From "The Story of the Haldane Missions":—

"The Kaiser laughingly remarked that he had better have the high chair (in which the Kaiser usually sat at his council meetings). He also gave Lord Haldane an Imperial cigar.... While discussing the naval question, the Kaiser took a copy of the new Naval Bill out of his pocket and handed it to Lord Haldane, who transferred it to his pocket without looking at it."—Daily Chronicle.

He probably thought it was another of the Imperial cigars.

A STRAIGHT TALK WITH L. G.

(Everyone has views as to how to win the War, but not all are vocal, or—shall we say?—vociferous. If Mr. LLOYD GEORGE reads all the papers (as their Editors of course expect him to do) he cannot have missed quite a number of powerful articles in the following manner. And even if he should miss one or two it would not matter, because there is always another in preparation.)

I've always said that the PREMIER shouldn't be bothered with Parliament. Of course I've said too that our old friend Demos, the new god, should have a say in affairs; but that's an inconsistency that doesn't count in the least, does it?

Now then, Mr. PREMIER, you've got the chance of your lifetime. I always said you were a lucky devil—in fact, I never met the Welshman that wasn't.

You see, Parliament's in recess, and all its trivial overpaid Members are playing golf and things. You've got absolutely a free hand if only you'll take it. It's quite easy and bound to succeed. You've only got to do as I tell you.

For instance, you want to buck up HAIG and the people at the Front. It's no use them telling you they know best, being on the spot. That's only bluff, old man. Don't take any notice of them, but just order a big general offensive; and before you can say Jack Robinson we'll have the Huns behind the Rhine.

And do tell the Navy to get a move on. I'm glad to see my articles have made you change the heads at the Admiralty; and of course that's all very well so far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. Have a chat with BEATTY about it. Get him to root the Huns out. He can bombard Ostend and Zeebrugge and all those funny little places in two-twos. Tell KING ALBERT not to mind. We'll easily slap up new towns for him after the War, built on the speedy American principle.

Then about that aerial offensive. There's really been quite enough talk about it. We want some action, Mr. PREMIER. Isn't it time it came off? Think what a bombardment of Cologne (taking care of the cathedral, of course), Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen and Hamburg would do, not to mention other places that I could if I had an atlas.

And about those pacifists. Just clap the whole lot in gaol. That's the best place for them. I won't object in the least, even though I am the apostle of freedom.

Then there are lots and lots of other things you might do. You might deliver a reasoned manifesto to the Russian people and buck them up a bit. That won't do anybody any harm, and it'll be getting on with the War, my little Welshman.

Well, there are a few points for you to go on with. You've got the brains to think of more, otherwise I wouldn't have helped to put you where you are to-day. But remember that if you don't do these things Demos is waiting round the corner for you.

Demos is a good dog—a patient animal. But there's an end even to his patience. Growl, Demos, and show you're not afraid of Welshmen!

("Grrr——!" Good dog! Good dog!)

Now then, old boy, I've shown you the way. It's up to you!

Another powerful article on these lines will appear next week.
[But not in Punch.-ED.]

THE ONLY OTHER TOPIC.

"I shot a marrow into the—I mean I cut a marrow two feet seven inches long yesterday," said the man in the corner seat.

"What did it weigh?" we asked anxiously. After two months of them potatoes had somewhat palled. We were growing rather tired of marrows, but we waited eagerly for his answer,

"Twenty-six pounds nine and three-quarter ounces."

Disappointment again. Our hopes were dashed to the ground. Some obscure individual, according to the local press, had produced from his humble cottage garden a marrow weighing thirty-four pounds, and the thing rankled.

"Mine was a scraggy specimen, more like an Indian club than a marrow."

"Crossed in love, perhaps," said Dalton.

"What your marrow wanted was nourishment," said the Authority. "A piece of worsted round its neck, with one end dipped in a jar of water."

"Excuse me," said Jones, "the very latest is to insert a tube in the stalk, and the flavour is greatly improved if you add a little sugar to the water. Almost like a melon."

"Do you take a card out for each marrow, or one for each plant?" asked Dalton.

The quiet man opposite put his paper down. He was a new-comer in the district. We liked him, although he had no sense of humour and did not appreciate Dalton's jokes. He appeared to be interested only in the startling and the odd.

"That reminds me," he said, "of a most extraordinary experience I had a few days ago. Of course you all know Enderby?"

None of us knew Enderby, but we I did not like to say so. The quiet man's anxiety was painful. We felt he could not go on with his story unless someone knew Enderby.

"He has a little place round at the back of the Common—quite a nice little place." Freath—that was the quiet man's name—looked at us reproachfully.

"I think I know Enderby," said Dalton. "Isn't he a heavily-built man about fifty, with a grey moustache?"

"Yes, yes," said Freath eagerly. "And a curious wart on his left cheek. Well, I dined with him the other night. His boy was there, home for the holidays. Very clever boy; his special study is the biology of plants. They gave me a very good dinner; I didn't notice very much what I was eating, but I did when the maid helped me to marrow. It was a deep crimson colour. I tasted it somewhat nervously, for I felt they were all watching me. It had the taste of the most exquisite fruit, and the flavour—I am afraid you won't believe me—was that of the finest port that I ever drank. 'How did you manage this, Arthur?' said Enderby. 'Grape-juice,' said Arthur. 'Those foreign black grapes are very cheap just now, so I mixed some with the water that I was feeding the marrows on.' I can't explain it to you; all I know is that I had a second helping. I am afraid you don't believe it," said Freath uneasily.

We assured him that we did, but we did not say it with conviction.

"Enderby called round to see me a few days afterwards," continued Freath, "and I walked back with him. As we went along he told me that a relative was staying with them—an uncle. The first night, again they had marrow for dinner. This time its flavour was not port but whisky—Scotch whisky. The old gentleman was delighted with Arthur and his experiments. Although an abstainer he had three helpings. This was very pleasing to Enderby, as the uncle was a man of considerable wealth. But he was not at all satisfied with his son's explanations, and he thought he recognised the whisky. Although an abstainer while the War is on, Enderby keeps a very good cellar, and when he came to look into things he found that Arthur had been pumping his finest '60 port and old matured Scotch whisky into the vegetable marrows. Now what do you think of that?"

We thought it very strange and we said so.

"But the strangest part has yet to come. Of course they had to keep it quiet—bottle it up, so to speak, from the old gentleman, and let the marrows down gradually. But when the marrows were once more on a temperance régime the most extraordinary thing happened." The train was running into Finsbury Park. Freath rose and collected his things.

We stared at him, fascinated.

"Enderby took me into the garden to see it. He said it had been going on for the last week. From all directions, rioting across the flower-beds, the lawn, down the paths, the marrows were growing towards the wine-cellar at the rate of twelve feet a day."

Freath hastily left the carriage and jumped into the Broad Street train.

While we were discussing the story the voice of authority spoke: "The whole thing's a tissue of falsehood. There's no such man as Enderby."

"But Dalton knows him," we said.

"I don't know Enderby," said Dalton. "But I wanted to hear the story."

AT THE PLAY.

"THE PACIFISTS."

As a reasonable jusquaboutist I have some misgivings about Mr. HENRY ARTHUR JONES'S farce—parable, The Pacifists. Assume Market Pewbury's afflictions to have been as stated: an intolerable stalwart cad of a butcher fencing-in the best part of the common, assaulting people's grandmothers, shutting them up in coal-cellars and eating their crumpets, kissing their wives in the market square and proposing to abduct them to seaside resorts, and none so bold to do him violence and make him stop it; the police being ill or absent, the Mayor and his friend, chief victim of the butcher's aggression, unwilling on account of principles to do anything but talk and get up leagues to deal with the trouble in general, and in a final ecstasy of disapproval to write a strong letter; only uncle Belcher, a truculent old sea-dog with a natural lust for whisky and blood, organising an opposition, valiantly hiring a notable pugilist to deal with the butcher, and becoming desperately anxious lest the matter should be peaceably settled because the basher, having been engaged, must find something to bash or there will be trouble. Well, if we must have forged for us the sword of a three-Act parable, we should like it with one edge, not two.

Mr. JONES was evidently bursting with the desire to give some irritating people a very hard knock—witness the barbed dedication with which the normally peaceful theatre-announcement columns have bristled some little time past; and I think I dare say that we were interested in his first Act. He did really work out his analogies with some skill. But we soon came to feel that he was essentially doing something between flogging a dead horse, so far as we were concerned, and shooting a sitting rabbit. I suspect too that we realised the issues were too tragic for this kind of buffoonery. The tribute of our applause was a tribute of loyalty to one who has often deserved well of the republic, and partly the desire to show that our hearts were in the right place. I don't see The Pacifists as a pamphlet making many converts. As a kick on the shins it has points.

I confess the thing that pleased me most was a gay little piece of burlesque by Mr. ARTHUR CHESNEY as the red-haired shop assistant who was not a pacifist. Mr. CHARLES GLENNEY so thoroughly enjoyed the robustious sea-captain that we had to enjoy it too—a sound notion of entertainment, that. Mr. SEBASTIAN SMITH played chief rabbit with considerable skill and point; Mr. LENNOX PAWLE amused with his plump dundrearyed mayor; Mr. SAM LIVESEY'S offensive was, I am sure, as Hunnish as its author could possibly have desired. Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS appeared in the first Act as a very plausible imitation of a prominent tradesman's wife in an eighth-rate provincial town, with some quite excellent moments. But she was evidently labouring under severe strain, and I amused myself by speculating how long she would keep out of a really well-cut skirt and a sophisticated air of Mayfair. Just an Act. And surely she is mistaken in thinking that an effect of extreme agitation is best conveyed, by very rapid quasi-cinematographic progression up and down the stage? But I saw no reason to complain of the bold bad butcher's taste in the matter of a subject for abduction.

T.

BUCEPHALUS AND THE ROAD-HOGS.

When Miss Ropes asked at breakfast how many of us would like to watch the very last cricket-match of the season at Lumsdale, practically the entire hospital held up its hand, and it was found that the two cars could not accommodate us all. It was therefore settled that Haynes (who said he knew the moves) should drive Ansell and me over in the governess-cart.

It was also settled that the crew of the governess-cart should have an early cold lunch and start an hour before the cars; thus (it was calculated) we should all arrive at the cricket-ground fairly well together. This did not take Haynes' driving into account. We started from the door at a very satisfactory pace, probably because Bucephalus, the fat pony, objected to the enthusiasm of our send-off. When we reached the road he dropped into an amble so gentle that we decided that he had really been running away in the drive. Next, taking advantage of an almost imperceptible upward slope, he began to walk. Haynes clucked at him and flapped the reins, but this had no effect beyond steering Bucephalus into the left-hand ditch.

"I thought you said you knew the moves," remarked Ansell. "Surely this is wrong?"

"The bally beast's lopsided," said Haynes with heat. "One side of his mouth's hard and the other soft."

"The difficulty being," I suggested as we lurched across the road into the other ditch, "to discover which is which.... Now you're straight. We'd better trot. It's only a one-day match."

Haynes used the ancient whip, which had as much effect as tickling a rhinoceros with a feather.

"Goad him with a penknife," suggested Ansell unfeelingly.

"There must be some way," said Haynes. "Because they do trot, you know."

"Speaking as one ignorant amateur to another," I asked, "isn't the right thing to pull gently on the reins and then slacken? You go on doing it till the animal gets your meaning. Try it."

Haynes tried it, and Bucephalus stopped dead. Repetition of the treatment simply produced a tendency to back.

"For heaven's sake don't lose any of the ground we've gained," said Ansell. "Let's get on, if only at a walk."

"We shall have to tow him," decided Haynes. He got out and hauled at the bridle, but Bucephalus refused to budge.

"This," said Ansell, becoming suddenly business-like, "is where the Boy Hero modestly but firmly takes charge. Jump in."

He picked up the reins and, though he apparently did nothing in particular with them, Bucephalus came to life at once and broke into a lumbering trot.

"You silly chump, why didn't you say you could drive?" asked Haynes.

"Nobody asked me," said the Boy Hero modestly, "and I was shy."

At the time when we had been scheduled to reach the cricket-ground we had still a mile to go along a narrow leafy road, hardly more than a lane. The cars were overdue, and Haynes, whose haughty spirit could not brook the idea of being passed by jeering plutocrats, propounded a scheme.

"They can't pass us unless we go into the ditch," he explained. "So when they come we'll pretend to be asleep, take up the middle of the road, and simply ignore them. We'll get there first, after all."

A moment later we heard the buzz of engines. I took a hurried glance round and saw the sunlight on brasswork as the car came round a distant corner.

"It's them," I said.

The reins dropped slackly on Bucephalus's back and he slowed to a walk. Inside the governess-cart all was somnolent peace. Behind us the car was already beginning to make remarks on one of those abusive press-the-button horns. "You FOOL! You FOOL! Get OUT o' the way! Get OUT o' the way!" it said. Then we heard the car slow down and pandemonium broke loose. The horn was reinforced by an ordinary hooter, a whistle, several human voices and, lastly, an exhaust siren. I stole a glance at Ansell and found that he was having a good deal of surreptitious trouble in restraining our fiery steed from doing a second bolt.

"I say," whispered Haynes in sudden agitation, "has Miss Ropes an exhaust siren?"

"No, she hasn't," Ansell replied in tones of horror. "We've held up the wrong car." He looked round. "Good Lord!" he added softly and pulled Bucephalus into the ditch. In the car, with a grinning Tommy at the wheel, sat two apoplectic generals and a highly explosive brigade-major. They came alongside, and I should never be allowed to repeat what they said to us. It seemed that by delaying them we had been hindering the day's work of the entire Home Forces. We were given to understand that it was only the blue bands on our arms which saved us from being court-martialled on the spot and shot by the grinning Tommy at dawn. Then they passed on.

When our cars did appear a minute or two later we pulled meekly into the ditch to let them pass, and could find no better answer to the jeers of their occupants than a wan sickly smile apiece.

THE TEST OF TYPE.

(Suggested by these adjacent paragraphs in a daily paper.)

"Maj. ——. For conspicuous gallantry and resource. He rallied his men when the left flank was seriously threatened, and by his energy and fine example saved the situation. He subsequently commanded his battalion with great ability. He has displayed marked gallantry in every action in which he has taken part."

"A London angler, Mr. ——, has caught a roach of 2 lb. 1 oz. in the Lark at Barton Mills, the largest fish of its kind landed from this Suffolk stream for some years."

SHAKSPEARE AND THE WAR.

[Since the entry of the United States all the English-speaking peoples are in alliance for freedom.]

"LET LAWS AND LEARNING...."

"I should add that Viscount Harberton sees a chance for his own order in the circumstance that, while the poor man's child is driven to school by the inspector, the rich man can 'boot the spy out,' and so confer on his children the priceless boon of complete illiteracy. Shall we live to see a House of Lords that makes its mark?"—Observer.

Some of them, we believe, are under the impression that they have done so already.

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Unless you can share with me the sad immunity of the forties, I must despair of translating for you the emotion raised in my antique soul by the wrapper of a new RIDER HAGGARD story bearing the picture of a Zulu and the discovery inside that Quatermain is come again! The tale that has so excited me is called, a little ominously, Finished (WARD, LOCK), and I could have better loved a cheerier title. The matter is, to begin with, an affair of a shady doctor, of I.D.B. and an abduction; none of it, I admit, any too absorbing. But about halfway through the author, as though sharing my own views upon this part of the plot, exchanges (so to speak) the Shady for the Black, and transports us all to Zululand. And if you need reminding of what H.R.H. can do with that delectable country, I can only say I am sorry for you. Incidentally there are some stirring scenes from certain pages of history that the glare of these later days has rather faded—Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift among them; as well as the human drama of the feud between CETEWAYO (terror of my nursery!) and the witch-doctor Zikali. Whether the old careless rapture is altogether recovered is another matter; at least the jolly unpronounceable names are still there, and the picturesque speech. Most of the names, that is; Allan of course, and others, but I for one should have welcomed rare Umslopogaas—or however he is rightly spelt—and Curtis, for personal reasons my favourite of the gallant company that have so often kept secret rendezvous with me behind the unlifted lid of a desk at preparation time. And now have we really come at long last to Finished? I can only hope that Sir H. RIDER HAGGARD doesn't mean it.

Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD may be numbered amongst the most indefatigable of women war-workers. She has now followed up her former success in England's Effort with a volume carrying on the story of our part in the War under the title of Towards the Goal (MURRAY). The book is written in the form of a series of letters addressed to ex-President ROOSEVELT, as the onlie begetter both of it and its predecessor. It is further equipped with a preface by the hand of this same able and clear-sighted gentleman, the chief drawback of which (from my reviewing point of view) is that it covers so well the whole ground of appreciation as to leave me nothing more to add. "Mrs. Ward writes nobly on a noble theme"—voilà tout! Her theme, as I have hinted, is a further exposition of Britain's war activities as those have developed since the former book was published. In its course Mrs. WARD gives us some vivid experiences of her own as a visitor to the Western Front: things seen and heard, well calculated (were this needed) to stiffen the resolution of the great people to whom her letters are really written. England's Effort was, I understand, translated into many tongues (with results that can hardly fail of being enormously valuable); Towards the Goal should certainly receive the same treatment of which it is well worthy.

Mr. WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON, in his After War Problems (ALLEN AND UNWIN), covers, under the four headings, Empire and Citizenship, Natural Efficiency, Social Reform, and National Finance and Taxation, bewilderingly wide ground, and drives a perhaps rather mandarinish team of contributors. Lord HALDANE, for instance, is no longer in the real van of educational endeavour, and is it wholly insignificant that his chapter on Education appears in the section headed National Efficiency rather than in that of Social Reform? It ought not to be difficult to give, in the light of these last years, a wider interpretation to Patriotism than that expressed by Lord MEATH on lines familiar to his public. Sir WILLIAM CHANCE has seen no new sign in the skies in relation to the problem of poverty. Sir BENJAMIN BROWNE, whose death all those interested in the settlement of the Capital-Labour quarrel must deplore, as for all his uncompromising individualism he brought to it a rare breadth of view, says much that is of real value, but does not refrain from appealing to the fact that the mutual confidence of man and officer in battle is a proof of the possibility of a similar confidence in the workshop. That confidence must, and can, we dare to believe, eventually be established. But the men don't go over the top to put money in the Colonel's pocket, and little good is done by exploiting these loose analogies and putting on a too easy air of optimism in the face of desperately serious and complex problems. But enough of fault-finding, which is a poor reward for the serious and generous labours of public-spirited men and women. After all, what one reader calls timidity of outlook another may care to praise as prudence. Here you will find an abundance of safe analysis, wise comment and constructive suggestion from a galaxy of accredited authorities.

In the early chapters of Mr. WILLIAM HEWLETT'S new story, The Plot-Maker (DUCKWORTH), we are introduced to a popular and highly successful novelist, named Coulthard Henderson, in the emotional crisis produced by a sudden doubt as to whether his output of best-sellers represented anything in the least approaching actuality. You will admit a tragic situation. He meets it by the determination that his next book shall be a veritable slice of life, and to this end he selects and finances an eligible young man for the purpose of vicariously experiencing those emotions, from which age and other causes debar the chronicler; in other words, he hires a hero. The worst of this excellent idea is that it can hardly be said to originate either with Mr. Henderson or Mr. HEWLETT, that credit belonging (I fancy) to the late HERBERT FLOWERDEW in a too-little-appreciated masterpiece of sensational burlesque called The Realist. However, The Plot-Maker, once set going, develops admirably enough on lines entirely its own. The so-much-an-hour hero turns out an engaging young gentleman, but a wofully poor protagonist. The situation where (in the midst of whirling events) he makes the startling discovery that he himself has been in some way switched on to the part of villain is one that you can appreciate only at first hand. Certainly if you want (as who does not in these days?) an anaesthetic of agreeable nonsense The Plot-Maker is a medium that I can cordially recommend: one obvious advantage being that you need not try to believe a single word of it.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.

From a publisher's list:—

"Shells as evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture."

And modern Kultur spreads itself in just the same old way.

"Lady Required to Share Rome with another."
Staffordshire Sentinel.

But what about the King of ITALY, not to mention the POPE?