



Produced by Punch, or the London Charivari, Malcolm Farmer
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net







PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 148.

JANUARY 27, 1915.




CHARIVARIA.

"Herts are doing well," reports Lord CAVAN in a letter from
the Front received at Stevenage. Herts, in fact, are trumps.

* * *

In Germany it is now said that the KAISER will receive Calais
as a birthday present. In France, however, it is said that it will be
Pas de Calais.

* * *

The English governess whose book Messrs. CHAPMAN AND HALL have
just published says of the KAISER:--"When he made a witticism
he laughed out aloud, opening his mouth, throwing back his head
slightly with a little jerk, and looking one straight in the eyes." It
seems a lot of trouble to take to intimate that one has made a joke,
but no doubt his hearers found it helpful.

* * *

Further details of the battle off the Falkland Islands are now to
hand. VON SPEE, the German Admiral, it seems, ordered "No
quarter"--to which our men retorted, "Not half."

* * *

An _Express_ correspondent reports from Belgium that the Germans now
have a number of monitor-like vessels at Zeebrugge which have only one
large gun and "sit low in the water." We trust our Navy may be relied
upon to make them sit lower still.

* * *

With regard to the occupation of Swakopmund the _Vossische Zeitung_
now says that this proceeding of war in South-West Africa is without
significance. It seems rather churlish of our contemporary not to point
this out until we have had the trouble of taking the place.

* * *

A Berlin despatch announces that Dr. WEILL, the member of
the Reichstag who entered the French army, has been deprived of his
German nationality. We fear that Dr. WEILL omitted some of the
formalities.

* * *

We cannot blame the EX-KHEDIVE for assuming that his life is
of value. He is to direct operations in Egypt from Geneva.

* * *

  "CARDINAL MERCIER

  BELIEF THAT HE DOES NOT ENJOY
  FULL LIBERTY."

These headlines are regrettable. They make it possible for the Germans
to say, "What's the good of giving him full liberty if he does not
enjoy it?"

* * *

On more than one occasion lately the Special Constables have bean
called out only to kick their heels for a considerable time at the
local police station. There is some grumbling as to this, it being felt
that they might have been told, anyhow, to bring their knitting with
them.

* * *

_The Glasgow Evening Times_ must not be surprised if it loses a few
subscribers among the members of the R.A.M.C. owing to the following
answer to a correspondent in its issue of the 15th inst.:--"'18'
(Falkirk)--Delicate lads are of little use in the Army. You might try
the Royal Army Medical Corps."

* * *

With reference to the action brought by Sir HIRAM MAXIM to
restrain an alleged nuisance from noise and vibration caused by a firm
of builders, our sympathy certainly went out to the defendants, for who
could have guessed that the inventor of the famous machine-gun would
have a rooted objection to noise?

* * *

The new West London Police Court was opened last week, and is
pronounced by its patrons to be both handsome and comfortable--a place,
in fact, in which no one need feel ashamed to be seen. There is even a
writing desk in the dock for the use of prisoners. When so many of them
write memoirs for the Yellow Press this is a little convenience which
will be much appreciated.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: "SPECIAL" ETIQUETTE.

_Mrs. Bec._ "I THINK IT WAS PERFECTLY HATEFUL OF GRACE TO SEND LADY
COPPERTHWAITE IN TO DINNER BEFORE ME, WHEN SHE KNOWS SIR JOHN IS ONLY A
SERGEANT, AND MY GEORGE IS A SUB-INSPECTOR!"]

       *       *       *       *       *

THE MURDERERS.

(_Lines addressed to their Master._)

  If I were asked what gives me most amaze
    Among your signs of mental aberration,
  I should select, from several curious traits,
    Your lack of commonplace imagination.

  You seem to think, if once you win the day,
    You justify your means; it won't much matter
  What laws of man you broke to get your way,
    What rules of chivalry you chose to shatter.

  Is that your reading in the glass of Time?
    And has your swollen head become so rotten
  That you suppose success could cancel crime,
    Or murder in its triumph be forgotten?

  Man shall not live, O King, by bread alone,
    Though spiced with blood of innocent lives for leaven;
  He must have breath of honour round him blown
    As vital as the very air of Heaven.

  What should it serve you, though your end were won
    And earth were made a mat to wipe your boot on,
  If every decent race beneath the sun
    Spits for contempt upon the name of Teuton?

  O. S.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE FISH FAMINE.

It is only proper that an agitation should be on foot to compel the
Government to take measures to prevent a further rise in the cost of
bread, the food of the people.

But what is the Government prepared to do to remedy the present
deplorable dearth in the food of the people's thinkers--fish?

Scientists, statisticians, fishmongers and other authorities tell us
that for the development of the human brain there is nothing to compare
with fish. Indeed, one has only to glance at the throng assembled in
any popular fish-bar of a night to realise that the people of our
country are alive to their need in this respect.

Consider what this shortage of fish must mean in the development of the
intellectual life of the people of this country. How can we expect our
parcels to be delivered intelligently, our gas-fittings to be adjusted
properly, our bulbs to be planted effectively, if our carmen, our
plumbers, our jobbing gardeners, and so forth, are deprived of their
daily bloater or bloaters, as the case may be?

How can we hope that Mr. H. G. WELLS, Mr. ARNOLD
BENNETT or even Lord KITCHENER himself will continue to
guide the nation effectively with the fish course obliterated from the
_menu?_

What is the use of the Poet Laureate to the country if Billingsgate
is inactive? And without Billingsgate how can our half-penny morning
papers adjust their differences, or illuminating discussion among
intellectuals be maintained?

How much longer will _The Spectator_ and _The Church Times_ be worth
reading if the present scarcity of fish continues? Is a Hampstead
thinkable without halibut?

A marked deterioration has already been noted in the quality of the
discourses of the senior curate at one of our suburban churches. We may
be capturing trade, and the position of our banks may be wonderfully
sound; but against that must be recorded the lamentable fact that in
a certain town in the Home Counties last week only twenty-two people
attended a widely announced debate on the subject, "Have Cinema
Pictures a more refining influence upon the Poor than Classical Poetry?"

       *       *       *       *       *

THE BRITISH ARMY.

(_As seen from Berlin._)

 [The Socialist _Vorwaerts_, which takes considerable pains to correct
 the mistakes of its contemporaries, solemnly rebukes journals which,
 it says, have described the Scots Greys as "the Scottish Regiment of
 the Minister Grey."--_The Times._]

The desperate straits of the British are indicated by the statement
that it has become necessary for what is called in England the "senior
service" to take a hand in recruiting the junior, _i.e._ the British
Army. We learn that the naval gunnery expert, Sir PERCY SCOTT,
has raised a regiment known as Scott's Guards.

It illustrates the difficulty which the British have in raising
recruits, that the Government, now that it has acquired the railways,
is ruthlessly compelling even the older servants to join the army.
One section of these men, who hitherto have been occupied with flag
and whistle, and have never been mounted in their lives, are being
enlisted in a special battalion known as the Horse Guards, while, as
the authorities themselves admit, the railways furnish whole regiments
of the line. The War Office has even made up a force from the men who
drive KING GEORGE'S trains, under the title of the Royal
Engineers.

The British commemorate their generals in their regiments. For
instance, the name of the Duke of WELLINGTON is carried by
the West Riding Regiment, which, as its name indicates, is a cavalry
regiment; and the Gordon Highlanders--the Chasseurs Alpins of the
British army--were founded to preserve the name of the late General
GORDON.

The curious practice of bathing the body in cold water at the beginning
of day, which is compulsory in the British army, is an old one, and
is said to have been inaugurated by a royal regiment which even
to-day commemorates the beginning of the odd habit in its title of
Coldstreamers.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE BELLS OF BERLIN.

(_Which are said to be rung by order occasionally to announce some
supposed German victory._)

  The Bells of Berlin how they hearten the Hun
    (_O dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee_);
  No matter what devil's own work has been done
  They chime a loud chant of approval, each one,
  Till the people feel sure of their place in the sun
    (_O dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee_).

  If HINDENBURG hustles an enemy squad
    (_O dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee_),
  The bells all announce that the alien sod
  Is damp with the death of some thousand men odd,
  Till the populace smiles with a gratified nod
    (_O dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee_).

  If TIRPITZ behaves like a brute on the brine
    (_O dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee_),
  The bells with a clash and a clamour combine
  To hint that the Hated One's on the decline,
  And the city gulps down the good tidings like wine
    (_O dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee_).

  The Bells of Berlin, are they cracked through and through
    (_O dingle dong dangle ding dongle ding dee_),
  Or deaf to the discord like Germany too?
  For whether their changes be many or few,
  The worst of them is that they never ring true
    (_O dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee_).

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: THE DISSEMBLERS.

[JANUARY 27TH.]

EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA. "NOW WHAT DO WE REALLY WANT TO SAY?"

SULTAN OF TURKEY. "WELL, OF COURSE WE COULDN'T SAY _THAT_; NOT
ON HIS BIRTHDAY."]

       *       *       *       *       *

THE LAST FIGHT OF ALL.

  Every morn we met together
    On our journey up to town,
  Guyed the Government and weather,
    Ran all other nations down;
  And, whenever (very seldom)
    Strangers' visages were seen,
  With indignant looks we quelled'em
          On the 9.17.

  But to-day there's none remaining
    To bestow the crushing glance.
  Down in Surrey Smith is training,
    Brown is somewhere out in France;
  Going through his martial paces,
    Jones is billeted at Sheen;
  Strangers seize the sacred places
          On the 9.17.

  But when once, the struggle ended,
    Men resume their normal toil
  There will be one final, splendid
    Battle fought on English soil;
  And the populace enraptured
    From their evening Press shall glean:
  "Heavy fighting; seats recaptured
          On the 9.17."

       *       *       *       *       *

THE WAR AND THE BOOKS.

"Nowhere," says a contemporary, "is the influence of the War more
apparent than in the publishers' lists." We venture to anticipate a few
items that are promised for this time next year:--

For Lovers of Bright Fiction. NEW GERMAN FAIRY TALES. Selected
from the Official Wireless. 550 pp., large quarto, 10_s._ 6_d._ The
first review says, "Deliciously entertaining ... powers of imagination
greatly above the ordinary. The story of "Hans across the Sea, or the
Eagles in Egypt," will make you rock with laughter."

Important new work on Ornithology. BRITISH BIRDS, BY ONE WHO GOT
THEM. Being the experiences of a Slacker in the prime of life
during the Great War. Crown octavo, 6_s._ Profusely illustrated with
cuts.

CIVILIAN LIFE FROM WITHIN. The author, Mr. Jude Brown, has
(for good reasons fully explained in the preface) remained a civilian
during the past year. He is thus in a position to speak with authority
upon a phase of life which most of his contemporary readers will either
have forgotten or never known. Just as Service novels in the past used
to appear full of the most absurd technical errors, so to-day many
books that profess to deal with civilian life are disfigured by every
kind of solecism. Mr. Brown, however, writes not as a gushing amateur
but as one who knows. Order early.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Nephew._ "I'M READING A VERY INTERESTING BOOK,
AUNT, CALLED 'GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR.'"

_Aunt._ "WELL, MY DEAR, I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT THEY HAD THEIR HANDS
FULL ENOUGH WITH THE PRESENT ONE."]

       *       *       *       *       *

In a Good Cause.

_Mr. Punch_ begs to call the attention of his readers to a sale which
will take place at CHRISTIE'S, on February 5th, of pictures by
members of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. The entire
proceeds will be divided between the two allied societies, the Red
Cross and the St. John Ambulance. The pictures are on exhibition at
Messrs. CHRISTIE'S, who are bearing all expenses and charging
no commission.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Birthday Wish: Jan. 27th:--

  A toast to the KAISER from wives and from mothers,
  "May he be as happy as he has made others."

       *       *       *       *       *

 "We have the further intelligence that 80 Turkish transports have been
 sunk by the Russians in the North Sea. This last piece of information
 lacks official confirmation."

 _Dublin Evening Mail._

This continued official scepticism about the Russians is very
disheartening.

       *       *       *       *       *

 "Sandringham is fifty miles due east of Yarmouth."--_Liverpool Echo._

Rather a score off the KAISER, who didn't realise it was a
submarine job.

       *       *       *       *       *

 "Our Correspondent at Washington reports that the Press of the Eastern
 United States is unanimous in excoriating the German Air Raid."--_The
 Times._

If only they would excoriate the Zeppelins themselves.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Manager_ (_to dragon_). "WHAT'S THE MEANING OF
THIS? WHERE'S YOUR HIND LEGS?"

_Dragon._ "THEY'VE ENLISTED, SIR."]

       *       *       *       *       *

ON THE SPY-TRAIL.

I.

JIMMY had been saving up his pocket-money and his mother had
begun to get rather anxious; she thought he must be sickening for
something.

He was. It was for a dog, any dog, but preferably a very fierce
bloodhound. He had already bought a chain; he had to have that because
the dog he was going to buy would have to be held in by main force; it
would have to be restrained.

But he didn't have to buy one after all; he had one transferred to him.

You see Jimmy was helping at a kind of bazaar in aid of the Belgian
Refugees Fund. He had volunteered to help with the refreshment stall.
There is a lot of work about a refreshment stall, Jimmy says. His work
made him a bit husky, but he stuck to it and so it stuck to him.

He was very busy explaining the works of a cake to a lady when a
man came up with something under his arm. It was a raffle. You paid
threepence for a ticket, and would the lady like one?

The lady said she already had two tea-cosies at home; but the man
explained that it was not a tea-cosy, it was a dog.

A dog! Perhaps a bloodhound! Jimmy trembled with excitement. Only
threepence for a ticket, and he had a chance of winning it.

It seemed a faithful dog, Jimmy thought. It had a very good lick, too;
it licked a sponge-cake off a plate, and would have licked quite a lot
more from Jimmy's stall if it had had time.

Jimmy came third in the raffle.

But the man whose ticket won the dog said he didn't care for that kind
of breed, by the look of it, and gave way in favour of the next.

The next man said he wasn't taking any shooting this year, and he stood
aside. The dog was Jimmy's!!

With trembling hands he fastened on the chain--to restrain it. Then
he asked the man whose ticket had won the raffle if it was really a
_prize_ bloodhound.

The man looked at the dog critically, and said it was either a prize
bloodhound or a Scotch haggis; at any rate it was a very rare animal.

Jimmy asked if he would have to have a licence for it, but the man
said it would be best to wait and see what it grew into. All good
bloodhounds are like that, Jimmy says.

Jimmy ran all the way home: he couldn't run very fast, as the
bloodhound tried to slide on its hind legs most of the way, it was so
fierce.

Jimmy knows all about bloodhounds, how to train them. He is training
his to track down German spies, amongst other things.

He knows a way so that if you say something--well, you don't exactly
say it, you do it by putting your tongue into the place where your
front tooth came out and then blowing--a really well-trained bloodhound
will begin to shiver, and the hair on the back of his neck will go
up. You then go and look for someone to help you to pull him off the
German's throat, and ask the German his name and address, politely.

Jimmy taught his bloodhound to track clothes by letting it smell at a
piece of cloth. It brought him a lot of clothes from nearly a quarter
of a mile away. They were not the light clothes though, and Jimmy had
to take them back. The woman wanted them--to wash over again, she said.
She doesn't like bloodhounds much.

Jimmy says you ought to have the blood of the victim on the cloth.

Jimmy has trained his bloodhound to watch things. It is very good at
watching. It watched a cat up a tree all one night, and never left off
once: it is very faithful like that. And it bays quite well, without
being taught to. It bayed up to four hundred and ten one night, and
would have gone past that but a man opened a window and told it not to.
He sent it a water-bottle to play with instead.

Jimmy's bloodhound is a splendid fighter. It fought a dog much bigger
than itself and nearly choked it. The other dog was trying to swallow
it, and Jimmy had to pull his dog out.

Jimmy says he has only once seen his bloodhound really frightened. It
was when it followed Jimmy up into his bedroom, and saw itself in the
mirror in the wardrobe. Jimmy says it was because it came upon itself
too suddenly. It made it brood a great deal, and Jimmy had to give it a
certain herb to reassure it.

Jimmy takes it out every day, searching for German spies. It goes round
sniffing everywhere--in hopes. It is a very strong sniffer and full of
zeal, and one day it did it.

A man was looking at a shop-window, where they sell sausages and pork
pies. He was studying them, Jimmy says. Jimmy says he never would have
guessed he was a German spy if his bloodhound hadn't sniffed him out.
It walked round the man twice, and in doing so wrapped the chain round
the man's legs. Jimmy says it was to cut off his retreat. The man moved
backwards and stepped on the bloodhound's toe, and the bloodhound began
to bay like anything. Jimmy says it showed the bloodhound was hot upon
the scent.

It then sniffed a piece out of the man's trousers.

There was another man there; he was looking on and laughing. He said to
Jimmy, "Pull in, sonny; you've got a bite."

But he stopped laughing when the German spy tripped up and fell on top
of the bloodhound; for the German spy shouted out, "Ach, Himmel!" The
man who was looking on shouted, "What ho!" and put all the fingers of
both hands into his mouth and gave one terrific whistle. The bloodhound
held on tightly underneath the German, baying faithfully, till the
policeman came and forced them apart. The German spy never said
anything to the policeman or to the man or to Jimmy, but it seemed he
couldn't say enough to the bloodhound. He kept turning round to say
things, as they came into his head, on his way to the police-station.

Jimmy asked the German if he could keep the piece of cloth his
bloodhound had sniffed out.

Jimmy has made the piece of cloth into a kind of medal with a piece of
wire, and has fastened it to the bloodhound's collar. Jimmy says if he
gets a lot of pieces of cloth like this he is going to make a patchwork
quilt for the bloodhound.

Jimmy's bloodhound is hotter than ever on the trail of German spies.

If you are good you shall hear more of it another time.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Nervous Subaltern_ (_endeavouring to explain the
mysteries of drill_). "FORMING FOURS--WHEN THE SQUAD WISHES TO FORM
FOURS, THE EVEN NUMBERS TAKE----"

_Sergeant-major._ "_AS YOU WERE!_ A SQUAD OF RECRUITS NEVER
_WISHES_ TO DO NOTHING, SIR!"]

       *       *       *       *       *

AS GOOD AS A MILE.

As this happened over a month ago, it is disclosing no military
secret to say that the North Sea was extraordinarily calm. It was
neither raining nor sleeting nor blowing; indeed the sun was actually
visible, an alcoholic-visaged sun, glowing like a stage fire through
a frosty haze. From the cruiser that was steaming slowly ahead, with
no apparent object beyond that of killing time, the only break to be
seen in the smoky blue of the sea was the dull copper reflection on
one-half of its wake; and that somehow attracted no comment from the
man on the look-out. Bits of flotsam nevertheless, however harmlessly
flotsam, were recorded on their appearance in a penetrating mechanical
sing-song, with a strong Cockney accent, as were the occasional
glimpses of the shores of Norway.

All that could manage it were on deck, enjoying the unusual freedom
from oilskins. The captain was assuring the commander that the safest
way of avoiding a cold was to sit in a draught with a wet shirt on; a
marine was having a heated argument with a petty officer as to whether
the remnants of the German Navy would be destroyed or taken over at the
end of the War; the torpedo-lieutenant was telling the A. P. what jolly
scenery there was from here if only one could see it, and pronouncing
his conviction that it was mere beef and not real reindeer that they
had given him for lunch at the hotel up the fjord; while the A. P.
was mentally calculating the chances of the old man's coming down
handsomely enough to allow his honeymoon to run to Norway when the war
was over.

"Periscope on the port bow, Sir!" It disappeared in the spray of
half-a-dozen shells, and emerged unharmed for an instant before it
dipped; but a rapidly-forming line of torpedo-bubbles showed that the
submarine too had seen, and had made answer after its fashion.

People who ought to know assure us that the truly great often regret
their days of obscurity; certainly the captain now wished that he were
still merely the lieutenant-commander of a T.B. Then he could have
turned nearly parallel to the course of the torpedo, and tried for a
ram. With the heavier and slower ship there was no room or time for
such a manoeuvre; it was full speed ahead or astern. The torpedo was
well-aimed, and, seeing from its track that it would meet their course
ahead, he rang full speed astern. The ship quivered distressingly, and
the water boiled beneath her stern. There was nothing left to do but
wait and trust to the propellers.

Ranks and ratings alike clustered to the side, watching those bubbles
with a curiously dispassionate interest; but for the silence they might
have been a crowd of tourists assembled to see a whale. One low "Six
to four against the torpedo" was heard; and a sub with a pathetically
incipient beard asked for a match in a needlessly loud tone. The
bubbles drew near, very near, and were hidden from all but one or two
beneath the bow; hands gripped the rails rather tightly, and then once
more the line of bubbles appeared, now to the starboard. Men turned and
looked at each other curiously as if they were new acquaintances; one
or two shook hands rather shamefacedly; and the sub who had asked for a
match found that his cigarette wanted another.

And from the look-out, in the same mechanical sing-song, came "Torpedo
passed ahead, Sir!"

       *       *       *       *       *

AS WE HATE IT.

 ["Mr. Stanley Cooke will begin his tour with _Caste_ at the Royal,
 Salisbury, on Monday. The old piece, we understand, has been altered
 so as to allow of references to current events in the War. Sam
 Gerridge now enlists in the last Act, and appears in khaki."--_The
 Stage._

 Not to be outdone, _Mr. Punch_ begs to present scenes from his new
 version of _As You Like It_.]

ACT I.

 _An open place_ (_with goal-posts at each end_).

 _Enter from opposite turnstiles_ Duke Frederick _and_ Rosalind (_with_
 Celia).

 _Duke._ How now, daughter and cousin? Are you crept hither to see the
 football?

 _Rosalind._ Ay, my lord, so please you give us leave.

 _Duke._ You will take little delight in it, I can tell you. I only came
 myself from--er--duty. It's disgraceful to think that our able-bodied
 young men should waste their time kicking a ball about in this crisis.
 I would enlist myself if only I were ten years younger.

 _Celia_ (_thoughtfully_). I know a man just about your age who----

 _Duke_ (_hastily_). Besides, I have a weak heart.

  [_Shout._ Orlando _kicks a goal_.

 _Rosalind._ Who is that excellent young man?

 _Duke._ Orlando. I have tried to persuade him to go, but he will not be
 entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him.

  [_Whistle. Time._ _Arden Wednesday is defeated 2-1._ Orlando
  _approaches_.

 _Rosalind._ Young man, are you aware that there is a war on?

 _Orlando._ Yes, lady.

   _Rosalind_ (_giving him a small white feather from her bag_).
   Wear this for me, the lastling of the flock;
   To-morrow you shall have a better one.

   _Orlando._ Lady, I thank you for your welcome gift.
   This little favour cunningly affixed
   With mucilage upon the upper lip
   Shall take the place of those informal sproutings
   Which military etiquette demands
   And Nature has persistently denied me.

 _Rosalind_ (_alarmed_). Why want you a moustache, young man?

   _Orlando._                  To fight with.
   (_Bowing._) Second Lieutenant O. de Boys; gazetted
   This very morning to the Fifth Battalion
   The Arden Foresters--and at your service.
   My men await me. Fare you well, fair ladies.

  [_Exit._

 _Rosalind_ (_sighing_). Celia, my dear, I've made a fool of myself
 _again_.

 _Celia._ It looks like it. You're always so hasty.

 _Rosalind_ (_casually_). I wonder where the Fifth Battalion is training?

 _Celia._ Somewhere in the Forest, I expect.

   _Rosalind._ Alas, what danger will it be to us
   Maids as we are to travel forth so far!

   _Celia._ I'll put myself into a Red Cross dress.

   _Rosalind._ I do not like the Red Cross uniform.

   _Celia._ You could be photographed ten times a day:
   "_The Lady Rosalind a Red Cross Nurse_."

   _Rosalind._ I like it not. Nay, I will be a Scout.

   _Celia._ What shall I call thee when thou art a Scout?

   _Rosalind._ I'll have no worse a name than Archibald.
   The Boy Scout Archibald. And what of you?

   _Celia._ Something that hath a reference to my state;
   No longer Celia now, but Helia.

   _Rosalind._                     Help!


 ACT II.

 _An open place in the Forest._

 _A Voice._ Platoon! Properly at ease there, blank you! 'TN-SHUN!
 DIS-MISS!

  _Enter_ Amiens, Jaques _and others_.

   _Amiens._      SONG.
   It's a long way to Tipperary,
   It's a long way to go;
   It's a long way to Tipperary,
   To the sweetest girl I know ... (_et-cetera._)

 _Jaques._ More, more, I prithee, more.

 _Amiens._ It will make you melancholy, Corporal Jaques.

 _Jaques._ I want to be melancholy. Any man would be melancholy when his
 officer's moustache falls off on parade.

 _Amiens._ A white one too--a regular Landsturmer. And yet he's not an
 _old_ man, Corporal.

 _Jaques._ Ay, it's a melancholy business. Come, warble.

   _Amiens._      SONG.
       Who doth all comfort shun
       And hates the blooming sun,
       Eating what he can get
       And sleeping in the wet,
   Come hither, come hither, come hither;
           Here shall he learn
           To right-about-turn
       In winter and rough weather.

 _Jaques_ (_getting up_). A melancholy business. Amiens, my lad, I feel
 the old weakness coming over me.

 _Amiens_ (_alarmed_). You're going to recite, Corporal?

 _Jaques._ Yes, I'm going to recite. (_Sighs._)

 _Amiens._ Fight against it, Corporal, fight against it! It didn't
 matter in the old civilian days, long ago; but think if it suddenly
 seized you when we were going into action!

 _Jaques._ I know, I know. I've often thought of it. But when once it
 gets hold of me----(_Pleadingly_) This will only be a very little one,
 Amiens.... H'r'm!

                 All the world's at war
   And all the men are learning to be soldiers:
   They have their exits--
   (_Bugle_)
                           Dammit, there goes mine.

  [_Exit hurriedly, followed by the others._

  _Enter_ Rosalind _and_ Celia.

   _Rosalind_ (_reading_).
   No mistress ever has recalled
   A sweeter youth than Archibald.
   The only name that never palled
   On Rosalind was Archibald.
   How firmly is thy face installed
   Upon my heart, O Archibald!

 _Celia._ Is that your own, dear?

 _Rosalind._ I found it on a tree. There's lots more.... Oh, Celia,
 listen! It ends up:

   O! once I was severely galled
   By feathers from my Archibald.

 Celia, it must be Orlando! He has penetrated my disguise and he
 forgives me!

  [_Enter_ Orlando _from left at the head of his men_.

 _Orlando_ (_to his platoon_). Halt! Eyes right! (_Advancing to
 Rosalind._) Lady, you gave me a feather once. I have lost it. Can you
 give me another one? My Colonel says I _must_ have a moustache.

 _Rosalind._ Alas, Sir, I have no others.

 _Orlando_ (_firmly_). Very well. Then there's only one thing for me to
 do. I shall have to join the Navy.

  _He does so, thus providing a naval Third Act.... And so eventually to
  the long-wished-for end._

   A. A. M.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE LATEST IRISH GRIEVANCE.

A MILESIAN MEDLEY.

 [_The Earl of ABERDEEN on his promotion in the peerage has
 adopted the style of Marquess of ABERDEEN AND TARA._]

  The Harp that once in Tara's Hall
    The soul of music shed
  Has had a most disastrous fall
    And won't be comforted;
  For now, when the Milesian Gael
    Looms large upon the scene,
  Tara is tacked on to the tail
    Of Scottish Aberdeen.

  O Casement dear, an' did ye hear the news that's goin' round?
  The Germans are by law forbid to land on Irish ground;
  And Cork's proud Corporation--may perdition seize their soul!--
  Have blotted KUNO MEYER'S name from off their burgess roll.

  I met wid PADDY BIRRELL on the links at Overstrand,
  An' sez he, "How's poor dear Ireland, and how does she stand?"
  She's the most amazin' counthry that iver yet was seen,
  For she's let the name of Tara come afther Aberdeen!

  O if in dingy khaki we've got to see it through,
  And must not taste of _raki_ (which is Turkish mountain-dew),
  Still we can wet our whistle with porter and _poteen_,
  And extirpate the thistle from Tara's sacred scene.

  When laws can turn the pratie into the Frenchman's bean,
  An' when the Russian Ballet comes to dance on College Green,
  Then I'll accept the title, though I'm a patriot keen,
  But till that day Tara shall stay in front of Aberdeen.

  _Chorus_ (_to the tune of Tarara-Boom-de-ay._)

  TARA AND ABERDEEN--that's what it should have been,
  For never has there been an insult so obscene
  To dear Dark ROSALEEN, our holy Island Queen,
  As letting Tara's sheen be dimmed by Aberdeen.

       *       *       *       *       *

 "Grease Spots on Milk.--Take a lump of magnesia, and, having wetted
 it, rub it over the grease-marks. Let it dry, and then brush the
 powder off, when the spots will be found to have disappeared."--_North
 Wilts Herald._

They didn't. Perhaps we had the wrong kind of milk.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Lady._ "I WANT SOME STUDS, PLEASE, FOR MY SON."

_Shopman._ "YES, MADAM--FOR THE FRONT?"

_Lady._ "NO--HOME DEFENCE."]

       *       *       *       *       *

A TERRITORIAL IN INDIA.

II.

My dear _Mr. Punch_,--I think I see now the reason for the wholesale
transference of our Battalion to clerical duties as described in my
last letter. We are being "trained for the Front in the shortest
possible time." That much is certain, because it is in the official
documents. Clearly, then, we are to form a new arm. Each man will
be posted in a tree with a typewriter before him. The enemy,
approaching, will hear from all sides a continuous tap-tapping and will
fly in disorder, imagining that he is being assailed by a new kind of
machine-gun.

Did I tell you that we are living in a tent? Four of us occupy one
tent; that is to say, we occupy that portion of it which is not
required by some five hundred millions of ants. I arrived at this
figure in the same way that other scientists count microbes--by
multiplying the number on a square inch by the superficial area in
inches of the tent. Ants are voracious brutes. In five minutes they
can eat a loaf of bread, two pounds of treacle, a tin of oatmeal
(unopened), eight bananas, a shaving brush and a magazine. So at least
we were assured by our colleagues in the office, some of whom have been
in India for many years and therefore ought to know.

When we leave the tent to step across into the office some of the more
friendly of the ants accompany us and indulge in playful little pranks.
Only this morning one of them, while my back was turned, upset a bottle
of ink over a document I had just completed.

We keep alive our military ardour in our spare time by waging war upon
this enemy. Their strategy resembles that of the Germans. They rely
upon masses, and every day their losses are appalling. But, unlike the
Germans, they seem to have unlimited reserves to draw upon. I foresee
the day when we shall be driven out and they will be left masters of
the field.

But enough of ants, which are becoming a bore. I have verified the
theory that human nature is the same all the world over. When I was at
home for that last forty-eight hours' leave before we sailed for India,
five of us returned to the camp on Salisbury Plain by motor, and on
our way we stopped at a country inn. Doubtless our big khaki overcoats
and sunburnt faces gave us a more soldierly appearance than the length
of our military training warranted, and an elderly countryman seated
on a bench inside, regarding us with interest, asked me if we were off
to the front. "Well," I said, "we're going to India first, and after a
few months we are to return to the Front." Plainly our friend was in a
difficulty. He was a patriot. One could see that he longed intensely,
ardently, to express his appreciation of our action in volunteering,
but he could not find the appropriate words. There was a long pause.
Then a light of inspiration shone on his countenance. He had found it.
His hand dived into his pocket. "Here," he said, "have some nuts."

So in India. We have another patriot here in our "boy" Mahadoo, who for
two rupees a week acts as our valet, footman, housemaid, kitchenmaid,
chambermaid, boots, errand boy and washerwoman. "And the _sahib_
will fight the Germans?" he asked me the other day. "I hope so," I
replied; "in a few months." One could see that he too experienced the
difficulty of adequate expression. Then his hand went to his turban
and he produced a small slab of English chocolate. "For you, _rajah_,"
he said, and, standing to attention, he saluted like a soldier. And I
believe there was a lump in his honest dusky throat.

Life can be very difficult when you have only one uniform, and that
an Indian summer one. I realised the other day that the dreaded hour
had arrived when mine _must_ be purified. Accordingly I gave Mahadoo
instructions to wash it, and went into the office in pyjamas. So far
so good. An hour later came an order from the D.A.Q.M.G. that I was
to go into the town to cash a cheque. My uniform lay on the grass
outside the tent, clean but wet. I was a soldier. I must obey orders
unquestioningly. What was to be done?

Well, I pondered; it is a soldier's business unflinchingly to brave
danger and hardship. I must go into the town in pyjamas and run
stolidly the gauntlet of curious glances and invidious remarks. The
bank lay in the centre of the European quarter. Very well, I must do my
duty nevertheless. I was a soldier.

So I wrung out my uniform, changed into it and caught a severe cold.

I suppose they don't give V.C.'s till you have actually figured on the
battlefield.

  Yours ever,
  ONE OF THE _PUNCH_ BRIGADE.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: CONVERSATIONS OF THE MOMENT.

"WHY IS EVERYBODY MAKING SUCH A FUSS WITH THAT RATHER
ORDINARY-LOOKING LITTLE PERSON?"

"_MY DEAR!_ SHE HAS A CELLAR."]

       *       *       *       *       *

Another Impending Apology.

"NEW BANKING DEPARTURE.

Sir Edward Holden Redeems His Promise."

  _Daily Sketch._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED.

THE EMPEROR. "WHAT! NO BABES, SIRRAH?"

THE MURDERER. "ALAS! SIRE, NONE."

THE EMPEROR. "WELL, THEN, NO BABES, NO IRON CROSSES."

  [_Exit murderer, discouraged._
]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Cyclist._ "I HAVE A DESPATCH FOR THE OFFICER IN
COMMAND. CAN I SEE HIM?"

_Sentry_ (_a raw one_). "YUS. SHALL I FETCH UN OUT TO 'EE?"]

       *       *       *       *       *

ACCOUNT RENDERED.

_Mr. Punch_, SIR,--Can you inform me if the Government may be
relied upon to pay compensation to all who suffer loss or damage as a
result of the War? If so, will you be good enough to advise me how to
proceed to get payment for the following items of my own personal loss?

  1. Damage to Dresden ornament due to maid's
      sudden alarm while dusting it, on hearing
      the newspaper boy call (as she thought)
      "JELLICOE sunk"                                   L2  0  0

  2. Loss of profits on a potential deal, due to
      my arriving late in the City on the morning
      of January 5th as a consequence of an
      argument on London Bridge with that ass
      Maralang on matters relating to the War.          60  0  0

  3. Expenses incurred by (_a_) spraining the
      great toe of my right foot, (_b_) spoiling one
      pair of trousers, and (_c_) grazing my forehead,
      in the course of field operations with
      my drilling corps, to which I belong only
      because of the War                                 4 14  6

  4. Loss of office-boy's services for one week as
      a result of damage he received from a taxi-cab
      while waiting at Charing Cross for
      Zeppelins to appear                                0 10  0

  5. Breakage of glass in my greenhouse on
      Boxing Day, caused by my son's defective
      aim with the 5 mm. air-gun presented
      to him on Christmas Day by me, a gift
      inspired directly by the War                       3  2  0

  6. Undoubted loss of expected and indeed
      practically promised legacy from my Aunt
      Margaret, caused by an ill-considered
      criticism I passed upon a belt she had
      knitted for a soldier at the Front; legacy
      estimated at not less than L2000. I am,
      however, prepared to accept cash down            500  0  0
                                                       ---------
          Total                                       L570  6  6

  Yours obediently, COMPUTATOR.

       *       *       *       *       *

 "A marriage has been arranged between Capt. Stokes, 4th (Queen's Own)
 Hussars, of St. Botolph's, and Mrs. Stokes and Miss Evelyn Wardell and
 Mrs. John Vaughan of Brynwern, Newbridge-on-Wye."--_Welshman._

We hope that without offence we may congratulate him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"PRIVATE STILLS IN FRANCE."

  _Daily News._

He is only one of thousands.

       *       *       *       *       *

A QUESTION OF TACTICS.

Poor Jones! I often think of him--a patriot of the super-dreadnought
type, with an apoplectic conviction that the whole conduct of the
War, on the part of the Allies, had been from the outset a series of
gigantic mistakes. "I don't believe in all this spade and chess-board
work," he used to growl; "up and at'em, that's my motto. Magnificent
fighting material we've got at the Front, but what we want is brains,
Sir, brains to use it." And then (though I could never understand why
he did this) he would tap his own forehead.

At the end of October we all agreed not to argue with Jones any more.
Peters, who in his younger days very nearly qualified for the medical
profession, said that for short-necked, wine-coloured persons like our
friend anything in the nature of a heated discussion might easily lead
to fatal results. So partly out of consideration for the Empire, which
we felt could not afford in the present crisis to lose a single man,
even Jones, partly out of consideration for Mrs. Jones (though here
we were perhaps influenced by a sentiment of mistaken kindness), and
partly out of consideration for ourselves we decided to avoid the topic
of the War when conversing with Jones.

It proved very difficult to carry out our resolution. When a man is
determined to discuss the War, the whole War, and nothing but the
War, with everybody he meets, it is hard to side-track him. You can,
of course, after listening to his views on coast defences, endeavour
to turn the conversation by saying, "Yes, certainly; and by the way,
speaking of Sheringham, I have an uncle, a retired minor canon of
Exeter, who still deprecates the custom of mixed bathing"; or, "I quite
agree with you, and that reminds me, have you heard that all the best
people on the Essex coast are insuring against twins this season?" But
even efforts like these are often of little avail. There is only one
really effective course to pursue, and that is to avoid your adversary
altogether. This was what we had to do with poor Jones.

One morning during the second week in November I was walking down the
High Street, when I espied Jones conversing with a friend outside the
butcher's. He was gesticulating with a newspaper in his hand and wore
an angry expression. Knowing that there was not a moment to be lost, I
dived into the nearest shop.

"Yes, Sir?"

There are, I doubt not, some who find a peculiar charm in the voice
of the young female haberdasher; but I am not of them. It is a
dreadful thing to be alone in a ladies' and children's outfitter's;
these establishments are apt to contain so many articles that no
self-respecting man should know anything about. As I realised where I
was I shuddered.

"Yes, Sir?" said the voice again.

I gazed stonily from the fair young thing across the counter to a group
of her sisters in the background, who had paused in their play to watch
in silent reproach the rude disturber of their maiden peace.

"Yes, Sir?" said the voice once more. There was a note of weariness in
it now, a far-off hint of unshed tears.

Suddenly my eye caught a label on a bale. I decided to plunge.

"A yard of cream wincey," I said firmly.

The ice was broken. She smiled; her sisters in the background smiled;
and I sank relieved upon the nearest chair. Obviously I had picked
a winner; it seemed that cream wincey was a thing no man need blush
to buy. I watched her fold up the material and enclose it in brown
paper, and resolved to send it to my married sister at Ealing. And then
a terrible thing happened. As I rose to take my parcel I saw Jones
standing just outside on the pavement, talking earnestly to the Vicar.
I sat down again.

"And the next thing?" murmured the voice seductively.

I looked at her in despair. But even as I did so my second inspiration
came. "A yard of cream wincey," I said.

One fleeting, startled, curious glance she gave me; then without a word
she proceeded to comply with my request. I waited, with one eye on her
deftly-moving fingers, the other on Jones and the Vicar. And, as I
waited, I resolved, come what might, to see the thing through.

She finished all too soon, handed me my second parcel and repeated her
question. I repeated my order.

I have never spoken to anyone of what I went through during the next
three-quarters of an hour. My own recollection of it is very vague.
Through a sort of mist I see a figure in a chair facing a damsel who
cuts off and packs up endless yards of cream wincey till there rises
between them on the counter a stockade of brown-paper parcels. I see
the other young female haberdashers, her companions, gathering timidly
round, an awed joy upon their faces. Finally I see the figure rise and
stumble blindly into the street beneath an immense burden of small
packages all identical in size and shape. I can remember no more.

On the following day I went down to Devonshire for a rest, and stayed
there till my system was clear of cream wincey. The first man I met on
my return was Peters.

"Have you heard about Jones?" he asked.

"No," I replied.

"He's gone," said Peters solemnly.

A thrill of hope shot through me. "To the Front?" I asked.

"No, not exactly; to a convalescent home."

"Dear, dear!" I exclaimed, "how very sudden! What was it?"

"German measles," said Peters, "and a mistake in tactics. If he had
only waited to let them come out into the open the beggars could have
been cut off all right in detachments. But you remember Jones's theory;
he never believed in _finesse_. So he went for them to suppress them
_en masse_, and they retreated into the interior, concentrated their
forces and compelled him to surrender on their own terms."

"Poor old Jones!" I murmured sadly.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: WAR'S REFINING INFLUENCE.

_Englishman_ (_accidentally trodden on_). "WHAT THE---- D--N YOU, SIR!
CAN'T YOU----

"----OH, PARDON, MONSIEUR! _VIVE LA BELGIQUE!_"]

       *       *       *       *       *

From an examination paper:--

 "A periscope is not a thing what a doctor uses."

       *       *       *       *       *

THE FOOD PROBLEM.

Greenwood is one of those intolerable men who always rise to an
occasion. He is the kind of man who rushes to sit on the head of a
horse when it is down. I can even picture him sitting on the bonnet of
an overturned motor-'bus and shouting, "Now all together!" to the men
who are readjusting it.

We were going down to business when Perkins introduced a new grievance
against the Censor.

"Whatever do they allow this rot about food prices in the paper for?"
he began. "It unsettles women awfully. Now my wife is insisting on
having her housekeeping allowance advanced twenty-five per cent. I tell
you she'd never have known anything about the advances if they hadn't
been put before her in flaring type."

The general opinion of the compartment seemed to be that the Censor had
gravely neglected his duty.

"I agreed with my wife," said Blair, who is a shrewd Scotchman,
"and told her that she must have an extra two pounds a month. Now a
twenty-five per cent. advance would have meant five pounds a month.
Luckily Providence fashioned women without an idea of arithmetic."

Most of us looked as if we wished we had thought of this admirable idea.

"My wife drew my attention to the paper," said Greenwood loftily. "I
did not argue the point with her. Finance is not woman's strong point.
I rang for the cook at once."

Everyone looked admiringly at the hero who had dared to face his cook.

"I said to her," continued Greenwood, "'Cook, get the Stores price-list
for to-day and serve for dinner precisely the things that have not
advanced. You understand? That will do.' So you see the matter was
settled."

"Er, what did your wife say?" asked Perkins.

"Say! What could she say? Here was the obvious solution. And I have
noticed that women always lose their heads in an emergency. They never
rise to the occasion."

The next morning I met Greenwood again.

"By the way," I asked, "did you have a good dinner yesterday?"

Greenwood looked me straight in the eyes. There is a saying that a liar
cannot look you straight in the eyes. Discredit it. "The dinner was
excellent," he replied. "I wish you had been there to try it. And every
single thing at pre-war prices."

But that night I came across Mrs. Greenwood as she emerged from a Red
Cross working party loaded with mufflers and mittens.

"Glad to hear these hard times don't affect your household," I began
diplomatically.

Mrs. Greenwood smiled. "What has Oswald been telling you?"

"Nothing, except that he had an excellent dinner yesterday."

"I wasn't there," said Mrs. Greenwood; "I went to my mother's. You see,
Cook conscientiously followed Oswald's instructions. He had sardines,
Worcester sauce, macaroni, and tinned pork and beans. I can't make out
quite which of the two was the first to give notice afterwards. Perhaps
it was what you call a dead heat. Only, unless Oswald shouted, 'Take
a month's notice,' when he heard the cook's step in the hall, I am
inclined to think that Cook got there first."

Now in the train I recommend tinned pork and beans with Worcester sauce
as a cheap and nourishing food in war-time.

Greenwood says nothing but glares at me. For once in his life he cannot
rise to the occasion.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: "I PITY THE PORE CHAPS THAT 'AVEN'T GOT OUT 'ERE.
LONDON STREETS, THIS TIME O' YEAR, WITH THE DRIZZLE AND SLUSH MUST BE
AWFUL."]

       *       *       *       *       *

Rural Intelligence.

"Wanted, an all-round Man for sheep and cows who can build and thatch."

  _The Rugby Advertiser._

       *       *       *       *       *

Men we do not play billiards with.--I.

M. TAKE JONESCU.

       *       *       *       *       *

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XIV.

(_From the Grand Duke NICHOLAS, Commander-in-Chief of the
Russian Armies._)

SIR,--It is pleasant in the midst of this welter of war to
remember the days when your nation and mine were at peace, and when it
was possible for each of us to inspect the troops of the other without
running the risk of having our heads blown off by gigantic shells fired
at the distance of several miles. What splendid reviews were those
you used to hold on the _Tempelhofer Feld!_ What a feeling of almost
irresistible power was inspired by those solid regiments manoeuvring
and marching past under the eyes of their supreme War-lord! I think
the intoxication of that sight was too great for you. You were not one
of those calm ones who can be secure through the mere possession of
strength. You had it, but at last came a point when you felt that it
was all useless to you unless you employed it. So you urged on Austria
in her unhappy policy of quasi-Bismarckian adventure; you cast to the
winds every prompting of prudence and humanity; you imagined that other
nations, because they were slow to take offence, could be bullied and
hectored with impunity; you flung your defiance east and west, and in a
moment of passion made war against all those who had striven for peace,
but were not prepared to cling to it at the price of dishonour.

And thus began the disappointments which have settled upon you like a
cloud. For, after all, war is entirely different from a review or from
the most skilful peace-manoeuvres. In manoeuvres everything can be
comfortably arranged beforehand. There are no bullets and no shells,
and at the end a Kaiser can place himself at the head of many thousands
of cavalry and can execute a charge that will resound for days through
the columns of the newspapers. But in war there is a real enemy who
has guns and bayonets and knows how to use them. All the colour that
fascinates a shallow mind has to be put aside. There are deaths and
wounds and sickness, and in the endurance of these and in the courage
that surmounts all difficulties and dangers the dingiest regiment may
make as brave a show as those which used to practise the parade-march
over the review-field. I rather doubt if you had thought of all
this--now had you?

Moreover our Russians, though they may look rough and though you may
accuse them of ignorance, are no whit inferior to the most cultivated
German professor in their patriotism and in their stern resolution
to die rather than submit to defeat. They do not boast themselves to
be learned men, but, on the other hand, it is not they who have made
Louvain a city of ruins. They fight fiercely against men who have arms
in their hands, but they have not executed innocent hostages, nor
have they used warships and airships to massacre women and children.
In these particulars they are willing to grant you and your Germans
an unquestioned supremacy. If that be the civilisation to which your
philosophers and poets have brought you, I can only say that we shall
endeavour to rub along without such philosophers and poets; and I must
beg you not to attempt to convert our Cossacks to your views. Being
simple folk and straightforward, they might resent violently your
efforts to give them the enlightenment of the Germans.

All this sounds like preaching, and Heaven knows I do not want to
preach to you. You have hardened your heart, and I suppose you must go
through this bitter business to the end. Let me rather tell you that,
rough and unlearned as we are, we are making excellent progress in our
fighting. So far we have once more foiled your HINDENBERG'S
attack on Warsaw. We have an earnest hope that we shall be able to make
your troops highly uncomfortable in the North, while towards the South
we have been dealing quite faithfully with the Austrians. The Caucasus
is filled with Turks dead or flying from our troops. As to Serbia--but
I feel it would be scarcely polite to mention this stiff-necked
country. It must be galling for your ally to have to fight a people so
small in numbers but so great in their unconquerable resolution. Was it
in order that Austrian troops might be chased headlong from Belgrade
that you went to war?

I am, with all possible respect, your devoted enemy,

  NICHOLAS.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE BREAKING POINT.

  I had a tooth, a rag-bag, an offence,
    A splintered horror, an abiding woe,
  And after shameful months of diffidence
    I brought it to the dentist, saying, "Lo!
  Here's a defaulter in my squad of fangs:
  Deal with him, please, and spare me needless pangs."

  "Ah yes," he said, and jammed that rubber thing
    (Does your man use it?) round the guilty tooth,
  And, having gagged me, started gossiping
    About the Germans' disregard for truth.
  "Did you observe," he asked, "that last report?"
  "Urrup!" said I, or something of the sort.

  "_How_ one admires our English troops!" said he,
    "Such hardy chaps! (A leetle wider, please).
  And isn't it a shameful thing to see
    So many slackers lounging at their ease--
  Young men who can and ought to go and serve?
  Shirkers!" he added, gouging at a nerve.

  Then he waxed wroth. "As for that Yarmouth job--
    Why do such brutes exist, Sir? Tell me why!
  They maim and mutilate, they burn and rob!
    Kultur be blowed!" said he. ("Gug-gug!" said I).
  "My word, I'd like to have a Uhlan now,
  Here, in this chair!" "Woo-oosh!" I answered. "Ow!"

  Thus for a dreadful hour he prattled on
    And quarried, rooting in the sorest place.
  Then he announced: "This tooth is too far gone;
    Only extraction now can meet the case.
  I'm sure you'd love to show your British pluck,
  And here's your chance; some chaps have all the luck!"

  Yes, he said that, and I could stand no more.
    Crushed as I was and anguished and half-dead,
  I wrenched his gag out, kicked it round the floor,
    And threw the tattered remnant at his head;
  And, seeking barbed words, I found but one
  That summed him up. "You are," I said, "a Hun!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Punch's "Notice."

The Treasurer of The National Anti-vivisection Society writes to
complain that we spoke last week of "The Anti-vivisection Society,"
when we were referring to "The British Union for the Abolition of
Vivisection." He protests that his Society "does not enjoy being
confused with the British Union in this manner," and concludes by
saying: "It is hard on us to be given no credit by _Mr. Punch_ for
being reasonable people and for refraining from this particular
agitation,"--the agitation, that is, against the anti-typhoid
inoculation of our troops.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: DOING HER BIT.

_Lady_ (_about to purchase military headgear, to her husband_).
"I KNOW IT'S MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE OTHERS, DEAR, BUT--WELL,
YOU SEE, YOU'RE TOO OLD TO ENLIST, AND I REALLY FEEL WE OUGHT TO DO
_SOMETHING!_"]

       *       *       *       *       *

BY THE SEA.

"Jolly good luck," Miss VESTA TILLEY used to sing, "to the
girl who loves a soldier!" The sentiment is not less true to-day than
when, too long ago, the famous male impersonator first uttered it.
But there is no need to be actually the warrior's lover. To be his
companion merely on a walk is to reap benefits, too, as I have been
observing on the promenade of ---- (a marine town whose name is, for
tactical reasons, suppressed). At ---- the girls whose good fortune it
is to have for an acquaintance a lieutenant or captain have just now a
great time, for the town has suddenly become a veritable Chatham, and
the promenade is also a _Champ de Mars_. All the week it is the scene
of military evolutions, a thought too strenuous for the particular
variety of jolly good luck of which I am thinking; but there's a day
which comes betwixt the Saturday and Monday when hard work gives way to
rest, and then----!

For then this promenade, two or three miles long, is thronged by the
military--privates, usually in little bands of threes and fours, and
officers, mostly accompanied by pretty girls. And the demeanour of some
of the younger of these officers is a great deal better worth watching
than the sullen winter sea or the other more ordinary objects of the
seaside. For they are there, some of them (bless their hearts!), for
the pleasure of being saluted, and their pretty friends enjoy the
reflected glory too. Some high-spirited ones among the satellites even
go so far as noticeably to count the salutes which a walk yields. And
I daresay they pit their bag against those of others. Their heroes
probably vote such a competition bad form, and yet I doubt if they are
really deeply resentful, and I guess that the young ROBERTS
and the young WOLSELEY and the young WELLINGTON all
passed through similar ecstasies when they were first gazetted.

It was while walking behind one such happy little group that I made the
discovery--a discovery to me, who am hopelessly a civilian, but no new
thing I daresay to most people--that the saluting soldier must employ
the hand which is farthest away from the officer whom he is saluting,
and that is why some use the right and some the left--a discrepancy
which plunged me into the gravest fears as to Lord KITCHENER'S
fitness to control our army, until I realised the method underlying.

I noticed too that there is a good deal of difference both in saluting
and in acknowledging salutes, and I overheard the fair young friend of
one lieutenant adjuring him to be a little more genial in his attitude
to the nice men who were bringing their arms and hands up with such
whipcord tenseness in his honour.

       *       *       *       *       *

 "On another occasion one of our officers was pursued by an albatross
 which succeeded in crossing our lines."

  _Victoria Daily Colonist._

Joy of the _Ancient Mariner_ on hearing, that his King and Country want
_him_.

       *       *       *       *       *

AT THE PLAY.

"KINGS AND QUEENS."

Just as THOMAS CARLYLE, out of his superior knowledge of the
proletariat, informed us that, if you pricked it, it would bleed, so
Mr. RUDOLF BESIER, fortified by intimacy with Court life,
confides to us on the programme (in quotation) that Kings and Queens
"have five fingers on each hand and take their meals regularly."
But unless we are to get a little sacrilegious fun (such as Captain
MARSHALL gave us) out of the contrast between the human nature
of Royalties and the formalities which govern them as by divine right,
there is not much object in raising a vulgar domestic scandal to the
dignity of Court circles. True, the higher claims of kingship did enter
into the question in the case of _Richard VIII._, whose heart was badly
torn between his duty to his people and his passion for his wife; but
for the rest, and apart from the mere properties (human or inanimate)
of a royal palace, we might have been concerned with an ordinary
middle-class interior complicated by a residential mother-in-law.

[Illustration: NOBLESSE OBLIGE.

_King Richard VIII._ (Mr. ARTHUR WONTNER), referring to his
mother, _Queen Elizabeth_ (Miss FRANCES IVOR). "KEEP HER
AWAY FROM ME, OR I SHALL KILL HER!"

_Emperor Frederick IV._ (SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER). "TUT, TUT!
SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. WE CAN'T PERMIT MATRICIDE AT THE ST. JAMES'S
THEATRE."]

The causes of the misunderstanding (partially shared by myself) between
the King and his Consort were some four or five. There was the Dowager
Queen--a constant obsession--who stood for the extreme of propriety.
She ought, of course, to have had a palace of her own. There was the
young King, upon whom she rigorously imposed her own standards of
living. There was the young Queen with a harmless taste for the natural
gaiety of youth. Not designed by nature for the wearing of the purple,
she had been taken from a nice country home, where there were birds and
flowers and mountains. She kept saying to herself:--

  "Mid pleasures and palaces though I may roam,
  Be they never so regal, I'd rather go home."

But, since she couldn't do that, she clamoured for pretty frocks, and
for the right to choose her own friends. Among these was an American
Marquise of so doubtful a record that her name had to be deleted
from the list of guests commanded to the State Ball. I was greatly
disappointed not to meet her. Then there was a royal female Infant
(deceased), who should of course have been a boy. Her contribution
to the general discomfort, though pressed upon us with fearless
reiteration, was always outside the grasp of my intelligence. Neither
of her parents seemed to share my hope that they might possibly live to
beget other offspring, including even a male child.

Lastly, there was a vagrant troubadour with a gift for the pianoforte.
He was called _Prince Louis_, and firmly held the opinion that he
alone appreciated the Queen's qualities and could offer her a suitable
solace. He had his simple dramatic uses, and by an elopement (as
innocent, on her part, as it was arbitrary) enabled the lady to return
to the arms of her desperate husband, for whom it appears that she had
always entertained a profound adoration. What they all really needed
for the correction of their little egoisms was a Big War. That is the
only lesson that I could draw from Mr. BESIER'S play, and I
don't believe he meant me to draw even that.

Such originality as it offered was to be found in the soul of the
young King, with its distraction between two loyalties; its despairing
conviction that virtue as its own reward was not good enough;
its threatened rebound to the primrose paths which his father of
never-to-be-forgotten memory had trodden before him. Mr. ARTHUR
WONTNER looked the part and played it with a very quiet dignity.

Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER, as an imperial uncle, of no particular
nationality, filled his familiar _role_ of _amicus curiae_; a man of
sixty and much dalliance in the past, but with his heart--what was left
of it--in the right place. His facial growth (a little in the manner of
Mr. MAURICE HEWLETT) suited him well--far better indeed than
the frock coat of the final Act. He was admirable throughout (except
in one rather stuffy homily where he was not quite certain of his own
views); but I could have done with much more of those lighter phases
in which he excels. It was the same with the pleasant humour of Miss
FRANCES IVOR as the Queen-Mother, which was sadly curtailed.
Miss MARIE LOeHR played the young Queen with extraordinary
sincerity, notably in one of the many scenes in which she lamented
her lost child. Here, if this tedious baby had not failed to touch my
imagination, I must have been honestly moved. If we suffered any doubt
as to the reality of her grief, this was due to the disturbing beauty
of the frocks in which she gave utterance to it. Anyhow they totally
failed to support the charge of dowdiness which had been freely brought
against the Queen-Mother's _regime_.

Finally, that native air of frank loyalty which Mr. BEN
WEBSTER'S gifts as an actor are impotent to disguise gave the lie
to his thankless part as _Prince Louis_. Nor did the superiority of his
morning-coat go well with the sinister touch of melodrama in his set
speeches. The villain of the piece should not have been _plus royaliste
que le roi_, who was content to wear a lounge serge suit.

If Mr. BESIER'S play achieves the popular favour of which, as
I understand, it has already secured the promise, it will not be on
account of its intrinsic merits, though it has its good points; it will
be due in part to the excellence of the performance, and in part to
that innocent snobbery which is latent in the typical British bosom.

I ought to add that I think I asked Mr. BESIER long ago to
try and make a better bow to his audience. Well, he hasn't paid any
attention to my request.

  O. S.

       *       *       *       *       *

"OUR WORLD FAMOUS TOILET CREAM

IMPROVES THE COMPLEXION

OF ALL LOCAL CHEMISTS AND STORES."

We do not worry about the complexion of the Stores but we are glad for
the local Chemists.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Officer_ (_to trooper, whom he has recently had
occasion to reprimand severely_). "WHY DID YOU NOT SALUTE?"

_Trooper._ "I THOCHT ME AN' YOU WISNA' ON SPEAKIN' TER-RMS THE
NOO."]

       *       *       *       *       *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

I confess that I was at first a little alarmed by the title of
_Friendly Russia_ (FISHER UNWIN). A book with a name like
that, with, moreover, an "introduction"--and one by no less a person
than Mr. H. G. WELLS--seemed to threaten ponderous things,
maps probably, and statistics and unpronounceable towns. Never was
there a greater mistake. What Mr. DENIS GARSTIN has put into
his entertaining pages is simply the effect produced by a previously
unknown country upon the keen and receptive mind of a young man who
is fortunately able to translate his impressions into vigorous and
picturesque language. I have met few travel books so unpretentious,
none that gives more vividly the feeling of "going there oneself" that
must be the final test of success. The last few years have made a happy
change in the popular English conception of Russia. Even before the
War, our old melodramatic idea, that jumble of bombs and spies and
sledge-hunting wolves, had begun to give place to a slightly apologetic
admiration. Now, of course, we are all Russophil; but for the
understanding proper to that love there can be no better introduction
than Mr. GARSTIN'S pleasant book. Spend with him a happy
summer by the waters of the Black Sea; share, along with his humour,
his appreciation of that life of contented simplicity, where easy-going
and hospitable families are ruled by the benevolent despotism of
equally easy-going domestics (O knouts, O servitude!), where the
casual caller "drops in" for a month or more, and where everyone knows
everything about everybody and nobody minds. By way of contrast to
this, the latter part of the book contains, in "Russia at War," some
chapters of an even closer appeal. You will read here, not unmoved, of
how that terrible week of suspense came upon the soul of a people, of
the fusion of all discordant factions into one army intent only upon
the Holy War. There is encouragement and a heartening certainty of
triumph in this that should be an unfailing remedy for pessimism.

       *       *       *       *       *

None of your confounded subtleties and last cries in _Mrs. Latham's
Extravagance_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL). An unvarnished tale,
rather, fashioned according to the naive method of simple enumeration
and bald assertion, with such subsidiary trifles as characterisation
left to the discretion and imaginative capacity of the reader.
_Christopher Sheffield_, an artist, post-cubist brand, married his
model, a dipsomaniac as it happened. Whereupon he implored _Katherine_
to share his life, which, to keep him from going down-hill, she very
generously did, it being explicitly understood that she was to have the
reversion of _Mrs. Sheffield's_ marriage lines. _Christopher_, however,
becomes infatuated with the widow Latham--who had married a rich old
gentleman for his money, while in love with _Lord Ronald Eckington_,
then the penniless fourth son of a marquis, now the celebrated and
well-paid photographer, "_Mr. Lestocq_"--so that when _Sheffield's_
model wife dies, he, instead of doing the right thing by _Katherine_,
suggests settling the matter on a basis of five-hundred or (at a push)
five-fifty a year. Naturally she draws herself up very cold and proud
and refuses the compensation. And then, with a hardihood and success
which nothing in this ingenuous narrative sufficiently explains, the
_Honourable Lavinia Elliston_, _Lord Ronald_ and the extravagant _Mrs.
Latham_ rush in to patch up the _Christopher-Katherine_ alliance. I
don't suspect Mr. THOMAS COBB of thinking that people really
do things quite like this, but probably he found that his characters
took the bits between their teeth--as they well might. _Lord Ronald's_
share in the transaction seemed particularly gratuitous. I can only
think that since moving in photographic circles he had discarded his
high patrician polish in favour of a distinctly mat surface. He didn't
marry the widow _Latham_ because he hated the thought of touching old
man _Latham's_ money. She, discovering this, disposed of the whole of
it in a few months of gloriously expensive living and giving. This,
by the way, was her "Extravagance," which of course brought the happy
ending. O, Mr. COBB!

       *       *       *       *       *

The king of curmudgeons could not complain when Mrs. CONYERS
is described as "one of the most entertaining hunting novelists of the
day," but when Messrs. METHUEN call her book (_A Mixed Pack_)
"a collection of Irish sporting stories" I may at least be allowed to
wonder at the inadequacy of their description. For the fact of the
matter is that a third part of this volume, and by no means the worst
part, is concerned with little _Mr. Jones_, a traveller in the firm of
_Amos and Samuel Mosenthal_, who were dealers in precious stones and
about as Irish and as sporting as their names suggest. _Mr. Jones_,
in the opinion of the _Mosenthals_, was the simplest soul that they
had ever entrusted with jewels of great value. Although the tales of
apparent simpletons who outwit crafty villains are becoming tedious in
their frequency, I can still congratulate Mrs. CONYERS upon
the thrills and shudders that she gets into these stories of robbery
and torture. Not for a moment do I believe in _Mr. Jones_, but for all
that I take the little man to my heart. As for the tales of sport, it
is enough to say that they are written with so much wit and _verve_
that even I, who am commonly suffocated with boredom when I have to
listen to a hunting story, found them quite pleasant to read.

       *       *       *       *       *

My expectations of enjoyment on opening _The Whalers_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON) were _nil_, for the tales of whaling to which from
time to time I have been compelled to listen have produced sensations
which can only be described as nauseating. Somewhere, somehow, I knew
that brave men risked their lives in gaining a precarious livelihood
from blubber, but I was more than content to hear no further details
either of them or their captures. Let me acknowledge, then, that Mr.
J. J. BELL has persuaded me, against my will, of the romance
and fascination of the whalers' calling. The twelve stories--or perhaps
they ought to be called sketches--in this book contain plenty that is
romantic and practically nothing that is repulsive. "There is," the
author says with engaging frankness, "much that is slow in whaling.
On the whole there is more anxiety than excitement, more labour than
sport." Not for me is it to contradict such an authority, but even
granted that he is right the fact remains that no one can justly
complain of a lack of excitement in these stories, though complaints
may legitimately be made that their pathos is sometimes allowed to drop
into sentimentality. "The Herr Professor--an Interlude" deserves an
especial word of praise, for it proves again that Mr. BELL,
when not occupied in other directions, can be simply and delightfully
funny.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _At the War Office._ "OH, PLEASE COULD YOU TELL ME
HOW TO FIND LORD KITCHENER'S ROOM? I WANT TO SEE HIM PARTICULARLY, AND
I WON'T KEEP HIM LONG. IT'S JUST TO WRITE HIS FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND
FLOWER IN MY ALBUM."]

       *       *       *       *       *

It must have happened to all of us to be hailed by some friend with
the greeting, "I've got the funniest story to tell you; it'll make you
scream," and to listen thereafter to something that produced nothing
but irritated perplexity. Then, if the friend were a valued one, with
a record of genuine humour, we would perhaps evoke with difficulty a
polite snigger, and so break from the encounter. Well, this is very
much what I cannot, help feeling about _The Phantom Peer_ (CHAPMAN
AND HALL). I have had such entertainment from Mr. EDWIN
PUGH in the past that I prepared for this Extravanganza (his own
term) in a mood of smiling anticipation. But from the first page to the
last it had me beat. Fun is the last subject in the world upon which
one should dare to dogmatize; and to others, more fortunate, the thing
may bring laughter. I can only envy them. It is not that I complain
of the impossibility of the plot. Extravaganza covers a multitude of
coincidences. When _Johnnie Shotter_ was persuaded to take the name
and personality of an imaginary _Lord Counterpound_, I bore without a
murmur the immediate arrival on the scene of an actual holder of that
very title. It was the dreariness of the resulting muddle that baffled
me. To make matters worse the intrigue, such as it is, breaks off
abruptly for several chapters in the middle, to permit the introduction
of what appears to be an attempted satire upon forcible feeding. At
the end, one of the chief male characters turns out to be a woman;
but as none of them was anything but a knock-jointed puppet jumping
upon ill-concealed wires the transformation was just academically
uninteresting. I am sorry, Mr. PUGH, but even for your sake I
can only say, "Tell us a better one next time!"

       *       *       *       *       *

From the letter of an American restaurateur to a new arrival from
England:--

 "DEAR SIR,--Before I chef--one Italian noble family--now
 come America--start the business my own--house top side this paper.
 Everybody speaks it me. Lunches and Dinners worth two (2) times. I
 delighted preparation for you--no charge extra--only notification
 me few hours behind. I build for clientelle intellectual--they more
 appreciation my art."





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch or the London Charivari, Vol.
148, January 27, 1915, by Various

*** 