Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 by Various
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Various >> Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914
Long since my whiskers I had to shave
To please this young barbarian,
But still for a while I stealthily clave
To the use of Pommade Hungarian;
But now my tyrant has made me snip
The glory and pride of my upper lip.
"My dear old man," he recently said,
"If you go on waxing the ends,
You're bound to be cut, direct and dead,
By all of my nuttiest friends.
For it's only done, so _The Mail_ discovers,
By Labour leaders and taxi-shovers."
So the deed was done, but whenever I gaze
On my face in the glass I moan
As I think of the mid-Victorian days
When my upper lip was my own.
For now, of length and of breadth bereft,
The ghost of a tooth-brush is all that's left.
* * * * *
"MISSING NAVY PAYMASTER ARRESTED."
_"Evening Standard" Poster._
So that's where it was all the time!
* * * * *
"The Under-sheriff said ... rumours against a man's
character were like a rolling stone, gathering moss as it
went."--_Western Mail_.
"As fond of the fire as a burnt child," is another of the Under
Sheriff's favourite sayings.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Indulgent Householder_. "WHY ARE YOU SINGING CAROLS,
MY LITTLE MAN? DON'T YOU KNOW CHRISTMAS IS OVER?"
_Youthful Caroller_. "YES, SIR; BUT I 'AD MEASLES ALL FROO
CHRISTMAS."]
* * * * *
ONCE UPON A TIME.
GLAMOUR.
Once upon a time there was a peer who knew the frailty of unennobled
man.
Having occasion to entertain at dinner a number of useful follows, he
instructed his butler to transfer the labels from a number of empty
bottles of champagne to an equal number of magnums of dry ginger-ale,
at ten shillings the dozen, and these were placed on the table.
At the beginning of the repast his lordship casually drew attention
to the wine which he was giving his guests, and asked for their candid
opinion of it, as he was aware that they were all good judges, who
knew a good thing when they saw it, and he would value their opinion.
And they one and all said it was an excellent champagne, and two or
three made a note of it in their pocket-books. And such was their
loyal enthusiasm that the banquet ended in a fine glow of something
exactly like hilarity.
* * * * *
AT THE PLAY.
"MARY-GIRL."
"I'm not going to give up my daily bath!" In these pregnant and moving
words rang the _cri de coeur_ which was to precipitate the tragedy of
_Mary Sheppard_. To you the attitude of mind which provoked this cry
may seem as natural as it was sanitary. But you must understand that
it ran directly counter to _Ezra Sheppard's_ ideal of the simple
God-fearing life. Godliness with him came first, and cleanliness
followed where it could. In his view a tub once a week was all that
any sane person should need. Apart from this hebdomadal use its proper
function was to hold dirty dishes and soiled clothes for the washing.
And indeed this had at one time been _Mary's_ own view (though
tempered by vague aspirations towards a softer existence, as we might
have guessed from the elegance of her brown shoes) before a year of
the higher life had shaken her content. Let us go back.
[Illustration: Mr. MCKINNEL (_Ezra Sheppard_) to Miss MAY BLAYNEY
(_Mary Sheppard_). "You've been lying again! You know how I hate it--I
told you so in this very theatre when we were playing in _Between
Sunset and Dawn_."]
_Ezra Sheppard_ was by profession a market-gardener, and his favourite
recreation was preaching in a barn. We have the picture of a frugal
but happy interior, with a new-born infant (_off_). The trouble began
with an offer made to his wife of a situation as foster-mother to
the baby (also _off_) of a neighbouring Countess. The wages were to
be high and she was to be delicately entreated; but there were hard
conditions. She was not to hold communication with her husband or
child for twelve months. I am sorry to say that _Mary_ did not flinch
from these conditions quite so much as I could have hoped. _Ezra_,
however, rejected them for her with manly scorn, until he was reminded
that the high wages would speed the end of his own ambitions--namely,
to replace his barn with a conventicle of brick. So he let his wife
loose into Eden with the Serpent.
And now we see _Mary_ seated in the lap of luxury, with soft gowns to
wear, and peaches to eat and instant slaves at her beck. You will, of
course, expect her virtue to fall an easy prey; but you will be wrong.
The Earl's attitude is pleasantly parental, and the attentions of
the Countess's cavalier--an author--are confined to the extraction
of copy. And anyhow _Mary's_ instincts are sound. Now and again she
remembers to pity the loneliness of her husband, whose cottage light
she can see from the window of her bower; and once, by a ruse, she
gets him to break the conditions and visit her; but when he learns
that the invitation came from her, and not, as alleged, from the
Countess, his conscience will not permit him to take advantage of his
chance. So you have the unusual spectacle of a true and loving wife
pleading in vain for the embraces of her true and loving husband.
But if her virtue, in the technical sense, remained intact, the
Serpent had overfed her with _pommes de luxe_. On her return
home--where the restoration of her child might have helped matters,
but it doesn't know who she is and refuses to part from its
foster-mother--we find her lethargic, off her feed, indifferent to the
claims of menial toil, and clamorous (as I have shown) for her rights
of the daily bath.
In the first joy of conjugal reunion _Ezra_ consents to tolerate the
discomfort of this change, but in the end he loses patience and hits
her. She leaves for London the same afternoon.
Six black months pass over the husband's bowed head, and then, on a
very windy night (the wind was well done), she makes a re-entry, and
confesses that, under stress of need, she has lapsed from virtue. This
is bad news for _Ezra_, but he is prepared to forgive a fault in which
he himself has had a fair share. Only there must be a sacrifice of
something, if moral justice is to be appeased. So he chooses between
his wife and his chapel and does execution on the latter. He goes
out into the storm and sets the thing alight. His conscience is thus
purified by fire, the gale being favourable to arson.
It is a pity that so excellent an object as a brick chapel should be
the evil genius of the play. Yet so it is. Built of the materials of
Scandinavian drama, it is always just round the corner, heavy with
doom. We never see it, but we hear more than enough about it, and in
the end it becomes a bore which we are well rid of.
The theme of the perils of foster-motherhood is not new, but Mrs.
MERRICK has treated it freshly and with a very decent avoidance of its
strictly sexual aspects. But her methods are too sedentary. She kept
on with her atmosphere long after we knew the details of the cottage
interior by heart; while a whole volume of active tragedy--_Mary's_
six months in London--was left to our fevered imagination. And the
sense of reality which she was at such pains to create was spoiled by
dialogue freely carried on in the immediate vicinity of persons who
were not supposed to overhear it.
The chief attraction of _Mary-Girl_ (a silly title) was the engaging
personality of Miss MAY BLAYNEY. Always a fascinating figure to watch,
she showed an extraordinary sensitiveness of voice and expression.
As for that honest and admirable actor, Mr. MCKINNEL, who made the
perfect foil to her charms that every good husband should wish to
be, he seems never to tire of playing these stern, dour, semi-brutal
parts. That more genial characters are open to him his success in
_Great Catherine_ showed. Miss MARY BROUGH, as a charwoman, supplied a
rare need with her richly-flavoured humour and its clipped sentences.
All the rest did themselves justice. Miss HELEN FERRERS was a shade
more aristocratic than the aristocrat of stage tradition; and it
was not the fault of Miss DOROTHY FANE (as her daughter, _Lady
Folkington_) that she was required to behave incredibly in the
presence of her inferiors. I have not much to say for the manners
of Society in its own circles; but it is probably at its best in its
intercourse with humbler neighbours. Mrs. MERRICK's picture of the
_Countess_ on a visit to the _Sheppards'_ cottage might have been
designed for a poster of the Land Campaign.
There was no dissenting note, I am glad to say, in the reception of
Mrs. MERRICK's charming self when she appeared after the fall of the
curtain.
"A pretty authoress!" said an actress in the stalls.
"Is that your comment on the play?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said.
O.S.
* * * * *
"Her Majesty was accompanied by Princess Henry and
John."--_Liverpool Echo_.
Where was Lord SAYE AND SELE?
* * * * *
[Illustration: "COME, COME, SIR! THAT'S THE HORSE WE KEEP FOR QUITE
YOUNG CHILDREN! HE WANTS TO _PLAY_ WITH YOU, SIR!"]
* * * * *
THE LAST STRAW.
I sing the sofa! It had stood for years,
An invitation to benign repose,
A foe to all the fretful brood of fears,
Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close.
Massive and deep and broad it was and bland--
In short the noblest sofa in the land.
You, too, my friend, my solid friend, I sing,
Whom on an afternoon I did behold
Eying--'twas after lunch--the cushioned thing,
And murmuring gently, "Here are realms of gold,
And I shall visit them," you said, "and be
The sofa's burden till it's time for tea."
"Let those who will go forth," you said, "and dare,
Beyond the cluster of the little shops,
To strain their limbs and take the eager air,
Seeking the heights of Hedsor and its copse.
I shall abide and watch the far-off gleams
Of fairy beacons from the world of dreams."
Then forth we fared, and you, no doubt, lay down,
An easy victim to the sofa's charms,
Forgetting hopes of fame and past renown,
Lapped in those padded and alluring arms.
"How well," you said, and veiled your heavy eyes,
"It slopes to suit me! This is Paradise."
So we adventured to the topmost hill,
And, when the sunset shot the sky with red,
Homeward returned and found you taking still
Deep draughts of peace with pillows 'neath your head.
"His sleep," said one, "has been unduly long."
Another said, "Let's bring and beat the gong."
"Gongs," said a third and gazed with looks intent
At the full sofa, "are not adequate.
There fits some dread, some heavy, punishment
For one who sleeps with such a dreadful weight.
Behold with me," he moaned, "a scene accurst.
The springs are broken and the sofa's burst!"
Too true! Too true! Beneath you on the floor
Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things
That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store
Of tacks and battens and protruded springs.
Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt,
Mute proofs and mournful of your weight and guilt.
And you? You slept as sweetly as a child,
And when you woke you recked not of your shame,
But babbled greetings, stretched yourself and smiled
From that eviscerated sofa's frame,
Which, flawless erst, was now one mighty flaw
Through the addition of yourself as straw.
R.C.L.
* * * * *
"A really acceptable present for a lady is a nice piece
of artificial hair, as, when not absolutely necessary, it
is always useful and ornamental."--_Advt. in "Aberdeen
Free Press."_
Still, it might be misunderstood.
* * * * *
"Theologians and mystics might say, 'Is that not mere
anthropomrhpism?'"--_Mr. BALFOUR according to "The Daily
Mail."_
But a Welshman would say it best.
* * * * *
"An aggressive minority succeeded in showing that the
Little Navy-ites do not represent the bulk of public
opinion."--_Daily Express_.
It is, of course, always the aggressive minority which really
represents the bulk of public opinion.
* * * * *
A BYGONE.
When I see the white-haired and venerable Thompson standing behind my
equally white-haired but much less venerable father at dinner, exuding
an atmosphere of worth and uprightness and checking by his mere silent
presence the more flippant tendencies of our conversation; when I hear
him whisper into my youthful son's ear, "Sherry, Sir?" in the voice of
a tolerant teetotaler who would not force his principles upon any man
but hopes sincerely that this one will say No; and when I am informed
that he promised our bootboy a rapid and inevitable descent to a state
of infamy and destitution upon discovering no more than the fag end of
a cigarette behind his ear, then I am tempted to recall an incident of
fifteen years back, lest it be forgotten that Thompson is a man like
ourselves who has known, and even owned, a human weakness.
Dinner had begun on that eventful evening at 7.30 P.M., and it was
drawing within sight of a conclusion, that is, the sweet had been
eaten and the savoury was overdue, at 9.45 P.M. Four of us had trailed
thus far through this critical meal: my father, a usually patient
widower who was becoming more than restless; the Robinsons, never a
jocund brace of guests, who were by now positively sullen, and myself
who, being but a boy--of twenty odd years and having little enough to
say to a woman of fifty-five and her still more antique husband, had
long ago settled down to a determined silence. Meanwhile Thompson,
then in his first year of service with us, tarried mysteriously heaven
knows where.
The intervals of preparation before each course had been growing
longer and longer and the pause before the savoury threatened to be
infinite. My father commanded me to ring the bell severely. Longing to
escape from the table I did so with emphasis, and my ring summoned (to
our surprise, for we were not aware of her existence in the house) a
slightly soiled kitchen-maid.
"Where is Thompson?" asked my father sternly.
"At the telephone, Sir," stammered the maid.
"The telephone!" cried my father. "Whatever is the matter?"
The maid started to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled
in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father
commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was
even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a measured
tread and slow that he advanced upon my father.
"Will you please serve the savoury at once?" said my father.
"I am afraid it cannot be done, Sir," said Thompson. "May I explain,
Sir?"
"What is the meaning of this?" asked my father, fearing some terrible
disaster below stairs, and sacrificing politeness to his guests with
the hope of saving lives in the kitchen.
Thompson cleared his throat.--"For some weeks, Sir," he said, "I have
been much worried with financial affairs. Like a fool I have invested
all my savings in speculative shares, and the variations of the market
have unduly depressed me. When I am depressed I take no food, and that
depresses me even more."
You will be as surprised as we were that this was allowed to continue,
but when a man of so few words as Thompson chooses to come out of
his shell he is always master of the situation. "And so, Sir," he
continued, "I have taken the liberty of telephoning to the mews for
a cab."
He paused and bowed, as if this made it all clear, and was about
to withdraw. "Kindly finish serving dinner at once, and don't be
impudent," my father got out at last.
Thompson sighed. "It is absolutely out of the question, Sir," said he.
"Quite, quite impossible."
"Why on earth?" cried my father.
Thompson became, if possible, more solemn and deliberate than before.
"I am drunk, Sir," said he.
At this point Mrs. Robinson, whose indignation had slowly been
swelling within her, rose and left the room. Robinson, as in duty
bound, followed. Neither of them, to my infinite joy, has ever
returned...
"Depressed by want of food, Sir," continued Thompson, by sheer duress
preventing my father from following his guests and attempting to
pacify them, "I have taken to spirits. I do not like the taste of
spirits and they go at once to my head. They depress me further, Sir,
but they intoxicate me. Yes, I am undoubtedly tipsy."
My father seized the opportunity of his pause for reflection to order
him to leave the room and present himself in the morning when he was
sober.
"You dismiss us without notice, Sir," he stated, referring to himself
and his wife in the kitchen. "First thing in the morning we go. And so
I have ordered the cab to take us."
This was a very proper fate for Thompson but came a little hard on my
father. "But what am _I_ to do?" asked he.
Thompson regarded him with a desultory smile. "The Mews desires to
know, Sir," said he, "who will pay for the cab?"
I ought to be able to state that there followed with the cold light
of day an apology, with passionate tears and remorse, from Thompson,
or at least a severe reprimand from my father before he consented to
keep him on. I regret to say that my father, next morning, postponed
the interview till the evening, and from the evening till the next
morning, and--that interview is still pending. If this seems weak, you
have only to see Thompson to realize that no man with any sense of the
incongruous could even mention the word "Drink" in his presence.
As for the cab which Thompson had ordered, though we never saw it we
later heard all about it. It went to the wrong house because, as the
proprietor of the mews informed us with shame and regret, the driver
entrusted with the order had been very much under the influence of
alcohol. Altogether it is a sordid tale, made no better by the fact
that the house which the drunken driver chose to go to and insult was
the Robinsons'...
* * * * *
LOVE AT THE CINEMA.
Inert I watched the Hero sacked
For lapses clearly not his own;
The midnight murder on the cliff,
The wonted ante-nuptial tiff,
The orange-blossoms, bored me stiff.
The picture-hall was simply packed,
But I was all alone.
Alone! Two little hours could span
The gloom that bound me stark and grim
(No melancholy pierced me through
Before the 7.32
Had ravished Barbara from view),
And yet I brooked it like a man
Until I noticed HIM.
He sat extravagantly near
His Heart's Delight. To my distress,
When temporary twilight fell,
He squeezed her hand (and squeezed it well!),
Possessed her waist, and in that shell,
That damask shell she calls an ear,
Breathed words of tenderness.
The blood ran riot to my head
And still I held my madness thrall,
My lips repressed the frenzied shriek,
My straining heart was stout as teak;
But, when he kissed her mantling cheek,
I broke--and two attendants led
Me wailing from the hall.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LOST CHRISTMAS PRESENT.
_Maid_ (_to postman delivering long-delayed parcel_). "WHAT IS IT?"
_Postman_. "LABEL SAYS, 'WILD DUCKS,' BUT THEY'RE 'UMMING-BIRDS NOW".]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)
There is at least one thing that will surprise you about _It Happened
in Egypt_ (METHUEN), and that is that, although C.N. and A.M.
WILLIAMSON are the writers, motor-cars are hardly so much as mentioned
throughout. It is a tale of the Nile and the Desert, of camels and
caravans, told with a quite extraordinary power of making you feel
that you have visited the scenes described. But this, of course,
if you have any previous experience of the WILLIAMSON method, will
not surprise you at all. As for the story that strings the scenes
together, though it promised well, with almost every possible element
of fictional excitement--buried treasure, and spies, and abductions,
and secrets--somehow the result was not wholly up to the expectation
thus created. To borrow an appropriate simile, the great thrill
remained something of a mirage, always in sight and never actually
reached. Also I wish to record my passionate protest against stories
of treasure-trove in which the treasure is not taken away in sacks and
used to enrich the hunters; I am all against leaving it underground,
for whatever charming and romantic reasons. No, it is not so much as
a novel of adventure that might have happened pretty well anywhere
that I advise you to read this book, but as a super-guide to scenes
and sensations that happen in Egypt and nowhere else. From the moment
when, as one of the WILLIAMSON party, you sit down to breakfast on the
terrace of Shepherd's, till you take leave of your fellow-travellers
in the mountain-tomb of QUEEN CANDACE, you will enjoy the nearest
possible approach to a luxurious Egyptian tour, under delightful
guidance, and at an inclusive fare of six shillings.
* * * * *
Mr. SETON GORDON is a bold man. It is one thing to call a book
_The Charm of the Hills_ (CASSELL) and quite another to succeed in
conveying that charm through the medium of the printed word. Perhaps,
however, he was encouraged by the success that has already attended
these pen-pictures of Highland scenes in serial form; certainly he
knew also that he had another source of strength in a collection of
the most fascinating photographs of mountain scenery and wild life,
nearly a hundred of which are reproduced in the present volume. So
that what Mr. GORDON the writer fails to convey about his favourite
haunts (which is not much) Mr. GORDON the photographer is ready
to supply. The papers, which range in subject from ptarmigan to
cairngorms, are written with an engaging simplicity and directness,
and show a sympathetic knowledge of wild nature such as is the
reward only of long familiarity. The glorious mountain wind
blows through them all, so that as you read you feel the heather
brushing your knees, and see the clouds massing on the peaks of
Ben-something-or-other. Perhaps Mr. GORDON is at his most interesting
on the subject of the Golden Eagle. There are many striking snapshots
of the king of birds in his royal home; and some stories of court
life in an eyrie that are fresh and enthralling. One thing that I was
specially glad to learn on so good authority is that the Golden Eagle,
so far from being threatened with extinction, is actually increasing
in the deer forests of the North. This is intelligence as welcome as
it is nowadays unusual. The book, which is published at 10s. 6d. net,
is dedicated "to one who loves the glens and corries of the hills";
and all who answer to this description should be grateful to the
writer for his delightful record.
* * * * *
Goodness knows that of all London's teeming millions I am the
possessor of the most easily curdled blood, but my flesh declined
to creep an inch from the first page to the last of _Animal Ghosts_
(RIDER). I think it was Mr. ELLIOTT O'DONNELL's way of telling
his stories that was responsible for my indifference. He is so
incorrigibly reticent. His idea of a well-told ghost story runs on
these lines:--"In the year 189--, in the picturesque village of
C----, hard by the manufacturing town of L----, there lived a wealthy
gentleman named T---- with his cousin F---- and two friends M----
and R----." I simply refuse to take any interest in the spectres of
initials, still less in the spectres of the domestic pets of initials.
I am no bigot; by all means deny your ghost his prerogative of
clanking chains and rattling bones; but there are certain points on
which I do take a firm stand, and this matter of initials is one of
them. Not one of these stories is convincing. Mr. O'DONNELL taps
you on the chest and whispers hoarsely, "As I stood there my blood
congealed, I could scarcely breathe. My scalp bristled;" and you,
if you are like me, hide a yawn and say, "No, really?" There is a
breezy carelessness, too, about his methods which kills a story. He
distinctly states, for instance, that the story of the "Headless Cat
of No. ----, Lower Seedley Street, Manchester," was told to him by a
Mr. ROBERT DANE. In the first half of the narrative this gentleman's
brother-in-law addresses him as _Jack_, and later on his wife says to
him, "Oh, _Edward_." What a man whose own Christian name is so much a
matter of opinion has to say about seeing headless cats does not seem
to me to be evidence.
* * * * *
There seems to be an increasing public for the volume of reflections.
At all events Mr. REGINALD LUCAS, who has already two or three
successes in this kind to his credit, has been encouraged to produce
another, to which he has given the pleasant title of _The Measure of
our Thoughts_ (HUMPHREYS). It is, of course, difficult to be critical
with a book like this; either it pleases the reader or it doesn't, and
that is about all that can be said. One reason for my belief that Mr.
LUCAS's _Thoughts_ will please is that he has put them into the brain
of a definitely conceived and very well drawn character. They are told
in the form of letters by this character to his old tutor. The writer
is supposed to be the rather unattractive and self-conscious eldest
son of a noble house, who suffers from the presence of a father and
sister who think him a fool, and a brother whose charm is a continual
and painful contrast to his own lack of it. The special skill of the
letters is their self-revelation, which brings out the pathos of the
writer's position, while at the same time showing quite clearly the
defects that explained it. Mr. LUCAS, in short, does not commit the
error of making his hero merely a mute, misunderstood paragon, whom
anyone with common penetration must have recognised as such. On the
contrary, we sympathise with him, especially in the big tragedy of
his life, while quite admitting that to any casual acquaintance he
must have appeared only a dull and uninteresting egoist. This I call
clever, because it shows that Mr. LUCAS has created a real thinker,
rather than striven to give him any unusual profundity of thought. An
agreeable book.