Chapter II: Part 2

Mr. D. LEWIN MANNERING was suitably sinister as _Wang Fu_; Mr. TARVER PENNA'S _Ah Fong_, the heroine's champion, made some very pleasant faces and gestures and was less incurably Western than some of his colleagues; Mr. CRONIN WILSON'S _Jack Stacey_ seemed a meritorious performance. The part of _Che Fu_ made no particular demand on Miss CHRISTINE SILVER'S talent, and Miss EVADNE PRICE faithfully earned the laughter she was expected to make as _Sua Se_, the opium-den attendant. Leave your critical faculty at home and you will be able to derive considerable entertainment from this unambitious show.

T.

* * * * *

Fashions in Hand-wear.

"Amusing contrast is seen in the Riviera and winter sports outfits
now on view, with filmy lace, shimmering silks, and glowing
velvets on the one hand and thick wool and the stoutest of boots
on the other."

_Weekly Paper._

* * * * *

From a _feuilleton_:--

"... She was startled by a low sibilant whisper, 'I've caught you,
my girl!'"

_Daily Paper._

Try and hiss this for yourself.

* * * * *

THE BARREL OF BEEF.

We were dawdling home from the westward on the flood. Astern of us, knee-deep in foam, stood the slim column of the Bishop lighthouse, a dark pencil mark on the cloudless sky. To the south the full Atlantic piled the black reefs with hills of snow. Ahead the main islands humped out of the blue sea like a school of basking whales. I had the tiller and Uncle Billy John Polsue was forward picking up the marks and carrying on a running commentary, punctuated by expectorations of dark fluid. Suddenly something away on the port bow attracted his attention. He rolled to his feet, stared for some seconds and shouted, "Hold 'er on the corner o' Great Minalte!" a tremor of excitement in his voice.

I did as I was bid and sheeted home.

Billy John fished the conger gaff from under the blue and silver heap of mackerel in the well and climbed laboriously on to the little half-deck. So we were after some sort of flotsam, I could not see what, because Billy John's expansive back-view obscured the prospect ahead, but from his tense attitude I judged that it appeared interesting. He signed to me to come up another couple of points, took a firm grasp of the gaff and leaned over the bows. Then with a creak of straining tackle and a hiss of riven water a gig was on us. She swooped out of the blue, swept by not two fathoms to windward and with a boat-hook snapped up the treasure trove (it looked suspiciously like a small keg) right under our very noses as adroitly as a lurcher snaps a hare. She ran on a cable's length, spun on her heel and slipped away down the sound, a long lean craft, leaping like a live thing under her press of canvas. She seemed full of redheaded men of all ages and was steered by a brindled patriarch who wagged his vermilion beard at us and cackled loudly. I roared with laughter; I had seldom seen anything so consummately slick in my life.

Billy John roared too, but from other influences. He bellowed, he spat, he danced with rage. He cursed the gig's company collectively and singly, said they were nothing better than common pirates and that they lured ships to destruction and devoured the crews--raw.

The gig's company were delighted; they jeered and waved their caps. Billy John trembled with passion.

"Who stole the bar'l o' beef?" he trumpeted through his palms. "Who--stole--the--bar'l--o'--beef? Hoo hoo!"

This last sally had a subduing effect on the gig's company; they turned their faces away and became absorbed in the view ahead.

* * * * *

_Mother._ "ISN'T IT A PERFECT GEM, DARLING?"

_Son._ "WOULDN'T BE SEEN DEAD WITH IT. I ASK YOU, WHERE'S THE H.P. CYLINDER THAT DRIVES THE CRANK-PINS ON THE TRAILING WHEELS?"]

* * * * *

Billy John sat down with a grunt of satisfaction. "That settled 'em," he grinned. "They dunno who did steal the bar'l to this day, and each wan do suspect t'other."

"St. Martin's islanders?" I queried.

Billy John shook his head. "Naw, from St. Helen's, o' course; deddn' you see their red 'eads? They 're all red-'eaded over on Helen's--take after their great-grandfather the Devil."

"They're pretty smart, anyhow," said I.

Billy John threw up both hands. "Smart! By dang you've said it! Anythin' in the way o' honest work they do leave to us poor mainland grabbers; they don't unnerstand it; but come a bit o' easy money in the way of wreckage and we might as well stop bed as try to compete with they; we eddn but children to 'em."

"What about this barrel of beef?" I asked.

Billy John chuckled. "Comed to pass years ago, Sir. There was a party of us over 'ere crabbin'. My brother Zackariah 'ad married a Helen's wumman, and a brear great piece she were too. They was livin' on Helen's upon Lower Town beach, and we lodged with 'em.

"Wan mornin' before dawn along comes great Susan in her stockined feet. 'Whist!' says she, 'rouse thee out an' don't make no noise; I think I heerd a gun from Carnebiggal Ledges.'

"We sneaked out like shadows, got the boat afloat and pulled away, mufflin' the oars with our caps. We got a fair start; nobody heerd us go. It weren't yet light and the fog were like a bag, but we got there somehow, and sure enough there were a big steamer fast on the rocks. Great Susan were right. Oh, I tell you t'eddn guesswork with they St. Helen's folk; male or female they got a nose for a wreck, same as cats for mice. There was a couple o' ship's boats standing by on her port side full o' men.

"'Where in 'ell are we?' shouts 'er skipper as we comed nosing through the fog. 'I ain't seen the sun for two days.'

"We told en and lay by chattin' and wonderin' 'ow we was to plunder she, with them in the road. Time went by and there we was still chattin' about the weather an' suchlike damfoolery. Every minute I was expectin' to see the Helen's gigs swarmin' out, and then it wouldn't be pickin's we'd get but leavin's.

"''Ere,' whispers I to Zakky, 'scare 'im off for God's sake.'

"'I'll 'ave a try,' says 'e. 'Say, Mr. Captain, the tide's makin'. She do come through 'ere like a river and you'll be swamped for certain. Pull for the shore, sailor.'

"'Will you pilot me in?' says the captain.

"'Naw,' says Zakky. 'I got to be after my crab-pots; but I'll send my nephew wid 'e.'

"'Keep 'em lost out in the Sound for a couple of hours, son,' he whispers to the boy, and the lad takes 'em off into the fog. 'Now for the plunder, my dears,' says Zakky; and we makes for the ship.

"But Lor' bless you, Sir, she were already plundered. While we was chattin' away on her port side four Helen's gigs' crews had boarded her quietly from starboard and was eatin' through her like a pest o' ants. They'd come staggering on deck--fathers, sons and grandfathers--with bundles twice as big nor themselves, toss 'em into the gigs and go back for more. As for us, we stood like men mazed. I tell you, Sir, a God-fearing man can't make a livin' 'mong that lot; they'll turn a vessel inside out while he's thinkin' how to begin.

"By-'m-by they comed on the prize o' the lot--a bar'l o' beef. My word, what an outcry! 'I seed 'en first!' 'Naw, you deddn': hands off!' 'Leggo; 's mine!' Quarrellin' 'mong themselves now, mark you, beef bein' as scarce as diamonds in them hard times. Old Hosea--the old toad that you seed steerin' that gig just now--he puts a stop to et.

"'Avast ragin', thou fools,' says 'e; "coastguards will be along in a minute and then there'll be nothin' for nobody. Set en in my boat an' I'll divide it up equal on the beach.'

"They done as they were told, and away goes old Hosea for the shore, followed by the other gigs loaded that deep they could hardly swim. Seein' they hadn't left us nothin' but the bare bones we pulled in ourselves shortly after, and my dear life what a sight we did behold! Fellows runnin' about in the fog on the beach, for all the world like shadows on a blind, cursin', shoutin', fightin', tumblin' over each other, huntin' high and low, and in the middle of 'em all old Hosea crying out for his bar'l o' beef like a wumman after her first-born. Somebody'd stole it! Mercy me! we mainlanders lay on our oars and laughed till the tears rolled out of us in streams."

"Who did steal it? Do you know?" I asked.

Billy John nodded. "I do, Sir. Why, great Susan, o' course. They'd forgotten she, livin' right upon the beach--wan o' their own breed. Susan stalked en through the fog an' had en locked in her own house before they could turn round. And many a full meal we poor honest mainlanders had off it, Sir, take it from me."

PATLANDER.

* * * * *

=Our Cynical Municipalities.=

"Schemes for the relief of the unemployed at ---- include the
extension of the cemetery."

_Daily Paper._

* * * * *

"The constable went to the warehouse doorway and found two men,
who, when asked to account for their movements, suddenly bolted in
different directions, pursued by the constable."--_Welsh Paper._

A worthy colleague of the Irish policeman who in a somewhat similar dilemma "surrounded the crowd."

* * * * *

VIGNETTES OF SCOTTISH SPORT.

(_By a Peckham Highlander._)

O brawly sklents the break o' day
On far Lochaber's bank and brae,
And briskly bra's the Hielan' burn
Where day by day the Southron kern
Comes busking through the bonnie brake
Wi' rod and creel o' finest make,
And gars the artfu' trouties rise
Wi' a' the newest kinds o' flies,
Nor doots that ere the sun's at rest
He'll catch a basket o' the best.
For what's so sweet to nose o' man
As trouties skirrlin' in the pan
Wi' whiles a nip o' mountain dew
Tae warm the chilly Saxon through,
And hold the balance fair and right
Twixt intellect and appetite?
But a' in vain the Southron throws
Abune each trout's suspectfu' nose
His gnats and coachmen, greys and brouns,
And siclike gear that's sold in touns,
And a' in vain the burn he whups
Frae earliest sunrise till the tups
Wi' mony a wean-compelling "meeeh!"
Announce the punctual close of day.
Then hameward by the well-worn track
Gangs the disgruntled Sassenach,
And, having dined off mountain sheep,
Betakes him moodily to sleep.
And "Ah!" he cries, "would I micht be
A clansman kilted to the knee,
Wi' sporran, plaid and buckled shoe,
And Caledonian whuskers too!
Would I could wake the pibroch's throes
And live on parritch and peas brose
And spurn the ling wi' knotty knees,
The dourest Scot fra Esk tae Tees!
For only such, I'll answer for 't,
Are rightly built for Hielan' sport,
Can stalk Ben Ledi's antlered stag
Frae scaur to scaur and crag tae crag,
Cra'ing like serrpents through the grass
On waumies bound wi' triple brass;
Can find themselves at set o' sun,
Wi' sandwiches and whusky gone,
And twenty miles o' scaur and fell
Fra Miss McOstrich's hotel,
Yet utter no revilin' word
Against the undiminished herd
Of antlered monarchs of the glen
That never crossed their eagle ken:
But a' unfrettit turn and say,
'Hoots, but the sport's been grand the day!'
For none but Scotsmen born and bred,
When ither folk lie snug in bed,
Would face yon cauld and watery pass,
The eerie peat-hag's dark morass,
Where wails the whaup wi' mournful screams,
Tae wade a' day in icy streams
An' flog the burn wi' feckless flies
Though ilka trout declines tae rise,
Then hameward crunch wi' empty creel
Tae sit and hark wi' unquenched zeal
Tae dafties' tales o' lonesome tarns
Cramfu' o' trout as big as barns."

E'en thus the envious Southron girds
Complainin' fate wi' bitter words
For a' the virtues she allots
Unto the hardy race o' Scots.
And when the sun the brae's abune
He taks the train to London toun,
Vowing he ne'er again will turn
Tae Scottish crag or Hielan' burn,
But hire a punt and fish for dace
At Goring or some ither place.

ALGOL.

* * * * *

EFFECT AND CAUSE.

The bell was knelling: dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong.

Inside the Hall there was nothing but gloom.

Suddenly the echoes were startled by a loud knocking on the door: rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, ratta, tatta, tatta, tatta, tat, tat.

Who could it be?

The old servitor shambled to undo the bolts. As he opened the door the wind rushed in, carrying great flakes of snow with it and an icy blast penetrated to every corner of the house.

There followed a man muffled up to the eyes in a vast red scarf--or not so much red as pink, salmon colour--which he proceeded gradually to unwind, revealing at length the features of Mr. James Tod Brown, the senior partner of the firm of Brown, Brown & Brown, of Little Britain. Save for a curious nervousness of speech which caused him to repeat every remark several times, Mr. James Tod Brown was a typical lawyer, in the matter of ability far in advance of either of his partners, Brown or Brown.

"Dear me," he said, "dear me, dear me! This is very sad, very sad--very sudden too, very sudden. And what--tut, tut, dear, dear, let me see--what was the cause of--ah! What was the cause--what was it that occasioned the--how did your master come to die? Yes, how did your master come to die?"

* * * * *

"What is it all about?" asks the reader.

Well, it is not quite so meaningless as it may appear; there is method in the madness; for this is a passage from a story by one of the most popular English authors in America, to whom an American editor has offered twenty cents a word. At the present rate of exchange such commissions are not to be trifled with.

* * * * *

"Wanted, experienced Parlourmaid for a good home, where the
household does not change."--_Local Paper._

Apparently "no washing."

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

MR. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER, for whose work as a novelist I have more than once expressed high admiration, has now brought together seven long-short stories under the collective title of _The Happy End_ (HEINEMANN). Lest however this name and the little preface, in which the writer asserts that his wares "have but one purpose--to give pleasure," should lead you to expect that species of happy ending in which Jack shall have Jill and naught shall go ill, I think a word of warning may not be wasted. In only three of the tales is the finish a matter of conventional happiness. Elsewhere you have a deserted husband, who has tracked his betrayer to a nigger saloon in Atlantic City, wrested from his purpose of murder by a revivalist hymn; a young lad, having avenged the destruction of his home, returning to his widowed mother to await, one supposes, the process of the law; or an over-fed war profiteer stricken with apoplexy at sight of a boat full of the starved victims of a submarine outrage. You observe perhaps that the epithet "happy" is one to which the artist and the casual reader may attach a different significance. But let not anything I have said be considered as reflecting upon the tales themselves, which indeed seem to me to be masterpieces of their kind. Personally my choice would rest on the last, "The Thrush in the Hedge," a simple history of how the voice of a young tramp was revealed by his chance meeting with a blind and drug-sodden fiddler who had once played in opera--a thing of such unforced art that its concluding pages, when the discovery is put to a final test, shake the mind with apprehension and hope. A writer who can make a short story do that comes near to genius.

* * * * *

If you wish to play the now fashionable game of newspaper-proprietor-baiting you can, with Miss ROSE MACAULAY, create a possible but not actual figure like _Potter_ and, using it for stalking-horse, duly point your moral; or, with Mr. W. L. GEORGE in _Caliban_ (METHUEN), you can begin by mentioning all the well-known figures in the journalistic world by way of easy camouflage, so as to evade the law of libel, call your hero-villain _Bulmer_, attach to him all the legends about actual newspaper kings, add some malicious distortion to make them more exciting and impossible, and thoroughly let yourself go. Good taste alone will decide which is the cleaner sport, and good taste does not happen to be the fashion in certain literary circles at the moment. Of course Mr. GEORGE, being a novelist of some skill, has provided a background out of his imagination. The most interesting episode, excellently conceived and worked out, is the only unsuccessful passage in _Lord Bulmer's_ life, the wooing of _Janet Willoughby_. The awkward thing for Mr. GEORGE is that he has so splashed the yellow over _Bulmer_ in the office that there is no use in his pretending that the _Bulmer_ in _Mrs. Willoughby's_ drawing-room is the same man in another mood. He just isn't. Incidentally the author gives us the best defence of the saffron school of journalism I've read--a defence that's a little too good to believe; and some shrewd blows above (and, as I have hinted, occasionally below) the belt.

* * * * *

I want to give the epithet "lush" to _The Breathless Moment_ (LANE), and, although the dictionary asks me as far as in me lies to reserve that adjective for grass, I really don't see why, just for once, I shouldn't do what I like with it. Lush grass is generally long and brightly coloured--"luxuriant and succulent," the dictionary says--and that is exactly what MISS MURIEL HINE'S book is. She tells the story of _Sabine Fane_, who, loving _Mark Vallance_, persuaded him to pass a honeymoon month with her before he went to the Front, though his undesirable wife was still alive. In allowing her heroine to suffer the penalty of this action Miss HINE would appear, as far as plot is concerned, to discourage such adventures. But _Sabine_ is so charming, her troubles end so happily and the setting of West Country scenery is so beautiful that, taken as a whole, I should expect the book to have the opposite effect. The picture of a tall green wave propelling a very solid rainbow, which adorns the paper wrapper and as an advertisement has cheered travellers on the Tube for some weeks past, has no real connection with the story, but perhaps is meant to be symbolical of the book, which, clever and well written as it is, is almost as little like what happens in real life.

* * * * *

_The Uses of Diversity_ (METHUEN) is the title of a little volume in which Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON has reprinted a selection of his shorter essays, fugitive pieces of journalism, over which indeed the casual reader may experience some natural bewilderment at finding, what is inevitable in such work, the trivialities of the day before yesterday treated with the respect of contemporary regard. Many of the papers are inspired by the appearance of a particular book or play. I can best illustrate what I have said above by a quotation from one of them, in which the author wrote (_a propos_ of the silver goblets in _Henry VIII._ at His Majesty's) that he supposed such realism might be extended to include "a real Jew to act _Shylock_." For those who recall a recent triumph, this flight of imagination will now have an oddly archaic effect. It is by no means the only passage to remind us sharply that much canvas has gone over the stage rollers since these appreciations were written. Unquestionably Mr. CHESTERTON, with the unstaled entertainment of his verbal acrobatics, stands the ordeal of such revival better than most. Even when he is upon a theme so outworn as the "Pageants that have adorned England of late," he can always astonish with some grave paradox. But for all that I still doubt whether journalism so much of the moment as this had not more fitly been left for the pleasure of casual rediscovery in its original home than served up with the slightly overweighting dignity of even so small a volume.

* * * * *

In _A Tale That Is Told_ (COLLINS), Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN throws himself into the personality of _Harold Grey_, who is the youngest son of an "eminent Scottish divine," and constitutes himself the annalist of the family, its private affairs and its professional business in the commerce of literature and art. The right of the family to its annals, notwithstanding that its members are little involved in furious adventures or thrilling romance, is established at once by the very remarkable character of the _Reverend Thomas Grey_. The duty upon you to read them depends, as the prologue hints, upon whether you are greatly interested in life and not exclusively intent on fiction. When I realised that I must expect no more than an account, without climax, of years spent as a tale that is told, I accepted the conditions subject to certain terms of my own. The family must be an interesting one and not too ordinary; the sons, _Thomas_ (whose creed was "Give yourself," and whose application of it was such that it usually wrecked the person to whom the gift was made), _Dick_ the artist, and _John_ the novelist, must be very much alive; if the big adventures were missing the little problems must be faced; the question of sex must not be overlooked; and of humour none of the characters must be devoid, and the historian himself must be full. Mr. NIVEN failed me in no particular.

* * * * *

Miss F. E. MILLS YOUNG, in _Imprudence_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), is not at the top of her form, but a neat and effective finish makes some amends for a performance which is, like the wind in a weather report, mainly moderate or light. The heroine, _Prudence Graynor_, was the child of her father's second marriage, and she was afflicted with a battalion of elderly half-sisters and one quite detestable half-brother. This battalion was commanded by one _Agatha_, and it submitted to her orders and caprices in a way incomprehensible to _Prudence_--and incidentally to me. The _Graynors_ and also the _Morgans_ were of "influential commercial stock," and both families were so essentially Victorian in their outlook and manner of living that I was surprised when 1914 was announced. The trouble with this story is that too many of the characters are drawn from the stock-pot. But I admit that, before we have done with them, they acquire a certain distinction from the adroitness with which the author extricates them from apparently hopeless situations.

* * * * *

_The Goat._ "WHO ARE YOU?"

_The Man_ (_greatly disturbed_). "WHO? ME? I--I'M THE NEW GAMEKEEPER."

_The Goat._ "WELL, I'M THE LATE GAMEKEEPER. YOU SEE, OLD BILKS THE SORCERER TOOK TO POACHING LATELY, AND I WAS FOOL ENOUGH TO CATCH HIM AT IT."]

* * * * *

=Praise from "The Times."=

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer, with that absence of commercial
training which is essential to one occupying such a position..."

* * * * *

=Another Sex-Problem=.

"WANTED.--Six White Leghorn Cockerels; 6 Black Minorca Cockerels.
Must lay eggs."--_Times of Ceylon._

* * * * *

"A dreamy professor in a dim romantic laboratory may light upon
a placid formula and, like Aladdin, roll back the portals of the
enchanted fastness with a tranquil open sesame."--_Magazine._

But why should his laboratory be dim when he has _Ali Baba's_ wonderful lamp to light it?

* * * * *