Garden ball, failed to effect an entrance into her house (having deliberately mislaid her latch-key and cut the bell-wire), and been taken a little before milk-time to her mother-in-law's, where her appearance had caused the greatest confusion and scandal, which was indeed the ultimate purpose of the scheme. But the fatal devotion of her French maid, who telephoned next morning to all her mistress's friends to say that her bed had not been slept in, and that a dark mystery brooded over her whereabouts, tended to promote a garrulous interest in her conduct.

It was a sad pity that we were not permitted to witness any phase of this adventure. One seemed to be assisting at a farce with the fun left out. I should have greatly enjoyed being present at the moment when her ladyship claimed the hospitality of her mother-in-law's roof. But perhaps this experience would have left me in a frame of mind too frivolous for the right reception of the grave things that were to follow.

Yet the play was mixed of all moods, from gay to earnest, and offered excellent scope for the versatility of Miss Marie Tempest. Mr. Clarence's humour, on the other hand, was not so well served; and there were frequent _longueurs_ during the episodes in which the _Dowager Lady Wynmarten_ figured. She was meant to be a terror, and had some very vicious things to say; but Miss Agnes Thomas delivered them with superfluously well-bred restraint, and the level tone of her bitter suavity tended to become a little tedious.

Mr. Graham Browne showed a very nice self-repression as the widow's dummy. But he let himself go with his cigarettes which in moments of emotion he threw away with an appalling recklessness after the first two whiffs.

The rest of the cast did ample justice to a play which, if it is Mr. Powell's first, must be commended for its promise. But the next time he writes a Four-Act Comedy he must try and give us more than one Act without any tea in it.

O. S.

* * * * *

"MILESTONES."

(_Ladies of the coloured hair school are reported to be painting dragons on their cheeks in place of complexion spots._)

When the world was very young
And agog with derring-do,
Knights went courting maids who hung
Chained, for dragons' teeth to chew;
Found their lass, and set her free,
Having duly on the spot
Slain the dragon (or, maybe,
Having failed to slay, did not).

Later, when your maid demure,
Long of lash and coy of mien,
Seemed a conquest swift and sure,
Fiercer monsters stepped between:
Mrs. Grundies, grey and grim,
Kept Miss Proper closely tied;
Beaus dissolved before the prim
Portly dragon at her side.

Now there dawns a lighter day;
Chaperons are nearly dead;
Undefended lies the way
For your amorous wight to tread,
Yet we still must pay our toll,
We who woo the guarded rose:
Frightful at the very goal
Lurks the dragon _by her nose_.

Modern maidens, if upon
Cheeks that court the curious stare
Voluntarily you don
This insane pictorial wear,
Know your tricks intrigue us not,
Frankly, ladies, they appal;
Out, I say, out, damnéd spot!
We don't like your cheek at all.

* * * * *

THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO.

"It was here yesterday," I said. "I am quite sure I saw it."

"Saw what?" said the lady of the house.

"A letter," I said, "that required an answer."

"Well," she said, "there are about fifty letters of that kind on your table there. Why don't you answer some of those? You can take your pick of them."

"Those are different," I said. "They've waited a long time, and it won't hurt them to wait a little longer. The one I want came yesterday, and required an immediate answer. I remember it quite distinctly."

"Why not answer it, then, without finding it? I'll dictate to you:--'Dear Sir or Madam,--In answer to your obliging letter, I beg to say that I much regret I shall be unable to attend the meeting of the blank committee on the blank of blank, owing to a previous engagement to be present at the meeting of the blank association for the blank blank blank. I enclose herewith my subscription of blank, and remain, with apologies for my delay, yours blankly, etc., etc.' Fire away; you can't go wrong."

"I am not sure," I said, "that I like all those blanks. It's a good model, of course, but it's just a bit too sketchy."

"If you remember the letter so perfectly you can fill in the blanks as you go along."

"I didn't say I remembered it so perfectly as all that. I remember getting it. I remember it was marked 'Urgent and confidential' or 'Private and immediate,' or something of that kind, and I remember putting it down on this writing-table and making up my mind to answer it at once, but I don't remember who it was from----"

"_Whom_ it was from."

"Amiable pedant! I don't remember who my importunate correspondent was, or what address he or she wrote from, or what it was about. It was one of those letters that produce a general sense of discomfort, the sort you want to forget but can't."

"Oh, but _you_ can. I never heard of anything so completely forgotten as this unfortunate letter."

"Really," I said, "you drive me to despair. Can't you see that a man may remember the _existence_ of a letter without remembering all its petty details? For instance, I know there's a Sultan of Morocco, but I don't know what he's like, or what his name is, or how he's dressed, or what his exact colour is. Still, there he is, you know."

"Where?"

"Oh, I don't know. Morocco, I suppose, would find him."

"Then all you've got to do is to write him a respectful letter, saying that you can't accept his Majesty's kind invitation to the small and early dance at the Palace."

"I am not," I said, "in a humour for frivolity. I want to write a letter."

"And I," she said proudly, "am doing my best to help you."

"I put it down on this writing-table, and one of you has moved it. Possibly it looked untidy, and one of you has tidied it--you yourself, for choice. In that case I shall never, never find it. To think that there is some one in the world who is eagerly expecting a letter from me, who is watching for the postman as he comes on his rounds, who is constantly disappointed, who lapses finally into a sullen acquiescence, who considers me unbusinesslike--and all because you saw a letter which didn't please you, and so you tidied it away. After all, it's my writing-table, and in future I won't have anyone at it except myself."

"Don't be harsh," she said. "How do you know any of us have been at what you call your table?"

"How do I know?" I said bitterly. "Look at these neat little packets of papers all put carefully one on top of the other. Look at my pens, look at my bills, look at my cheque-book, look at my notepaper and envelopes--I mean, don't look at them, because if you did you wouldn't see them. They're tucked away out of sight, and all that is left to me is a blotting pad, on which you have done several interesting money addition sums, and Peggy has drawn four Red Indians in crayons, and Helen has tentatively written in ink the words 'alright' and 'allright.' Oh yes, some of you have invaded my private domain and sat at my table, and have first scattered and then re-asserted my papers."

At this moment John entered the room, came and stood beside me, and abstracted from the table a pencil and a sheet of foolscap.

"There," I said, "you can see the result of your dreadful example. Even this innocent child has learnt to pilfer my writing materials."

"John," said his mother, "would you like to search your father?"

"What's 'search'?" said John.

"Feel in his coat pockets and see if you can find a letter."

John was quite willing. He inserted a pudgy hand into one pocket after another, and finally extracted a rather crumpled letter.

"Hurrah!" I said. "He's got it."

"What is it?" she said.

"It is a courteous communication from Messrs. Wilfer and Wontner, highly commending the virtues of their renowned Hygeia tabloids, two to be taken daily after dinner."

"It's the most private and urgent letter I ever heard of. And now, I suppose, you'll withdraw your most unjust decree against our using the writing-table."

"Not at all," I said; "I make it stricter than ever. If you hadn't used my table I should have looked in my coat pocket and found the letter long ago."

"Anyhow," she said, "it's a comfort to think you won't have to write to the Sultan of Morocco."

R. C. L.

* * * * *

THE LORD OF THE LEVIATHANS.

There harbours somewhere in our midst to-day
A visionary whom I long to meet;
He shuns publicity, and yet his sway
Is felt in many a teeming London street,
From staid Stoke Newington to sylvan Sheen,
From gay Mile End to high-browed Golder's Green.

'Tis he who planned the routes for motor-bi,
Who set them in the way that they should go,
That Maida Vale might wot of Peckham Rye,
That Walham Green might fraternise with Bow,
For him a Norwood bus stormed Notting Hill,
'Erb at the helm, Augustus at the till.

"Tooting is fair," he mused, "but what of Kew?
Shall Cricklewood and Balham be forgot?"
Mindful of regions Barking never knew,
He linked them up with that idyllic spot;,
And then, his wild imaginings to crown,
He ran a bus from Barnes to Camden Town.

Dreamer of dreams! above the city's strife
I picture him, in some lone eyrie pent,
What time the crash and roar of London's life
Drone deep-mouthed up in sullen music blent,
And, hearkening, he weaves with lonely glee
A wondrous web of bus-routes yet to be.

* * * * *

_Johnny._ "Oh, yes; they're for a pattern to show 'em how to make the others."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Mr. Beresford is most warmly to be congratulated upon his new book, _The House in Demetrius Road_ (Heinemann). Mr. Beresford's work has had from the first remarkable qualities that place him beyond question amongst the first half-dozen of the younger English novelists; but never before, I think, have his talents had a subject so exactly suited to their best display. It would be difficult to praise too highly the grim and relentless effect of the author's treatment of his subject. _Robin Gregg_ is a drunkard, and everyone about him--his secretary, his sister-in-law, his little girl--is caught into the dingy cloud of his vice. The house also is caught; and very fine indeed is the way in which Mr. Beresford has presented his atmosphere--the rooms, the dirty strip of garden, the shabby suburb, the London rain--but beyond all these things is the central figure of _Gregg_ himself. Here is a character entirely new to English fiction--a man who in spite of his degradation has his brilliance, his humour and, above all, his mystery. It is in this implication that, at the very heart of the man, there are fine things too degraded and degraded things too fine for any human record of them to be possible that the exceptional merit of Mr. Beresford's work lies. In his desire to avoid any possible cheapness or weak indulgence he misses, perhaps, some effects of colour and pathos that might, a little, have heightened the contrasts of his study; and I do not feel that the woman is as vivid as she should be. These things, however, affect very slightly a story that its author may indeed be proud to have written.

_Penelope_ was the heroine. She was in what are called reduced circumstances, and was moreover encumbered by sisters who were not quite all that could have been wished in the way of niceness. One day _Penelope_, looking through an iron gate, saw a beautiful garden, full of flowers; and the master of the garden, himself unseen, saw _Penelope_, and loved her. So she accepted the invitation of his voice and went into the garden and found that the master was a young man so disfigured by a recent accident that he had to wear blue spectacles and a shade. However, he loved her and she didn't mind him, so that after a time they became engaged, which was pleasant enough for _Penelope_, who had henceforth the run of the garden and leave to take home roses and things to the not-nice sisters. Do you want to be told how presently these began to tempt _Penelope_, urging her to insist that her lover should unmask, and what happened when she yielded? Or have you seen already that the story here called _A Garden of the Gods_ (Alston Rivers) is just a modern version of one that we all used to be told in the nursery? Moreover, Beauty and the Beast had been used once at least in this fashion before Miss Edith M. Keate happened on the idea. But that does not make the present any the less an amiable, quietly entertaining story, if a little obvious. The characters have never anything but a very distant resemblance to life; and their speech is for the most part that of a lady novelist's creations rather than of human beings. But those who demand "a good tale," with beauty properly distressed till the last page, and there beatified with the knowledge that "the darkness that surrounded her was scattered for ever," will find some highly agreeable pasturage in _A Garden of the Gods_.

_The Modern Chesterfield_ (Hurst and Blackett) is a book that I enjoyed only after overcoming a considerable and partially-justified prejudice. In the first place, I generally dislike stories told in epistolary form; in the second, I almost always detest books that their publishers advertise by selected "smart sayings." But I must honestly admit that _The Modern Chesterfield_ conquered me--chiefly, I think, by its good-nature. The writer of these very up-to-date paternal admonitions is supposed to be one _Sir Benjamin Budgen, Bart_, "of Budgen House, Fleet Street, E.C. and Cedar Court, Twickenham, Middlesex." The addresses tell you what to expect--a satire on the methods of popular journalism. This in fact is what you get, but the satire is so neat (and withal so genial) and Mr. Max Rittenberg has so happy a knack of conveying character in a few lines that you are simply bound to enjoy reading him. One other facility he has that deserves the highest praise: he tells his story, in letters that emanate from one side only, without wearisome repetition. There is, I mean, hardly any of that "You say in your last that--and ask me whether--etc.," which in similar volumes always bores me to ill-temper by its unlikeness to the letter-writing customs of real life. An explanatory line or two at the head of each epistle puts you in possession of the facts--that _Norman_, the son to whom they are written, has left Cambridge, is proving unsatisfactory, has married an Earl's daughter, and so on. That known, the letters tell their own tale. They reveal the writer too (I refer to _Sir Benjamin_): shrewd, clear-headed, vulgar and of bull-dog courage. The disasters that overwhelm him in the end do not leave his readers unmoved; bankrupt and beaten he goes down fighting with the final characteristic wire, in response to a suggestion of compromise by his chief enemy, "Surrender be damned." A little book to enjoy.

The village priest of Clogher, as depicted in two colours on the paper wrapper of _Father O'Flynn_ (Hutchinson), is a man of plethoric habit and sanguine countenance engaged in brandishing a large horsewhip. The book is dedicated by Mr. H. de Vere Stacpoole, to Sir E. Carson and Mr. Redmond, and in a short preface he says: "The Irish Roman Catholic priest is the main factor in present-day Irish affairs. I have attempted to catch him at his best in the butterfly net of this trivial story...." I am anxious not to do Mr. Stacpoole an injustice, but I do feel that (as an entomologist) he gets easily tired. In the 250 pages of _Father O'Flynn_ there is a good deal of very tolerable Irish "atmosphere"; a very tepid love affair between _Miss Eileen Pope_ and a gentleman from England "over for the hunting;" a lot about old _Mr. Pope_--a moody maniac who owned an illicit still at Clon Beg House, incurred the enmity of the United Patriots, was in the habit of keeping followers away from his beautiful step-daughter with a duck-gun, and finally (after locking up his brother who came to recover a debt) set fire to his own mansion--but practically nothing at all about the reverend gentleman outside. Beyond a few conversations with the "boys" and some rescue work at the end, _Father O'Flynn_ scarcely comes into the plot. There is humour in the book and some good description in patches, but towards understanding the Irish priest it will probably assist Sir Edward Carson and Mr. John Redmond very little more than it will assist a settlement of the problems of Ulster. However, it may give them an agreeable hour or so in a railway train, and the announcement (also made on the cover) that it is "an entirely new novel, now published for the first time," may call their attention to the value, in art as well as politics, of emphatic tautology.

I could wish that _The Escape of Mr. Trimm, His Plight and Other Plights_ (Hodder and Stoughton) had been one continuous whole, instead of a number of separate items, for though Mr. Irvin S. Cobb tells a tale well he has not such a genius for the short story that he needs must express himself through that medium. Moreover, the people of his imagination are too interesting to be readily parted with; I should, for instance, have liked to see how that gentleman convict, _Mr. Trimm_, fared when, after his odd vicissitudes, he was restored to the clutches of the Law and was set on to do his time with the worst of them. There was plenty of criminal company available, for Mr. Cobb makes some speciality of perpetrators of dark deeds, and I feel that all the characters and events of the subsequent stories could, with a little ingenuity, have been worked into the one plot with our fraudulent financier as the centrepiece. That wrong-headed but chivalrous relic of the Southern Confederacy, _Major Putnam Stone_, would fit in as the virtuous or comic relief, his inborn lust for battle and his chance employment as a newspaper reporter being just the things to combat these felonious activities. There is certainly a lack of lovable women in the book, yet I have always been led to suppose that the U.S.A., the _locus in quo_, overflows with feminine charm, and our author is obviously man enough to appreciate and reproduce it for us. However, even a critic must take things as they are, and it is a collection of short stories that I have to complain about. My complaint, then, reduces itself to this, that in the case of each of them I regret their shortness.

* * * * *

* * * * *

_Mr. Lloyd George (to shade of Pitt)._ "Peace hath her income-tax no less renowned than War."