Chapter I: The Mottle

A new and ingenious development of the old-fashioned hot-water bottle. The ordinary hot-water bottle warms but a small portion of the bed. The Mottle, possessing a motor attachment, can be wound up and it will then travel all over the bed, diffusing an agreeable warmth everywhere. May be used as an engine in the nursery by day. _33s. 6d._ The CHESTERTON, for large-size beds, _44s. 11d._ This kind also makes an excellent gift for soldiers in the trenches. It will travel half-a-mile before requiring further petrol.

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Illustration: FULFILMENT.

AUSTRIA. "I SAID ALL ALONG THIS WAS GOING TO BE A PUNITIVE EXPEDITION."

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Illustration: 1 THE STEAM-ROLLER (ENGLISH) AT WORK.

Illustration: 2 "NOTHING, MADAM, I ASSURE YOU--DIDN'T FEEL IT."

Illustration: 3 THE PATRIOTIC MIND AT WORK.

Illustration: 4 "BUT, YOUNG MAN, IF YOU CAN STAND HARDSHIPS LIKE THAT, HOW IS IT YOU ARE NOT AT THE FRONT?"

* * * * *

LIGHT REFRESHMENT: AN INTERLUDE.

BY SPECIAL CONSTABLE XXX.

I was sitting grimly in my sentry-box guarding a power station and a sausage factory. The latter is considered to be a likely point of attack on the part of the Huns. Should it be destroyed, a vital source of food supply for our army (they would reason) would be cut off.

Incidentally, the sausage factory is much more exciting to guard than the electric light works. One sees the raw material arriving and being unloaded. One sees the sausage king swishing up in his richly-appointed limousine, giving porkly orders to his deferential subordinates, and then whisking off--no doubt to confer with the War Office.

An old lady with a million wrinkles approached me and seemed desirous of entering into conversation. We are strictly forbidden to talk with civilians unless first accosted. After that it is a matter for individual discretion.

I therefore left it to her to make the first advance. She began: "'Ave you got to sit there the 'ole of the afternoon, dearie?"

I confirmed that apprehension.

"Well, I do call it a shame; and you looking so blue with the cold."

With that I was in cordial agreement.

"Are they going to bring you tea, dearie, at 'arf-time?"

Alas, no. Under sergeant's sanction we might be permitted to buy a pork-pie from opposite, but this must be taken as unofficial and in confidence.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"Zeppelins, Madam," I replied.

"Zeppelins--what would they be?"

She nodded a vigorous understanding of my explanation.

"And when they drop their nasty bombs, what will you do then, dearie?"

Our orders were to draw our truncheons, arrest them and convey them to the nearest police-station. I made this very clear.

"And what do you think they will do to them?"

I considered that they would get at least a month with hard labour, and no option of a fine.

"I should think so! The brutes--trying to take away the poor man's food! And as for that CROWN PRINCE, when you get 'im, just you 'it 'im right over the 'ead with your truncheon!"

We are not allowed to hit over the head on ordinary occasions, but in the case of the CROWN PRINCE attacking (and conceivably looting) our sausage factory, no doubt the rule would be relaxed. I undertook to follow her advice, and she left greatly relieved.

* * * * *

A CAPTURE.

Even without his khaki I should have known the wee lieutenant for an infant in arms, and I began to hope, directly I had been detached by our hostess to cover his left wing, that he was that happy warrior for whom I was seeking. He saw me looking at the red ribbon which adorned the left wing in question and which our gardener's wife told me the other day was "a poor trumpery sort of thing if KITCHENER meant it as an honour to them."

"I'm not a kicker," he assured me, and I let him talk inoculation happily until we commenced to move forward in files.

"You live here, don't you?" he said as soon as Maria (not black) had served us with soup, and when I assented his next remark made me hopeful.

"And you know all the people round here, I suppose?"

"Nearly everyone I should think within five miles of the village."

"I've been here a fortnight and this is the first time I have been out--not out-of-doors, of course--I mean meeting people."

At that moment my neighbour upon the left commenced a bombardment which interrupted us but, when a pause came at last, the wee lieutenant broke it in a low and solemn voice.

"I suppose you couldn't tell me why a deaf man can't tickle nine children?"

So suddenly had matters come to a head that I sat staring, and the wee lieutenant, misunderstanding my interest, grew red.

"I'm not mad, really and truly, but that thing is positively getting on my brain. I'm not very keen on riddles and so forth, but I happened to hear someone ask that one the other day, and I didn't catch the answer. Somehow it has worried me ever since. Why can't he tickle them?"

I shook my head. "I never saw anybody attempt it, deaf or otherwise. Hadn't you better ask the person who propounded the question?"

"I--I can't very well--I wish I could. I thought, if you knew the answer to the riddle, you might know the person who asked it. It's very hard to get to know people by yourself, isn't it?"

I lured him into the open. "How did you come to hear it?"

He pondered in silence for a moment with his frank eyes bent upon his plate.

"I don't mind telling you, but I shouldn't like everyone to know; they might think me a bit of a fool."

I promised discretion.

"Well, the other morning I was up on the common kicking a football about with some of the men--it's good for them and keeps them from getting too much beer, and I like it myself--football, I mean, not beer--and some people came and sat down to watch on the roller, and there was a Yellow Jersey among them."

"But what a curious place for a cow--on a roller."

The wee lieutenant twinkled. "And she was rather nice, you know."

I nodded, thinking to myself that this young man would never make "an Eye-Witness with Headquarters," whatever else the fortunes of war might bring him.

"Well, that evening we were out scouting, trying to find out where a party of cavalry had got to that had been reported coming out from King's Langley to take us by surprise, and when I got to a cottage with its blinds down and a light inside I peeped in, and there were two or three people, and she was there, and, of course, I had to knock to ask if any cavalry had gone by."

"And she didn't come to the door!"

"No, you're right there; somebody else did, but I heard my one--I mean the Jersey one--I mean the Yellow one--ask somebody that riddle; but the person--the sister or whatever she was who came to the door--finished me off before I heard the answer, and somehow or other it's been running through my head ever since. It isn't the girl, you know, it's--it's the aggravation of it. I asked our sergeant the other day and he doesn't know. One of these days I shall be giving it as an order--'Deaf section! Tickle nine children!' Do you--do you know who lives in that cottage?"

"Nobody."

"But she--they were there that night."

"Yes, but they don't really live there. We call them the Swallows because they migrate so much. Baby Swallow is very pretty, isn't she? and, by-the-by, she's rather afraid that you may be worrying about that riddle."

"Me--I?"

This was the moment for which I had been waiting, but the wee lieutenant took cover, hunting his dessert fork on the floor long after Maria had brought up reinforcements.

"Why, yes, she ought to have said, 'dumb,' not 'deaf.' I've forgotten the answer--something about 'gesticulate.' She's coming to tea with me to-morrow. Would you like me to ask her what the answer is, and write it down for you?"

Our hostess gave the signal for our half company to retire, the other half to stay down in the smoke, and I added, as I went out, "That will lay the riddle nicely, won't it? If it had been the girl and not the aggravation, I should have asked you to tea too."

The wee lieutenant surrendered at that, blushing above the door-handle.

"I--I--I say, I should like to get the answer first-hand. Won't you ask me to tea, please?"

I don't yet know what it feels like to capture a prisoner of war, but that's how I assisted at the taking of a prisoner of love.

* * * * *

Illustration:

_The Jester._ "HALLO, SONNY! CHOOSIN' YER TURKEY?"

_Diminutive Patriot._ "GARN! YER DON'T CATCH ME 'AVIN' TURKEY THESE DAYS. WY, I'D AS SOON EAT A GERMAN SAUSAGE!"

* * * * *

KEEPING IN THE LIMELIGHT.

It was a grand meeting of the literary gents. They had all heard about the War from their publishers, and there had been one or two suggestive allusions in _The Author_. The question of the moment was, "How can we help?" The chairman was the President of the Society of Authors, who knew everybody by sight.

The first to rise was Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE, but he failed to catch the Chairman's eye, which had been secured by Mr. H. G. WELLS. This well-known strategist rose to point out that what England wanted in the event of an invasion was the man, the gun and the trench. When he said man he meant an adult male of the human species. A gun was a firearm from which bullets were discharged by an explosion of gunpowder. A trench, he averred, amid loud protests from the ex-Manager of the Haymarket Theatre, was a long narrow cut in the earth. He had already pointed out these facts to the War Office, but had received no reply. Apparently Earl KITCHENER required time for the information to soak in. Was it or was it not a national scandal? His new nov---- (Deleted by Chairman).

After a little coaxing, Mr. EDEN PHILLPOTTS was persuaded to rise to his feet. He said deferentially in the first place that he was not a savage. (General cheering, in which might be detected a note of sincere relief.) He lived at Torquay. (Oh, oh.) He had never been to London before, and was surprised to find it such a large place. (General silence.) He had been a pacifist--(Hear, hear)--but he now thought the GERMAN EMPEROR was a humbug. He wished it to be known that his attitude was now one of great 'umbleness. The war could go on as far as he was concerned. (Applause.) Although he had given up writing about Dartmoor he had that morning applied for the post of Military Member of the Invasion Committee of the Torquay Division of Devonshire. (Profound sensation.) He didn't know if he should get it, but his friend, Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT, with whom he used once to collab---- (Deleted by Chairman).

Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE then took the floor, but was interrupted by the arrival of the Military Member of the Invasion Committee of the Thorpe-le-Soken Division of Essex.

Hanging his feathered helmet on the door-peg and thrusting his sword and scabbard into the umbrella-stand, Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT took a seat at the table, afterwards putting out his chest. Mr. WELLS was observed to sink into an elaborately assumed apathy. But in his eyes was a bitter envy.

Mr. BENNETT, after clearing his throat, said that he had settled the War. Everybody was to do what they were told and what that was would be told them in due course. He and the War Office had had it out. He had insisted on something being done, and the War Office, which wasn't such a fool as some authors thought (with a meaning look at Mr. WELLS), had been most affable. Everything now was all right. His next book was to be a war nov---- (Deleted by Chairman).

Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE then rose to his feet simultaneously with Mr. WM. LE QUEUX.

Mr. WM. LE QUEUX said that he owned an autograph portrait of the KAISER. It was signed "Yours with the belt, BILL." The speaker would sell it on behalf of the War Funds and humbly apologised to his brother authors for having knocked about so much in his youth with emperors and persons of that kind. It should not occur again. He pointed out that he had foretold this War, and that his famous book, _The Great War_ of--whenever it was--was to be brought up to date in the form of ---- (Deleted by Chairman).

At this juncture it was brought to the Chairman's notice that Mr. H. G. WELLS was missing. An anxious search revealed the fact that the ornamental sword and plumed casque of the Military Member of the Invasion Committee of the Thorpe-le-Soken Division of Essex had disappeared at the same time, and the meeting broke up in disorder.

* * * * *

Illustration: THE SUPREME TEST.

_The Civilian._ "I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT. FANCY MARCHIN' THIRTY MILES WITH THE RIFLE, AND THAT PACK ON YER BACK!"

_The Tommy_. "YES, AND MIND YOU--IT'S TIPPERARY ALL THE WAY!"

* * * * *

Our Sporting Press Again. "Sporting rifles have been bought in Paris
for pheasant-shooting."--_Daily News._

* * * * *

THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.

I was sitting in front of the fire--dozing, I daresay--when he was announced.

"Father Christmas."

He came in awkwardly and shook me by the hand.

"Forgive my unceremonious entry," he said. "I know I ought to have come down the chimney, but--well, _you_ understand."

"Things are different this year," I suggested.

"Very different," he said gloomily. He put his sack down and took a seat on the other side of the fire-place.

"Anything for me?" I wondered, with an eye on the sack between us.

"Ah, there's no difference _there_," he said, brightening up as he drew out a big flat parcel. "The blotter from Aunt Emily. You needn't open it now; it's exactly the same as last year's."

I had been prepared for it. I took a letter from my pocket and dropped it in the sack.

"My letter of thanks for it," I explained. "Exactly the same as last year's too."

Father Christmas sighed and gazed into the fire.

"All the same," he said at last, "it's different, even with your Aunt Emily."

"Tell me all about it. To begin with, why didn't you come down the chimney?"

"The reindeer." He threw up his hands in despair. "Gone!"

"How?"

"Filleted."

I looked at him in surprise.

"Or do I mean 'billeted'?" he said. "Anyway, the War Office did it."

"Requisitioned, perhaps."

"That's it. They requisitioned 'em. What you and I would call taking 'em."

"I see. So you have to walk. But you could still come down the chimney."

"Well, I _could_; but it would mean climbing up there first. And that wouldn't seem so natural. It would make it more like a practical joke, and I haven't the heart for practical jokes this year, when nobody really wants me at all."

"Not want you?" I protested. "What rubbish!"

Father Christmas dipped his hand into his sack and brought out a card of greeting. Carefully adjusting a pair of horn spectacles to his nose he prepared to read.

"Listen to this," he said. "It's from Alfred to Eliza." He looked at me over his glasses. "I don't know if you know them at all?"

"I don't think so."

"An ordinary printed card with robins and snow and so forth on it. And it says"--his voice trembled with indignation--"it says, 'Wishing you a very happy ----' Censored, Sir! Censored, at _my_ time of life. There's your War Office again."

"I think that's a joke of the publisher's," I said soothingly.

"Oh, if it's humour, I don't mind. Nobody is more partial to mirth and jollity than I am." He began to chuckle to himself. "There's my joke about the 'rain, dear'; I don't know if you know that?"

I said I didn't; he wanted cheering up. But though he was happy while he was telling it to me he soon became depressed again.

"Look here," I said sternly, "this is absurd of you. Christmas is chiefly a children's festival. Grown-ups won't give each other so many presents this year, but we shall still remember the children, and we shall give you plenty to do seeing after _them_. Why," I went on boastfully, "you've got four of my presents in there at this moment. The book for Margery, and the box of soldiers, and the Jumping Tiger and----"

Father Christmas held up his hand and stopped me.

"It's no good," he said, "you can't deceive _me_. After a good many years at the business I'm rather sensitive to impressions." He wagged a finger at me. "Now then, uncle. Was your whole heart in it when you bought that box of soldiers, or did you do it with an effort, telling yourself that the children mustn't be forgotten--and knowing quite well that you _had_ forgotten them?"

"One has a--a good deal to think about just now," I said uneasily.

"Oh, I'm not blaming you; everybody's the same; but it makes it much less jolly for _me_, that's all. You see, I can't help knowing. Why, even your Aunt Emily, when she bought you that delightful blotter ... which you have your foot on ... even _she_ bought it in a different way from last year's. Last year she gave a lot of happy thought to it, and decided in the middle of the night that a blotter was the one thing you wanted. This year she said, 'I suppose he'd better have his usual blotter, or he'll think I've forgotten him.' Kind of her, of course (as, no doubt, you've said in your letter), but not the jolly Christmas spirit."

"I suppose not," I said.

Father Christmas sighed again and got up.

"Well, I must be trotting along. Perhaps next year they'll want me again. Good-bye."

"Good-bye. You're quite sure there's nothing else for me?"

"Quite sure," he said, glancing into his bag. "Hallo, what's this?"

He drew out a letter. It had O.H.M.S. on it, and was addressed to "Father Christmas."

"For me? Fancy my not seeing that before. Whatever can it be?" He fixed his spectacles again and began to read.

"A commission, perhaps," I said humorously.

"It _is_ a commission!" he cried excitedly. "To go to the Front and deliver Christmas presents to the troops! They've got hundreds of thousands all ready for them!"

"And given in what spirit?" I smiled.

"Ah, my boy! No doubt about the spirit of _that_." He slung his sack on to his shoulder and faced me--his old jolly self again. "This will be something like. I suppose I shall have the reindeer again for this. Did I ever tell you the joke--ah! so I did, so I did. Well, good night to you."

He hurried out of the room chuckling to himself. I sat down in front of the fire again, but in a moment he was back.

"Just thought of something very funny," he said, "Simply had to come back and tell you. The troops--hee-hee-hee--won't have any stockings to hang up, so--ha-ha-ha--they'll have to hang up their puttees! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

He passed through the door again, and his laughter came rolling down the passage.

A. A. M.

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Illustration: FOR ALL PERSONS.