Chapter II: Part 2

_Fanny_ (_thoroughly proficient_). "OH, THAT'S AN EASY ONE. I'LL PUT ON A BEWTIFUL LORST LOOK AN' SAY, 'MUVVER, THIS IS 'EAVEN!'"]

* * * * *

=Mr. Punch's Misquotations.=

Of a prima donna who sang in a private drawing-room: "At a party she gave what was meant for mankind." (GOLDSMITH).

* * * * *

"FAR-FETCHED HERRING.

"The steam drifter Bruces landed at Buckie to-day the
furthest-fetched catch of herrings on record. The herrings were
caught on the Yarmouth grounds, over 4000 miles distant."

_Scotch Paper._

The last detail seems as far-fetched as the fish.

* * * * *

"Lost, in Paragon Street or Station, Black Dog with purse, money,
eyeglass and papers; name and address inside.--Reward returning
same."--_Daily Paper._

But suppose the finder is an anti-vivisectionist?

* * * * *

There was a young lady named Janet,
Who committed high treason in Thanet;
She dressed up her cat
In a _D**ly M**l_ hat,
And was promptly fired out of this planet.

* * * * *

ONE TOUCH OF DICKENS.

Knowing that there was everything in my appearance to command respect, I went into the manager's room with confidence. Lean and brown and middle-aged, in a tweed coat and grey flannel trousers, which, though not new, were well cut, I felt that I looked like one accustomed to put in and take out sums from banks. There was no trying for effect, no effort, no tie-pin. The stick I carried was a plain ash. The pipe, which I removed from my mouth, had no silver mounting. Ah, but it showed the tiny mother-of-pearl star which stamped it as a Bungknoll. There was going to be no difficulty here.

"Good morning," I said. "I regret to trouble a busy man over a small matter, but I wish to cash a cheque for ten pounds."

He was a quiet, capable-looking man with a rather tired expression.

"The cashing of cheques," he said, laying down his pipe, "is one item of our duties."

"Unfortunately," I continued, "I have run short of money. I bought a rather good print in a shop down the road and it has left me without any. I can give a cheque on Bilson's, but the banks in town close to-morrow and it would mean waiting three days, so I hope that you will be able to--"

"You can bring someone to identify you, of course?" he said, reaching for a bell.

"I am sorry to say that I am unknown here. I am all right at the hotel, but I don't like to ask the people for money. I have brought only a small bag, and what with the races and so forth I might expose myself to a disagreeable refusal."

"Yes," he said, "you might. But I'm afraid I can't cash a cheque for you without an identification. I'll send it for collection if you like."

"But that means waiting for days, and I haven't a shilling left. I came here for a week to look at the country about your town--a beautiful little town." I added this diplomatically.

"Do you think so? I consider it a hole. But I don't know much about it as I'm only here for a week. However, I'm sorry I can't help you except in the way I mentioned."

"But look here--do I look like the kind of man who plays tricks? Here is my card and my club address. And letters"--I tore one out of an envelope, but it was the one from Mosbyson's reminding me that they had already applied twice for payment--"but letters are of little use to identify one."

"They are," he agreed.

"The fact is, among other things, I want to buy another print which I have just caught sight of. It may be snapped up at any moment, like the one I snapped up yesterday."

"Let it go. It's probably a fake."

"Which one?" I said hotly. "The one I bought yesterday or the one I'm going to buy?"

"Both. But I can't cash your cheque."

"But look at the mess I'll be in. Would you have me pawn my watch?"

"I would not; neither would I have you not do so, if you take my meaning."

"I see," I said bitterly. "In plain words you are indifferent to my fate."

He smiled slightly and reached for a match to re-light his pipe.

My blood was up. I would not be defied by this man; at least, not completely. "Very well," I said coldly, "I will leave my cheque for ten pounds with you and take only a couple on account."

"I couldn't do that either."

"Well, a pound will have to do then."

"No."

"Then," I said in despair, "we come to the ridiculously small amount of eighteenpence. Ha, ha!"

"And that," he answered, "would be equally objectionable."

I started. "Come," I said, "you are human after all. You can quote at random from DICKENS. You read him?"

"I do. When not engaged in business pursuits." He looked anxiously at the clock.

"Who was _Mrs. Chickenstalker_?" I asked sternly.

"She kept a shop. In _The Haunted Man_."

"Whom did _Mr. Wopsle_ marry?"

"Nobody. But hadn't you better see about your watch?"

"Not yet. How many glasses of punch did _Mr. Pickwick_ drink on One Tree Hill?"

"Depends on how you count them. I make it eight."

"Correct. Look here--have you thought about the bagman's story--the first one? He says it is eighty years since the events he relates took place, and that would carry it back to 1747. And yet the traveller damns his straps and whiskers. Why, if he'd worn strapped trousers and whiskers in those days he'd have had a mob after him."

"Yes, and he wouldn't have been driving a gig on Marlborough downs. He'd have been riding with pistols in his holsters, wrapped in a horseman's cloak and wearing a plain bobwig. I've thought of that too."

"I see you have. But there's another--"

"Let me. Can you account for this? _Martin Chuzzlewit_ left _Mr. Pecksniff's_ house in the late autumn--say the last of November to be on the safe side. He stays five weeks in London and then goes to America--say another five weeks. Then, after a week in _Major Pawkins_' boarding-house, he goes to a place which is identified as the original site of Cairo, Illinois--say another week. This would land him there at the end of February, when everything is frozen stiff. But they travelled down the river in a heat that blistered everything it touched."

"No," I said jealously, "I have not thought of that. Wonderful, isn't it, how one likes to catch DICKENS in a mistake? Like having a joke on a good old friend."

"Exactly," he said ardently, "I wish I had more time--"

"If you're free this evening come and dine with me at the 'Bull.' At about eight, if you can."

"I'd like to very much. Thanks. I'll come."

"I've thought of two more," I said; "but I'll go now, as you must be busy, so good-bye for the present. A bit before eight."

"I'll be there. I am rather busy just now. Good morning." He rang the bell. "Oh, Mr. Jounce," he said to the underling who appeared, "will you please cash this gentleman's cheque?"

* * * * *

_Cook._ "IN THESE DAYS WE NEVER SPEAK OF HAVING PEOPLE 'UNDER US.' BUT I HAVE HAD COLLEAGUES."]

* * * * *

=AN UNLIKELY STORY.=

I am hoping very much that this story will, as Agony Column advertisements put it, meet the eye of a certain Professor at a certain Academy of Music. Of course I might tell it to him myself, as he happens to be my Professor, at least from 7 to 7.45 on Friday evenings; but it is a story which involves a great deal of explanation and, well--things on the whole get believed better in print.

To be quite frank I did begin telling him at the time, but I saw that the first two words had destroyed his faith in the rest of it. I don't really blame him, for it began with "my cleaner," and I don't suppose that he has the ghost of an idea that, if you teach cooking, as I do, under the London County Council, they kindly keep a charlady to wash up for you and so on, and they call her a "cleaner."

The Professor is a very bad listener. I might have managed to explain to him what a cleaner is, but I never could have made him see why she was having tea with me, so I gave it up.

Really it is so simple. She lives at Cambridge Heath; I live at Croydon, which doesn't sound as countrified but is really so much nicer that no Croydon people who knew Cambridge Heathers could help asking them to tea at least once a year, when the garden was at its best. My cleaner's visit is always very delightful, because she makes the garden seem at least four times its usual size by sheer admiration; but this year, just as she was getting into her stride, it began to rain, and we had to seek refuge by the piano.

We sang "Where the Bee Sucks" and "Annie Laurie" very successfully, and she at last unthawed to the extent of remarking that she would give us a "chune," though she "hadn't stood up" to sing by herself "for donkey's ears." Stipulating that someone should help her out if the need arose, she investigated the inside of the piano-stool where the music lives, looking for a suitable song, and made, to her horror, the discovery that among all the odd pages it contained there was not one that had ever adhered to a piece called "The Maxeema," nor yet to a song which asks how someone is "Goin' to keep 'em down on the farm now they've seen gay Paree?"

The painful incident was passed over at the time, "The Long Trail" being discovered at the bottom of the pile and satisfactorily negotiated, and I forgot all about it until the next Friday evening, when, just as I was about to shake the dust of Cambridge Heath off my shoes, my cleaner, rising from her scrubbing, wiped her hands on her apron, produced two large limp sheets of white paper which resolved themselves into the music I ought to have had and hadn't, and pressed them upon me with all the eagerness of a more than cheerful giver.

A kind of panic seized me, for on Friday evenings I make the Academy of Music as it were a half-way house on my way home. Under the cleaner's kind and beaming glance there was nothing to do but put them into the attaché case in which I carry my music and try to believe that, wonderful man as he is, even my Professor wouldn't be able to see inside it when it was shut, in fact that it only rested with me to be quite sure that in his presence I only took out Chopin and not the gentleman who was interested in farming.

And I managed nicely. I took out the "Nocturnes" and shut the case up again before the cleverest (and nicest) of Professors could have guessed the company they were keeping, and he was graciously pleased to nod, instead of shaking his head, for most of the three-quarters of an hour. He really must have been pleased with me, for at 7.45 he told me that I showed marked improvement, and then kept me till 7.49 while he explained that a _flair_ for the best of music such as I exhibited was both uncommon and, from a Professor's point of view, exceeding enjoyable. At 7.50--he, benign, I blushful--we approached the attaché-case.

"Allow me," said my Professor, reaching for it to replace Chopin; but I snatched it up before he could get it. Like most truly great men he is a little absent-minded, and he didn't seem to notice anything, but just held out his hand in farewell. But when my Professor shakes hands it means more than that; it means benediction, recognition, salutation--lots of things; for it is rumoured at the Academy that he never bestows that honour on any save those whom he regards as kindred spirits, acolytes at the altar of Music, personalities, not pupils.

And then my attaché-case opened itself quietly, after the manner of attaché-cases, and laid "'Ow're you goin' to keep 'em?" and "The Maxeema" right side up, and their names in such large print too, like an offering at his wonderful feet. Trembling at the knees I said:--

"My cleaner gave them to me."

But he looked at me and went on looking, and that is why I hope so very much that he will read this very unlikely story.

* * * * *

MORE PAY FOR M.P.'S.

(_A perfectly horrible prospect._)

If I were a Member of Parliament[A]
On a most inadequate stipend,
Up in an attic and worn and spent
And wondering how to pay my rent,
And sucking an old clay pipe end,

I'd write to BONAR and Mr. GEORGE,
Or the party Whips that ran 'em,
"Unless you want me to steal or forge
You must make those Treasury blokes disgorge
A thousand at least per annum.

"Put it at that and make it free
From AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN'S taxes,
For the glory withers that used to be
The sole reward of a stout M.P.
As the cost of everything waxes.

"What-not and Coalitionist
Equally crave the shilling
For a pot of beer or an ounce of twist
As they trudge to their homes through the mire and mist
From the long day's lobby-filling.

"Radical joins Conservative
In a concord wholly hearty,
Wanting to know if the State will give
An adequate wage upon which to live,
And so does the National Party.

"And the boots of the Labour Members creak
And a terrible ghastly pallor is
On the Wee Free face as it tries to speak;
But ah! what a change to each sunken cheek
If you put a bit more on our salaries!

"Shibboleths old to the wind we'd fling
And turn to the task that presses;
Sound reforms would go with a swing
And we might have a chance of lengthening
Those fearfully short recesses.

"There'd be the chance to show your tact
In welding the hostile sections;
Sworn and sealed in a mighty pact
We'd put on the books the world's best Act
Abolishing all elections."

EVOE.

[Footnote A: This beautiful opening line is not original. It is borrowed, with due acknowledgments, from a once famous music-hall song.]

* * * * *

From an article on "History without Tears":--

"There is no book that gives one a more comprehensive idea of the
character of the Byzantine Empire, of the reasons for its decline
and its disappearance, than Scott's 'Count Robert of Sicily.'"

Except perhaps Wrongfellow's "King Robert of Paris."

* * * * *

_Boy._ "FIRST-RATE, THANK YOU. I'LL GO IN A HARD HAT NEXT TIME, THOUGH. A FELLOW CAME UP TO ME AT THE MEET AND SAID, 'CAP, HALF-A-CROWN, PLEASE.'"]

* * * * *

=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

A new novel by ANTHONY HOPE certainly deserves in these days to be considered a literary event of some importance. His _Lucinda_ (HUTCHINSON) seems to me both in plot and treatment equal to the best of his work; as dignified and yet as lightly handled as anything he has given us in the past. The plot (which I must not betray) is excellent. From the moment when _Julius_, the narrator, making his leisurely way to the wedding of _Lucinda_, is passed by her alone in a taxicab going in an opposite direction, the interest of the intrigue never slackens. Into an epoch of rather "over-ripe" and messy fiction this essentially clean and well-ordered tale comes with an effect very refreshing and tonic. ANTHONY HOPE'S characters as ever are vigorously alive; in _Lucinda_ herself he has drawn a heroine as charming as any in that long gallery that now stretches between her and the immortal _Dolly_. In short, those novel-readers who are (shall I say?) beginning to demand the respect due to middle age will enjoy in these pages the threefold reward of present interest, retrospection and a comforting sense that the literary judgment of their generation is here triumphantly vindicated in the eyes of unbelieving youth. What could be more pleasant?

* * * * *

It is a delight to welcome the _Life of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS), not only for the exceptional attraction of the environment in which she lived for many years, but because under any circumstances she would have been a remarkable woman. Once, when asked to write her own life, she refused because it seemed to her like "a dazed rush on a railroad express;" she despaired of recovering "the incidental memories." So it fell to her sister, Mrs. VAN DE GRIFT SANCHEZ, to undertake the task. A difficult one, for there was always the fear that the personality of Mrs. STEVENSON might seem to be overshadowed by that of her husband. But the author, in giving us many interesting details about ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, has been careful to select for the most part only those in which his wife was closely concerned. "In my sister's character," she writes, "there were many strange contradictions, and I think sometimes this was a part of her attraction, for even after knowing her for years one could always count on some surprise, some unexpected contrast which went far in making up her fascinating personality." Contradictions undoubtedly were to be found in her; thus during her later years Mrs. STEVENSON intensely desired quietness and peace, and yet her love for change of scene never seemed to abate; but she was constant in her devotion as a wife and in her staunchness as a friend. Some excellent illustrations are included in this volume, and the only fault I have to find with it is that it lacks an index.

* * * * *

In selecting his hero for _No Defence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) from the mutineers at the Nore, it may be admitted that Sir GILBERT PARKER displayed a certain originality. With regard, to the _clou_ of his plot, however, I can hardly say so much. Melodramatic young lovers have (in fiction) gone to prison and worse rather than employ a defence involving distress to the ladies of their choice, from ages untold. _Dyck Calhoon_ did it when he was wrongly indicted for the killing of _Erris Boyne_, who was a traitor in the pay of France and incidentally the father of the heroine _Sheila_; though she knew nothing of this and would have been badly worried if the hazards of a defended murder case had brought it to light. Do you call the motive sufficient? No more do I. However, _Dyck_ goes to prison, emerging just in time to join the fleet and became a successful rebel under the Naval soviets established by RICHARD PARKER. Subsequently he takes his ship into action on the legitimate side, earns the quasi-pardon of exile on parole in Jamaica, finds a fortune of Spanish treasure, quells a black rising, is cleared of the murder charge (by the wholly preposterous arrival in the island of the now aged lady who had really done the deed--exactly like the _finale_ of a GILBERT and Sullivan opera) and marries the heroine. A breathless plot, by which, however, my own pulse remained unquickened. To be brutally frank, indeed, the telling seemed to me wholly lacking in precisely the qualities of dash and crescendo required to carry off such a tale. Costume romance that halts and looks backward soon loses my following.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Airedales and collies, according to Lieut.-Colonel E. H. RICHARDSON, are notable for a truly remarkable and admirable characteristic. They would honestly rather be at work than just playing round. All the same, no one guessed before the War what they, and many other kinds of dogs, were able and willing to do for their country in emergency on guard and sentry duty, and, most of all, as battle-field messengers. Moreover it took the genius of the man who of all the world knows most of their mind to discover it. His book, _British War Dogs_ (SKEFFINGTON), is neither very brilliantly written nor particularly well arranged (it contains quite a lot of repetitions and a system of punctuation all its own), but it is of more than average interest. The author details the training of war-dogs--literally "all done by kindness"--and records many thrilling exploits and heroisms of his friends. Further, he states at some length some rather attractive views on dog metaphysics, of which one need say no more than that, if you wish to believe that your four-footed pal has a soul to be saved as well as a body to be patted, here is high authority to support you. I think what one misses all through these pages is the dog's own story. Without it one never seems to get quite to grips with the subject. What were _Major's_ thoughts and feelings, for instance, when carrying a message twelve miles in an hour over all obstacles, dodging the shells as he ran? Not even Colonel RICHARDSON can find a way to get a personal interview out of him.

* * * * *

All the Scandinavian countries have in the last twenty-five years produced novel-writers of power and distinction, but with the single exception of the Swedish authoress, SELMA LAGERLÖF, whose great novel, _Gosta Berling_, was awarded the Nobel Prize, and the Norwegian, KNUT HAMSUN, whose extremely unpleasant book, _Hunger_, was published in this country a score of years ago, few if any of them have been made accessible to the average English reader. Now the Gyldendal Publishing Company of Copenhagen has undertaken the neglected task of producing English translations of the best Scandinavian fiction, the latest of which is _Guest the One-Eyed_, by the Icelandic novelist, GUNNAR GUNNARSSON. It is not a particularly powerful narrative, and is marked by the characteristic inconsequence that tends to convert the Scandinavian novel into a mélange of family biographies; yet the author has been successful in weaving into his chapters some of the beauty and magic of his native land, lovely and forbidding by turns, and the charm and simplicity of its people. So when he makes _Ormarr Orlygsson_ fling away the strenuous work of ten years and a promising career as a great violinist to return to a pastoral life on his father's Iceland estates, the step seems neither strange nor unnatural. So with the perfectly villainous _Sera Ketill_, who at the culmination of unparalleled infamies suddenly repents and becomes the far-wandering and well-beloved _Guest_, we do not feel anything strained in the author's assumption that in Iceland, at any rate, such things easily happen. _Guest the One-Eyed_ is not a noteworthy novel in the sense that _Gosta Berling_ was. Yet one would not have missed reading it.

* * * * *

It is interesting to watch heredity at play. Given the inclination to write, what kind of a first book should we get from the son of one of the most cultured and sensitive classical scholars and translators of this or any day and from the grandson of the painter of the Legend of the Briar Rose? The question is answered by Mr. DENIS MACKAIL'S _What Next?_ (JOHN MURRAY), which on examination turns out to be a farcical novel. The story has certain technical weaknesses, but these are forgotten in the excitements of the chase, for the main theme is the tracking down of a coarse capitalist who defrauded the hero of his fortune and did something very low against England. With the assistance of a new character in fiction, a super-valet, justice is done and we are all (except the coarse capitalist and his son) extremely happy. Mr. MACKAIL has invented some excellent scenes and he carries them off with gaiety and spirit. In his second book (and for the answer to _What Next?_ we shall not, I imagine, have long to wait) he will amend certain little faults, not the least of which is a tendency to give us the most significant events in the form of retrospective narrative instead of letting us see them as they occur.

* * * * *

"Bedroom Suite and a reasonable Piano Wanted."--_Provincial
Paper._

It mustn't be "overstrung."

* * * * *

END.