Tommy (who is learning every minute about barbed-wire defences). "When I gets home, no more perishin' cats shall ever get into my back garden."
"While the Rev. Mr. Stulting was camping out one of his calves was attacked and stung to death by a passing swarm of bees."
Cape Argus.
Sir Thomas Mackenzie, as reported by The East Anglian Daily Times:—
"I now think it is time you intermingled with your affairs a little of the wisdom of the sergent instead of the dove-like kindness which you have showed to the Germans in the past."
There is a strong feeling among our N.C.O.'s that this is sound advice.
"Lord Strachie asked in the House of Lords yesterday whether the Government proposed to restrict the importation of hope."
Evening Paper.
We understand that the answer was in the negative, as, owing to the activity of pessimists, there is still some shortage in the home-grown supplies.
It is thought that the following story may have been intended for the "Organ of Organs" (R.A.M.C.).
Charles, the young Army Medical, went down on one patella. His heart (a hollow muscular pump) was driving blood from its ventricles as it had never yet driven it in all its twenty-five years of incessant labour. Further, by flattening the arch of his diaphragm and elevating his ribs and sternum, Charles was increasing the cavity of his thorax and taking in air. Immediately the diaphragm and the sternum and costal cartilages relaxed again the air escaped. The lungs of Charles were doing their work. Fast and yet faster became his breathing.
"Mabel," he murmured, "Mabel!"
The girl made no movement. Her respiration continued, but no impulse to action reached her nerve-centres. Yet, without an effort on her part, her tissues in one minute produced enough heat to boil one twenty-fourth of a pint of water.
"Wonderful!" he whispered hoarsely, probably thinking of this, "you are wonderful."
You will not marvel that his voice was gruff when I tell you that the membrane of the larynx was inflamed. Greater men than Charles have become hoarse in such circumstances.
Immediately the blood rushed to the capillaries of Mabel's cheeks and her colour deepened. She trembled slightly.
"There, that's it!" he cried, gazing rapturously.
"What?" she gasped, startled by his passion.
"Again that artery below your ear is throbbing, throbbing, and"—his voice rose in despair—"I can never remember the name! Can you?"
"Alas," she moaned, "I do not know it! Oh, Charles, there is something I must tell you at once."
"What is it?" he cried with sudden fear. "What is it?"
"Why, I—I——Oh, I do not know how to say it. Charles, you will never forgive me!"
"What is it, dearest? Tell me—you can trust me. The medical profession——"
"Well, then, I tried to bandage little Johnny's foot yesterday, and—and——"
"Calm yourself, dear. And——?"
"I tied a 'granny' knot. Oh, Charles, don't be angry. I know it ought to have been a 'reef'!"
He looked about him dully, like a man stunned.
"Charles," she moaned, "listen! After all, I put it on the wrong foot."
He started violently.
"Mabel," he cried, "you are sure? Then I will not let you go. Had you tied that 'granny' knot on the right foot, I—we—as an R.A.M.C. man, I——"
She clung to him sobbingly.
"Charles, oh Charles," she panted, "you have proved it to me. You love me! (Is my heart throbbing now?) You love me and it will break for joy!"
The phalanges and the metacarpal bones of her left hand clicked together as if in sympathy as she flung it to her side.
Again her cerebrum flashed its joyful message, so that she repeated, "My heart!"
At the word Charles, the R.A.M.C. man, rose from his patella and placed his hands firmly on his femur bones.
His whole bearing had changed.
"This," he said slowly and ringingly, "is the end. When I entered this room I loved you—I admit it. But—you have deceived me! Look at that hand! It is covering—what? The floating costae! Your heart is not where you would have me believe. It is fully three inches higher and more to the right. That is not a small matter, or one with which you should trifle as you do. But you have deceived me in a greater than that."
"Oh, what is it? What have I done?" sobbed Mabel hysterically.
"The greater matter," continued Charles in trumpet tones, "is that the heart is not the seat of the emotions at all. I can only conclude that your agitation was feigned. I wish you good-day, Madam."
He had reached the door when she cried aloud.
"Charles!"
An urgent message from Charles's cerebellum, delivered to certain motor nerves by way of the spinal cord, disposed him to turn on his heel.
He waited in silence.
"Charles dearest, if it was the wrong place, and I didn't cover my heart after all, why, Charles, remember Johnny's foot and be logical!"
She was there before him, glorious, and Charles stood dazzled.
"You are right!" he cried. "Mabel! If you had covered your heart!!"
"Charles!!!"
"Yesterday between Forges and Bethincourt, west of the Meuse, the enemy made use of suffocating gas, but did not attack with infancy."—Timaru Herald (N.Z.).
We are glad to have this evidence that the Huns have given up using children to screen their advances.
"Plagues of rates have appeared at Pinsk, and in the British trenches."
Buenos Ayres Herald.
Even at home we have not entirely escaped the epidemic.
"Floating Baby Found Unarmed."
Provincial Paper.
Had the Huns known of its defenceless condition they would never have allowed it to escape.
"'Like a poet, a geographer is born, not mad,' once wrote Sir Clements Markham."
Times of India.
Some poets will be greatly relieved by this doctrine.
Oldest Inhabitant (finally). "I tell 'ee I bain't goin' outside the door. Why, what'd folks think of me with no badge, nor harmlet, nor nothin'?"
Dr. George Pernet, in a recent treatise on "The Health of the Skin," discusses the continued decline in the popularity of the tall hat.
O emblem of British decorum,
Whose vogue, for a century back,
In the Mart, in the House or the Forum
Few dared to impugn or attack;
'Tis sad, though the best of our bankers
Refuse to allow such a lapse,
That our youth irrepressibly hankers
For straws and for caps.
Mr. Seagram, in Masterman Ready,
Is pictured in many a hole,
And in postures however unsteady,
With his chimney-pot hat on his poll;
And our highly respected grand-paters,
When wielding their golf-clubs or bats,
Or proving their prowess as skaters,
Wore cylinder hats.
Worn straight by the priggish or surly
Thou didst not enthuse or beguile;
But tilted a little and curly
Of brim—how seductive thy style!
And never was pride that is proper
Sartorially better expressed
Than when an immaculate topper
Sat light on one's crest.
The cult of the bicycle, tending
To foster a laxer array,
And the motor, its influence lending,
Both seriously threatened thy sway;
But the War, most unfairly combining
The motives of comfort and thrift,
Thy glory, so sleek and so shining,
Has finally biffed.
Yet I cannot observe thy dethroning
Or watch thy effulgence depart
Without unaffectedly owning
A pang of regret in my heart.
I know thou wast stuffy, non-porous,
Unstable, top-heavy and hot;
But O! thou wast grimly decorous;
The bowler is not.
"Original and inspiring as are Mr. Chesterton's writings, the man is very much bigger than his works."—Everyman.
"TOWN PLUNGED IN DARKNESS.
Population Warned by Syrens and buzzards."
Evening Paper.
"Our little town," writes the correspondent who sends us the above cutting, "was warned by dryads and wombats." And of course there is the well-known case of the Roman geese and the Capitol.
"Organist (willing to help train choir) wanted for country parish. Might suit clergyman's daughter."—Church Times.
He might, no doubt; but it is not safe to count on these affinities.
"The Manchester City Council on Wednesday decided to accept the free use of Professor W. B. Bottomley's patients for the conversion of raw peat by means of bacteria."
Provincial Paper.
If we were the patients we should make a small charge for the loan of the germs.
"There has been a naval skirmish in the Baltic, where the elusive Goeben has been engaged by the Russians with the usual result—the escape of the fugitive battle-cruiser behind the mined defences of the Bosphorus."
The Dominion (Wellington, N.Z.)
It must have been a fine sight to see this elusive vessel jump right across Russia and back again.
"The Cologne Gazette, referring to the simplicity of character displayed by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, says that frequently when walking about the streets of Sofia he purchases a sausage from a stall and eats it with his fingers as he passes along. Latest advices say he is slowly recovering from his illness."
Daily Express.
It might have been much worse if he had eaten the sausage with his mouth.
3, Fotheringay Court Mansions, S.W. March 1st.
Mrs. Sleight-Spender presents her compliments to Mrs. Crichton and would be obliged if she would prevent what is evidently a schoolroom piano being practised late at night, as it is most disturbing when one has friends.
7, Fotheringay Court Mansions, S.W. March 1st.
Mrs. Crichton presents her compliments to Mrs. Sleight-Spender and would willingly oblige her, but having neither a schoolroom nor a piano in her flat she finds a difficulty in doing so. Possibly if Mrs. Sleight-Spender addressed her remonstrance to No. 12, she would discover the cause of her complaint and might thereby earn the thanks of her neighbours by inducing Mr. Bogloffsksy to practise less for his concerts.
3, Fotheringay Court Mansions, S.W. March 2nd.
Dear Mr. Bogloffsky,—Please forgive me for writing on the impulse of the moment in this unconventional way, but I have only just discovered that we are neighbours, for the Directory confirms what the unmistakable tones of a certain piano had long led me to suspect.
Will you very kindly waive all ceremony and join us at a friendly little dinner on the 10th, at 7.30?
Yours sincerely,
Editha Sleight-Spender.
12, Fotheringay Court Mansions, S.W. March 2nd.
Dear Mrs. Sleight-Spender,—Your amiable letter leaves me nothing but pleasure. My poor company shall be agreeable to join your hospitable family.
With respect, I am, Yours sincere,
Serge Bogloffsky.
From Miss Isolt Sleight-Spender to Miss Marjorie Browne.
(Extract.)
... Oh, my dear, don't reproach me for not having run round. We are simply off our heads. Bogloffsky—the Bogloffsky—is coming to dinner on Friday next, and the Mudder and I have been simply tearing. Even the Sticklers have accepted, and we hope to get Sir Henry Say, as the Dudder met him once at a City dinner. Of course I shall have to play something first. Pity me!....
From Mrs. Sleight-Spender to Messrs. Rosewood and Sons. March. 3rd.
Mrs. Sleight-Spender requires the use of a very good piano on the 10th. It must be a grand, as it is for Mr. Bogloffsky. Under the circumstances Mrs. Sleight-Spender supposes there will be only a nominal charge, if any.
From Sir Henry Say to Cuthbert Haddington. March 11th.
My dear Bertie,—Last night I skimmed some of the cream of life, and incidentally got an idea for a lever de rideau, of which I make you a present.
Far be it from me to glean from the crop of trouble of a man whose salt I have eaten, but the situation was a gift from the gods, which I will not spoil on a sheet of notepaper. When have you a free evening?
Always, Harry.
From Miss Isolt Sleight-Spender to Miss Marjorie Browne.
(Extract.)
... The Mudder is quite ill. It is all through that woman at No. 7. It must be because we didn't call on her. But what an evening ruined! Bogloffsky behaved like a perfect pig and wouldn't play a note after all the trouble he put us to; and when we got up from the table they say he sniffed at his coffee and pulled some out of his pocket and rubbed it in his hands to make the others smell the difference. Did you ever hear of such a thing?....
From Serge Bogloffsky to Stepan Bogloffsky, Moscow.
(Translation.)
March 11th,
My Brother,—The Mazurka has been found beneath the lid of thy pianoforte and is already despatched to thee—that pianoforte, alas! which must now remain silent until thy longed-for return. Greet the worthy Moschki and request him urgently to send the samples of tea, as I have now an opportunity with a wealthy family which may make great business.
That thy affairs prosper is my prayer. All the family embrace thee.
Serge.
"The gunlayer's eye followed it through the air, saw it splash into the sea three hundred yards short of the target, and swore softly."—Answers.
The gunlayer would seem to have an eloquent eye.
Considerable promise was shown in the speech delivered before the House of Commons last week by Colonel Churchill. His utterance had the effect of instantly lifting that gallant gentleman from the obscurity of life "somewhere in France" to something approaching notoriety. Surely few soldiers have discovered such a gift of dialectical skill; and the Army must feel proud to learn that it possesses an officer who shows himself to be as able in the realm of politics as in the profession of arms.
Colonel Churchill's sensational tour de force has aroused a natural interest in his personality. He is still a young man, being only just on the wrong side of forty. In choosing a military career he responded to hereditary impulse, for he is a direct descendant of that great military genius, the Duke of Marlborough. He entered the army in 1895, when little more than a boy. After seeing service in Cuba and India he fought in the Egyptian Campaign of 1898, and in a journalistic capacity took part in the South African War, the news of his capture being received in this country with much feeling. To his skill as a soldier Colonel Churchill adds no small ability as a writer, and has published more than one book that has attracted favourable notice.
Following upon his remarkable speech of the other night, there has been some discussion as to whether Colonel Churchill will definitely take up a political career, or return to the trenches. We have it on good authority that an old friend, Sir Hedworth Meux, strongly advises him not to sacrifice his military prospects. On the other hand, his colleagues at the Front feel that in the national interest they are prepared to do their best without him, in view of the benefit likely to accrue from his remaining at home. In any case it is confidently asserted by those who know him that Colonel Churchill has gone far towards making a name for himself, and that he is likely to go further still if the opportunity is given to him. His future is certain to be watched with interest.
Bosch (quoting "unser Shakspeare"):
"If it Verdun ven 'tis done, then 't vere vell it Verdun quickly."—Macbeth, Act I. 7.
"St. George's Cathedral.—Anthem, 'I was slack when they said unto me' (Elvey)."
Cape Times.
Sergeant. "Keep yer dressin' by the left there! Blimey! you don't want N.C.O.'s—what you want is a bloomin' sheep-dog!"
I never open a book by Mr. Robert Halifax without a feeling of pleasant anticipation, nor close one without a sense of quickened sympathy for my fellow-mortals, especially those of them who dwell in Camden Town. His latest story, The Right to Love (Methuen), finds him again on familiar ground; but the inhabitants of Widdiford Street have all the freshness of real human beings. Perhaps more than its predecessors The Right to Love is a story with a purpose and a moral; in it Mr. Halifax has illustrated by two groups of characters the vexed question of marriage failures and the hard lot of the unwanted woman. But do not suppose that these characters are merely "cases." On the contrary, it is because they are realized as understandable creations of flesh and blood that the disasters of Norah and Tom Spain and the tragedy of Letty Summerbee's enforced spinsterhood move one to so personal a concern. From the moment when Norah and Tom enter their little house after the short honeymoon to that in which the tormented young wife finally leaves her worthless husband for the protection (word rightly used) of his long-suffering friend one is made to feel that exactly thus and thus the affair happened, and is happening to like persons every day. As for Letty, with her restraint, her practical helpfulness and her occasional outbursts of emotion thwarted and suppressed, she is a type only too convincing. Perhaps one might object that Mr. Halifax brings an indictment against society without suggesting any practical remedy. Also that—as I have noticed before—his humorous characters have a tendency to edge away from the rest into the regions of farce. But for all that The Right to Love remains a simple, sincere and very moving study.
I like the remark that General Joffre made, not to the horse-marines, but to the remnants of the six thousand Fusiliers Marins who made up the Naval Brigade at Dixmude in November, 1914. "You are my best infantrymen," he told them; and, if you want to know why, all you have to do is read Dixmude (Heinemann), by Charles le Goffic. For four weeks, shrapnel to right of them, "saucepans" to left of them, volleyed and thundered, and for four weeks the six thousand stood in the valley of death at Dixmude and held up six times as many Boches, who came on, as one of them said, like bugs. Forty thousand was the estimate of the number of these marines formed by a German major who was one of their prisoners; when he learnt that they were only six he wept with rage and muttered, "Ah, if we had only known!" Dixmude was not quite such a big affair as Verdun, but the men who held the town, "the young ladies with the red pompoms" on their caps, were first cousins to our own Jack Tars. Bretons or Britons, there is nothing to choose between them. Sailors all, they are the salt of the sea; and this fascinating and circumstantial epic of the French marines is not at all an exaggerated picture of the cheery courage and endurance of the Breton fisherman.
Sussex Gorse (Nisbet) is a story about the fight between man and nature. It is told by Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith with considerable power and a quickening touch of symbolism that lifts it into romance. The ambition of Reuben Backfield was to enlarge the Sussex farm that he had inherited from his easy-going father till its bounds should include a certain coveted moor. The book shows how his entire life was spent in the achievement of this end; how for it he sacrificed his own ease, and the happiness of his brother, his two wives and his many children, and how finally he triumphed, and in his lonely old age, seeing the desired acres all his own, was content. It is a grim book, with only now and then a touch of suggested poetry to save it from being uniformly sordid and depressing. As it is, the long unsparing struggle takes somehow the dignity of an epic. Only one of Reuben's many sons makes any success out of life—Richard, who becomes a barrister, and treats his father to occasional visits of curiosity and amused patronage. There is a chapter of cynical humour in which the intolerant contemptuous old rustic is confronted by the art-loving triflers who gather in his son's drawing-room. Otherwise he is alone. "There's no one gone from here as has ever come back!" But I was glad that Miss Kaye-Smith had the courage to play fair by her hero, and to give him at last his share of the hard bargain. This is only one of many qualities that make Sussex Gorse a novel to be remembered.
I can't quite make out what made Mr. William Hewlett persist in Introducing William Allison (Secker). Probably a nice general conviction (rather infectious; I caught it) of his own cleverness. If his work wants a good deal of pulling together separate bits of it are confoundedly well done. The schoolboy conversations (William is a Winchester man, thrown into a lawyer's clerkship straight from the sixth) and the picture of the superbly groomed associates of his friend's brother, Marmaduke Fenton, are cases in point, though I don't think Winchester would have been so absurdly abashed by the glories of bachelordom in Half-Moon Street. So too is the lecture of Parbury, the neo-decadent, on the cultivation of "that sacred and imperishable flower, the white unsullied bloom of an Intensely Useless Life," even if it be only a belated cutting from The Green Carnation. William's first boyish passion for a quite cold shop-minx, with its agonies of self-abasement and rarefied desire, is uncannily clever; and the thoroughly unpleasant episode of our William, minx-free, only to be caught in the toils of that insatiable sensualist, Mrs. Daintree, is presented with discreet vigour. There is possibly a moral in the fascinating Marmaduke's desperate half-hour in Dr. Ferox's consulting-room. But Mr. Hewlett never wrote this flippant tale to point a moral. Rather, as I suggest, he seems to have said, "These are samples of several genres in which I can succeed on my head. Some day I will really finish something. Meanwhile pray be amused."
Of Miss Ethel Dell's popularity there seems to be no possible doubt, and her publishers, Messrs. Hutchinson, assure me that her latest, The Bars of Iron, is the best novel she has written. While accepting their unprejudiced judgment I retain the liberty of remaining unimpressed. Miss Dell has an eye for a plot and she can make things move; but her methods are too feverish for my taste. A man-fight in the prologue is followed by a dog-fight in the first chapter, and through the early part of the book the Rev. S. Lorimer beats his numerous family again and again. It is true that, between her explosions, she introduces certain lovable characters, but they fail to correct the general atmosphere of violence. Neither the beauty of Piers Evesham (his naked shoulders looked "like a piece of faultless statuary, god-like, superbly strong"), nor his sympathy with children, offers adequate compensation for his volcanic temperament. If Miss Dell, who seems to have a penchant for tempestuous heroes, would devote some of her superfluous energy to a study of men, so as to get to understand them as well as she understands her own sex, it would be a good thing for the quality both of her work and of her public.
In her latest little volume of verse, modestly entitled Simple Rhymes for Stirring Times (Pearson), Miss Jessie Pope shows that she has not only the right spirit, but a sense of form beyond the common. She does not pretend to heroics and she seldom allows herself to touch a note of pathos; her mission is just to inspire other hearts with the infectious gay courage of her own. It finds a natural expression in the easy lilt of her measures. She is fluent rather than polished and never overlays her designs with excess of embroidery. Long practice has made her familiar with a craft which is not so easy as it looks; and in particular she has learnt the art of the final line. Miss Pope may possibly run the risk of over-writing herself; but so long as she brings a discriminating eye to the choice of what is worth preserving—and she has been quite reasonably self-critical in her present selection—the matter that she jettisons is no affair of mine. Judging only by what I see here, I recognise that, in whatever other way she may be helping the cause, through her gift of light-heart verse she is doing—and none more bravely—her share of woman's work.
Touring Stage Manager (rehearsing super). "And when you hear the cue, 'Ah, here comes the Kaiser!' you stride slowly on to the stage looking like the guilty Monarch."
"On all hands their preparations for their ultimate victory are being pressed forward with unflagging zest, and nowhere has the white heat of their resolve grown pale"—Daily Graphic.
Extract from Scottish Command Orders:—
"When marriage has actually taken place, the N.C.O. or man should inform O.C. at once, so as to ensure the necessary documents for separation allowance for the wife being made out, and this casualty should in addition be inserted in Part II. Orders."
Scotsman.
This appears to confirm the belief that a Scottish marriage is a sort of accident that might happen to anyone.
It is easy to understand why the Zeppelins have a partiality for almshouses. They think it's another name for munition works.
From the report of a music-hall action:—
"In reply to Mr. Justice Darling, he sang comic songs and appeared alone on the stage."—Morning Paper.
After all the Bench cannot always monopolise the "star turns," even in Mr. Justice Darling's court.