Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 146 February 18 1914 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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Ebook has 252 lines and 18013 words, and 6 pages

Our boys shall note the sacred Nine Ascending their immortal peak, Also Apollo .

They shall behold TEIRESIAS Telling the doom of Thebes, and con With eyes but not with lips the crass Way in which OEDIPUS went on.

They shall observe quite painlessly The heroes toiling as they sit Rowing upon the sun-kissed sea With black smuts racing over it.

Some stout electroscopic "star," Some Gallic beauty bistre-eyed, Shall show them in the years afar How Helen laughed, how Priam died,

And how the good AENEAS came Through faked adventures on the screen To Latium, and what forks of flame Devoured a dummy Punic queen.

And some day, if the gods are kind To hearts so filled with classic feats In many a marble palace "cined" And puffed so oft in halfpenny sheets,

Youth shall draw learning from the spring Pierian, and be taught to know The clustered verbal shames that cling About the moving picture show,

Till at the last shall dawn a bright, A long-to-be-remembered day, When porticos of fanes of light Shall print Kinema with a K.

EVOE.

"H.M.S. Cumberland.

Geneva, Tuesday.

The Municipality to-day gave a luncheon in honour of the officers and cadets of the training ship Cumberland.--Reuter."

"Widcombe Manor, Bath, in which Fielding is said to have written 'Tom Jones,' is to come under the hammer shortly. It is one of the smaller houses erected by Indigo Jones."

THE BAZAAR CUSHION.

"Ha! Someone has been sitting on it," cried Father William, snatching a flattened object off the piano-stool in high irritation. "It's abominable, you know," turning to me. "There are any number of cushions. The house is stuffed with cushions. Why people should always pounce upon this one and manhandle it in this way"--He put it on the table and began punching and squeezing and puffing and smoothing it till it had expanded to its full extent. Then he flicked the dust off it with his handkerchief. "I'll put it back in its box under the sofa," he said. "I can't understand how it ever got out."

He dropped into an armchair and instantly recovered his equanimity.

"And why should they spare that one?" I asked.

"That," said the old man solemnly, "is my bazaar cushion."

"It came back only last night," he went on. "Are you a judge of cushions? How do you like it? Pretty nice piece of work, eh?"

"Yes," said I cautiously. "Looks to me pretty well put together and all that; but it's rather--well, hideous, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes," said Father William. "I suppose it's the colour you object to. I confess it's a bit of an eyesore. But of course it has to be like that. It's a case of protective colouring, you know."

I didn't quite follow his line of thought and there was a short pause. "You would hardly think to look at it," the old man went on at last, "that that cushion has stood between me and all the trials and persecutions incidental to bazaars for nearly half a century. Perhaps the plague is not quite so bad as it was in the old days when I was in my first City parish, but I must say they were particularly active last summer. They have taken to holding them outside now, with Chinese lanterns, so that there is no close season at all. I had the wit at the very outset to see that the thing must be grappled with. They used to badger me in two separate ways. I was always expected to send some sort of contribution--and then I had to go and buy things. That was the worst of it. I used to dive about, harassed and pursued, searching in vain for the price of my freedom, always confronted by smoking-caps and impossible needlework. It was a fearful ordeal."

"I know," said I, with sympathy. "I know all about it."

"But I found a way out, thanks to my cushion. I bought it at a Sale of Work for Waifs and Strays nearly forty-seven years ago, and I think you will agree with me that it is a fairly good cushion yet. Of course it has been re-covered more than once. It was getting altogether too well known in Streatham at one time. It used to be blue with horrid little silver spangles."

"And how does it work?"

"It is beautifully simple. I am told that a bazaar is contemplated and asked if I will assist. Very well, I send my cushion. That is quite good enough; no one would expect me to do more. Then I go, on the appointed day, buy the cushion, and walk out with an enormous parcel for all the world to see that I have done my duty. Then it goes back in its box. The only bazaars that I am unable to assist are those which occur when my cushion happens to be out."

"And is it never sold?"

"Do you put a price on it?" I asked.

"Oh, no. I don't like to do that. That might put me in an awkward position if it came out. But I find it fairly exciting on each occasion to discover what I shall have to pay for it. It is generally more expensive now than it used to be in the old days. I suppose it is the rise in the cost of living. But I am seldom satisfied, either way. If it is too cheap I naturally feel rather slighted, seeing that it was I who sent it; and if it is too dear of course I am annoyed because I have to buy it. And it fluctuates extraordinarily. I have more than once bought it in at half-a-crown and come home burning with indignation, and, if you will believe me, there was a blackguard at that big Sale of Work for the Territorials in the autumn who had the effrontery to charge me a guinea and a half. I was furious with him."

"I wish you would lend it to me, Father William," said I, after a pause. "We are getting up a Jumble Sale in Little Sudbury."

"No," said Father William firmly, "no. Little Sudbury is barred. The last time it was there on sale there was a very painful scene. I had arrived rather late, I remember, and I found my cushion actually being sold by auction along with a pair of worsted slippers and a woolly door mat--in one lot. I thought it showed very poor taste. Besides, it is already booked to appear six times in the next fortnight."

HAROLD NAPPING.

The Duke of SUTHERLAND, we see, values the diamond-studded gold watch and chain, of which he has just been relieved by two desperate Neapolitans, at ?60. But the real question is, would the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER accept that valuation?

WHEN BOSS EATS BOSS.

The recent meeting of the Statistical Society was rendered remarkable by a letter from Mr. LLOYD GEORGE who, in regretting his inability to be present, impressed upon the Society the need of upholding a vigorous and fastidious accuracy in the use of facts and figures. "To gain a momentary triumph over an antagonist in a public controversy by a misquotation, even though only a fraction is involved, is, in my opinion, an act which permanently disqualifies the offender from holding any place of responsibility." These golden words, so the President observed, ought to be engraved in indelible letters in every school in the kingdom.

The dignified and telling rebuke recently addressed by Mr. BERNARD SHAW to Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON, for undue indulgence in paradoxical gymnastics, has given great satisfaction to the members of the Society for the Promotion of Simplified Thought. As the President of the Society, Dr. Pickering Phibbs, puts it, to have Mr. SHAW on the side of the angels is enough to make the Powers of Darkness throw up the sponge.

Mr. KEIR HARDIE'S remarkable speech at Wolverhampton, when he declared that it was the duty of Labour to uphold the British Constitution, has profoundly impressed Mr. LARKIN and Mr. LANSBURY, who are of opinion that the stability of the British Empire is now assured for at least one hundred years.

The publication of a letter from Mr. ROOSEVELT, censuring President WILSON for the prolixity and verbosity of his Presidential messages, will, it is believed, lend a powerful impetus to the campaign on behalf of brevity in public utterances.

You want to be tall to reach up to the higher branches.

Success comes in Cans, not in Can'ts.

Once-a-year Clearance.

To-day and Following Days.

Wonder Values!

Stimulants to Encourage Purchasers.

In the cans, we suppose.

A GOLF JUDGMENT.

Dear Sir,--As I am not at all satisfied with the recent decision of The Rules of Golf Committee on the position created by a cow carrying off a ball in her hoof, I appeal to you to arbitrate in the following dispute between myself and my friend A .

During some very wild weather we made an arrangement, before starting out, that, in the event of another storm coming on, the game should be decided by the score existing at the moment of our consequent retirement.

A was in receipt of six bisques. I holed out the first in five. A, who was in well-deserved trouble all the way, holed out in ten. I remarked, "One up!" to which A made no response. As we moved off to the second tee there was a loud clap of thunder and the heavens burst over our heads. A at once shouted above the tumult, "I take my six bisques and claim the hole and the match." He then headed swiftly for the pavilion.

Yours faithfully, FAIR PLAY.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

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