Chapter II: Part 2

The player who pots the white when he should and says nothing about it.

The player who pots the white when he should, with a thousand apologies.

The player who pots the white when he shouldn't, with a thousand apologies.

The player who is snappy with the marker.

The player who drops cigar ash on the cloth.

The player who hates to lose.

The player who would much rather that you won. This type is a joy to play with, unless towards the end he too patently ceases to try.

The player who, after the stroke, tells you what you ought to have done.

The player who talks to the balls, particularly to the red. "Now then, red," he says, "don't go into baulk;" or, "Stop just by that pocket;" or "White, don't go down."

The player who has just come from a spectacular match and keeps on trying to reproduce that shot of STEVENSON's.

* * * * *

_Infatuated Office Boy_. "I WAS JUST TRYING TO MAKE MISS JENKINS A BIT OF TOAST, SIR."]

* * * * *

"In a licensing prosecution at ---- yesterday it was stated
that one shilling was charged for a 'drop' of whisky of about
one-sixth of a gallon."--_Daily Paper_.

In the interests of temperance we have suppressed the name of the town at which this bargain was secured.

* * * * *

CONTRACTS.

It was shortly after the commencement of the March offensive that it was decided to open new munition works in Glenwhinnie, N.B. The contract for building was offered to the well-known firm of McTavish, McTurk & McThom, of Auchterinver.

They accepted. With thanks.

And so it came about that, early in April, Glenwhinnie, N.B. became the scene of great activity. Men bearing strange instruments came and took extensive measurements; large bodies of gentlemen in corduroys, armed with powerful implements indicative of toil, arrived and smoked clay pipes; a special light railway was rapidly constructed, and bore colossal cranes and more gentlemen with clay pipes to the scene of action. And Mr. McTurk went in person to open the proceedings.

In a speech pulsating with patriotism, Mr. McTurk exhorted his men to do their best for their King and country, and show everybody what the firm of McTavish, McTurk & McThom could do. He then departed, leaving things in the hands of a dozen subordinates well tried and true ...

And so by the early days of June the work began ...

Came November 11th ...

November 20th it was decided that the new works in Glenwhinnie, N.B., would not be necessary after all.

What was to be done?

A special committee decided that the buildings should be demolished, and the contract was offered to the well-known firm of McClusky, McCleery & McClumpha, of Auchtermuchty.

They accepted. With thanks.

And so it came about that a second army of occupation descended upon Glenwhinnie, N.B. Fresh bodies of gentlemen in corduroys and armed with a rather different set of powerful implements arrived, and smoked clay pipes. Another light railway was rapidly constructed, and Mr. McCleery went in person to open the proceedings. In a speech full of fervour ...

And so by early January the work commenced.

By this time Messrs. McTavish and Co. had got the buildings well in hand. What was to be done? Leave their work uncompleted? Never! As Mr. McThom pointed out with considerable emotion to his partners, a contract was a contract all the world over.

If it ever came to be said that any firm he was interested in had failed to fulfil a contract, he for one (Angus McThom) would never hold up his head. The contract must be completed. It was a sacred duty. Besides--a minor point--what about payment?

So Mr. McTurk was despatched to Glenwhinnie, N.B., where in a speech of great power he pointed out the path of duty.

Amid scenes of enthusiasm the work went on apace.

And at the other end the well-known firm of McClusky, McCleery & McClumpha tore down the buildings with equal enthusiasm.

And that is the state of affairs just now in Glenwhinnie, N.B. What will happen when--as they are bound to do--the wreckers overtake the builders is a matter for speculation. Mr. McTurk may make another speech. Possibly Mr. McCleery may also exhort. There is promise of a delicate situation.

* * * * *

"MADAM, I AM AFRAID THERE IS SOME MISUNDERSTANDING. I AM A LADY'S MAID--NOT A USEFUL MAID."]

* * * * *

THE STOICS OF THE SERPENTINE.

I, for my part, admire
The snug domestic fire,
The comfortable hearth, the glowing coals,
Nor in the least aspire
To emulate those strong heroic souls
Who get up while it's dark
And haste to chill ablutions in Hyde Park.

It can't be very nice
To break the solid ice
And, like a walrus, plunge into the deep;
Then jump out in a trice,
Dissevering the icicles as you leap,
Even though the after-glow
Of virtue melts the circumjacent snow.

And we of milder mould,
And we who're growing old,
Wish they would wash, like other folk, elsewhere;
It makes us feel quite cold
To think of them refrigerating there;
We shiver in our beds;
Our pitying molars chatter in our heads.

* * * * *

"THE DOVER PATROL.

VINDICTIVE MEN AS PROGRAMME SELLERS."--_Times_.

After what men have suffered from the flag-day sex, no wonder they get vindictive when they have a chance of retaliation.

* * * * *

"The causes of the engineers' strike in London are a little
obscure, but the stoppage of the ten minutes allowed for tea
before the 47-hour day was introduced brought the men out from
one motor works."--_Provincial Paper_.

The great objection to a day of this length is that it gives so little scope for overtime.

* * * * *

"The Association for the Betterment of the Highlands and
Islands of the Free Church of Scotland have prepared and
presented to the Secretary for Scotland a memorandum on the
reconstruction of the Highlands."--_Scots Paper_.

We have always thought that judicious thinning of the more congested views would help the tourist.

* * * * *

"The men who had watched the daily search set up a cheer,
ffi---- ----fl."--_Sunday Paper_.

We hope the cheer was more hearty than it appears at first sight.

* * * * *

A CONSULTATION.

_Persons of the dialogue_: Arthur Pillwell, M.D., _a
fashionable physician;_ Henry Swallow, _a patient. The scene
is laid in_ Dr. Pillwell's _consulting-room--a solid room,
heavily furnished. A large writing-table occupies the centre
of the scene. There are a few prints on the walls; two
bookcases are solidly filled with medical books._ Dr. Pillwell
_is seated at the writing-table. He rises to greet his
patient._

_Dr. P._ Good morning, Mr. ---- (_He looks furtively at a notebook lying open on the table_) Mr.--ah--Swallow.

_Mr. S._ (_thinking to himself: Ought I to call this Johnnie "Doctor," or not? I'm told they're very particular about a thing like that. Like a fool, I never gave it a thought. Still, I can't go so very far wrong if I call him "Doctor." Besides, he's got to be called "Doctor" whether he likes it or not. Here goes._) (_Aloud_) Good morning, Dr. Pillwell. I've been troubled with some symptoms which I can't quite make out. I think I described them in my letter. (_To himself: They made several doctors Knights of the British Empire, and I'm almost certain Pillwell was one of them. Sir John Pillwell. Yes, it sounds all right; but I shan't call him "Sir John" because if he isn't a knight he might think I was trying to make fun of him and then he might retaliate by calling me "Sir Henry," and I should hate that_). (_Aloud_) The chief symptoms are a steady loss of appetite and a disinclination to work. I was recommended to consult you by my friend, Mr. Bolter, as I think I explained in my letter.

_Dr. P._ It's curious how prevalent these symptoms are at the present moment. I think, if you don't mind, I will begin by taking your temperature.

[_Produces clinical thermometer and gives it three good
jerks._

_Mr. S._ (_to himself: There--I knew he'd want to put one of those infernal machines in my mouth. I simply loathe the feeling of them, and I'm always on the verge of crunching them up. Perhaps I ought to warn him._) (_Aloud_) I'm afraid I'm not much good as a thermometer man.

_Dr. P._ Oh, it's a mere trifle. All you've got to do is just to hold it under your tongue. There--it's in.

_Mr. S._ (_talking with difficulty_). Ish i' in 'e ri' plashe?

_Dr. P._ Yes. But don't try to talk while it's in your mouth. I've had patients who've bitten it in two. There--that's enough. (_Extracts it deftly from patient's mouth and examines it._) Hum, hum, yes. A point below normal. Nothing violently wrong _there_. (_He now performs the usual rites and mysteries._) I'll make you out a little prescription which ought to put you all right. And if you can spare a week, and spend it at Eastbourne, I don't think it will do you any harm.

_Mr. S._ (_To himself: I like this man. He doesn't waste any time. It's a curious coincidence that I should have been thinking this very morning of arranging a visit to the seaside. Now of course I've absolutely got to go. Can't disobey my new doctor, and wouldn't if I could. By Jove, I'd all but forgotten about the two guineas fee. Yes, the cheque's in my breast-pocket. Two guineas for the first visit. The rule is not to give it too openly, but to slip it on to a desk or table as if you were half ashamed of it. Where shall I put it so as to make sure he spots it out of the corner of his eye? Ha! on the blotting-pad, which I can just reach. Does it with his left hand, and feels a man once more._)

_Dr. P._ And here's your prescription.

_Mr. S._ Thank you a thousand times. (_To himself: He's edging up to the blotting-pad, and he'll have the cheque in another second._)

* * * * *

TO A CHINESE COOLIE.

O happy Chink! When I behold thy face,
Illumined with the all-embracing smile
Peculiar to thy celestial race,
So full of mirth and yet so free from guile,
I stand amazed and let my fancy roam,
And ask myself by what mysterious lure
Thou wert induced to leave thy flowery home
For Flanders, where, alas! the flowers are fewer.

Oft have I marked thee on the Calais quay,
Unloading ships of plum-and-apple jam,
Or beef, or, three times weekly, M. and V.,
And sometimes bacon (very rarely ham);
Or, where St. Quentin towers above the plain,
Have seen thee scan the awful scene and sigh,
Pick up a spade, then put it down again
And wipe a furtive tear-drop from thine eye.

And many a Sabbath have I seen thee stride
With stately step across the Merville Square,
Beaming with pleasure, full of conscious pride,
Breaking the hearts of all the _jeunes filles_ there;
A bowler hat athwart thy stubborn locks
And round thy neck a tie of brilliant blue,
Thy legs in football shorts, thy feet in socks
Of silken texture and vermilion hue.

Impassive Chu (or should I call thee "Chow"?),
Say, what hast thou to do with all this fuss,
The ceaseless hurry and the beastly row,
The buzzing plane and roaring motor-bus,
While far away the sullen Hwang-ho rolls
His lazy waters to the Eastern Sea,
And sleepy mandarins sit on bamboo poles
Imbibing countless cups of China tea?

A year ago thou digged'st in feverish haste
Against the whelming onset of the Hun
A hundred miles of trench across the waste--
A year ago--and now the War is won;
But thou remainest still with pick and spade,
Celestial delver, patient son of toil!
To fill the trenches thou thyself hast made
And roll the twisted wire-in even coil.

But not for thee the glory and the praise,
The medals or the fat gratuity;
No man shall crown thee with a wreath of bays
Or recommend thee for the O.B.E.;
And thou, methinks, wouldst rather have it so,
Provided that, without undue delay,
They let thee take thy scanty wage and go
Back to thy sunny home in Old Cathay;

Where never falls a shell nor bursts a bomb,
Nor ever blows the slightest whiff of gas,
Such as was not infrequent in the Somme,
But on thy breast shall lean some slant-eyed lass;
And she shall listen to thy converse ripe
And search for souvenirs among thy kit,
Pass thee thy slippers and thy opium pipe
And make thee glad that thou hast done thy bit.

* * * * *

"SELF MADE MAN

Young widwep lady intelligent, wealthy wishing to remarie,
wishes to make acquaintance in a Swiss Sportplace with a well
situated english or american gentleman. Preference is given
to a businessman, self made, with fine caracter aged 35-45
handsome as the lady is it too."--_Swiss Paper_.

We foresee a rush of profiteers to the Alps.

* * * * *

_Tom_ (_exasperated by a bad scenting day_). "POOR THINGS, THEY'VE ALMOST FORGOT HOW TO; THEY'VE BEEN SO BUSY GETTIN' OUT OF THE WAY OF YOU YOUNG OFFICER GENTS SINCE YOU CAME 'OME."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Finding _Midas and Son_ (METHUEN) described on the wrapper as a tale of "the struggle of a young man and his immense riches," I said to myself (rather like _Triplet_ in the play) that here was a struggle at which it would greatly hearten me to assist. As a fact, however, the conflict proved to be somewhat postponed; it took Mr. STEPHEN McKENNA more than two hundred pages to get the seconds out of the ring and leave his hero, _Deryk_, face to face with an income of something over a million a year. Before this happened the youth had become engaged to a girl, been thrown over by her, experienced the wiles of Circe and gone in more or less vaguely for journalism. Then came the income and the question what to do with it. Of course he didn't know how to use it to the best advantage; it is universal experience that other people never do. But _Deryk_ impressed me as more than commonly lacking in resource. All he could think of was to finance and share in an archæological venture (rather fun), and to purchase a Pall Mall club-house--apparently the R.A.C.--and do it up as a London abode for himself and his old furniture. Also for his wife, as fortune had now flung him again into the arms of his early love. But it is just here that the subtle and slightly cruel cleverness of Mr. McKENNA's scheme becomes manifest. The million-a-year had been at work on _Deryk_; it had slain his capacity for romance. In plain words, he found that he cared more for his furniture than for his _fiancée_, whose adoration soon bored him to shrieking point. So there you are. I shall not betray the author's solution of his own problem. I don't think he has proved his somewhat obvious point as to the peril of great possessions. _Deryk_ was hardly a quite normal subject, and _Idina_ (the girl) was a little fool who would have irritated a crossing-sweeper. But what he certainly has done is to provide some scenes of pre-war London not unworthy to be companion pictures to those in _Sonia_; and this, I fancy, will be good enough for most readers.

* * * * *

Its publishers call _The Pot Boils_ (CONSTABLE) a "provocative" book, and certainly the title at least deserves this epithet. But I decline to be drawn into the obvious retort. Besides, with all its faults, the story exhibits an almost flaunting disregard of those qualities that make the best seller. About the author I am prepared to wager, first, that "STORM JAMESON" is a disguise; secondly, that the personality behind it is feminine. I have hinted that the tale is hardly likely to gain universal popularity; let me add that certain persons, notably very young Socialists and experts in Labour journalism, may find it of absorbing interest. It is a young book, almost exclusively about young people, written (or I mistake) by a youthful hand. These striplings and maidens are all poor, mostly vain, and without exception fulfilled of a devastating verbosity. We meet them first at a "Northern University," talking, reforming the earth, kissing, and again talking--about the kisses. Thence they and the tale move to London, and the same process is repeated. It is all rather depressingly narrow in outlook; though within these limits there are interesting and even amusing scenes. Also the author displays now and again a happy dexterity of phrase (I remember one instance--about "web-footed Socialists ... dividing and sub-dividing into committees, like worms cut by a spade"), which encourages me to hope that she will do better things with a scheme of wider appeal. But to the general, especially the middle-aged general, the contents of her present _Pot_ will, I fear, be only caviare.

* * * * *

Little _Sara Lee Kennedy_, betrothed to one of those alert grim-jawed young Americans one sees in the advertising pages of _The Ladies' Home Journal_, learns of the suffering in Belgium at the beginning of the great War and finds she must do something about it. She can cook, so she will go and make soup for KING ALBERT's men. She takes her young man's photograph and his surly disapproval; also a few dollars hastily collected from her obscure township in Pa.; and becomes the good angel of a shattered sector of the Belgian line. And she finds in _The Amazing Interlude_ (MURRAY) her prince--a real prince--in the Secret Service, and, after the usual reluctances and brave play (made for the sake of deferring the inevitable) with the photograph of the old love, is at last gloriously on with the new. It is a very charming love-story, and MARY ROBERTS RINEHART makes a much better thing of the alarms and excursions of war than you would think. It was no good, I found, being superior about it and muttering "Sentiment" when you had to blink away the unbidden tear lest your fireside partner should find you out. So let me commend to you this idealised vision of a corner of the great War seen through the eyes of an American woman of vivid sympathies.

* * * * *

_Rovers of the Night Sky_ (CASSELL) is for more reasons than one a welcome addition to my rapidly bulging collection of books about flying. "NIGHT HAWK, M.C.," was in the Infantry--what he calls a "Gravel-Cruncher"--before he took to the air, and by no means the least interesting part of his sketches is the way in which he explains the co-operation which existed between the fliers and the men fighting on the ground. And his delight when a bombing expedition was successful in giving instant assistance to the Infantry is frequently shown. After his training in England "NIGHT HAWK" was attached as an observer to a night-flying squadron in France, and he tells us of his adventures with no sense of self-importance but with an honest appreciation of their value to the general scheme of operations. He has also a keen eye for the humours of life, and can make his jest with most admirable brevity. "Doubtless," he says in a foreword, "the whole world will fly before many years have passed, but for the moment most people have to be content to read about it." I am one of them, and he has added to my contentment.

* * * * *

My studies of recent fiction induce the belief that modern Wales may be divided into two parts, in one of which the inhabitants call each other _Bach_ and follow a code of morals that I simply will not stoop to characterise; while the other is at once more Saxon in idiom and considerably more melodramatic in its happenings. It is to the latter province that I must assign _A Little Welsh Girl_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), the Romance, with a big R, of _Dylis Morgan_, who pushed an unappreciated suitor over a precipice and came to London to make her fortune in revue. Really the suitor didn't go all the way down the precipice; but as, by the time he recovered, _Dylis_, disguised, had fled for England, he was promptly arrested for her murder, and as _Dylis_ thought she had murdered him there was presently so much confusion (increased for me by the hopelessly unpronounceable names of a large cast) that I found it increasingly hard to keep the affair in hand. As for _Dylis's_ theatrical career--well, you know how these things are managed in fiction; for my part I was left wondering whether Mr. HOWEL EVANS' pictures of Wales were as romantically conceived as his conception of a West-End theatre. Though of course we all know that Welsh people do sometimes make even more sensational triumphs in the Metropolis; just possible indeed that this fact may have some bearing on the recent flood of Cambrian fiction. Certainly, if _A Little Welsh Girl_ achieves success on the strength of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE's triumph, she may thank her luck, for I have my doubts whether she could manage it unassisted.

* * * * *

Of _Ladies Must Live_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) one may say, in the first place, that it is fortunately unnecessary as well as unusual for the bulk of them to live in the scalp and tomahawk atmosphere that distinguishes the sexual and social rivalry of _Christine Fennimer_ and _Nancy Almar_, the two beautiful American Society dames whose duel for the affections of the eligible hero form the plot, the whole plot and nothing but the plot of Miss ALICE DUER MILLER's latest book. Nature red in tooth and claw has not mothered them--they are too well-bred for that; they simply bite with their tongues. _Mrs. Almar_, who is married and purely piratical, comes off worst in the encounter, and the more artful _Christine_, ultimately falling in love with the object of her artifices, becomes human enough to marry him, despite his lapse from financial eligibility. The plot is a thin one, but smoothly and brightly unfolded. Unhappily Miss MILLER lacks the gift of delicate satire and the sense of humour that the society novel above all others seems to require. With a lighter and less matter-of-fact treatment one would accept more easily the overdrawing of her rather impossible felines.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Sir Charles Sykes, Director of Wood Production, has conferred
with representatives of each section of the tailoring trade,
with a view to simplifying the regulations and making possible
a larger output of Standard suits."--_Daily Paper_.

We look forward to the part that this new clothing will play in the general scheme of afforestation.

* * * * *

"A lady visiting the town complained that she went to a
licensed house and asked to be served with tea. She alleged
that the licensee was very rude to her, and refused to grant
her request. He [the Superintendent of Police] desired
to point out to license holders that they were bound to
provide proper accommodation and refreshment for man and
beast."--_West-Country Paper_.

And we desire to point out to the Superintendent that that is not the proper way to refer to a lady.