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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 146 February 4 1914 by Various Seaman Owen Editor
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Ebook has 243 lines and 17575 words, and 5 pages
How do people get on without Lidbetters? I wondered. I suppose there are men who do not keep men and yet exist--men who can't say, "My man"? An odd experience.
I wondered how old he was by now--Lidbetter. Difficult to tell the age of that type, so discreet and equable. He might be anything from thirty to fifty.
And what was his other name? Curious how I had never ascertained that. I must ask him, or, better still, get him to witness something and sign his full name. My will, say.
Talking of wills, perhaps I ought to leave Lidbetter something after such faithful service.
Good old Lidbetter!
Thus musing I walked home.
The next morning I went to the shop and asked for the parcel.
"You surely won't carry it yourself?" the shopkeeper said. "I would have sent it only I understood that your man would call."
"I haven't got a man," I said. "I've never had one."
"Pardon," he replied, and gave me the parcel.
"Two quite unique golf performances have been made on the Lutterworth course. The Rev. W. C. Stocks and Mr. F. Marriott were playing a round of eighteen holes last Friday, and at the third hole, which is an iron shot , Mr. Marriott surprised himself and amazed his opponent by holing out with an iron. Then when they came to the eighth hole, which is 188 yards distance, the rev. gentleman went one better. Taking his brassey, he had the delightful experience of seeing his ball roll into the hole. Both shots were magnificently directed."
We guessed at once that they must have been fairly straight.
THE YELLOW FURZE.
Pat. Come in, Pat, and have a bite an' a sup to warm ye this terrible night.
Destination unknown.
IVORY.
O, chiefly procured by a fate that is harshish From ponderous pachyderms' innocent shapes! O, shipped of old time by the navies of Tarshish For SOLOMON'S court and the wondering gapes Of Jerusalem's Great Age, The invoice for freightage Including some items of peacocks and parcels of apes!
O exquisite surface of Orient idols! O, hewn by the workmen of cunning Cathay For the sword-hilts of kings and their saddles and bridles! O, carved for Athene! O, chosen to-day For the match now proceeding Betwixt those two leading And infantile billiard antagonists, NEWMAN and GRAY!
O, how shall I sing of thee, loved of immortals? Remember what breaks of thy boon have been born? Or describe how the dreams that go out at thy portals Are true by the test of the amethyst morn, Whilst the hopes that encumber Our profitless slumber Fare forth through the bonzoline exit--I should say the horn?
These things I might prate of and should do with pleasure Except that they're far from the point of my song, Which is aimed at a dental adornment, a treasure Unheard of as yet by the ignorant throng, But an ivory fairer, More fleckless and rarer, Than ever was looted by trader from elephant's prong.
For I care not for elephants, no, not a particle; Sorrows they have, but they cause me no ruth; And a fig for their tushes! I mentioned the article Merely to lead you along to the truth, To the fact of all wonder, Our baby has cut his first tooth.
EVOE.
Box and Cox.
We wish we had had the luck to attend this lev?e.
THE STRONG MAN.
A.A.M.
Answer to a Clergyman.
No, dear Sir, your high calling does not excuse you from observing the rules of civility common amongst laymen when writing to the Editor of a paper which has expressed views that do not happen to accord with your own.
On reading this we immediately went round to our tailor and ordered a new pair of bagpipes.
Probably squandered on a packet of those useless New Year's cards.
LOCAL COLOUR.
Yours very truly, J. W. INGLEBY, Editor.
DEAR MR. EDITOR,--Thanks for your note. I cannot help feeling that you were to some extent influenced by your knowledge of the fact that I had never been near the West Coast. I hope, however, to visit the White Man's Grave shortly and will possibly let you have some stuff from the spot.
Yours, A. A.
Mr. Aubrey Aston begs to enclose to the Editor of "The Globe Fiction Magazine" another West African effort, and hopes that it may pass his critic.
P.S.--Our West African expert asks me to thank you for information on several points on which he had been hazy. It is news to him that the Mendes have an Arabic strain in their blood; he had believed them to be pure Zishtis. He had also been in the dark as to the origin of the "leopard" murders.
I'm afraid I have not yet found time to visit West Africa, but I still hope to. When I do, I will perhaps let you have some tales "hot from the oven." In the meantime I find the Travel section of our local library a more comfortable and probably a more accurate source of copy. But I still have to draw on my imagination to some extent. The Mendes may be pure Yanks for all I know to the contrary; but I hope for their own sakes they aren't Zishtis. It sounds such a horrible thing to be.
As for the "leopard" murders, I got my information from Major Kingsley, D.S.O., who has been a Government officer in Nigeria and Sierra Leone for fourteen years, so there may be something in it. As he is a close friend of mine I sent my story to him out there for him to look through before letting you have it, and he very kindly posted it direct to you. He has written to tell me that the ignorance shown in it was such as to preclude any possibility of improvement by revision.
Yours very truly, AUBREY ASTON.
Could they have meant--correspondents being notoriously rude--that the husband deserved it more?
A CHARM
A MODERN IDYLL.
To me the robin is a peculiarly attractive bird. It bears itself with a sort of pompous pathos which moves me to a friendly tear and gentle laughter.
The robin flew away in high dudgeon as Martha entered the room bearing the boiled eggs and tea with which it is my custom to break my fast.
How long the greater tragedies of life lie hidden beneath the careless surface! From a chance remark of this excellent Martha's, I have but now discovered, after many years' experience of it, that what I have always fondly supposed to be tea, she, who makes it, equally fondly supposes to be coffee.
A letter lay on the table beside my plate. It was addressed to me. I picked it up and, holding the envelope in my left hand, with the first finger of my right hand I tore open the flap. I then withdrew the enclosure and, standing with my back to the window so that the light fell on to the written sheet, I read it.
It was from my sister, my little sister Clare, and it told me that she was engaged to be married. My sister, my little sister Clare, engaged to be married, and to a partner in a firm of publishers of all people! Here was news indeed! I own that Clare's publisher interested me very much more than Martha's policeman.
I remember nothing more until I looked up a few moments later to see a robin once again upon my window-ledge. I would not swear that it was the same bird, but, feeling that one robin was as good as another, I told it all about Clare's publisher and what this might mean to all of us.
To Martha, entering at this moment, I confessed that there was at least this to be said for her and her man, that they had never concealed their connection with that odious thing, the Law.
Later, I read an extract from my manuscript aloud to the robin. He wore an air of abstraction and I could see that his thoughts were running on other matters more immediately concerned with his own interests.
To me the robin is a peculiarly human bird.
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