Chapter IV: Twenty Strokes After (3)

Women always wish to travel with their backs to the engine; in the event of an accident you don't have so far to go. She sat down next to my bag. Naturally I jumped up (full of politeness), seized the handle, and swung the thing up on to the rack.

That, at least, was the idea. It was carried out literally, but not figuratively. The bag went up beautifully; only--on its way it opened, and the contents showered down upon the seats, the floor, and--yes, even upon her....

The contents....

This story shows upon what small accidents great events turn. If I had only been going instead of coming back! A couple of clean shirts, a few snow-white collars, a pair of sky-blue pyjamas perfectly creased, socks and handkerchiefs neatly folded--one would not have minded all these being thrown before a stranger; at least, not so much. Going, too, the brushes and things would have been in their proper compartments; they would have swung up on to the rack. I feel convinced that, if the thing had happened going, I should have carried it off all right. We should have laughed together, we should have told each other of similar accidents which had happened to friends, and we should have then drifted into a general conversation about the weather. Going ....

But coming back! It was an early train, and I had packed hurriedly. The brushes and things had been put in anyhow, and they came out anyhow. There was an absurd piece of shaving soap wrapped up in one of "An Englishman's Letters." (I always think that things wrapped up like that look so horrible.) There was a shaving-brush in a pink piece of _Globe_ lying on the sky-blue pyjamas (and the pyjamas all anyhow). Then the collars. I do think a dirty collar ... besides I had screwed them up tightly in order to get them in.... Of course she wouldn't understand that....

Socks. Now this is too awful. I don't know if I can mention this. Well--well then, they had two wretched sock-suspenders attached to them. Odd ones, as I live--black and pink. You see, I had got up in a hurry, and...

Handkerchiefs. They had been shoved into the pumps. I had been pressed for space, and...

You know, there were about thirty-nine different things that I wanted to explain to her. In novels the hero is always throwing upon the heroine an expressive glance, full of meaning. That is what I wanted. There is probably, if one only knew it, a shrug, a wave of the hand, which really does express the fact that you were coming and not going, and took in _The Times_ yourself, and had packed in a hurry, and ...

If I could only have handed a Statement to the Press....

And I have yet to mention the unkindest blow of all. The evening clothes themselves, the only presentable things, stayed in the bag. If they had come out too, then I might have done something. I should have left them to the last--conspicuous upon the floor. Then I should have picked them up slowly, examined them, and nodded at the braid on the trousers as if to say, "Hang it, that's the sort of man I am really." I think, if they had come out too, I could still have carried the thing off....

What should _A._ do? Should he say to the girl, "Close your eyes and count twenty, and see what somebody's brought you," and then, while she was not looking, push the clothes under the seat? Should he be quite calm, and, stretching in front of her, say, "_My_ sock, I think," or politely, "Perhaps you would care to look at a piece of _The Daily Mail_?" Should he disown the thing altogether? "I'm very sorry. Let _me_ put them back for you." That would have been a master-stroke.

Or should he, to divert attention, pull the alarm, and pay his five pounds like a man?

But what _did_ _A._ do?

Alas! He did nothing heroic. For one moment he stood there; then he pulled down the bag, fell on his knees, and began throwing the things in madly. He picked up the bag, locked it, and put it on the rack.

Then he turned to the girl. Now he was going to have spoken to her. An apology, a laugh--yes, even now he might have carried it off.

Only he happened to look up ... and he saw above her head the cord of his pyjamas dangling over the edge of the rack.

REVERIE

Dear Amaryllis,--(may I call you that?
Seeing I do not know your proper name;
And if I did, it might be something dull--
Like Madge). I offer you my broken heart,
Knowing that if you do not want the thing
You will not hesitate to mention it:
Dear Amaryllis, will you please be mine?

We met, 'twas at a dance, ten days ago;
And after sundry smiles and bows from me,
And other rather weary smiles from you,
And certain necessary calculations,
We hit at last upon the second extra,
And made an assignation for the same.
"I shall be at this corner here," you said:
And I "Right O" or words to that effect.
But when the dance came round we both were tired,
So sat it out instead beneath a palm
(Which probably was just as well for you,
And since I love you, just as well for me).
We talked, but what about I can't remember--
Save this: that you were rather keen on golf;
That I had never been to Scarborough;
And both of us thought well of Bernard Shaw.

We talked; but all the time I looked at you,
And wondered much what inspiration led
Your nose to tilt at just that perfect angle;
And wondered how on earth you did your hair;
And why your eyes were blue, when it was black;
And why--a hundred other different things.
Until at last, another dance beginning,
You left me lonely; whereupon I went
Back to the supper-room, and filled a glass
And drank, and lit a cigarette, and sighed,
And asked the waiter had he been in love,
And told the waiter, Yes, I _am_ in love,
And gave him twopence, and went home to bed.

_Am_ I in love? Well, no, I hardly think so.
For one, I'm much too happy as I am;
For two, I shall forget you by to-morrow;
For three, I do not care about your friends,
The men you danced with--bounders, all of them;
For four and five and six and all the rest,
I'm fairly sure we shall not meet again.
Not that I mind. No, as I said before,
I'm very much too happy as I am.
Besides, I shall forget you by to-morrow.

Then why this letter? Well, two incidents
Have led me to it. Here you have them both.
First, then, that sitting in my rooms last week,
Sitting and smoking, thinking--not of you,
Not altogether, but of many things,
Politics, football, dinner and tobacco--
Quite suddenly, this thought occurred to me:
"By Jove, I wish I had a little dog,
A terrier, an Irish terrier,
I wonder if the landlord would object."
And thinking thus, I rose and sighed, and bent
To take my boots off. Had a mouse appeared
I could have loved it in my loneliness.
Had but the humblest cockroach shown his head,
I think I would have said "Good-night" to it.

This too (I give it you for what it's worth):
Next morning, passing through St James's Park,
A morning for the gods, all blue and white,
I heard what, strictly, should have been a skylark,
(But, probably, was quite a common bird)
Offering up its very soul to heaven.
Then suddenly I stopped and cried, "Oh, Lord!
Oh, Lord!" I cried, "I wish it were the spring."

* * * * * * *

So there you have it. Now it's off my chest.
Just for one moment you upset me slightly,
Disturbed my usual calm serenity,
Got in my head, and set me vainly wishing
For April, and the country, and one other...
But that is over. I am whole again.
Good-bye! I shall not send this letter now.
I find I have forgotten you already.

RETROSPECT

Looking back on the past year I can see that it has been (as usual) one of noble endeavour--frequently frustrated, but invariably well meant. In accordance with the custom of the newspapers I have set down here its record of achievement in the different provinces of art, bicycling and the like; and I offer this to the public in full confidence of its sympathy and appreciation.

ART

We have had our photographs taken for the first time for many years, and if the result isn't art I don't know what is. The photographer said: "Would you like them _en silhouette_ or straight-fronted?" We said in French that we had thought of _carte-de-visite_. The result is a sort of three-quarter face with one wing forward, and the man insists that we must have looked like that once. The only other achievement in the world of art is a moleskin waistcoat of some distinction. I had no idea that moles were that colour, but the man swore that when you had taken the feathers out of them you found quite a different coloured skin underneath. As he has been there and I haven't, I cannot argue with him. Altogether a good year for art.

BICYCLING

At the beginning of the year our eldest brother sold our bicycle for a sovereign and gave the sovereign to our second brother. A bad year for bicycling therefore.

SCIENCE

(I thought for the moment science began with a C, which is why it comes in here.)

Several important discoveries have been made in the year. For instance, the small white raspberries in tapioca pudding are _meant_ to be there; you always thought that they had got in from some other dish, when the cook wasn't looking. And when your watch gains a foot you don't put the regulator to A because it is advancing, but to R because you want to retard it. (Or else the other way round--I have forgotten again. Anyhow, I found out that I had been doing it wrong.) Another discovery made in the early part of the year was the meaning of the phrase "Bank Rate Unchanged," but that is too technical to explain here. A record year for science.

FINANCE

The old system of keeping no accounts and never filling in the counterfoils of cheques again answered admirably.

GAMES

The past year marks an epoch in the history of games. We have retired from football and are not the cricketer we were; but, on the other hand, we have made immense strides in croquet. We improve slowly at billiards. In November we potted the red rather neatly, and everybody said, "There's no getting away from that--he _must_ have meant it." As a matter of fact ... but it would spoil it to explain. In the latter part of the year we could have shown you a trick or two at tennis. That is all, except that I can no longer jump the ancestral herbaceous border, as the gardener keeps on discovering.

HYDROSTATICS

Archimedes' Principle--that if a heavy body gets into a cold bath quickly an equal amount of water gets out on to the mat quickly--was demonstrated daily, to the complete dissatisfaction of the man on the floor below, who, however, made a still more important discovery in this interesting branch of dynamics--viz. that water does not find its own level, but prefers something about ten feet lower down.

INDIGO

Indigo has maintained its _status quo_ throughout the year. There have been occasions during this time when we had almost decided to be an Indigo planter in Assam rather than stick it in this beastly country. On each occasion the weather cleared just before we had packed the sandwiches.

MUSIC

Space and time alike fail us to tell of our notable triumphs upon the pianola in the year that has just elapsed. We have played the Sonata Appassionata and "Shuffling Jasper" with equal _verve_ and _chiaroscuro_. The fruitness and nutty flavour of our rendering of Remorse--Valse Tzigane, No. 1,192,999, kindly return by the end of the month--will never be forgotten. In July one of the black notes stuck down and refused to budge for some time; but we got it up at last with a potted-meat opener. I say, I don't think much of Liszt. He has pace and staying power and is a good strider; quite a useful man over timber he might be; but he is a little lacking in--what shall I say, _Adagio con molto expressione ma non troppo_, if you know what I mean.

PETS

Walter, the white mouse, perished in May. The doctor said it was too much exercise on an empty--well, he put it rather crudely. You know what doctors are. And you know how white mice _will_ exercise. The tailor said Walter was too small to make up into a white waistcoat, even an evening one, and that he would be hopeless as a tie. I advertised for a white mole, but they seem to be rare. Altogether it was a sad year for pets.

THOUGHT

Perhaps the past year was, above all, a year for thought. To the pursuit of thought we devoted many days in many positions. Some people would find it impossible to think properly immediately after breakfast but we proved that, given a sufficiently comfortable chair, the impossible could be achieved, that one could be as thoughtfully busy in the morning as in the afternoon.

XYLONITE

We did not do any of this.

YCLEPT

We were yclept every morning punctually at eight (and arose punctually at nine thirty) throughout the year.

ZEUGMA

I suppose you thought I couldn't do X. Y. Z. Well, this is just to show you. In the ordinary way, of course, I should have referred to the zeugma under music. We ordered a low-strung one last month, but it has not yet been delivered.

* * * * * * *

So much for my record of the past year. Reading it over now I feel that I have not spent the last twelve months in vain. At the end of them I can say truthfully that I am, if not a year wiser, at least a year older, a year fatter. And still a happy bachelor.

LETTERS TO CHARLES

I

DEAR CHARLES,--Can you lend me a penny? I have just been making up my accounts for the day (the idea occurred to me suddenly; it's a thing I have never done before) and I am seven shillings and a penny out. The seven shillings I don't mind, but the penny worries me dreadfully. I think that if you lent me another one I should gradually be able to settle down again.

I lie when I say I have never made up accounts before--I did it on one memorable occasion years and years ago. When John and I were at school we had certain expenses, such as subscriptions to the mission and to various house competitions, train fares, masters' wedding presents, haircutting and so on, which did not come out of our pocket money or tips, but which were specially sent to us from home. To save the trouble of this we were given, at the beginning of one term, five pounds to see us through all these expenses, with the understanding that we were to account for it afterwards.

"Afterwards" meant the holidays, which (to begin with) were a long way off. As they came nearer we consoled ourselves with the thought that the required "account" was a mere formality which would probably not be insisted upon; the actual money had been spent--which after all was the main thing, the idea of the whole proceeding, so to say. To wish to linger over the details of its gradual dissolution would be morbid. However to our horror a day did come in the holidays when we were peremptorily ordered to provide our account and to hand over the balance.

There is, as you know, Charles, never any difficulty about providing an account--the trouble is to hand over the balance. In our case the balance was exactly nothing, we had not a penny in our pockets. The money had been spent all right, an unusual number of masters having been married that term (some of them for the third or fourth time in the year), but we could not possibly make up our accounts so that to a farthing the two sides balanced. It would look so unnatural. How could we march solemnly into the library and say "By a perfectly amazing coincidence the money you gave us was just precisely the amount which the circumstances demanded. There is no balance."

It was a very hot afternoon, and we were unhappy. The matter of the accounts was not the only shadow which hung over us. John had a fox terrier--so had I; but whereas my dog was a Little Englander, and stayed at home, John's was an Imperialist, who roamed the country. He had disappeared again the night before, and had been observed in the morning in a village three miles away. Thither toiled John in search of him that hot afternoon, his heart torn between his love for his dog and his duty to his parents. And Rags and I remained at home to see what we could make of finance.

We made but little of it. The more I thought of it, the more impossible it seemed to say that every penny (no more, no less) of the five pounds had been spent properly. One idea I had which touched genius--namely, to furnish an account for five pounds ten (say) and point out that the balance was owing to us. Ours was always a great family for ideas. But you see the weak spot, Charles--that we hadn't demanded the ten shillings long ago.

And then John returned. No, he had not found his dog, but he had found a shilling in the road. He had spent (he simply had to spend, he said) a penny ha'penny on refreshment, but the tenpence ha'penny he had brought back joyfully. And in the evening a beautiful account (on the double-entry system) and tenpence ha'penny balance were handed over with ceremony.

So much for finance, Charles. Now I've got some news for you. _I've just had a nephew_! (Uncle doing well.) Did you know? Look here, we'll arrange a sporting match between him and your son over hurdles for 1922. Your boy will still be a year older, but, bless you, I don't mind that. My nephew is so ugly at present that I feel he must be intended for the highest honours at something. Probably hurdles. Of course if either of us perishes in the meantime the nominations become void. ("The nominations become void"--did you notice that? Quite the sportsman.)

What sort of weather are you having? I ask because the weather differs according to the locality, and down at Castle Bumpbrook it may be quite fine, while it is raining here, and _vice versa_. Why is this? Why shouldn't the weather be the same everywhere? Something to do with the solstices, I believe. What is a solstice? (I have asked you no end of questions in this letter, and I don't suppose you will answer one of them.)

Do you grow oranges at Castle? (Forgive the familiarity.) Exhausted by my divings into the remote and wicked past, I have just eaten about six. I get through quite a dozen a day. The fact is I heard a doctor say the other night that they were extremely good for the complexion--or else extremely bad, I couldn't quite catch which. He spoke very indistinctly. It was a pity that I missed what seems to have been the important word; it wouldn't have mattered so much about the "extremely." However, I go on eating them, and if one day you turn up in town and find me a full-blown mulatto, you will know that the word was "bad." I shall become a sort of test case, like "Wreford _v._ Partington (1883)." Eminent people will refer to me. How nice to be referred to--not that it would be the first time. "Refer to drawer," I remember on my cheques at Cambridge. That, sir, was me.

Do you know, I made up the names Wreford and Partington on the spur of the moment. The names are simple enough, but I think the combination is wonderful. There must have been such a case in 1883. Who do you think Wreford was? I fancy he was a small chandler, and he fell down the coal shoot of Partington's in Cannon Street. James Partington, the senior partner, said (fairly enough) that a great firm like his, which had branches all over England (including Norwich), must have coal some time, if they were to cope successfully with increasing foreign competition, which, owing to the present Gov---- Oh no, this was 1883; I forgot. Well, anyhow, he said they must have coal. Wreford retorted that he didn't mind their putting coal down their shoot, but when it came to including respectable citizens of London----

You remember the excitement when the case came on? We were only babies then, but I have a recollection that my nurse was a pro-Partington. Wreford won, but as he was heavily fined for having knowingly caused a crowd to collect it did him little good, poor man.

Good-bye. Write to me soon and tell me all about Castle Bumpbrook. What a glorious name. I often say it to myself. It is the only strong language I ever use now.

II

DEAR CHARLES,--Many thanks for your definition of a solstice. Is it really? Fancy! By answering one of my questions you become a unique correspondent. Nobody else answers questions in a letter. Sometimes, of course, one is asked, "What train are you coming down by on Saturday? Let me know at once." But the proper thing to do in such a case is to wait till Saturday afternoon, and then wire "Just missed the two twenty-two. Hope to catch the next." Questions in letters are mostly rhetorical; which is why I ask you, How, oh, how could you have the nerve to head your paper "Castle Bumpbrook," and fill it with arguments against the Budget? It is hardly decent. You know, I doubt if you ought even to have heard of the Budget at Castle Bumpbrook.

What I expect from you is pleasant gossip about the miller's daughter. Is she engaged yet to the postman? Has the choir begun to practise the Christmas anthem? When does Mrs Bates' husband come out? These are the things you should tell me. Tell me, too, of your simple recreations. Has whist reached Castle Bumpbrook yet? It is a jolly game for four. One person deals and you turn up the last card, and then the---- But I must send you a book about it.

I have been having a correspondence with my landlord as to what I should do in case of fire. Of course, if your little cottage got alight, you would simply hop out of the window on to the geranium bed; but it is different in London. Particularly when you are on the top floor. Well, he tells me that I can easily get out on to Mr Podby's roof next door ... and so home. This is certainly comforting, but--Podby! I don't like it, Charles. Supposing anything happened, just think how it would look in the papers. "The unfortunate gentleman was last seen upon Mr Podby's roof...." No, I shall have to go for the drain-pipe at the back.

Look here, I have two stories to tell you. One is quite true, the other isn't. Which will you have first? All right, the truth.

When I first came to town I was very--I mean I believed everything I was told. One Sunday I met a small but elderly gentleman on the Embankment, who asked me the way to the German Embassy. He had the river to his south, so obviously all the embassies were in the other direction. I pointed vaguely towards the north. He thanked me and said that---- (By the way, do you prefer _oratio recta_? I forgot to ask you.) Well, then, he said:

"The embassies would be shut on a Sunday, hein?"

I said: "Doubtless."

He said: "I am a Professor at Heidelberg. I have just arrived in London, and I have no money. To-morrow I go to my Embassy and get some. Meanwhile, could you lend me five shillings?"

Charles, in those days I was very---- Well, I gave him half-a-crown.

He said: "I should like to pay this back to you."

I said: "Quite so. That is the idea."

"Then would you give me your card, so that I can send you the money to-morrow?"

Charles, I---- You see, I had just had some cards printed. They had "Mr" on for the first time. I was very---- Well, I gave him one.

That ends the first scene. An interval of nearly five years elapses, and we come to last Saturday. I was walking through the Green Park, when a small but elderly gentleman came up to me.

He said: "Is this the way to the School of Music?"

I said: "Which one do you want? There is the Guildhall School, and the Royal College, and the Royal Academy, and----"

He thought for a moment, and then he said in German the German for "Do you speak German?" (My dear Charles, I _can't_ spell it). I said "Nein."

He considered a little, and said, "Parlez-vous français?" I said--(What's the French for "Not very well"? Well, that's what I said).

At this his face brightened. He drew a long breath, and began:

"I am a Professor of Music at Heidelberg----"

Charles, I had to interrupt him. I simply couldn't help it. I said; "Then you owe me half-a-crown." He stopped, and looked at me with a sort of sad dignity. Then he turned round with a sigh and plodded wearily across the park. And, oh, I do hope he had better luck with somebody else, because he has been at it for five years now, and it must be a heart-breaking life. His hair had gone quite grey since I saw him last.

Charles, you do see that that is a true story, don't you? If I had been making it up, I should have said that he gave me back my own card as a reference. I wonder why he didn't. I suppose it had got rather dirty after five years.

Do you want the other one now? It is the merest anecdote, and Hilda told it me, and I know it's not true.

She has a cat called "Didums poor little kitty wee, then"; you put the accent on the "then," and spread it out as long as you can. Well, Didums, etc., goes about eating moths; a curious diet for a cat, but I believe it keeps them thin. He swallowed them whole, you know, and Hilda told him how cruel it was. She seems to have spoken of the sufferings of the imprisoned ones in the most moving terms. Anyhow she found Didums next day up in her bedroom remorsefully eating a sealskin coat.

I am surprised at Hilda. If she is not careful her baby will grow up a journalist. I have seen him since he came back from you. This time I approached from the west, and I noticed a great difference. He is certainly a fine child, and as he let me put him to sleep I love him. After all, looks don't matter tuppence to a man. The great thing is wisdom. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. I remember a General Knowledge Paper in my Mays. One of the questions was "Give a list of the chief coaling-stations you would pass on your way to New Zealand." The only two I could think of were Cyprus and Rickett Smith. I never heard whether I got full marks: probably not. But since that day knowledge has come for I have a friend in the Admiralty. He was a very high wrangler the year I wasn't, and just as Fisher is the man behind the First Lord, so he is the man behind Fisher; at least, he tells me so. And he buys his tobacco by the knot--or is it the quid?--and plays the Hague Convention at bridge, and (as I say) knows all the coaling-stations from Cambridge to New Zealand.

Wisdom Lingers. What a splendid title for a novel. You would expect a fine moral tale, and it would turn out to be the story of the Lingers family. Wisdom K. Lingers. There you have the essence of successful book-naming. I hand the idea to you, Charles, in the certainty that you would steal it anyhow.

Do you know anything about gas? I buy a lot every week for my geyser. You get about 1000 for half-a-crown. A thousand what? I don't know; but I like to take part in these great business transactions, and I am now writing to ask if they could make it 1200 seeing that I am a regular customer. No harm in asking.

III

DEAR CHARLES,--Do you truly want me to recommend you something to read? Well, why not try the serial story in some ha'penny paper? There you get a glimpse of the real thing. I turned idly to "Lepers in Israel" (or whatever it is called) last night, and found myself suddenly up to the neck in tragedy. Lord Billingham ...

Charles, you're a married man, tell me if it really is so. The gentle Pamela is urged by a cruel mother to espouse Lord Billingham for his money's sake. Lord B. is a vulgar brute, I'm afraid; in any case Pamela is all for young Prendergast; but one must be sensible, you know, and money does make a difference, doesn't it? So she becomes Lady Billingham; and a year or two later Prendergast comes back from South Africa to find that it is he who is the real Lord Billingham after all. (I got most of this from the "synopsis," which enables you to start the story now, so I can't say how it was they overlooked him in the first place.) It would be extremely cruel (you see that, Charles?) to talk about it, because Pamela would then become plain Mrs Stubbs, and no money at all; so Prendergast decides to say nothing to anybody. But he was reckoning without Mrs Trevelyan, no less. Mrs Trevelyan finds out the secret, and threatens Prendergast that she will tell everybody that he is the real Lord Billingham unless he marries her. So of course he has to.

It is at this moment that we meet Captain Pontifax. Captain Pontifax is in love with Mrs Trevelyan, at least he thinks he is, and he says that if she doesn't marry him he will let on about what happened to Mr Trevelyan, who was supposed to have died of old age. At the same time the news gets out that Prendergast is really Lord Billingham, and so Pamela does become Mrs Stubbs; and, as Prendergast cannot honourably withdraw from the alliance he is about to contract with Mrs Trevelyan, it looks as though she is going to be Lady Billingham. But on the eve of the wedding a body is found at the bottom of the old chalk quarry.... Whose? ...

What I want to hear from you, Charles, is, Do people always get married for this sort of reason? Are you really the Duke of Norfolk, and did Kitty discover your secret and threaten to disclose it? Oh, you coward! I don't mind anybody knowing that I am the true Earl Billingham.

About the body. We shall know to-morrow. I think it's Captain Pontifax myself, but I will send you a telegram.

Are you an authority on dress? A man got into my carriage on the District to-day wearing a top-hat, a frock-coat, and brown boots. Is that right? I ask it seriously, because the point I want to discover is this: Supposing you suddenly found that you had nothing in the house but brown boots and a frock-coat, would a bowler or a topper be the better way out of it?

You see the idea, Charles. If you add a bowler then the thing you have to explain away is the coat. I don't quite see how that is to be managed; you could only put it down to absent-mindedness. But if you add a topper then you have only the brown boots to account for. This could be done in a variety of ways--a foggy morning, a sudden attack of colour-blindness, or that your mother asked you to wear the thickest ones, dear, and never mind about the silly fashion. It is an interesting point which has never been dealt with properly in the etiquette-books. You and I are agreed upon the topper, it seems.

I went to a play last Tuesday. It was not bad, but the funniest scene happened right at the beginning, when I watched an American buy a seat at the box-office. They gave him J13., and he only discovered it after he had paid for it, and had put his change carefully away. Do you know, Charles, he nearly cried. The manager assured him there was nothing in it; people sat there every night, and were heard of again. It was no good. He got his money back, and went away looking quite miserable. Isn't it childish? I am going to be married on Friday, 13th May, just to show. When is that? Sickening if it's not for years and years. I have a patent calendar somewhere which tells you the date for any year up to 1928. I never know why it should stop there; something to do with the golden number getting too big. It won't go backwards either, which is a pity, because I have always wanted to know on what day of the week I was born. Nobody will tell me. It was one of the lucky days I am sure. How can I find out?

(_To-morrow._)--I have just sent you a telegram to say that it was Sir Richard Tressider's body. Strange that you hadn't thought of him. Charles, I felt very shy in the post office. Yes, about Castle Bumpbrook. She didn't believe there was such a place; I offered to bet. We went through the Telegraph Directory together. Do you know, you come in the Castles, not in the Bumps at all. (Put me among the Bumps.) Something ought to be done about it. I always thought Castle was your Christian name, kind of.

Yes, it was Sir Richard's corpse. It occurs to me now that you will get this letter a day after the telegram. How did I put it?

"Body believed to be that of Sir Richard Tressider. Death certified as by drowning. Inspector Stockley suspects foul play."

An elevenpenny touch, Charles, and I never signed it, and you'll wonder what on earth it's all about. Probably you will dismiss it as a joke, and that would be elevenpence thrown away. That cannot be allowed. You can get a telegram repeated at half-price, can't you? I think I shall go and have a fivepenny-ha'penny repeat.

I say, what are you doing about the weather? Are you taking it lying down? I want to sign a petition, or write to my M.P. (haven't got one, then I shall write to yours), humbly showing that it's the rottenest do there's ever been. Do you remember the story (it comes in Gesta Romanorum, or should) of the man who built a model of another man and threw things at it, and the other man sat in a bath with a mirror in his hand and whenever the first man threw he ducked under the water. If he got under in time his enemy missed, and it was all right. Otherwise he was killed. Well, I am going to rig up a Negretti in my room, and throw boots at it, and if the original has to spend all his time in a cold bath ducking, I _think_, Charles, we shall get some warmer weather soon.

"Oh, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day."

Charles, in your courting days was she ever as cold to you as this?

IV

DEAR CHARLES,--Don't talk to me about politics, or the weather, or anything; I have lost my tobacco-pouch. Oh, Charles, what is to be done? It is too sad.

I bought it in a little shop at Ambleside, my first, my only friend, on the left-hand side as you go down the hill. It was descended from a brown crocodile in the male line, and a piece of indiarubber in the female; at least, I suppose so, but the man wouldn't say for certain. He called it a trade term. I smoked my first pipe from it--on the top of Scafell Pike, with all England at my feet. The ups and downs it has seen since then--the sweet-smelling briars it has met! In sickness and in sorrow it comforted me; in happiness it kept me calm. Old age came upon it slowly, beautifully. In these later years how many men have looked at it with awe; how many women have insulted it and--stitched its dear sides together!

It passed away on a Saturday, Charles; this scion of the larger Reptilia, which sprang into being among the mountain-tops, passed away in a third-class carriage at Dulwich! The irony of it! Even Denmark Hill---- But it matters not now I have lost it. Nor can I bear that another should take its place. Perhaps in a year or two ... I cannot say ... but for the present I make shift with an envelope.

Two thoughts sustain me. First, that no strange eye will recognise it as a tobacco-pouch, no strange hand (therefore) dip into it. Secondly, that the Fates, which have taken from me my dearest possession, must needs have some great happiness in store for me.

Charles, I perceive you are crying; let us turn to more cheerful things. Do you play croquet? I have just joined a croquet club (don't know why), and one of the rules is that you have to supply your own mallet. How do you do this? Of course, I know that ultimately I hand a certain sum of money to a shopman, and he gives me a very awkward parcel in exchange; but what comes before that? I have often bought a bat, and though I have not yet selected one which could make runs, I can generally find something which is pretty comfortable to carry back into the pavilion. But I have never chosen a mallet. What sort of weight should it be, and is it a good thing to say it "doesn't come up very well"? I have, they tell me, a tendency to bowness in the legs and am about a million round the biceps; I suppose all that is rather important? Perhaps they have their mallets classified for different customers, and you have only to describe yourself to them. I shall ask for a _Serviceable mallet for a blond_. "Serviceable" means that if you hit the ground very hard by accident it doesn't break; some of these highly strung mallets splinter up at once, you know. As a matter of fact, you can't miss the ball at croquet, can you? I am thinking of golf. What about having a splice with mine; is that done much? I don't want to go on to the ground looking a perfect ass with no splice, when everybody else has two or three. Croquet is a jolly game, because you don't have to worry about what sort of collar you'll wear; you just play in your ordinary things. All the same, I shall have some spikes put in my boots so as not to slip. I once took in to dinner the sister of the All England Croquet Champion. I did really. Unfortunately I didn't happen to strike her subject, and she didn't strike mine--_Butterflies_. How bitterly we shall regret that evening--which was a very jolly one all the same. Here am I, not knowing a bit how to select a mallet, and there possibly is she, having just found the egg of the Purple Emperor, labelling it in her collection as that of the Camberwell Beauty. Let this be a lesson to all of us.

Charles, I feel very silly to-night; I must be what they call "fey," which is why I ask you--How would you like to be a pedigree goat? I have just seen in an evening paper a picture of Mr Brown "with his pedigree goat." Somehow it had never occurred to me that a goat could have a pedigree; but I see now that it might be so. I think if I had to be a goat at all I should like to be a pedigree one. In a way, I suppose, every goat has a pedigree of some kind; but you would need to have a pretty distinguished one to be spoken of as a P.G. Your father, Charles, would need to have had some renown among the bearded ones; your great-uncle must have been of the blood. And if this were so, I should, in your place, insist upon being photographed as a pedigree goat "with Mr Brown." Don't stand any nonsense about that.

If I ever have a goat, and you won't let me call it Charles, I shall call it David. My eldest brother, you, know, was christened David, and called so for a year; but at the end of that time we had a boot-and-knife-boy who was unfortunately named David too. (I say "we," but I was still in the Herebefore myself.) This led to great confusion. When the nurse called for David to come and take his bottle, it was very vexing to find the other David turning up with a brown shoe in one hand and a fish-knife in the other. Something had to be done. The baby was just beginning to take notice; the leather polisher had just refused to. In the circumstances the only thing was to call the baby by his second name.

Two or three years passed rapidly, and I arrived. Just as this happened, the boot-boy took the last knife and went. Now was our chance. My second name had already been fixed; it was immediately decided that my first should be David. The new boot-boy didn't mind a bit; everybody else seemed delighted ... and then someone remembered that in ten years' time I should be going to school.

Yes, Charles, the initials D.A.M.... You know what boys are; it would have been very awkward.

And so now you see why I am going to call my pedigree goat David.

V

DEAR CHARLES,--I am learning to dance the minuet. I say "the" instead of "a" because I am sure mine is a very particular kind of one. You start off with three slides to the left, then three to the right, and then you stop and waggle the left leg. After that you bow to your partner in acknowledgement of the interest she has taken in it all, and that ends the first figure. There are lots more, but one figure at a time is my motto. At present I slide well, but I am a moderate waggler.

_Why_ am I doing this, you ask. My dear Charles, you never know when a little thing like a minuet will turn out useful. The time may well come when you will say to yourself, "Ah, if only I had seized the opportunity of learning that when I was young, how ... etc." There were once two men who were cast ashore on a desert island. One of them had an axe, and a bag of nails, and a goat, and a box of matches, and a barrel of gunpowder, and a keg of biscuits, and a tarpaulin and some fish-hooks. The other could only dance the minuet. Years rolled by; and one day a ship put in at that island for water. As a matter of fact, there was no water there, but they found two skeletons. Which shows that in certain circumstances proficiency in the minuet is as valuable as an axe, and a bag of nails, and a goat and a box of matches, and all the other things that I mentioned just now. So I am learning in case.

My niece, aged twenty months (do I bore you?), has made her first joke: let it be put on record and handed down to those that come after. She walked into the study, where her father was reading and her mother writing. They agreed not to take any notice of her, in order to see what would happen. She marched up to her father, stroked his face, and said, "Hallo, daddy!" No answer. She gazed round; and then went over to the writing-desk. "Hallo, mummy!" Dead silence. She stood for a moment looking rather puzzled. At last she went back to her father, bent down and patted his slippers and said, "Hallo, boots!" Then she walked quite happily out of the room.

However, we won't bother about her, because I have something much more exciting to tell you. M'Gubbin has signed on for the something Rovers for next season! I saw it in the paper; it had a little paragraph all to itself. This is splendid news--I haven't been so happy about anything for a long time. Whaur's your Wully Gaukrodger now? Let us arrange a Pentathlon for them. I'll back M'G., and you can hold the towel for Gauk. My man would win at football of course, and yours at cricket, but the other three events would be exciting. Chess, golf and the minuet, I think. I can see M'Gubbin sliding--_one_, two, three, _one_, two three--there, now he's waggling his left leg. Charles, you're a goner--hand over the stakes.

Look here, I smoke too much, at least I have been lately. Let's give it up, Charles. I'll give it up altogether for a week if you will. Did you know that you can allay the craving for tobacco by the judicious use of bull's-eyes? ("Allay" is the word.) You carry a bag of bull's-eyes with you--I swear this is true, I saw it in the press--and whenever you feel a desire to smoke you just pop a bull's-eye in your mouth. In a little while, they say, your taste for tobacco--and I imagine for everything else--is quite gone. This ought to be more widely known, and then your host would say, "Try one of these bull's-eyes, won't you? I import them direct," and you would reply, "Thanks very much, but I would rather have one of my own, if I may." "Have a bull's-eye, if you like," your partner would say at a dance. Of course, too, they would have special bull's-eye compartments in trains; that would be jolly. But it would ruin the stage. The hero who always lights a cigarette before giving off his best epigram--I don't know what he'd do. You see he couldn't ... well, he'd have to wait such a time.

Why are they called bull's-eyes? I don't believe I've ever seen a bull's-eye really close. If you look a bull in the eye he doesn't go for you. Which eye? He might be a left-handed bull; you'd look at the wrong eye; then where would you be?

The world is too much with me, Charles, but all the same I've just ordered a flannel suit which will make Castle Bumpbrook stare. Sort of purplish; and it makes up very smart, and they can do me two pairs of trousers in it, whatever that means. I should have thought they could have done me as many pairs as I liked to ask for, but it seems not. They only print a limited edition, and then destroy the original plates, so that nobody else can walk about looking like me. I asked the man if he thought it would play croquet well, and he said, yes. By the way, I have learnt some more about croquet since I wrote last. First, then, you can go round in one, if you're frightfully good. I should like to go round in one; I suppose that would be the record? Secondly, if you're wired from all the balls, "so that you can't get a clear shot at every part of any one of them," you go into baulk, and have another turn. This must happen pretty often, because you could never have a clear shot at the back of a ball, unless you went right round the world the other way, and that would be too risky, besides wasting so much time. No, I can see there's a lot to learn in the game, but patience, Charles, patience. I shall go round in one yet.

VI

DEAR CHARLES,--Are you coming up to town this month? If you do we will make a journey into Shepherd's Bush together, and see the Exhibition.

I am afraid I have been doing Shepherd's Bush an injustice all these years. John and I once arranged a system of seven hells, in which we put all the men we hated. Nobody known personally to either of us was eligible (so your name never came up, dear Charles), which meant that they had to be filled with people in the public eye. The seventh division contained two only: one a socialist, who is thought a good deal of--by himself, I mean; the other a novelist who only writes about superior people who drop their "g's." The punishment for this class was simple; perpetual life in an open boat on a choppy sea, smoking Virginian cigarettes--John's idea chiefly, he being a bad sailor. The doom decreed for the unfortunates in the fifth class--now I am coming to the point of this reminiscence--was more subtle: they had to live at Shepherd's Bush, and go to a musical comedy every afternoon.

There were four men in the fifth class. Three of them we need not bother about, but the latest arrival was a certain cleric who advertised a good deal. One day we met somebody who knew him well. We broke the sad news to him gently, and he was much distressed about it. He asked if there was any hope. We replied that if his friend turned over a new leaf, and kept his name out of the papers for a bit, he might in time be promoted into the fourth division--where, every day, you watched Sussex play Essex at Leyton and had mutton sandwiches for lunch. He was so glad to hear this that he made us promise to let him know when any such step was meditated. Accordingly, after a month of perfect quiet on the part of the reverend gentleman we sent his friend a telegram: "Bernard left Shepherd's Bush by the nine o'clock steamer this morning."

And now it looks as if the Bush were much more of a place than we thought.

Every week or so I have an inspiration; and I had one yesterday, when the thought struck me suddenly that it would be a good idea to buy some postcards. You get them at the post office--six stout ones for ninepence. Oh no, that can't be right--nine stout ones for sixpence. I shouldn't think a postcard would ever get too stout--not unpleasantly so, I mean; you hardly ever see an obese postcard. I don't believe I have used one of any dimensions for ten years; yet they are such handy things when you want to say "Right O" or don't quite know whether you are "very truly" or "sincerely." The postcard touch is hereditary. Some families have it, ours hasn't. But now it is going to begin. Tomorrow I buy as many stout ones for sixpence as they will give me.

Talking of buying croquet mallets and things--I went into a little tobacconist's a little while ago (What for? Guess), and while I was there a man came in and ordered a pipe, two ounces of bird's-eye, and a box of matches. I wanted to tell him that you really required a rubber pouch as well, and a little silver thing for pressing down the tobacco. It must want some nerve to start straight off like that, especially at his age--forty or so. I am about to play golf seriously, and I shall certainly get my clubs at different shops--a driver at the Stores, a putter in Piccadilly, a niblick (what's a niblick? Anyhow, I shall have several of them, because of the name)--and several niblicks in Fleet Street. It would be too absurd to buy a dozen assorted clubs, one ball, a jersey and a little red flag all at the same place.