Chapter II: Part 2

"Hold on a minute!" I cried. "Just tie a piece of cotton round my married finger."

She did so. Then she went on:

"The drawing-room clock should have been sent home, cleaned, last Friday. They haven't sent it."

"Perhaps they expected it to _run down_," I suggested.

Joan bore up wonderfully, and merely said, "Well--do something. Put the sardines in your pocket-book, or the marmalade in your gloves."

"Those," I said, "are not, strictly speaking, mnemonics for sending home cleaned clocks. They would be all right for a picnic tea-basket, but not for the thing in question. Everything I have done up to the present is suggestive of what I have to remember," and I turned my watch round in my pocket so that it faced outwards.

"I see," said Joan. "Now, what's the cotton round your finger for?"

"Smoked sa--, that is to say, coff--, I mean the estimate for your ring," I answered. "Is there anything else?"

"Another box of stationery like the last--the crinkly paper, you know. They've got our die."

I tore a strip from the newspaper, crinkled it carefully and put it away in my cigarette-case. A minute later I was on my way to the railway-station.

A keen head-wind was blowing, causing my eyes to water and the tears to flow unbidden. I explored my sleeve for my handkerchief. It was not there. I could not possibly go to town without one, so I hastened home again. Joan was at the window as I ran up.

"What is it?" she cried.

"My handkerchief!" I gasped. "I've forgotten----"

"Fourteen pounds of best loaf sugar!" called out Joan. "It's in your hat."

As I hurried once more in the direction of the station I withdrew the handkerchief from my hat and wiped my streaming eyes. The operation over, I placed the handkerchief in my sleeve. I heard the whistle of a train in the distance and instinctively took out my watch. It was right-about-face in my pocket, and I lost a good half-second in getting it into the correct position for time-telling. It was nine-seventeen. I had just one minute in which to do the quarter-mile; but my _forte_ is the egg-and-spoon race, and I missed the train handsomely.

There was an interval of twenty minutes before the next one was due, so I thought I would have a cigarette. I opened my case, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. I picked it up and glanced at it. On one side I read that "... knocked out Submarine Snooks in the ninth round after a hotly--contested ..." while on the other side I saw that "... condition offers the gravest anxiety to his numerous friends and ..." I threw the paper away, for it did not interest me, and walked up to the bookstall to select a magazine. I had to remove my left glove in order to get at my money, and in pulling it off I noticed a shred of cotton come away with it. This meant an inside seam gone somewhere; and they were new gloves, too. I threw a coin to the paper-boy, and two small round objects like boot-buttons rolled on to the platform. Shortly afterwards the train strolled up.

At the office I was so busy all day, arranging about the shipment of a steam-crane to Siam (I am a commission-agent), that it was not until I was seated in the train, going home in the evening, that I vaguely remembered that I had forgotten something. I grew more and more uneasy, and, with the idea of distracting my thoughts from an unpleasant channel, I picked up an evening paper from underneath the opposite seat. At some quite recent period it had obviously contained nourishment of an oleaginous nature, but, though soiled, it was still legible. The very first paragraph which I read served to remind me of Joan's forgotten orders; but it brought me, nevertheless, an unholy joy, for it ran: "The funeral of the late Mr. Jeremiah Moggridge, founder and managing director of the mammoth stores which bear his name, took place this afternoon. As a mark of respect the premises were closed for business throughout the day."

So it would have been futile to ring them up in any case. I was saved!

On reaching home the first thing Joan said to me was--

"Did you order those things from Moggridge's?"

I didn't say anything. I merely handed her the evening paper and indicated the saving clause. Joan read it through. Then she said--

"Yes, I _thought_ you'd mess it all up in spite of your ichneumonics, or whatever you call them; and so after lunch I went to the call-office and ordered the things myself."

"But Moggridge's was closed--didn't you read?"

"Yes," replied Joan; "but, next time you forget, don't try to establish an _alibi_ with yesterday's evening paper."

* * * * *

Our private telephone will be fixed by next week. I forget how much Joan reckons we shall save by it.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Rev. Brown._ "I'M AFRAID, MY DEAR YOUNG LADY, I KNOW VERY LITTLE OF AGRICULTURAL MATTERS; IN FACT I DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MANGEL AND A WURZEL."

* * * * *

THE PASSING OF THE COW.

[_The Soya bean, grown in Japan, Korea and Manchuria, is said to
provide a perfect substitute for milk._]

_Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe_:
All mortal flesh is grass,
Mown down by Time at the appointed hour;
And in the world of speed
The noblest Arab steed
Yields, O Combustion, to thy pent-up power.

On Youth of ardent aim
No more _Mazeppa's_ fame
Or TURPIN'S feats exert their ancient spell;
NAPIER and WOLSELEY stand
No more for war's command,
But only steel and rubber, oil and smell.

Where once men safely strode
Along the open road,
A sinister and stertorous machine
Exhales its acrid breath
And deals impartial death
To all the dwellers on the village green.

And now, O gentle cow,
Man's foster-mother, thou,
Must tread the fatal path the horse hath trod,
Since scientists have found
That milk and cream abound
Within the compass of an Eastern pod.

No more shall we behold,
As in the days of old,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea;
Or Mary, mid the foam,
Calling her cattle home,
Across the sands, the perilous sands o' Dee.

Mourn, Alderney, and mourn,
O maiden all forlorn,
The cow with crumpled horn that filled thy pail;
Mourn, damsels, mourn and sigh
Who can no more reply,
"I'm going a milking" to the curious male.

Mourn too, for ye shall feel
The change at every meal,
Ye minions of the hearthrug; be not mute,
Ye Persians, topaz-eyed,
When mistresses provide
This miserable Soya substitute.

In legendary lore
The cow was wont to soar
With Dædalean art above the moon;
But ah! the cardboard cows
That by the railroad browse
To no elopement prompt the modern spoon.

On earth men owned thy sway
From Lapland to Cathay;
In heaven the Milky Way thy might confessed:
Weaklings we saw become
Strong, thanks to thee and rum,
And Punch of all ingredients found milk best.

But, heedless of a debt
He never should forget,
Ungrateful man is planning to replace
By vegetable aid
The kindly service paid
By your mild-natured and sweet-breathing race.

Yet, ere the Soya boom
Achieves the dairy's doom,
And rude bean-crushers oust the homely churn,
Let one unworthy scribe
Salute the vaccine tribe
And lay his wreath upon their funeral urn.

* * * * *

The Trippers.

"The native inhabitants produce all manner of curios, the great
majority of which appear to command a ready sale among the visitors,
crude and commonplace as these frequently are."--_Bulawayo
Chronicle._

They are; but, bless their hearts, they seem to enjoy themselves.

* * * * *

"EXETER.--Young Cook-General, willing to learn; small family, no
children; no basement. No religion preferred."

_Western Morning News._

She forgot to add "No meals to serve."

* * * * *

MY GIRL CADDIE.

As a matter of fact she was my gardener's chauffeur-son's girl. The junior parent having been living chiefly on my garden or in my kitchen, and now being at the end of his resources, it was suggested that I should give his Amy a job. The proposal came from my wife, who had been victualling Amy's mother and Amy's baby sister for some weeks. An illuminating correspondence in the Press had done the rest.

For her first appointment at the tee Amy was nearly twenty minutes late, and when she arrived it was in a mauve skirt, green stockings, an ochre sporting coat and a hat which had once been my wife's. Seen against the background of the native boy caddies, Amy might have been described as picturesque.

"Mother says," said Amy, as we introduced ourselves--"Mother says she's sorry you should be kep', but baby's used to going off, me rocking 'im, and she was that busy, it being the day what she mostly washes."

"Very well, Amy," I said, realising the situation, "we must do better next time. The gentleman I was to play would not wait; but perhaps, if we just went round together, you could get an idea of your--your duties."

Amy accepted my suggestion and my bag of clubs with an abstracted sniff. She seemed to be more closely engaged in retorting by manual signals to the distant provocations of her male rivals.

"Now, Amy," I reminded her gently, "you must learn how to make a tee."

Amy turned reluctantly and stared over my bent back at the Miss Galbraiths, who were just starting for the ladies' course.

"First of all," I began more firmly, "you take a pinch of sand from this box--so." Tee-making is not my forte, and I was painfully conscious that I worked under the critical gaze of fully twenty expert eyes.

"If you please," said Amy in a brighter mood, "mother says I'll want some things to clean up the sticks with."

I rose from my knees with a cricked back, but I had my Purple Spot neatly balanced on a really creditable mound.

"We shall come to that presently, Amy," I explained. "When I have finished playing you can take the clubs and make them nice and bright with emery-paper."

Amy did not take this proposal encouragingly.

"Mother says I should want some turps," she informed me, "and brickdus' and some whitin' to finish, and some methelay. She says she don't 'old with the way Jimmy Baines and the rest of 'em does it. Mother says the sticks should be cleaned proper, as they oughter be. She says she'd 'ave give me the things, only she ain't got any, and I was to ask if it was convenience to you to spare me the money to go to the village and get 'em. Then she'd show me 'ow."

I had discovered my driver behind Amy's back and was preparing to get away, but these views of Amy's mother were so complete an innovation that I paused. On the verge of a first drive I had never in my life stopped to consider the ethics of golf-club cleaning. Why had not Amy a pocket and a rag of sand-paper like resourceful Jimmy Baines? I don't remember to have ever read anything on the niceties of the art of scouring clubs. It is a subject on which the writers of golfing articles--prolific enough, as Heaven knows, about other and more negligible aspects of the game--seem to have adopted an attitude of studied reticence.

"Look here, Amy," I said rather severely, "you really must not talk. You must remember you are here to carry my clubs, not to tell me about your mother. My iron clubs must be cleaned precisely as they always have been cleaned. That is entirely your department of the game, and you must stand at least three yards further away or I shall probably kill you." Then I drove, sliced hideously, and landed in long grass a hundred yards to the right.

Some premonition of feminine detachment prompted me to keep my eyes rigidly on the tuft which concealed my ball, as I strode forward. But half-way I turned. I _felt_ Amy was not with me. She was standing precisely where I had left her, her hat off, her pink tongue stuck out in the direction of the caddies' shed.

"Amy!" I shouted, and the sound of my voice had an indescribably incongruous and humiliating echo. "Amy, come here at once; how dare----"

Amy came ambling across the fairway, hat in hand, my bag of clubs left where she had deposited them upside down in the tee-box for greater freedom in responding with gestures of defiance to the chaff of the enemy.

"Now look here," I said as Amy stood wonderingly before me; "I am very, very disappointed in you--very, very angry. You wanted to earn your living, I understood?"

Amy's brows darkened but her lips were slightly tremulous.

"Mother won't let me go into the laundry," she said sulkily, "'cos father says I'm not sperienced enough, and Jimmy Baines give me 'is cheek, so I give it 'im back."

Thus we stood surveying the situation, my girl-caddie and I. There seemed at the moment only one sane way of ending it.

"Very well, Amy," I said dispassionately, "you had better run home and tell your mother--tell your mother to come up to the house after dinner, if there's anything she needs."

Amy resigned her position without a murmur; but before she went she extracted two paintless, weary-looking golf-balls from the pocket of her mauve skirt and offered me them for sixpence.

* * * * *

THE COTTAGE.

I know a wood on the top of a hill,
Hyacinth-carpeted March till May,
Where nights are wonderful, soft and still,
And a deep-sea twilight hangs all day;
The loving labour of fairy hands
Has made it heavenly fine to see,
And just outside it the cottage stands,
The cottage that doesn't belong to me.
A cottage, mind,
And I'm sure you'd find
It was damp and dirty and very confined;
Oh, quite an ordinary keeper's cottage
That doesn't belong to me.

Creatures people the wood at night;
Peaceable animals come and play;
Pan's own pipes, if you hear aright,
Charm you on as you go your way;
And all the Arcady folk of yore
Make songs of the days that used to be,
Which carry perhaps to the cottage door,
The cottage that doesn't belong to me.
But it's miles from town
And it's tumble-down,
And the woodwork's done and the slates are brown;
No one could really live in the cottage
That doesn't belong to me.

Fair be the towns by the river-side,
Maidenhead, Richmond, Henley, Kew,
Crammed with cottages far and wide,
The thing for people like me and you;
But I think of the haunting forest-lights
And a path that wanders from tree to tree,
Where the man of the cottage might walk o' nights,
The cottage that doesn't belong to me.
And it may be wrong,
But it won't be long
Before the feeling becomes too strong
And I'll go and jolly well get that cottage
That doesn't belong to me.

* * * * *

Illustration: A NEW AQUATIC SPORT HAS BEEN INVENTED. IT IS KNOWN AS "PLANKING," AND CONSISTS IN STANDING UPON A BOARD TOWED BY A FAST MOTOR-BOAT. SOME WHO HAVE TRIED IT CONSIDER THE PLEASURE OVER-RATED.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

_Reality_ (CASSELL) deserves to rank high amongst the novels of the present season; it has, indeed, qualities that will cause it, if I am not mistaken, to outlive most of them. The chief of these I can best express by the word colour; by which I mean not only a picturesque setting, but temperament and a fine sense of the romantic in life. Perhaps I ought to have known the name of MISS OLIVE WADSLEY already. As I did not, I can only be glad that _Reality_ has rectified the fault; I shall certainly not again forget a writer who has given me so much pleasure. The scene of the story is laid in Vienna, chiefly in musical Vienna, and the protagonists are the young widow, _Irene van Cleve_, and the violinist, _Jean Victoire_, whom she marries despite the well-founded objections of her noble family. Some of the family, too, are quite excellently drawn, notably a Cardinal, who, though he has little to do in the tale, manages to appear much more human and less of a draped waxwork than most Eminences of fiction. I have said that the objections of _Irene's_ relations were justified, the fact being that _Jean_ was not only a genius, but the most scatterbrained egoist and vulgarian. Naturally, therefore, the alliance turned out a failure; and the process is quite admirably portrayed. I liked least in the book the end, with its sudden revelation of a superfluous secret. Had the secret not been so superfluous it might have vexed me to have been so long kept in ignorance of it. But this is a small matter. The chief point is that _Reality_ has the pulse of life in it--in a word that it confirms its title; which, indeed, is about the highest praise that a critic can bestow.

* * * * *

I am not at all sure how Mr. FRANK NORRIS, were he still living, would have regarded the resurrection of this early attempt at realism, as taught us by M. ZOLA--_Vandover and the Brute_ (HEINEMANN). He would, I fancy, have softened some of the crudities and allowed a touch of humour to lighten the more solemn passages. There are pages here that remind one that _Vandover's_ creator was also the author of those magnificent novels _The Octopus_ and _The Pit_; but I cannot, in spite of them, place much confidence in the truth of _Vandover's_ life history. We are told that he enjoyed his bath, and usually spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates conveniently near. Here he stayed for over an hour, eating and reading and occasionally smoking a cigarette. Can you wonder after this that poor _Vandover_ went utterly to the bad, and is to be found on the last page doing some horrible work with a muck-rake whilst an innocent child points an obvious moral? So certain was _Vandover's_ doom, once that box of chocolates had been mentioned, that I grew impatient and a little weary. If this is an age of realism in fiction I think that _Vandover and the Brute_ should make plain to any reader why, very shortly, we are going to have an age of something else.

* * * * *

Do not allow yourself to be put off by the title of _Captivating Mary Carstairs_ (CONSTABLE)--now published for the first time in England. It is not, as you might assume, a costume novel of eighteenth-century tushery. This is what I expected; but as a matter of fact Mr. HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON has written a tale about as unlike this as anything well could be. It is a capital tale, too; American to the last epithet, and crammed so full of the unexpected and adventurous that never (except once) can you anticipate for a moment what is going to happen. The chief adventure is abduction, the subject of it being _Mary Carstairs_, whose father was separated from her mother, and, being a lonely old man with a longing for a daughter's affection, took this melodramatic course to secure it. In furtherance of his end he secured the services of _Maginnis_, genial swashbuckler, and _Varney_, young, susceptible and heroic, and despatched them on his yacht to apprehend one whom they vaguely supposed to be "a little girl about twelve." This was the only time in which I scored over Mr. HARRISON. I was as certain, when I read thus far, that _Mary Carstairs_ was no child, but a grown-up beauty, as I am now that I know the facts. Everywhere else the author had me beat. His capacity for complications seems inexhaustible. I knew that _Varney_ was going to fall in love with _Mary_, but I did not know that he himself had a double who would cause endless and thrilling confusions; that _Maginnis_ would become involved in local politics to the extent of endangering his life; and that even old _Carstairs_, _Mary's_ father, would--but on second thoughts you had better share my unpreparedness about him. I should sum up the book as a tale with a "punch" in every chapter, some of them perhaps below the belt of probability, but all leaving one, as is the way with punches, breathlessly concerned.

* * * * *

_Monsieur de Rochefort_ (HUTCHINSON) did not even take himself seriously; why then should I? To subject this airy romance, of Paris in 1770, to a minute criticism would be unnecessarily spoiling a good thing, and I shall not therefore ask myself whether prisons were so easily got out of or great statesmen so easily cajoled as Mr. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE for present purposes assumes. I shall not examine the historical accuracy of the portraits of the _Duc de Choiseul_ or of the _Comtesse Dubarry_, nor shall I question the human probability of villains so inept as _Camus_ or martinets so infallible and ruthless as _de Sartines_. The most exacting connoisseur of vintage ports will in his expansive moments admit the merits of a light wine from the wood, offered him as such in due season; even so the most fastidious novel-reader may in a holiday mood allow himself to be merely entertained and diverted by these lighthearted but breathless adventures in the Court of Louis XV. It is the greatest fun throughout; events are rapid and the dialogue is crisp; moreover there is from the beginning the comfortable certainty that, threaten what may, the unhappy end is impossible. If DE ROCHEFORT had failed to marry JAVOTTE, I think that Mr. DE VERE STACPOOLE would have incurred the unanimous displeasure of all his readers, including those who at any other time would have strongly protested against the marriage of so great a gentleman with so humble a lady's-maid in any circumstances, let alone upon so very brief an acquaintance.

* * * * *

_Bridget Considine_ (BELL) is a pleasant story with something very agreeable in its quality, which however I find hard to define. Miss MARY CROSBIE has certainly a pretty gift for characterization, and this no doubt accounts for a good deal of the charm; the rest is largely a matter of atmosphere. The characters in the story whom you will most remember are _Bridget_ herself and her father. The last especially is a continuous joy--a man who in his journey through life had taken instinctively the manner and aspect of a class to which he did not belong; a decayed gentleman without ever having been gentle except in mind; a needy adventurer without the spirit for adventure. Dragged up at the slip-shod heels of such a parent, supporting herself with romantic dreams when other nourishment failed, _Bridget_ grew to young womanhood the very type, one would say, of the _Cinderella_ to be rescued from poverty by a suitable _Prince Charming_. Thus when a combination of accidents thrusts her, as secretary-companion, into the society of _Hugh Delmege_, a budding politician, you will perhaps excusably plume yourself upon seeing the rest of the tale beforehand. If so, you will, as a matter of fact, be entirely wrong. _Hugh_ and _Bridget_ become engaged, certainly, but----. There is much virtue in that "but," the virtue of an unusual and convincing end to a story that has many charms, not the least of them being its humour. Yes, I certainly liked _Bridget Considine_ well enough to wish for more from the same pen. Its motto, "Candidates for Humanity," is well chosen.

* * * * *

When Mr. WILLIAM SATCHELL, in a preface to _The Greenstone Door_ (SIDGWICK AND JACKSON), remarks that some Maori words are used so frequently that he is "afraid the English reader will hardly be able to avoid acquiring a knowledge of their meaning," his alarm is quite unnecessary. Personally, at any rate, I am proud to know that _papa-tea_ means an untattooed person, and _waipiro_ an alcoholic beverage. But if Mr. SATCHELL had feared that the young man who tells the story might be found a little too self-complacent no protest would have been sounded by me. For _Cedric Tregarthen_, the grandson of an earl, and also "The Little Finger" of a Maori chief, was beyond my swallowing, though I endured him obstinately until he reported _verbatim_ the opinion of his beloved's governess. "'Good-bye, Mr. Tregarthen,' she responded. 'Or, if you will allow me to say, "Good-bye, Cedric," it will better express my feelings. I used to hate boys, my dear; but I shall love them all for the sake of your gentleness and kindness. I am sure you will grow into a very noble man.'" Now, I ask you, ought not dear _Cedric_ to have kept this to himself? Give me for choice the Maori boy, _Rangiora_, and the half-Maori girl, _Puhi-Huia_, humans fit to be loved and admired. The pity of it is immense, because Mr. SATCHELL has a knowledge of his subject that is beyond all praise, and the Maori part of his book is worth reading again and again. But the trouble remains that Cedric lived to tell the tale, while _Rangiora_ died and had to have his tale told for him.

* * * * *

Illustration: _The Ancient Mariner._ "SEEN CHANGES? I SHOULD THINK I 'AVE, SIR. W'Y, WINKLETON USED TO BE THAT QUIET YOU COULD 'EAR A PIN DROP! BUT LOOK AT IT NOW. WHAT WITH THE PICTURE PALACE AND THE PIERROTS AND THEM SWING-BOATS AND THE PENNY BAZAAR, IT'S GOT TO BE A FAIR PANHARMONIUM!"

* * * * *

How they view things in Oregon.

"SPORTS.

Murderer uses ax to wipe out family of four."

_The Morning Oregonian._

* * * * *