Chapter II

Tommy Brown has already been in disgrace, although it is only a fortnight since he wrote the famous patriotic essay which determined Mr. Smith, his Form-master, to go to the Front. You see, Miss Price, who is deputising for Mr. Smith, does not like lizards, and has an especial aversion to white rats, whereas Tommy is very fond of these and other dumb animals.

So Tommy was reported to the Headmaster. At first the Headmaster thought that the application of "somewhat severe measures, my boy," would meet the case; but whoever heard of caning a curly-headed boy with blue eyes and an ink-stain on both lips? The interview took place in the Headmaster's study. To the question, "What do you mean, Sir, by bringing lizards and white rats to school?" Tommy said, "Yes, Sir," and then, after thinking for fully three seconds, he said he had a ferret at home, and did the Headmaster know how to hold a ferret so that it couldn't bite you?

It seems that ferrets, if they once get hold of your thumb, never let go--_not never_--and that you have to force their jaws open with a penholder; also ferrets exhibit a marked preference for thumbs. All this information Tommy conveyed without drawing a breath. The Headmaster said, "Quite so, my boy, quite so. But don't you know it is extremely reprehensible conduct to bring animals to school in your pocket?" Well, you see, that is how Tommy's mother talks to him, so he knew what to do, and, looking up into the Headmaster's face with that wistful look of his, he imparted the deep secret that he had a tortoise.

Tortoises, the Headmaster learnt, had a way of getting lost among the cabbages, but, if you wanted to prevent them from straying, all you had to do was to turn them over on their backs and put a piece of brown paper over them for their feet to play with. Also they were stuck fast in their shells, because Tommy had tried. A boy had told Tommy that tortoises laid eggs, but although Tommy had showed his tortoise a hen's egg and then put the tortoise in a nice new nest the tortoise had taken no step in the matter.

However, Tommy promised never to bring any more animals to school and to express his sorrow to Miss Price. And he was richer by sixpence when the interview closed.

At parting, Tommy offered to lend the Headmaster his tortoise for a week, and told him that, if he stood for a whole hour on its back, it wouldn't hurt it, because Tommy had trained it; also it never crawled out of your pocket.

Tommy apologised to Miss Price for bringing the white rats to school--they weren't white rats really, not to look at; they were rather piebald through constant association with ink. Also he brought an apple and showed her how, by holding it a certain way whilst eating it, she would miss the bad part. In further sign of amity he showed her his knife, and especially that instrument in it which was used for removing stones from horses' hoofs. Not that Tommy had removed many stones from horses' hoofs, not very many, but if you had a tooth that was loose it was very helpful. Miss Price gave him a new threepenny bit, and Tommy tried hard to please her in arithmetic by reducing inches to pounds, shillings and pence.

With nine-pence in his pocket Tommy felt uneasy. It was a question between a lop-eared rabbit and a mouth-organ. A lop-eared rabbit, that is to say a proper one, cost two shillings; for nine-pence it was probable that you could only get a rabbit which would lop with one ear.

Besides, a lop-eared rabbit meant a hutch, and he had already used the cover of his mother's sewing-machine for the piebald rats.

On the other hand, you could get a mouth-organ with a bell on it for nine-pence; he knew.

It was a splendid instrument!

Tommy took it to bed with him and put it under his pillow, and when his mother came to see that he was all right at night his hand was clutched round it as he slept content.

The next day Tommy gave an organ recital in the playground before a large and enthusiastic audience. For a marble he would let you blow it while he held it. For two marbles you could hold it yourself.

One boy paid the two marbles, and noticed the words "Made in Germany" in small letters on the under side. The silence that followed the announcement of this discovery was broken only by the sound of Jones minor biting an apple. All eyes were on Tommy Brown. For the fraction of a second he hesitated, and in that fraction Brook tertius giggled.

Tommy seized the mouth-organ with a determination that was almost ferocious; he threw it on the ground, stamped on it with his heel again and again, and finally took and pitched it into a neighbouring garden. He then fell upon Brook tertius and punched him until he howled.

Before Tommy Brown could go to sleep that night his mother had to sit by his bed-side and hold his hand; he never released her hand until he was fast asleep. How like his father (the V.C.) he looked! She wondered what made him toss so in his sleep and what had become of his mouth-organ with the bell on it.

* * * * *

Illustration: HOW TO BRING UP A HUN. THE TEUTONIC SUBSTITUTE FOR MILK.

* * * * *

"FRENCH PRESIDENT AT THE FONT."

_Leicester Daily Mercury._

Where he received his baptism of fire?

* * * * *

"German infantry on the morning of the 5th ventured an assault and
were repulsed by blithering fire."--_Pioneer._

Some of their Professors should be able to do good work in the blithering line.

* * * * *

"Reuter's agency learns that according to an official telegram
received in London Turkish vessels have entered the open port of
Odessa and bombarded Russian ships.

6 to 1 agst Cheerful, 7 to 1 agst Flippant."

_South Wales Echo._

Not at all; we remain both.

* * * * *

Illustration: WHAT OUR TAILOR HAS TO PUT UP WITH.

_Scene I._ A PERFECT FIT. _Scene II._ AFTER A WEEK'S DRILL.

* * * * *

BEGBIE REBUKED.

Fleet Street was thrilled to the depths of its deepest inkpot last week when it read in _The Daily Chronicle_ of the historic meeting between Mr. HAROLD BEGBIE and Mr. W. J. BRYAN in New York. The sensation was caused not so much by the announcement that Mr. BRYAN "has the long mouth of the orator, the lips swelling and protruding as he speaks, thinning and compressing when he is silent," or that "the full and heavy neck, which seems to be part of the face, is corded with muscles," although either of those statements is startling enough. Nor was it Mr. BEGBIE'S struggle to decide whether he should devote his attention to the great statesman or to the railway station in which they met, the statesman being selected only just in time. No, what nearly stopped the clock of St. Bride's church was this paragraph in Mr. BEGBIE'S record of the event: "At this point I asked quite innocently, and with a real desire for information, an obvious but indiscreet question, which Mr. BRYAN rebuked me for asking, reminding me that he was a member of the Government."

What a subject for an Academy painting in oils! Or, if MILTON had been living at this hour, how he would have immortalised the touching scene!

A desire to present to our readers some fuller details of this world-staggering event prompted us to cable to a few correspondents in New York. One cables back: "The scene was dramatic in the extreme. The journalist, his big blue eyes brimming with innocence, gently breathed his question, when the great statesman shook his shaggy mane and roared out his rebuke like a lion in pain. The journalist's apologetic gesture was one of the most delicate things I have ever seen."

Another tells us:--"When Mr. BEGBIE put his question so great a stillness reigned throughout the crowded railway station that you could have heard a goods-train shunt." Mr. BRYAN looked long and earnestly at the journalist, then, placing his hand affectionately on his shoulder, he said to him in a throbbing voice, "Oh, HAROLD, how can you?"

* * * * *

"THE INCORRIGIBLES."

"The enemy made attacks, but each effort was repulsed with great laughter."--_Star._

* * * * *

"One recalls in this connection the statement made by Alexander the
Great, that Napoleon's invasion of Russia was defeated not by the
Cossacks, but by Generals January and February."--_Stock Exchange
Gazette._

This reminds us of CÆSAR'S comment on the sack of Louvain:--"_Magnificens est, sed non bellum._"

* * * * *

WIRELESS.

There sits a little demon
Above the Admiralty,
To take the news of seamen
Seafaring on the sea;
So all the folk aboard-ships
Five hundred miles away
Can pitch it to their Lordships
At any time of day.

The cruisers prowl observant;
Their crackling whispers go;
The demon says, "Your servant,"
And lets their Lordships know;
A fog's come down off Flanders?
A something showed off Wick?
The captains and commanders
Can speak their Lordships quick.

The demon sits a-waking;
Look up above Whitehall--
E'en now, mayhap, he's taking
The Greatest Word of all;
From smiling folk aboard-ships
He ticks it off the reel:--
"An' may it please your Lordships,
A Fleet's put out o' Kiel!"

* * * * *

"Much indecision prevails as to what the value of sultanas will be
in the near future."

_Daily Telegraph._

What the Germans want to know is the price of Sultans.

* * * * *

BLANCHE'S LETTERS.

WAR GOSSIP.

_Park Lane._

Dearest Daphne,--The situation here is unchanged, though we have made some progress in knitting. Forgive me, _m'amie_, but one does get so much into the _despatch_ habit! The other day I'd a letter from Babs, in which she told me she'd "nothing fresh to report on her right wing" before she pulled herself together.

Norty's at the front as a flying-man. He's finding out all sorts of things, dropping bombs on Zeppelins and covering himself with glory. I had a few lines from him last week. He dated from "A place in Europe" (they have to be _enormously_ cautious!), and said he was having the time of his life. He was immensely pleased with the last letter I managed to get through to him, and was particularly struck, he says, with my advice to him: "Find out all you can, and above all don't get caught;" he considers it simply _invaluable_ advice and says all airmen ought to have it written up in letters of gold somewhere or other.

Stella Clackmannan's had a fortnight's training as a nurse and is off. I ran in to see the dear thing the night before she left. She'd been posing to a photographer in her Red Cross uniform for _hours_ and _hours_ and was almost in a state of _collapse_; but the heroic darling said she was ready to do even _more than that_ for her country. In one photo she's sitting by a cot with her hands folded, looking sad but _very_ sweet. In another she's standing up, singing, "It's a long way to Tipperary;" and in a third she's bandaging someone (she had one of the foot-men in for this photo), and, _à mon avis_, it's the least successful of all. She appears to be _choking_ the poor man! However, they're immensely charming, and will all be seen in the "Aristocratic Angels of Mercy" page of next week's _People of Position_.

Dear Professor Dimsdale has only just got back to England from his eclipse expedition. I'm not sure now whether it was an eclipse or an occultation, but anyhow the only place where it could be properly seen was a mountain in the Austrian Tyrol. It was due in the middle of August, and the last week in July the Professor set off with his big telescope and his lenses and his assistants and his note-books and everything that was his. He lived a week or two on the mountain, to get used to the atmosphere and prepare all his things, so he didn't know what was going on in the world below. And then, just as the eclipse or whatever it was _began_, and the Professor was looking up at the sky for all he was worth, a lot of fearful creatures came rushing up the mountain and said there was a war and that he was an alien enemy and that he was making signals and that his big telescope was a new sort of howitzer; and they pushed him down the mountain, and broke his telescope and all his lenses, and tore up his note-books, and shook their fists at him and used such language that he said for the first time in his life he was sorry he was such a good linguist!

They finished by shutting him up in a fortress, and there he's been ever since. He hardly knows how it was he got away, but he believes the whole garrison was marched off to meet the Russians, and that they're all prisoners now--which is his only drop of comfort. I've tried to console him for having missed what he went to see. I said, "Perhaps the eclipse or whatever it was will happen again soon--or one like it." He groaned out, "My dear lady, that particular conjunction of the heavenly bodies will not occur again for 2,645 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 2 days." So there it is, my dearest!

Would it cheer you up to hear a small romance of war and knitting? Here it is, then. Some time ago Monica Jermyn brought round some terrific mitts she'd knitted to go in one of my parcels for the troops. She's easily the worst knitter who ever held needles! "My _dear_ child," I said, "what simply ghastly mitts! They're full of mistakes." "What's it matter?" Monica answered. "Mistakes will keep them quite as warm as the right stitches. Besides, they're all right. I knit ever so much better now than when I used to make socks for the Deep Sea Fisherman last year." "That's not saying much," I said. "I remember those socks for the Deep Sea Fishermen, and I doubt whether even the _deepest_ sea fishermen would know how to put them on! What's this?" "It's a message to go with the mitts," replied Monica. This was the message:--"The girl who made these mitts hopes they will be a comfort to some dear brave hands fighting for her and her sisters in England." "Oh, my _dear_!" I remonstrated. "It's very _young_ and _romantic_ of you, but don't you think it's _just_ a little----" "No, I don't!" she cried. "And if it is, I don't care. Please, please let it go!" So it went.

Soon after that the Jermyns went down to their place in Sussex, and later I heard they'd some convalescent war heroes as guests. Monica wrote me: "All six of them are dear brave darlings, of course, but _one_ of them is _darlinger_ than the others. Tell it not in Gath, dear Blanche, but I think I've met my fate!" Later she wrote: "He's getting on splendidly. He turns out to be a cousin of the Flummerys. He performed _prodigies_ of valour, but won't say a _word_ about it. When he leaves us my heart will quite, _quite_ break--and I sometimes hope _his_ will too!"

Yesterday came the following:--"Claude and I belong to each other. And what, oh _what_ do you think helped to lead up to the dear, delicious finale? But wait. My hero is almost quite well now, and this morning, when we took what would have been our _last_ little walk in the grounds, it happened! He walks _beautifully_ now, though he still needs an arm at about the level of _mine_ to lean on. It was a chilly morning and, as I was looking down and trying to think of something to say, I gave a sudden shriek, for on his dear heroic wrists I recognised--_My Mitts_! And when he heard I'd made them he was just as _confondu_ as I was. 'They were in a bale of comfies sent to my company,' he said, 'and I had the ladling out of them to the men. But when I came to these mitts, with the sweet little message pinned to them, I simply couldn't part with them! And to think _you_ made them--and wrote the little message! It makes one believe in all those psychic what-d'-you-call-'ems.'

"I felt a crisis was coming and so I said hurriedly, 'Oh, I only wish they were worthier of--of--brave hands and wrists. I'm a wretched knitter--they're full of mistakes--I kept forgetting to keep to the pattern--it ought to have been, "_knit_ two together and _make_ one"--but of course you don't understand knitting.' 'I understand it right enough if _that's_ all there is to it,' he said. "Knit two together and make one." Monica--no, you mustn't run away----' And that's all you're going to be told, Blanche, except that the powers that be have given their consent and I'm too happy for words!"

_Et voilà mon petit roman de guerre et de tricotage._

My poor Josiah is still at the uttermost edge of beyond. He began to come home, and the boat was chased and ran to an island for shelter, and then the island was taken by one of our enemies and he was a prisoner. Then it was retaken by one of the Allies and he was free again. Since then more things have happened and he's been a prisoner again, and free again. And now he's lost count, and says he doesn't know _what_ he is or _who's_ got the island!

Ever thine,

BLANCHE.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Cyclist._ "MANY RECRUITS GONE FROM THIS VILLAGE?"

_Shopkeeper._ "NO, SIR."

_Cyclist._ "OH, WHY'S THAT?"

_Shopkeeper._ "WELL, SIR, AFTER GOING CAREFULLY INTO THE MATTER, WE, IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, DECIDED TO REMAIN ABSOLUTELY NEUTRAL."

* * * * *

FATHER WILHELM.

"You are bold, Father WILHELM," the young man said;
"Your moustache, too, is fiercer than mine;
But I'm tempted to ask by the size of your head,
Do you really suppose you're divine?"

"In my youth," said his father, "you probably know
That I held the most orthodox views;
But since I have hypnotized HARNACK and CO.
I simply believe what I choose."

"You are bold," said the youth, "as I've mentioned before,
Yet you frequently talk through your hat;
For you told us the English were worthless in war;
Pray what was the reason of that?"

"In my earlier days," said his sire, "through and through
I studied that decadent race,
And in failing to prove that my forecast was true
They have covered themselves with disgrace."

"You are bold," said the youth, "and the Nietzschean creed
Cries, 'Down with the humble and meek;'
Yet the sack of Louvain made your bosom to bleed;
Why were you so painfully weak?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I studied the Arts
With a zeal that no force could restrain;
And the love of mankind which that study imparts
Has made me unduly humane."

"You _were_ bold," said the youth, "but it seems to be clear
That you're losing your grit and your fire;
And, if I may whisper the hint in your ear,
Don't you think that you ought to retire?"

"I've answered three questions," the KAISER replied,
"That might baffle the wit of a ZANCIG;
I'm tired of your talk and I'm sick of your 'side':
Be off, or I'll send you to Danzig."

* * * * *

THE WAY OF THE TURK.

The position of Turkey is muddled and murky,
But the course she's resolved to pursue
Is true to her mind, which we constantly find
_À l'Enver(s) et contre tous._

* * * * *

"The Hun and the Tartar stand together--_par mobile patrum_."

_Newcastle Daily Journal._

We cannot speak with equal confidence of the head of the Tartars, but the KAISER certainly makes a very mobile parent.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Cavalry Instructor_ (_to nervous Recruit_). "NOW THEN; NONE O' THEM COSSACK STUNTS 'ERE."

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.