Chapter III: (Extract from leading article.)

"... Again we ask, 'What is the Government doing?' For several days now our columns have been ringing with the world-wide acclamation of this stupendous discovery, beside the potentialities of which the wildest efforts of imaginative literature are reduced to pallid and uninspired commonplaces. Even so cautious a scientist as Sir Potiphar Shucks has declared that the idea of Saturn being inhabited is one that 'should not lightly be set aside,' and has announced his conviction that under favourable conditions communication with that planet should in the near future become 'an accomplished fact.' Other eminent leaders of thought and action, including Signor Tromboni, are even more enthusiastic in their reception of the great theory first given to the world by Mr. Diogenes Dottle in a letter to _The Daily Mandate_. But the POSTMASTER-GENERAL is content to treat the question with the airy scepticism and obstructive complacency that have rendered the London Telephone service a byword of inefficiency, and refuses even to make a grant in aid of the work of investigation.

"In these circumstances the proprietors of _The Daily Mandate_ have much pleasure in announcing that they will pay the sum of ten thousand pounds to the first man, woman or child in the British Empire who can produce evidence of having received an intelligible telephonic message from Saturn, and a further sum of one hundred thousand pounds to the first person to send a message to that planet and receive a clear reply. The services of a Board of distinguished experts are being engaged for the purpose of testing and adjudicating all claims.

"_Meanwhile the POSTMASTER-GENERAL must go._"

* * * * *

* * * * *

"It may safely be said that there are more millionaires to the square
yard in Bradford than in any other city in the country, not even
excepting London or New York."--_Daily Paper._

The news that Britain has annexed the United States will comfort those who thought it was the other way about.

* * * * *

"The incessant singing of a cricket in a London church compelled the
preacher to shorten his sermon."--_The Children's Newspaper._

We may now expect increased enthusiasm for the "Sunday Cricket" movement.

* * * * *

A VERMIN OFFENSIVE.

There was a faint scuffling sound behind the wainscot.

"There it is again," said Araminta.

"Not a doubt of it," I replied, turning pale.

Thrusting on my hat I rushed up the hill to the Town Hall and asked to see the Clerk of the Borough Council immediately.

"I have reason to suspect," I said in a hoarse low whisper, as soon as I was shown into the man's presence, "that our premises are in imminent danger of being infested. Counsel me as to what I should do."

"It is your duty as a good citizen to take such steps as may from time to time be necessary and reasonably practicable to destroy the vermin," he said in a rather weary and mechanical tone.

"I hope I am not one to take my civic duties lightly," I replied with some _hauteur_, "but observe that I merely said I had reason to suspect the imminence of the peril. I should like to know the legal definition of infestment, if you please. I cannot definitely say that house-breaking has taken place as yet. I do not know that there has even been petty larceny. There may have been merely loitering with felonious intent."

"What is the size of your premises?" he inquired.

"It is more a messuage than a premises," I explained. "About twelve feet by ten, I should say--speaking without the lease."

"And how many vermin do you expect it to be about to harbour?"

"None have actually hove in sight at present," I said reassuringly, "but there is a sound of one in the offing--in the wainscoting, I mean."

"In a residence of your size I should say that a single mouse would constitute infestation within the meaning of the Act, so soon as it forces an ingress. It will then be your bounden duty to demolish it. How about purchasing a trap?"

"You are sure that is better than hiding behind the arras and hitting it over the head with a pole-axe?" I inquired anxiously, "or proffering it a bowl of poisoned wine?"

"Poison is no longer supplied free," he answered coldly, and I went out.

Very luckily, as I hastened up the hill, I had observed a building with the words, "Job Masters. Traps for Hire," written upon a wooden board. I went inside and found an elderly man sitting at a desk in a small office. He looked extremely patient. "Are you Job?" I asked breathlessly. "I have come to buy a mouse-trap."

Appearances, of course, are quite often deceptive. They were in this case. The elderly man was very much annoyed. When he had explained matters forcibly to me I went on down the hill and entered an ironmonger's.

"I wish to buy a trap to catch a mouse," I said to the assistant behind the counter.

"Certainly, Sir. What size?" said the lad politely.

"Small to medium," I replied, rather baffled. "It has only a medium-sized scratch."

He showed me a peculiar apparatus made of wire and wood containing apparently a vestibule, two reception rooms, staircase and first-floor lobby, with an open window and a diving-board. Underneath the window was a small swimming tank.

"I don't want a hydropathic exactly," I explained. "I propose to exterminate this rodent, not to foster longevity in it. How does it work?"

He pointed out that, after examining the various apartments, the animal would be allured by the fragrance of a small portion of cheese placed above the diving-board; overbalancing, it would then be projected into the water, where it would infallibly drown. "It is a thoroughly humane instrument," he assured me, "and used in the best 'omes."

I bought it and went on to a cheese foundry. Araminta was rather scornful of the sanatorium when I came home with it and set it, loaded and trained, on the dining-room floor; but the children were delighted. It ranked only a little lower than the pantomime, and if only we could have secured an outside visitor to it I believe that it would have defeated the Zoo. To visit it with a sort of wistful hope became the principal treat of the day. But, alas, the mansion remained untenanted. Sometimes during a lull in conversation we would hear the faint scuffling again, but after about six days I became convinced, by kneeling down and placing my ear to the carpet like an Indian, that the noise was even fainter than it had been at first. A terrible suspicion seized me. I dashed out and rang the bell of the flat next door.

"It is just as I feared," I said to Araminta on returning a few moments later. "We are not going to be infested after all. The vermin has been sighted in No. 140B."

"We must make the best of it," she said, trying to speak cheerfully, "though it _is_ hard on the children, poor dears."

"I wasn't thinking of the children," I replied bitterly; "I was thinking of the expense. If we had been living in a house instead of a flat we could at least have deducted it from the rates."

I sat down and made out a bill as follows to the Clerk of the Borough Council, heading it:--

_On Account of Spurious Infestment._
s. d.
To one Mouse Institute and Aquarium 5 6
" Cheese 0 6
" Labour at 2/6 per hour 0 7-1/2
---------
Total 6 7-1/2

The man replied coldly that the householder was responsible for all expenditure incurred in precautionary measures and that the Council was in no way liable for the costs resulting from an offensive that failed to materialize. He ended with the rather rude postscript, "What kind of cheese did you use?"

This was a bit sickening. However, by threatening to lay information against him, I have at last succeeded in inducing the occupier of 140B to take over the abattoir at a very satisfactory valuation. It was between that and buying his mouse.

EVOE.

* * * * *

TWO NIGHTMARES.

[_Dreamed after reading in a daily paper that "any style of dress that
lessens one's self-confidence should be tabooed" (sic)._]

I travelled from the Sussex hills
With confidence divine,
Full of the conscious power that thrills
My heart when life is mine,
And strode to Lady Fancy Frills
With whom I was to dine.

Her guests had come from Clubs and Courts
And Halls of wealthy Jews;
As they surveyed my running shorts
I felt my courage ooze,
While conscious power, grown out of sorts,
Leaked through my canvas shoes.

* * * * *

Then I re-travelled South by West
Inflated with a joy
Which in the suit I called my best
No buffet could destroy;
I may remark I'd come full-dressed
From lunch at the Savoy.

But when the hills began to shout
I coloured to the roots,
And when the valleys cried, "Get out!"
To the last word in suits,
My joy, displaced by sudden doubt,
Leaked through my spatted boots.

* * * * *

Of the mysterious Marconigrams:--

"They may be the effort of sentiment beings in some neighbouring planet
to communicate with us."--_Evening Paper._

Can we have broken in on a conversation between _Venus_ and _Mars_?

* * * * *

PROFITEERING IN THE WEST END COMPELS MAYFAIR TO PUT ON ANY OLD RAGS AND DO ITS SHOPPING IN SHOREDITCH.]

* * * * *

"WILL YOU STAND BACK, SIR? YOU'RE SPOILING THE PICTURE."]

* * * * *

A CONFLICT OF EMOTIONS.

(_With the British Army in France._)

"I've seen rivetters at New York pie-foundries and stew-specialists on North Sea trawlers," said Percival severely, "but I never realised how monotonous feeding could be till I got into a Mess controlled by Binnie."

Binnie puffed his pipe severely, being of the tough fibre which enables Mess Presidents to endure. Frederick, who had been silent, rose from his seat, heaved a distressing sigh and left the room.

"There's the moral that adorns the tale, you--you public danger!" continued Percival, indicating Frederick's retreating figure. "Look to what a condition that once bright youth has been brought by your endless stews and curries."

"Not a bit of it," answered Binnie lightly. "Frederico could eat patent breakfast food and toasted doormats without taxing his digestion. His complaint is the tender passion. I recognise the symptoms."

"It looks like an acute attack, anyhow," said Percival, rising, "and prompt counter-irritants are indicated. But I'll confirm your diagnosis first."

Inside Frederick's quarters the sound of regular and sustained sighing suggested that the sufferer was in the throes of a spasm of melancholy. Percival entered and narrowly escaped being drawn into the vortex of a particularly powerful inspiration.

"Freddy, old pard," he said kindly, "why so _triste_? If the trouble's financial, my cheque-book is unreservedly at your service. Havin' no balance at the bank I've no use for it myself."

"It's not that--at least not worse than usual," groaned Frederick.

"Then tell me all about it."

"It's a long story," commenced Frederick.

"Let me off with a synopsis," interrupted Percival.

"Once upon a time," continued Frederick, "there was a big war, which made quite a stir in the daily papers and was a common subject of discussion in the clubs. There were many casualties, amongst them being a blithe young laddy who came down to the Base with a fractured maxilla caused by nibbling an M. and V. ration without previously removing the outside tin--or something of the sort. He was sent to hospital and devotedly tended by a Sister of exquisite beauty--such a figure and such hair! It wasn't exactly auburn and not exactly burnished bronze--"

"And it wasn't pale puce and it wasn't ultramarine," broke in Percival impatiently. "Tell me what it was, not what it wasn't."

"I can't. It baffled description. Well, they drifted apart; but often afterwards, when that young laddy was studying his Manual of Military Law in his lonely dug-out, the image of Sister Carruthers glowed on the printed page. But I never met her again until the other day, when I was having a gentle toddle round Quelquepart and saw her gliding along the quay. Something gripped me by the heart; I took my courage in both hands and spoke to her.

"'Don't you remember me, Sister?' I said. 'It was you who nursed me in No. 99 General.'

"She looked at me coldly.

"'As you are the third young officer who has adopted a similar method of introduction this afternoon,' she said, 'you must forgive me if I ask for some confirmation.'

"'Surely you haven't forgotten?' I cried. 'You drew me a sweet little design in dots and dashes to hang over my bed. When I was evacuated to England I wanted to thank you, to ask if we might meet again, but you thrust a clinical thermometer between my teeth and told me not to speak till you gave me permission. Then you left me, and I was whisked away to the boat clinging grimly to the thermometer, inarticulate and heartbroken.'

"'And I presume your object in speaking to me to-day is to return the thermometer?' she said primly.

"That's where I took the full count," continued Frederick, sadly. "If I could have produced any old thing in the thermometer line my _bona fides_ would have been established an' I could have gone ahead like cotton-mill shares. Instead of which, she'd said Good-day and gone while I was thinkin' out explanations. Since that time I've been parading Quelquepart simply bristling with thermometers, but I've never met her again."

"The old Army fault of unpreparedness," remarked Percival. "You ought to go to hospital."

"Don't be juvenile! What have hospitals to do with heartache?"

"Everything, if you go to the right one--the one where your ministering angel ministrates, for instance."

"Percival, old ace," said Frederick, with admiration, "you'll rank among the world's great thinkers yet. Turn on the current again and tell me what is my complaint."

"Digestive trouble," said Percival promptly. "There's already been rumours about, and you'll be doing a public service by going to dock with dyspepsia. Binnie will be so stricken by remorse that he'll at once start providing the Mess with decent food."

"Then for your sakes I'll rehearse the symptoms. But my curse will be on your head if I get to the wrong hospital."

It was unfortunate that the M.O. was in an unsympathetic mood next morning. He thumped Frederick on the lower chest and pooh-poohed the idea of hospital. "All you want is a few of these tablets," he said, "and you'll be fit as nails in a day or two."

Frederick crawled away dispiritedly to confide in Percival. That sapient youth counselled perseverance.

"You must go right off your feed," he said. "Let the doc. see you feebly pecking and he'll soon get alarmed. In the meantime I'm off to give Binnie critical accounts of your appetite and send him to market right away."

Only a burning passion and stealthy bars of chocolate could have sustained Frederick through the next few days. To sit down to breakfast with a healthy appetite and refuse his egg and rasher put the biggest possible strain on his constancy. His task was made doubly difficult by the scheming of Percival, who was constantly inciting Binnie to procure fresh delicacies.

"You've crocked poor Freddy," he said; "and there will be others going the same way if you don't improve the messing. Now I saw some nice plump chickens to-day in the...."

Thus harried, that evening Binnie provided a dinner that almost reduced Frederick to breaking-point. Only the fact that the M.O. was sitting opposite gave him strength to refuse the soup and fish, to trifle with the chicken and turn wearily from the sweet. As the savoury was being served he caught a scrap of conversation across the table.

"... to the boat to see her off for demob.," the M.O. was saying to the Padre. "Jolly nice girl--Jim Carruthers' daughter, you know."

Frederick pricked up his ears.

"I remember," said the Padre. "She used to be at 99 General."

There was no doubt who was the girl referred to. Frederick sat back in his chair with a heavy sense of disappointment and loss. He felt acutely sorry for himself. But presently above the pain in his heart there arose a stronger and more compelling feeling.

"Corporal," he said, "I think after all I'll try one of those crab patties. Or you might tell the waiter to bring in _two_."

* * * * *

* * * * *

PICTURES.

"Some likes picturs o' women" (said Bill) "an' some likes 'orses best,"
As he fitted a pair of fancy shackles on to his old sea-chest;
"But I likes picturs o' ships" (said he), "an' you can keep the rest.

"An' if I was a ruddy millionaire with dollars to burn that way,
Instead of a dead-broke sailorman as never saves his pay,
I'd go to some big paintin' guy, an' this is what I'd say:--

"'Paint me _The Cutty Sark_' (I'd say) 'or the old _Thermopylæ_,
Or _The Star of Peace_ as I sailed in once in my young days at sea,
Shipshape an' Blackwall fashion too, as a clipper ought to be.

"'An' you might do 'er outward bound, with a sky full o' clouds,
An' the tug just droppin' astern an' gulls flyin' in crowds,
An' the decks shiny-wet with rain an' the wind shakin' the shrouds.

"'Or else racin' up-Channel with a sou'-wester blowin',
Stuns'ls set aloft and alow an' a hoist o' flags showin',
An' a white bone between her teeth, so's you can see she's goin'.

"'Or you might do 'er off Cape Stiff in the 'igh latitudes yonder,
With her main-deck a smother of white an' her lee-rail dipping under,
And the big greybeards drivin' by an' breakin' aboard like thunder.

"'Or I'd like old Tuskar somewhere around--or Sydney 'eads, maybe,
Or Bar Light, or the Tail o' the Bank, or a glimp o' Circular Quay,
Or a junk or two, if she's tradin' East, to show it's the China Sea.

"'Nor I don't want no dabs o' paint as you can't tell what they are,
Whether they're shadders or fellers' faces or blocks or blobs o' tar,
But I want gear as looks like gear an' a spar that's like a spar.

"'An' I don't care if it's North or South, the Trades or the China Sea,
Shortened down or everythin' set, close-hauled or runnin' free;
You paint me a ship as is _like_ a ship an' that'll do for me.'"

C.F.S.

* * * * *

_Modern Maiden._ "OH, COME, AUNT! I DON'T LOOK AS HORRIBLY RESPECTABLE AS THAT, SURELY?"]

* * * * *

EGYPTIAN DARKNESS.

"Several letters have appeared in the native Press in some of which
they ask Minindirect way, as they have done, but in a indirect way they
have done but in a clear clear manner which cannot be interpreted two
ways."--_Egyptian Gazette._

Or, so far as we are concerned, even one way.

* * * * *

STARVING EUROPE. "GOD HELP ME!"

AMERICA. "VERY SAD CASE. BUT I'M AFRAID SHE AIN'T TRYING."

["Relief would be found in the resumption of industrial life and activity and the imposition of adequate taxation. The American people should not be called upon to finance the requirements of Europe in so far as they result from failure to take these necessary steps."--_Mr. CARTER GLASS, Secretary of the United States Treasury._]]

* * * * *

THE BIG-GAME CURE.

[In common with everything else, wild animals have risen considerably
in price.]

In other times I might have made
For those wild lands where growls the grisly,
Have tracked him (with some native aid)
And held a broken-hearted Bisley;
Now that my Maud has murmured, "Nay,"
Shrinking from matrimony's tight knot,
I might have acted thus, I say
(Contrariwise, I might not).

In any case to-day I shrink
From thus evading Sorrow's trammels;
A sense of duty bids me think
How costly are the larger mammals;
To kill them just to soothe my mind
Would seem to savour of the wasteful,
A thing all patriot poets find
Exceedingly distasteful.

Not mine the immemorial cure;
The voice of conscience warns me off it;
I'll leave the following of the spoor
To those who follow it for profit;
I feel they would not thank me for
Turning the jungle to a shambles,
Who speculate in lions or
Have elephantine gambles.

And so this poet will not roam;
Remaining on his native heath, he
Will seek an anodyne at home,
Nor look beyond the Thames for Lethe;
And if he fades away, denied
The usual balm in cardiac crises,
Say only this of him, "He died
A prey to soaring prices."

* * * * *

* * * * *

HOW TO ACT IN EMERGENCIES.

_The Weekly Dispatch_ symposium, in which various celebrities discuss the way to act in the event of a burglar being found in the house, shows the need for a little advice in case of emergencies. We append the following very helpful hints:--

The old plan of offering a burglar a cigarette and asking him to take a chair while you telephone to the police is not now so successful as in the past. The best plan is to tackle the fellow right away. For this purpose you should step behind him, take hold of his coat and force it over his face. Then tie his left arm to his right leg across the back. Properly carried out, this method rarely fails.

* * * * *

To attract the attention of the young lady behind a post-office counter, fire a revolver three times in succession, using blank cartridges. After first aid has been rendered to the attendants step up to the counter and purchase your stamp.

* * * * *

If you should be knocked down by a taxi, don't be alarmed and try to creep out from under the thing. And don't blame the driver. Apologise to him, and, as you are being carried away, shake hands and tell him that while it was his cab it was your fault. Treated in this manner, drivers are not nearly so offensive when they knock you down the next time.

* * * * *

Should the telephone-bell ring in your house, don't get excited. Keep calm. Remember General GRANT. Remove the women and children to a place of safety, lift off the receiver and say, "Good Heavens! Whoever can it be?"

* * * * *

Let us suppose that you are being attacked by a man with a chopper. Wait until the weapon is well poised over your head. Just as he begins the down stroke step aside smartly. The hatchet will then be found buried in the ground. This means that bygones are bygones.

* * * * *

"NO."

"AH, WEEL, JUST BIDE A WEE. THEY AYE TAK BEST IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING."]

* * * * *

PETER AND JUDY.

Except for the fact that they had different sets of parents and were born some hundred miles apart, Peter and Judy are practically twins. Consequently, after an interval of three months, strenuous efforts were made by the two young mothers to bring about a proper introduction between the two wonders.

The occasion was to be one of great importance, for it was Judy's very first tea-party, marking, as it were, the dawn of her social career. For days the post-office wrestled with the correspondence necessary to bring about the meeting. The mothers, both in person and by proxy, had scoured the precincts of Kensington and Oxford Street respectively for the necessary adornments to do their offspring justice, changing their minds so often that the assistants came to take as much interest in the party as if they were going to it themselves.

And yet, when the great moment arrived and the strong silent man was borne into the room, round-eyed and expectant, he found his hostess already tired out with her first tea-party and fast asleep. He could scarcely believe his eyes; nor could Judy's scandalised father.

Peter was very good about it. He bore this chilly reception stoically, deprecating any desire to wake the sleeping beauty--deprecating, in fact, any interest in her or her cot whatsoever. Ignoring the efforts of the Big People to fix his attention by pointing him directly at the main object of the tea-party (they should have known that babies like looking the _other_ way always) he remained passively interested in a fascinating brass knob, the while getting his gloves into a satisfactory state of succulence before the Big People should take it on themselves to remove them.

At last his patience is rewarded. The hostess, sighing sleepily, is beginning to show signs of realising her responsibilities. Two immense arms, two enormous fistfuls of fingers gather her up and she is borne through the air triumphantly.... Peter and Judy are introduced.

I doubt whether any two people in this world ever displayed greater indifference. Solemnly they turn their eyes upon every other object in the room except each other. It is not until the number of permutations in which two people can look at everything is exhausted mathematically that their eyes meet at last.

Then they cut each other dead.

* * * * *

Side by side they recline on the couch. Judy, pouting with sleep, is buffeting her face with her little white boxing-gloves, while Peter stares fascinated at the fire, quite sure that social functions are not in his line. "O-o!"

With only three months' experience, Judy has not yet attained complete mastery of the art of manipulating difficult things like limbs. Inadvertently, and in excess of zeal to kick higher than any other baby, she has landed out a beautiful backhander and caught Peter hard in the tummy. Peter's eyes open wide. Creases appear on his face and widen. A cavern opens and a roar follows:--

"Ya--o-o!"

"Hullo!" (Judy looks up in amazement, for there is only one noise in the house like that, and she has the sole rights of it). "Hullo, is that me? I didn't know I was doing it"--(the roars from Peter continue)--"but I suppose I am. I must be. Let's have a lot more of this very good noise I am making--Ya--o-o!"

The duet produces a crescendo astounding to them both, for there has never been a noise so wonderful as this in all their experience. Then to Judy a very strange thing happens. She pauses for breath, but the noise goes on. "This is amazing--how do I do it?..."

She joins in again--and then Peter stops. He too is puzzled vaguely. However, bother introspection, the concert proceeds, both artists doing their level best. Now one of them pauses, now the other, and at length serious doubts begin to creep in. There is something queer afoot-- something....

The matter resolves itself. Turning suddenly they behold each other, both yelling splendidly. Amazement! Cavern confronts cavern! Face to face they roar their hardest, demanding the reason for this strange phenomenon, "this other me who does when I don't."

They pause--their mouths remain agape. Slowly they close and smiles succeed. Joy! A _reasonable_-sized face at last. What a relief after the enormous faces, the great mouths, the Cyranese noses of the Big People who are wont to come and peer. Here at last is a true face, a face that--no, they both agree not to dwell unduly on the discovery.

Indifferent to each other once again they regard the special objects of their attention, their hands waving gently in the air, seeking the fairies that babies' hands are always trying to catch.

Ha! their hands have met.

"Hoo! It's a _reasonable_ hand. It's got proper fingers, not stumps of bananas."

"Moreover," says Peter politely, "if you care to take advantage of my offer you will find that it is properly moistened, succulent and suitable to a baby's taste. You needn't mind; I prepared it myself."

"Goo! Gool-gur!" All is peace and chuckles. Hand-in-hand they survey their mothers. "_Our_ mothers, yours--mine. Ha, ha--he, he--goo!"

The inner thoughts of the two babies may be hidden from me (I accept the punishment), but I know--I _know_ what the two mothers are thinking of. Twenty years hence, a paragraph in _The Times_: "Peter--Judy--" Oh, you fatuous mothers!