Chapter II: Part 2

DEAR SIR,--We are in receipt of your esteemed favour of yesterday's date and beg to advise you that we have this day forwarded to the address you gave a handsome cut-glass anchovy dish with a finely-chased silver lid and tray. We enclose the receipted bill for the dish, which stands in our list at exactly the amount remitted by you.

We are, dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,

HALL, MARK & Co.

_29th December, 1913._

MY DEAR HUGH.--Thank you _very, very_ much for the sweet little butterdish. It's ripping. Do try to get down, Hugh, there's a good boy! If you can find time to choose me such a nice present--I know what you are, it must have taken you hours--surely you could take the day off for once. Say yes.

In tremendous haste, and thanking you again and again,

Your affectionate cousin,

MURIEL.

P.S.--I've just heard that Mr. Parsley, who is to marry us, is very strict about _obedient_ weddings, and I promised Geraldine I wouldn't "obey" if she didn't. Now it's my turn. Tell me something to do.

_30th December, 1913._

MY GOOD MURIEL,--That's a caviare dish! Caviare dishes, I understood, were all the rage just now, and here am I slaving away to be in the fashion, and you calmly write back and say, "Thank you very much for the butt--" My good Muriel!

I really wanted to send you something quite different, something equally novel but more seasonable; no less, in fact, than a nose-muff or nose-warmer. It is a little idea of my own, the Melbrook "Rhinotherm." Briefly, the mechanism consists of pieces of heated charcoal, potato or what-not, encased in some non-conducting material, the whole being then unostentatiously affixed to the frigid end of the nose. Stupidly, I forgot to take a plaster cast of your nose. You'll forgive me, won't you?

And now about coming down on the happy day. I feel very hurt about it. You know perfectly well that I wanted you to be married on a Saturday, but you wouldn't. It isn't as though you get married every day, and I do think you might have considered me a little more. But, even if I did come, even if by working all night Monday and Tuesday I could scrape together a few hours of freedom, I know what it would be. I should never be allowed in the vestry afterwards, while all the fun was going on. And yet you have the effrontery to sit there and ask my help in evading your, responsibilities as a married woman. Still, if you promise to breathe not a word of this to any woman I may marry hereafter, here's a dead snip for you. Listen! When you come to the words "to love, cherish and to obey," you simply drop the second "to" (nobody will miss it) and run the "d" of the "and" into the "obey," and lo! we have a French word, to wit, _dauber_, meaning to cuff, drub or belabour. What say you to that, my bonny bride? I think that deserves an extra large slice of cake, to put under my pillow. And I say, Muriel, I do hope there won't be any of those rotten cassowary seeds in it. If there are, for pity's sake rake them out and give them to someone who likes them. And I'll have his share of the marzipan.

Your affectionate cousin,

HUGH.

NEWSPAPER EXCERPT.

... During the service an amusing incident occurred. It was noticed that the, bride, who is rumoured to have feminist leanings, betrayed some difficulty in pronouncing the vow of obedience. The Rev. Thos. Parsley considerately paused and helped her to repeat the words after him in a clear and audible manner. In an interview with our representative, Mr. Parsley smilingly explained that he was determined, in his parish at any rate, to discourage any possible evasion of the matrimonial vows. He considered that a great deal of post-nuptial unhappiness was attributable to the lamentable laxity of the clergy in joining young people in matrimony without requiring their future relations to be clearly defined at the outset. The young bride refused to make any comment, but seemed highly amused at the incident....

"_Hashton Weekly Hash._"

* * * * *

"A gem ring lost last summer by Franz Schroder while
travelling in a steamer on the Danube, near Prague, was found
inside a carp caught at Mayence by his nephew."--_Manchester
Evening News_.

The fact that Mayence is not on the Danube need not bother you. Only last week our uncle lost a white elephant while travelling in a barge on the Regent's Park Canal, near Maida Vale, and it was found inside the hat-box of the Editor of _The Manchester Evening News_ by FRANZ SCHRODER. Bless you, these things are always happening.

* * * * *

_Mild Sportsman._ "OH, NO; YOUR HEDGE IS BREAKING MY FALL, AND IF YOU WILL KINDLY PUSH ME BACK AGAIN I SHALL TRY TO REJOIN MY HORSE."]

* * * * *

THE COWARD.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly how Herbert looked. But shame, defiance and unconcern were the principal ingredients in his expression as he stood on the kerb and stared across the road.

He started guiltily as I approached.

"Hallo, Herbert!" I began with my customary _bonhomie_.

"Hallo!" he said dismally.

"What are you doing here?" I asked sternly.

"Nothing," said Herbert. "Have you ever noticed what a fine building that post-office is?"

"No," I said; "neither have you. Herbert, you are concealing something from me. What have I done to deserve it? Have I not enjoyed your confidence these many years, and have you ever known me betray it? Is it marriage that has changed you thus? Is it--"

"Shut up," said Herbert. "I'll tell you, if you stop talking."

I stopped talking.

"It's this way. My wife and I have had a little discussion. And I stated my belief that there was nothing in an ordinary way that a woman could do that a man couldn't. Whereupon she defied me to go out and--er--buy a bloater. As you see, I have gone out, and--er--"

"Yes," I said, "you have gone out. Splendid of you! And all that remains to be done is to buy a bloater. Why not? Yonder, if I mistake not, is the shop of a bloaterer."

"But a bloater!" said Herbert. "It isn't fair. If she'd said some salmon, or a lobster, or even a pound of sausages; or if she'd allowed me to 'phone for it. It's not as if I'd ever had any practice. It's not decent to start a beginner on a hand-bought bloater."

"Tush!" I said. "This is not manly. Remember, our sex is at stake. Come!"

I took him by the arm. He advanced under protest.

Four paces from the shop he stopped abruptly and laughed--a horrible laugh.

"Do you know," he said, "I do believe I've come out without a cent on me."

"_I_ don't believe it for a moment," I said, "but as it happens I can lend you pounds and pounds--almost enough for two bloaters."

Herbert reluctantly found some money in one of the seven pockets he had not felt in. Then we advanced once more.

This time there was no going back. Right into the body of the fishmonger's we strode and stood firmly opposite the salesman.

"_Now_," I whispered tensely.

But Herbert hesitated, and even as he wobbled the salesman began his suggestions.

"Yes, Sir? Lobsters or prawns, Sir? Some very good salmon this morning--very fine fish indeed, Sir."

"Er, as a matter of fact," said Herbert, "we just wanted to know if you would be so kind as to direct us to the nearest post-office?--the one just across the road, you know," he added nervously.

"Herbert," I said in his private ear, "be a man."

Herbert pulled himself together. "Would you," he said to the salesman, "would you please let me look at some b-b-blobsters?"

* * * * *

A BAD DREAM.

_Sunday_.--Great news! The plan suggested by the Anglo-German Alliance Committee is at last to be carried out. There is to be an exchange of garrisons, that is to say, certain English towns are to be garrisoned by German regiments, while certain German towns are to have English garrisons. Our own town, though a small one, is to have the distinguished honour of being the first to give this mark of friendship to the world. All the arrangements have been made, and to-morrow the 901st Prussian regiment of infantry is to march in. It will be a great day for Dartlebury, and we shall all do our best, though the public notice has been short, to give our gallant visitors a warm and truly British reception.

_Monday_.--Our German friends have arrived. At 11 o'clock this morning it was announced that they were approaching, headed by their band. The Mayor, Alderman Farthingale, and the whole Corporation, including the three Labour members recently elected, immediately proceeded to the old city wall to meet them. They were accompanied by the municipal band in full uniform, playing "_Die Wacht am Rhein_," which they had been assiduously practising. Unfortunately this led to what might have been a somewhat painful contretemps. On meeting the municipal band the Prussian commander, Colonel von Brausebrum, halted his soldiers and in a loud voice declared that our men were playing out of tune. Perhaps this was true, but the offence was involuntary and in any case it was hardly serious enough to call for the arrest of the whole band. Arrested, however, they were, and it was a melancholy sight to see them marched off by a corporal's guard. Mr. Zundnadel, the chief of the band, is himself of German origin, and his feelings can be better imagined than described. The Mayor saved the situation by making an extremely cordial speech, in which he spoke of the English and the Germans as ancient brothers-in-arms. The Colonel in his reply said his mission was a glorious one, and everything would depend on the way we conducted ourselves. What can he have meant? The march was then resumed, but another halt was made in the High Street to remove the French flag which Mucklow, the linen-draper, had very tactlessly stuck up over his shop. He too was arrested, with wife and family, and was lodged in jail. Luckily no further incident disturbed the harmony of the proceedings.

_Tuesday_.--This morning Lieutenant von Schornstein, while walking in Brewer's Alley, trod on a piece of banana-skin and fell heavily on the pavement. As he rose he observed that two small boys were, so he alleged, laughing at him. He immediately ran after the two urchins, and was proceeding to put them to the sword when the Brewery men interfered and disarmed him. He pleaded that his uniform had been insulted and that it was necessary for him to punish them. "_Ich muss sie durch den Leib rennen_" were his words. The men, however, were not inclined to admit the force of this plea, especially as they understood no German, and they sent him back to barracks in a taxi-cab. The Mayor at once wired his apologies to the Colonel, and it is hoped that nothing further will be heard of the incident. I ought to add that the boys deny that they laughed, but the lieutenant is certain that they wore a smiling expression.

The "Friendship Banquet" was held this evening in the Town Hall, with the Mayor in the chair. No very great enthusiasm was shown, and when the Mayor, in proposing the health of our visitors, alluded to the friendly rivalry of the two nations in commerce and the arts of peace, the Colonel pulled him back into his seat and begged him not to proceed. "_Maul halten_," he said. The three Labour members of the Council were afterwards arrested for not having joined with sufficient heartiness in the singing of "_Deutschland über Alles_."

_Wednesday_.--A state of siege has been declared in Dartlebury, and we are all living under martial law. Lord Gruffen was arrested for having knocked up against a soldier. The magistrates, on leaving the police-court, were handcuffed and removed to barracks. A crisis is evidently approaching.

_Thursday_.--An insurrection started this morning. A huge crowd attacked the barracks and overpowered all resistance. Blood flowed like water, but in an hour all was over. There is a strong feeling that the experiment of the Alliance Committee was a rash one, though no doubt it was well meant. We live and learn.

* * * * *

LOOP! LOOP!!

(_A STORY OF AERIAL PROWESS IN THE PROVINCES._)

They said, "He goes a-tumbling through the hollow
And trackless empyrean like a clown,
Head pointed to the earth where weaklings wallow,
Feet up toward the stars; not such renown
Even our lord himself, the bright Apollo,
Gets in his gilded car. For one bob down
You shall behold the thing." "Right-o," I said,
Clapping the old brown bay leaves on my head.

So to the hangars. Time, about eleven,
The air full chill, the ground a mess of muck,
And long time gazed I on the wintry heaven
And thought of many a deed of Saxon pluck;
How DRAKE, for instance, good old DRAKE of Devon,
Played bowls at Plymouth Hoe. Twelve-thirty struck.
No one had vaulted through the air's abyss;
DRAKE would have plunged tail up an hour ere this.

Brief interval for lunch, and then a drizzle
Fell on the dreary field. Like some dead moth
The thing remained. Chagrin commenced to sizzle,
And certain people cried, "A thillingth loth."
Others, "Hey, Mister Airman, it's a swizzle!"
Then a stern man came out, and with a cloth
Lightly, as one well used to such a feat,
Swaddled the brute's propeller and its seat.

The skies grew darkling, and there went a rumour,
"The thing is off; he will not fly to-day;"
And forth we wandered, some in rare ill-humour,
But not, oh, not the bard. Yet this I say--
There are two kinds of courage: one's a boomer
Avid of gold and glory; this is A,
Crowned with a palm, and in her hands I see
Sheaves of press cuttings. There is also B.

Not venturesome, this last, to brave the billows,
To beard the panther in his hidden lair,
To probe the epiderms of armadillos,
Nor execute wild cart-wheels in the air;
But who shall say how much Britannia still owes
To B, the kind of courage that can bear
Dauntless to wait, whate'er the skies portend,
(Having paid entrance) to the bitter end?

The heavenly hero in his suit of leather
Soars through Olympus with the world beneath
Sometimes, and sometimes, owing to the weather,
Scratches his fixtures in the tempest's teeth.
Shall the high gods, who gaze on both together,
Count him the nobler, or confer their wreath
On the brave bull-dog bard, who risks his thews
Standing about all day in thin-soled shoes?

EVOE.

* * * * *

"WHAT IS IT?"

"_ROBINSON CRUSOE_."

"IN WHAT LANGUAGE?"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)

Just as one may say of certain novelists that they write at the top of their voices, so, I think, one might describe Miss VIOLA MEYNELL as writing in a whisper. This certainly is the effect that _Modern Lovers_ (SECKER) produced upon me. The gentle method of it invested the story--which of itself is a very slight thing--with an odd significance almost impossible to communicate in criticism; but the reading of a few pages will show you what I mean. The title is apt enough, for the tale is about nothing but love, as it affects a group of five young people, three men and two girls. Of the girls, who are sisters, _Effie Rutherglen_ is the more important and detailed figure. _Effie_, in the time before the story opens, had an affair with _Oliver Bligh_; then, summoned North to live with her futile and uncomprehending parents, she fell (as did her sister _Milly_ and most of the local spinsters) under the fascination of one _Clive Maxwell_, who was an author and had appealing eyes and obviously a way with him. Then _Oliver_ turned up again, and poor _Effie_ didn't know which of them she wanted. I speak lightly, but, if you think all this made for comedy, your conception of Miss MEYNELL's methods is very much at fault. Love to her is very much what it was to _Patience_ in the opera--by no means a wholly enviable boon. I can hardly praise too much the exquisite refinement and restraint of her treatment of commonplace things. But one small point baffled me: _Oliver_ appears to have been a professional diver and bath-keeper--we are told, indeed, that he had occupied that position at Rugby (a statement that I have private and personal reasons for discrediting)--yet we find him staying as a welcome and honoured guest in the house of the _Rutherglens_, whom I take to be more or less "county." Surely this, though of no real importance, is at least remarkable?

* * * * *

"What," I asked myself, "is just the matter with this apparently quite nice book?" (It was _Joan's Green Year_, and written by E.L. DOON and published by MACMILLAN.) It is the kind of book that grows out of a romantic disposition and an assiduously stuffed commonplace book. It consists of letters from _Joan_, a paying guest in the Manor House Farm at Pelton, to her brother _Keith_, a soldier in India, telling him all about her year of holiday and "soul discipline" in the country, the village gossip, her proposals and her one acceptance, and giving a sort of farmer's calendar of the seasons as interpreted by the guileless amateur. _Joan_ has what is known as a nice mind. But to tell truth she has chosen a difficult and dangerous if alluring art form. Of course letters enable you to evade some of the difficulties of the novelist's task, to be discursive, allusive and incomplete. But you can't be let off anything of the precision and subtlety of your characterisation. On the contrary. And _Joan_ makes everyone in Pelton (except the rustics, whose authenticity I gravely suspect) talk as _Joan_ writes. They have nearly all seen her commonplace book, I judge. Then, again, you must not have (like _Joan_) a large list of acquaintances, or you breed confusion and dissipate interest accordingly. _Joan_ is very young in many ways. She is extravagant in the matter of the equipment of her heroes. _Bob Ingleby_, the farmer (a gentleman, because he had been at Winchester), is a "great comely giant," yet wins events one and three of the Hunt Steeplechase, though thrown badly in number two. I have a suspicion that this work is really _Joan's_ tee shot, and that after a notable recovery, which on the best of her present form I can safely prophesy, she will reach her green year next time.

* * * * *

Mrs. T.P. O'CONNOR has written a fascinating book. _My Beloved South_ she calls it, and PUTNAMS publish it. There is not a lifeless page in the 427 that make up a bountiful feast. Every one contains vivid reproductions of incidents in social life in the South "befo' de wa'" and after. At the outset we make the acquaintance of a typical Southron, Mrs. O'CONNOR's grandfather, Governor of Florida when it was still a Territory, with native Indians fighting fiercely for their land and homes. Mrs. O'CONNOR was, of course, not to the fore in those early days. But so steeped is she in lore of the South, much of it gained from the lips of nurses and out-door servants, so keen is her sympathy, so quick and true her instinct that she is able to revivify the old scenes and reproduce the atmosphere of the time. The darkey nurse of earliest childhood lives again, sometimes bringing with her plantation songs like "Voodoo-Bogey-Boo," quaintly musical. Many passages of the grandfather's conversations are preserved, in which we may detect the voice of the gifted granddaughter. But the influence of heredity is strong, more especially "down South." Also there are many charming stories redolent of the South. I was about to mention the page on which will be found the thrilling history of a mule aptly named "Satan." On reflection I won't spoil the reader's pleasure in unexpectedly coming upon it somewhere about the middle of the book. Nobody--man or woman, girl or boy--who begins to read _My Beloved South_ will skip a page. So the story cannot be overlooked.

* * * * *

In _Lost Diaries_ (DUCKWORTH) Mr. MAURICE BARING travels by an easy road to humour, and he does not pound it with too laborious feet. This is perhaps a fortunate thing, for a farcical reconstruction of history in the light of modern sentiment and circumstances might easily tire; a Comic History of England, for instance, is stiffer reading to-day than GARDNER or GREEN. Sometimes, however, Mr. BARING seems to carry to extreme lengths his conscientious avoidance of efforts to be funny; and in the imaginary records of one or two of his subjects there is little more to laugh at than the unaided fancy of the student has long ago perceived. _Tristram_ loved two _Iseults_, and JOHN MILTON was an exasperating husband; but these things I knew, and the author of _Lost Diaries_ has made no more capital out of the situations than the eternal merriment which the bare statement of the facts inspires. But where Mr. BARING, pleasantly disdainful alike of consistency and taste, examines the pocket-book of the "Man in the Iron Mask," and finds him complaining of the noise and disturbance in dungeon after dungeon until he is removed at last to the lotus island of the Bastille; or records the blameless botanical pursuits of TIBERIUS in seclusion; or the first consumption of the Colla di Gallo by COLUMBUS in the newly discovered West, he is, for all the simplicity of his methods, amusing enough. Yet even so I am inclined to think that the first of his essays, which reads like an actual transcript from the jottings of a nineteenth-century private-school boy, is the diary which I most heartily congratulate Mr. BARING on having rediscovered, and which I should be least willing for him to lose again.

* * * * *

With the Land Question staring us in the face, _Folk of the Furrow_ (SMITH ELDER) should attract the attention of those who wish thoroughly to understand what the agricultural labourer wants and why he wants it. Mr. CHRISTOPHER HOLDENBY is no amateur, for as Mr. STEPHEN REYNOLDS has lived with fishermen and shared their daily lives so he has lodged in labourers' cottages and hoed and dug with the best (and worst) of them. The result is a book that is stamped with the hall-mark of a great sincerity; and three facts at least can be gathered from it by the very dullest of gleaners. First, and I think foremost, that the decencies of life cannot be observed if children of very various ages are to be crowded into cottages too small to hold them; secondly, that it is useless to expect morality from youths who have few or no amusements provided for them; thirdly, that the passing of the old families and the advent of the week-end "merchant princes" do not make a change for the better. All which may be stale news, but after reading this book I think that you will admit that Mr. HOLDENBY has contrived to make an old tale very impressive. In some instances it is true that I could bring evidence directly in opposition to his, but on the whole he deserves well for the way in which he has won the confidence of a class naturally suspicious and silent, and for his manner of stating his case. Had I for my sins to cram our M.P.'s for the debates that lie before them, I should feed them liberally upon _Folk of the Furrow_.

* * * * *

* * * * *

TO MR. CHAMBERLAIN

ON HIS RETIREMENT FROM PUBLIC LIFE.

Not yet the end; only the end of strife.
But now--while still the brave unwearied heart,
Fixed upon England, fain to keep its part
In her Imperial life,

Beats with the old unconquerable pride--
Now leave to younger limbs the dust and palm,
And let the weary body seek the calm
That comes with eventide.

There take your rest within the sunset glow,
All feuds forgotten of your fighting days,
Circled with love and laurelled with the praise
Of friend and ancient foe.

O.S.