Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 159 1920-09-15 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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Ebook has 239 lines and 17315 words, and 5 pages

I admit that the South of England and London in particular would have very little share in these competitions, and we should depend for local interest mainly upon the promising young colts from the Kentish nurseries. But we could find out from our dealers where our coals came from and follow from afar the fortunes of our adopted teams; and Cabinet Ministers, at any rate, could distribute their patronage and their presence with tact over the various areas involved.

MR. BALFOUR HEWS OFF AT DURHAM

is another headline which seems to suggest itself, and I should strongly urge the PRIME MINISTER, who has returned, I hear, with a St. Bernard from the Alps, to lose no time in selecting a more appropriate playmate.

PREMIER AT TONYPANDY. MR. LLOYD GEORGE PATS PET PIT-PONY

is the kind of thing I mean, and very hard also to say six times quickly without making a mistake.

Obviously the result of all this would be that not only would the miners be justified in asking for more money, but that the country would be able to afford it; and similar competitive leagues, to supersede trade unions, would soon be formed by other trades. One seems to hear faintly the loud plaudits of the onlookers as two crack teams of West-end road-menders step smartly into the arena....

EVOE.

"Married Shepherd, used hilly country and all farm and station work, desires Situation; wife would cook one or two men."

THE PASSING OF THE CRADLE.

Snug retreat for mother's treasure, Shall I pine as I repeat Rumour's strange report, which says you're Virtually obsolete? Shall these lips a doleful lyric Proffer at your ghostly bier, Or compose a panegyric Moistened with a minstrel's tear?

For, when she and you shall sever , Your departure may for ever Lay her proudest triumph low; Yes, while men 'll Round her fingers still be twirled, If her hand can't rock a cradle It may cease to boss the world.

"MORE LITERARY HEREDITY.

Fresh literary fame seems to be pending for the Maurice Hewlett family circle.

No more of the old-fashioned DARWIN and GALTON nonsense about fathers and children.

SEVEN WHITEBAIT.

You, reader, are one of those ignorant people who do so much discredit to our Public Schools. You fondly think that the whitebait is a special kind of fish, that there are father whitebaits and mother whitebaits and baby whitebaits. You are wrong. There are only baby whitebaits. At least there are baby herrings and baby pilchards, and these are called whitebait because they are eaten by the mackerel and because they look white when they are swimming upside down.

Anyhow Walter and John and Isabel and Margaret and Rupert and St?phanie and little Foch began life as whitebait. They used to charge about the Cornish seas with whole platefuls of other whitebait, millions of them, and wherever they went they were pursued by thousands of mackerel, who wanted to eat them. One day John felt that the moment was very near when he would be eaten by a mackerel, and he was quite right. Isabel felt the same thing, but she was wrong. She jumped out of the water and was eaten by a sea-gull. When the fishermen saw Isabel leaping into the air they came out and caught the mackerel in a net. They also caught Margaret with a lot of other whitebait; and she was eaten by a barrister at "Claridge's."

There were now four of the family who had not been eaten by anyone. It is extraordinary when you come to think of it that any herring ever contrives to reach maturity at all. What with the mackerel and the seagulls and the barristers, everybody seems to be against it. However, Walter, Rupert and Foch succeeded. St?phanie just missed. Walter and Rupert and Foch had jolly soft roes, a fact which is recorded in a cynical little poem by the precocious Foch, believed to be the only literary work of a whitebait now extant. We have only space here to quote the opening couplet:--

The herrings with the nice soft rows Are gentlemen; the rest are does.

The survivors of the family had now to choose a career. From the beginning it seems to have been recognised that St?phanie at least would have to be content with a humbler sphere than her more gifted brothers. She had a hard roe and was rather looked down upon. But she was an independent little thing and her pride revolted at a life of subjection at home; so while still a girl she went off on her own and got mixed up with some pilchards who were just being caught in a net. St?phanie was caught too and became a sardine. She was carefully oiled and put in a tin, and she was eaten at a picnic near Hampton Court. But there is every reason to suppose that she was eaten happy, since in those less exacting circles nobody seemed to mind about her hard roe, which had been a perpetual bugbear to her in the herring world.

Little Foch, alas, failed to fulfil his youthful promise and became a common bloater. Worse than that, he was bloated too thoroughly and was almost impossible to eat. Even his lovely roe, the pride of his heart, became so salt that the Rector of Chitlings finally rejected it with ignominy, though not before he had consumed so much of it that he had to drink the whole of his sermon-water before he began to preach.

But it was Walter, Walter the chronicler, Walter the clever, the daring, the ambitious, leader in every escapade, adviser in every difficulty, who was to suffer the crowning humiliation. Walter became a kipper. If there is one thing that a herring cannot stand it is to be separated from his roe. Walter's roe was ruthlessly torn from him and served up separate on toast, with nothing to show that it was the glorious roe of Walter. It was eaten at the Criterion by a stockbroker, and it might have been anybody's roe. Meanwhile the mutilated frame, the empty shell of Walter, was squashed flat in a wooden box with a mass of others and sold at an auction by the pound. It broke his heart.

A.P.H.

FLOWERS' NAMES.

LADY'S SLIPPER.

Country gossips, nodding slow When the fire is burning low, Or chatting round about the well On the green at Ashlins Dell, With many a timid backward glance And fingers crossed and eyes askance, Still tell about the Midmas Day When Marget Malherb went away.

"After Midmas Day shall break, Maidens, neither brew nor bake; See your house be sanded clean; Wear no stitch of fairy green; Go barefoot; wear nor hose nor shoon From rise of sun to rise of moon; For the Good People watch and wait Waiting early, watching late, For foolish maids who treat with scorn The mystic rites of Midmas Morn."

Marget Malherb tossed her head, "I fear no fairies' charms," she said-- For she'd new slippers she would wear To show her lad the pretty pair, Soft green leather, buckled red-- "I fear no fairies' charms," she said. She drew them on and laughed in scorn, And out she danced on Midmas Morn.

Nevermore was Marget seen; But when her lover sought the green A Fairy Ring was all he found-- A Fairy Ring on the weeping ground; And by the hedge a flower grew, Long and slender, filled with dew, Green and pointed, ribboned red; And still you'll find them as I've said. And Marget comes, so gossips say, To wear her shoes on Midmas Day.

"MILK PRICES UP. HIGHER CHARGE TO MEET THE COST OF PETROL."

We always thought it was water that they used.

THE PERSUASIVE POWER OF BEAUTY IN ART.

A DIFFERENCE OF CLASS.

It is without doubt the most expensive hotel on the front, and the palatial dining-room in which we have just lunched is furnished and decorated in that sumptuously luxurious style to which only wealth, untrammelled by art, is able to attain. Personally I cannot afford to take my meals at such places, and I know that the same holds good of my fellow-guest, Charteris. Charteris was the best scholar of our year at Oriel, and since his demobilisation he and his wife have been living in two rooms, except during the periods when their son joins them for his holidays from Winchester. But our host is still possessed of an obstinate wealth which even the War has done little to diminish, and, as he himself puts it, is really grateful to those of his old friends who will help him in public to support the ignominy.

At the moment, having finished lunch, we have betaken ourselves to wicker-chairs in the porch, and Charteris and our host being deep in a golf discussion I venture once more to turn a covert attention to the exceedingly splendid couple who have just followed us out from the dining-room. I noticed them first on my arrival, when they were just getting out of their Rolls-Royce, and the admiration which I then conceived for them was even further enhanced during lunch by a near view of the lady's diamonds and of the Cinquevalli-like dexterity shown by her husband in balancing a full load of peas on the concave side of a fork. At present the man, somewhat flushed with champagne, is smoking an enormous cigar with a red-and-gold band round it, while the lady, her diamonds flashing in the sunshine, leans back in her chair and regards with supercilious eyes the holiday crowds that throng the pavement below.

Following her glance my attention is suddenly arrested by the strange behaviour of two passers-by, who have stopped in the middle of the pavement and, after exchanging some excited comments, are staring fixedly towards us. From their appearance they would seem to be a typical husband and wife of the working-class on holiday, and it occurs to me that, given the clothes and the diamonds, they might well be occupying the wicker-chairs of the couple opposite. Evidently the sight of somebody or something in the hotel porch has excited them greatly, for they continue to stare up at us with a hostile concentration that renders them quite unconscious of the frantic efforts of the small child who accompanies them to tug them towards the beach. After a moment they exchange a few more quick words, and the man leaves his companion and makes his way towards us. Ascending the hotel steps with an air of great determination he comes to a halt before the couple opposite.

"'Ere, I've bin lookin' for you," he begins accusingly.

The Rolls-Royce owner takes the cigar from his mouth and gazes in astonishment at the accusing apparition before him.

"A hour ago," pursues the newcomer relentlessly, "you was driving along the front here in the whackin' great car. It ain't no good denyin' it, 'cos I took the number."

"What d'ye mean--denying it?" exclaims Rolls-Royce. "Who's denying anythink?"

"It ain't no good tryin' to deny it," retorts the other. "An' it ain't no good denyin' wot you did neether, 'cos I've got my missus 'ere to prove it."

"What I did?" echoes the astonished man. "What did I do?"

"Ran over my child's b'loon," states the accuser, fixing him with a pitiless eye. For the moment the object of this serious charge is too taken aback to be capable of speech.

"'Ran over my child's b'loon,'" repeats the other inexorably. "Leastways your chauffer did. An' when we 'ollered out to yer to stop you just rushed on like a runaway railway-train."

Rolls-Royce, conscious of the curious gaze of the entire company, pulls himself together and regards his accuser unfavourably.

"First I've 'eard of it," he growls. "Where was the balloon anyway? In the road, I s'pose?"

"Look 'ere, that's enough of it," says the car-owner harshly. "If the balloon got run over it's yer own fault for letting it go in the road."

"That's a nice way to talk," suddenly comes in shrill tones from the woman below, who has edged her way to the foot of the steps. "We don't go buyin' balloons for you to run over in yer cars. We're respectable people, we are, an' we work for our livin'."

"Drivin' about in a car like an express train, runnin' over other people's b'loons," corroborates her husband bitterly. "Wot country d'yer think yer in? Prussia?"

"Not on yer life," he snaps. "They won't get a cent out o' me."

"Ho, won't we!" exclaims his accuser hotly. "We'll soon see about that. We're English people, we are--we don't allow people to go about destroyin' our b'loons."

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