Chapter II: Part 2

"Yes, this is my first visit to your wonderful country. I am here to superintend the rehearsals of the dramatised form of _The Love of a Hop-Picker._ Naturally I am a little nervous, for to please a New York audience is the playwright's dream of heaven. And then, of course, _The Love of a Hop-Picker_ is not only utterly English in atmosphere, but also peculiarly _Kentish_. Still, with such a brilliantly intelligent, marvellously sympathetic public as yours, I don't despair of bringing the hop-poles over the footlights, so to say.

"Yes, gentlemen, I have a wife, and I've not forgotten to bring her sworn affidavit that my coming without her is quite regular and in order, because, though Ellis Island's a delightful place, no doubt, still, I want to go into your great Empire city 'right away,' as you say. Here it is: 'I declare that I, Agatha Mary Rutherford Penfold, and my dear husband, Horace Rutherford Penfold, are a perfectly united and affectionate couple; that his journey to the United States is taken with my entire approval, and that I should have accompanied him but for being an extremely bad sailor and afraid of storms at sea. (Signed) AGATHA MARY RUTHERFORD PENFOLD. Sworn to in the presence of--' and so forth. Yes, certainly, gentlemen, copy it by all means.

"No, I never heard of any literary talent showing itself in our family before. My father was interested in the retail meat industry; _his_ father was interested in the retail bread industry; and _his_ father turned his attention to the making of candlesticks.

"My impressions as I crossed? Well, I couldn't help remarking, ill as I felt, that, as we neared the shores of the New World, the waves took on better and more imposing shapes, the wind blew more smartly, and at night the stars seemed brighter and more numerous, and the clouds appeared to form themselves into stripes! Yes, this is my first experience of a zero temperature. The air is deliciously fresh: one seems to breathe in freedom with it. Well, perhaps I am a little cold, but that is because I have been waiting an hour and a-half _en queue_ for a permit allowing me to have my luggage examined; and then, you see, gentlemen, I haven't the fur coat I bought specially for this visit; the Customs people have taken it away, and also the evening clothes I had made by Pond just before I left; so that I'm afraid I shan't be able to accept the very kind invitations I received by wireless to dine with the Brainy Broadway Boys to-night, and to-morrow night with the Chocktaw Club.

"What do I think of feminine New York? Why, of course, I think her the prettiest, cleverest, best-dressed portion of feminine humanity, and with an added charm--a New Yorkiness which is absolutely indescribable. No, I haven't met any of her yet, my knowledge of New York being at present limited to this wonderful landing pier, your greatly gifted Customs officials, and the brilliantly intelligent subordinates of your world-renowned Express Company.

"What do I think of Mexican affairs? Well, gentlemen, it seems to me that only _Mexicans_ can make themselves really at home in Mexico, and that other people had better not try to live there--if living is their object.

"Yes, here is my photo and my wife's photo; my father's photo; my grandfather's daguerreotype; a black profile of my great-grandfather--certainly, gentlemen, I shall be only too pleased and proud to have them all reproduced in your scintillating, pulsating journals. So long, boys! Delighted to have met you."

* * * * *

* * * * *

A Mirdite Melody.

[The Mirdite Chief Prenk Bib Doda has joined the first Albanian Cabinet.]

Great is the Gaeckwar of BARODA;
Great too was MARCHAND at Fashoda;
Great is good brandy blent with soda;
But, as a culminating _coda_,
Greater by far is PRENK BIB DODA.

* * * * *

From a list of work for Trials at Eton:--

"Acts xxi--xxvii (_not_ Ch. xxviii)."

So Smith _mi._ had already guessed, but none the less the prohibition came as a great disappointment to him.

* * * * *

"The country between the Gamana and Katsena Rivers was inhabited by
Zumperi pagans, who were cannibals and lived on hill
tops."--_Times._

Thus differing from some of the inhabitants of Golders Green, who are vegetarians and live on turnip-tops.

* * * * *

ONCE ONE.

["Caroline Cloan clawed suddenly at Slew's eyes. But for a quick
movement on his part it might have been very serious. He had only
one eye, and could not afford to lose the sight of it."--"_Daily
Mirror" Serial._]

Keen are the claws of _Carrie Cloan_,
Rampant her mood. The eye of _Slew_
Is one in number; she alone,
Blinded by passion, makes it two.

She's out for eyes, and cannot tarry
To ponder arithmetic laws.
And what is the result? Miss _Carrie_
Claws _Slew_; _Slew_ slews; Miss _Carrie's_ claws

Miscarry, and the eye is his.
Rough on poor _Caroline_, no doubt;
But there--the moral of it is,
First count your eye, then have it out.

* * * * *

* * * * *

LONDON'S LINKS WITH THE PAST.

When I was a child I had the signal honour of being seated upon the knee of an old lady whose great-great-great-great-uncle once shook hands with a man whose grandfather remembered seeing green fields at the spot which is now covered by Carmelite House. How short is the history of the Metropolis!

Everybody, of course, is aware that Professor Joff committed one of his notorious "howlers" when he derived "Carmelite"--in the street name--from "Cromwell's Heights." The latter, needless to say, must have been a deal nearer the South Kensington Museum than Whitefriars, famed for its sanctuary. CROMWELL _may_ have wandered in the meadows (if they still existed in his day) where the 6.30 _News_ now leaps from its machines every afternoon about half-past five; he may even (as Plip and Johnstone surmise, in their ponderous tomes, _Odd Corners in London_ and _More and Odder Corners in London_) have supped at the Pig and Mortarboard, which stood on what is now the site of the Ludgate Hill station booking-office (Plip, by-the-by, wrongly says not the booking-office, but the "book_stall_," an amazing error in one usually so careful). But whatever else CROMWELL did or did not do, he certainly never gave his name to any district further east than Knightsbridge.

I flatter myself that Professor Joff's preposterous surmises were finally silenced by my monograph, _A Hundred Queer Things about Bouverie Street._ Curiously enough I wrote this with a pencil borrowed from a friend whose aunt once caught sight, as a girl, of a prisoner being taken to the Old Bailey to be tried for murder. That prisoner was the notorious Budgingham. And now comes the interesting part of the story. Budgingham, as transpired at the trial, had bigamously married the step-daughter of a man whose godfather's mother's cousin's great-grandmother remembered hearing the bells of Bow Church tolling on the day when Henri de Bouverie landed in England to attend the funeral of his niece, the beautiful Mrs. Coop.

London's history is indeed crowded, though (to the antiquarian) oddly short in its perspective. Next week, having sketched the romantic career of Henri de Bouverie (concerning whom Professor Joff has made several incredible mistakes), I shall give a still more startling example of the links which lead us so abruptly to the antechambers of what we might have supposed to be the dim and distant past. The Metropolis, to anyone who appreciates historical research and can write as easily as I can, is a gold-mine; fortunately few pressmen realise its possibilities, and that of an _Index Rerum_, as I do. If, as I anticipate, this article is printed and paid for with the usual eagerness and a series ordered, nothing can stop me---- [Wait and see.--ED.]

* * * * *

Our Gallery of Happy Phrases. I.

"Mr. Tooth, whose name was in everybody's mouth a generation or so
ago."

_Dublin Daily Express._

* * * * *

POINTS OF VIEW.

If you are the sort of person who likes detail and accuracy, who can always tell where the north is even in a strange house (there _are_ people like this; I met one the other day), and--this generally goes with it--are good at geography, you had better skip this article. It might annoy you. But if you like DEBUSSY, and like watching the sun shine through a mist, and have no bump of locality, and hate being shown over ruins, you are the sort of person I am, and you will sympathise with me.

My trouble is this. Whenever I go to stay in the country I am always sooner or later taken a walk, generally a long one, to the highest hill they happen to have, and there I am shown a view. Not that I would mind if they left it at that, but they don't. One's host generally seems to have an absurd pride in some distant church, or gap in a hill "through which on fine days you can see the sea"; but even if he hasn't he will _always_--if you happen to be in the south of England--point out a patch of trees like a small piece of black sticking-plaster and tell you that that is Chanctonbury Ring. I never escape Chanctonbury Ring, though I have often gone far, even refused invitations, to avoid it. Once in Yorkshire--but nobody ever will believe that story, though I never pretended it was the same Ring. What I said was that there may be two of the same name, or even more: like Richmond, for instance.

"Do you see that hill over there?" he begins. I look where he is pointing and see three. "No, not that one," and he comes behind me and points over my shoulder. "Follow my finger," he says, and I follow it and see a perfectly flat field. But he has to be humoured, and anyhow there is lunch to be thought of.

"Yes, yes, _I_ see," I reply hastily, with a touch of "How stupid of me!" in my voice.

"Well, carry your eye along the valley on its left, over the white house"--this is the only place where there is no white house for miles--"and along the strip of road. See the strip of road?" ("See the strip of road!" I've been lost in a bog for ages.) "Well, right up as far as you can see, following that road and a little to the right, do you see a patch of trees?"

When he says "patch of trees," I know.

"Chanctonbury Ring," I say brightly. At any rate, _that's_ finished.

"Yes; how did you know?" he asks disappointedly.

Brute that I am! Why didn't I let him say it?

Only once, as far as I can remember, was I wrong. It was in the Cotswolds and we were in a garden, on the side of a hill. From the terrace outside the house was a magnificent view. My host strolled up. "Pity it's so misty," he said. (I had just been thinking how lovely it looked.) "On a fine day, you know, we can see----"

"_Not_ Chanctonbury Ring?" I said pleadingly.

He looked puzzled.

"Tewkesbury,", he said rather coldly, and soon afterwards strolled away again.

There are only a very few people whose sympathy one feels sure of when one confides troubles to them such as this Ring-finding one of mine. Of the very few I feel surest of my Uncle Edward, so I thought I would tell him about it when I went to stay with him a little while ago.

"By the by," I said, as we laboured breathlessly up a hill--he lives in Surrey--"have you ever noticed ... when you're staying with people anywhere in the South of England ... and they take you for a walk ... they always, sooner or later----"

"Just wait a minute," he said as we reached the top. "Ah yes, I thought you could"--he was smiling happily at something. "I wanted to show you before we went on--just over there----" I waited. Somehow the words seemed familiar. "See that dark patch right over there, on the furthest hill? Well, that's Chanctonbury Ring."

"Yes, you can only see it on a fine day," I replied bitterly.

* * * * *

TIME'S REVENGE.

["Professor Karl Pearson delivered a public Galton Memorial Lecture
at the Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, University
College, on "The Handicapping of the First-born." There was, he
showed, a tendency for the first-born child to be lighter and
smaller than later-born children. On the whole there was a very
sensible bias against the first-born."--_Morning Post._]

Pearson I sing of, eugenic and brainy,
Iconoclastic and fearless to dare.
Once I thought "eugenist" = "zany,"
Now I know better and raise high in air
Bumpers Falernian, "Looking towards you."
Great be the glory the future awards you,
You that have given the first-born a cropper,
Bay-leaves immortal encircle your topper;
Though you're a scientist, you are no dry ass--
I take off my hat to you, KARL, for I share
Your "very sensible bias."

Long were we "minors" oppressed by our "major"
All our lives through since we started at school;
His was the limelight on every stage, or
His was the fire side and ours was the cool;
He got the ease of our ancestors' acres,
We had to haggle with butchers and bakers,
We had their bills to pay--his all the money;
Ours was but gall to drink--his tipple honey;
He was the "Purbeck" and we were the "Lias."
So we against Primogeniture's rule
Held very sensible bias.

Fallen the idol, destroyed the oppressor!
Always we felt we were good as the rest,
Now from the mouth of K. PEARSON, Professor,
Hear we the truth that the younger are best.
Vanished the halo that shone round the first-born
Now that Eugenics proclaim him the worst born.
Praise, Younger Sons, our great KARL, who, new seas
Voyaging, found, like the old Portuguese,
Capes of Good Hope--our BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ.
Shout till the whole world hears clearly expressed
_Our_ very sensible bias.

* * * * *

More Commercial Candour.

From an advertisement in _The Writers' and Artists' Year Book_, 1914, announcing a forthcoming publication:--

"PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THE PAPERS HOW TO TAKE AND PLACE THEM

BY JOHN EVERARD

ROBABLE PRICE 1s. NET."

* * * * *

"As he spoke the Congress hushed its breathing, growing so still
that the flutter of a paper interrupted harshly."--_The Daily News._

But this of course could not go on for long, and you should have heard it when it unhushed its breathing.

* * * * *

"O'Gara proved the saviour of Widnes, for, gathering the ball, he
kicked at least half a dozen players before he booted the ball."

_Liverpool Echo._

The bidding for O'GARA by the clubs of the English League, when this news gets about, should be sensational.

* * * * *

_Dear Old Lady._ "MY GOOD MAN, WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING ON MY LAWN?"

_Crafty Old Fraud._ "BLESS YER, KIND LADY! I'M THAT 'UNGRY I GOT TO EAT GRASS."

_Dear Old Lady._ "IF YOU GO ROUND TO THE BACK YOU'LL FIND THE GRASS GROWS MUCH LONGER AND THICKER THERE."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Murders, divorces, by-elections and new insurance schemes from time to time occupy the most conspicuous columns of the daily Press and receive our deep attention, but these things occur suddenly and are soon forgotten. Civil war in Mexico preceded and outlives them all as a matter of sensation, and the psychological moment in the career of that other "distressful country" is interminable. How the revolutions began, in what manner they continue and when they are likely to end, are questions which agitate the minds of men when they read their morning papers at breakfast, their evening papers after dinner and their reviews over the week-end. It was obvious that some qualified student of affairs should forget the events of the moment, visit Mexico at whatever risk to himself, personally witness the internecine squabbles in progress, and, if he was lucky enough to survive the experience, write up the matter in a compact and entertaining volume for our better understanding of the whole. Having regard to the present condition of the country as I now understand it, I should say there was no rush of applications for the job; certainly if my Editor should ask me to go out there and test the accuracy of Mr. H. HAMILTON FYFE'S observations, as expressed in _The Real Mexico: a Study on the Spot_ (HEINEMANN), I should at once discover an important engagement to prevent my accepting his kind invitation. Mr. FYFE'S narrative is, however, too graphic and his description too real to admit of doubt; I am glad that there was no competition and his subject has been left to be dealt with by the best man for the purpose. Given the title of the book and the name of the author, there is no more need of recommendation to the English public; but I beg Messrs. WILSON and BRYAN (of the U.S.A.) to read, mark, learn and, if their physique is capable of the feat, inwardly digest it. They should know, in glaring detail, the ills general and individual resulting from what the American resident in Mexico calls their "grape-juice" policy.

* * * * *

Four imprisonments of varying lengths, one of them including forcible feeding, presumably give Lady CONSTANCE LYTTON a right to record her experiences, and the chronicle she presents in _Prisons and Prisoners_ (HEINEMANN) is telling through its very simplicity and directness. Such a tale would be hardly likely to prove other than "an indictment of our existing prison system" (as orators have it); but Lady CONSTANCE LYTTON is careful to punctiliousness in her recognition of the kindness and natural sympathy of many of the officials, even while she condemns the rules and regulations which tend to cramp and stifle the gentler side of human nature. Still, our prison system has had to stand a good deal of attack before this. We should most of us be thankful to change it if we knew how, and I need never despise hints in this direction. The interest of the book, however, is by far the greatest when it is regarded as a running commentary on the modern feminist movement. It is impossible to read such a book seriously without feeling a strong admiration for the courage, self-sacrifice and resolution it reflects, and at the same time a quite appalling sense of waste. When a way has been found to apply to the needs of our bewildered country the powers of such women as form the heroines of Lady CONSTANCE LYTTON'S book, I for one shall not be surprised if things begin to happen. But at present the results that they have achieved, even upon their own showing and apart from all criticism of methods, seem quite incommensurate with the amount of trouble and pain.

* * * * *

In _The Custody of the Child_ (HUTCHINSON) Mr. PHILIP GIBBS has chosen a difficult theme--the story of a broken home, told from the child's point of view, and he has handled it like an artist. Of the three books into which this biography of _Nicholas Barton_ is divided, the first is so much the best that the second seems a little tame. This was, of course, inevitable, for the first book is the thunderstorm, the second the gentle rain which follows it. I have another reason for deriving particular pleasure from the opening book, and that is that the scene is laid in a Battersea Park flat. I have long since marked down Battersea as one of London's most romantic neighbourhoods. To a child, the curiously mingled intimacy and exclusiveness of life among the cliff-dwellers of that long road facing the Park, where you drop your toys out of your front garden (which house-agents call a balcony) and see them impounded as legitimate gifts that have dropped from Heaven by a perfect stranger in the front garden of the ground-floor flat, must be a perpetual wonder. Mr. GIBBS has brought this out so persuasively that I have shaken hands with him after each sentence. There is not an incident in Book I. that is not exactly right. The rest of the story, with its courageous avoidance of unmitigated happiness in the ending, never fails to arrest, unless for a moment or so in the middle; but for me at least the real charm of the volume lies in Book I.

* * * * *

"Let us try to avoid the detestable trick of sentimentality when dealing with this beloved, presuming, gallant, unhappy man." So Mrs. EVAN NEPEAN adjures us and herself; and it must be confessed that the warning was needed. For the man was JAMES, Duke of MONMOUTH, a study of whom she has written under the title of _On the Left of a Throne_ (LANE); and of all the Stuarts he is the one about whom it is most difficult to avoid being sentimental. Mrs. NEPEAN has perhaps just succeeded, but only just; and we will agree, therefore, to call her style vividly enthusiastic. She is quite frankly in love with MONMOUTH throughout. That wonderful, dangerous beauty fascinates her; and who, looking at the delightful portraits with which the book abounds, is going to blame her or anyone else for yielding to its charm? One fortunate result of this attitude is that the Fairy Prince of the seventeenth century lives again in the pages of this fervent admirer as he would never have lived in those of a colder historian. Dancing, riding, hunting, raking and fighting, we are bound to feel about him much as old PEPYS did, who called him, in a memorable and picturesque phrase, "skittish and leaping," and, for all his righteous disapproval, admired with the best. "How he would have loved flying!" is Mrs. NEPEAN'S very characteristic comment upon a record of her hero's graceful activities. For one thing especially does the writer of this study deserve gratitude. She dwells purposely as little as possible upon the details of the rebellion; but she has made it her duty to win back for MONMOUTH some of the credit for personal courage of which popular history has been too ready to deprive him. Here you may read how, after the short agony of nerves was over, he faced death with a placid and untheatrical bravery, than which the long records of the scaffold show nothing finer. It is a profoundly moving end to a fascinating story.

* * * * *

THE MAN WHO TAKES IMPRESSIONS OF THE FOOTPRINTS OF FAMOUS AUTHORS.]

* * * * *

After reading _Two Women_ (METHUEN) I hope to avoid "girl bachelors" for a very long time. They are, Mr. MAX PEMBERTON says, curious products of the century, and I am not disposed to contradict him. In _Gertrude Wynne's_ flat, "Debussy's music was open upon a miniature grand, and a volume of Anatola France stood upon the marquetry table near the fireplace"; but in _Doris Holt's_ room "an open piano had a song from a revue upon it, while a translation of one of Paul de Koch's novels lay upon the window-seat." That ought to give the key to their characters, but if it does not, let me boldly add that _Gertrude_ was clever and sedate, while _Doris_ was a queen of minxes. _Doris_, indeed, got herself into a pretty mess with a vulgar philanderer called _Lord Raymore_, and was justly punished by marrying him. This _Raymore_ man despised politics, but all the same he had made up his mind to "win a place in the Tory Cabinet, and to pose there as the new Disraeli," which makes me think that Mr. PEMBERTON is occasionally funnier than he means to be. Not until we get away from the girl bachelors and are off on a spying expedition to Germany with _Captain Ainsworth_ does the story grip. Then, however, things begin to happen, and the flight from the German fortress, in which _Ainsworth_ had been imprisoned, is really thrilling. In his next book I hope Mr. PEMBERTON will leave "curious products" alone and let us have an extra dose of adventure to make up for the meagre allowance contained in _Two Women_.

* * * * *

"It is far more important to have the right style in the country
than in town. Men don't want their women to wear something that
will frighten the birds away. Nothing cheap or badly cut ought ever
to be worn in the country."

_Vanity Fair and Hearth & Home._

_The birds_: "We really cannot stay to be shot to-day, the women are wearing such cheap clothes."

* * * * *

Close of an essay by a small girl on CHARLES I.:--"Had Charles the First been more strong minded and sincere, he would have been a better king; as it was, he was more suited for a clergyman."

* * * * *