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Read Ebook: Punch Or The London Charivari Vol 150 February 9 1916 by Various Seaman Owen Editor
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Ebook has 109 lines and 10098 words, and 3 pages
"Oh, dear," said Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair.
"Well," I said, "you've known all along how it would be. Everybody's told you so."
"Everybody? Who's everybody in this case?"
"I told you so for one, and Mr. Asquith mentioned it several times, and so did Mr. McKenna."
"I have never," she said proudly, "discussed my weekly books with Messrs. Asquith and McKenna. I should scorn the action."
"That's all very well," I said. "Keep them away as far as you can, but they'll still get hold of you. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows your weekly books by heart."
"I wish," she said, "he'd add them up for me. He's a good adder-up, I suppose, or he wouldn't be what he is."
"He's fair to middling, I fancy--something like me."
"In fact," said Francesca, "you ought to be a deaf adder."
I took the book, which was a masterpiece of illegibility, and added it up with my usual grace and felicity.
"Francesca," I said as I finished my task, "my total differs from the butcher's, but the difference is in his favour, not in mine. He seems to have imparted variety to his calculations by considering that it took twenty pence to make a shilling, which is a generous error. Now let me deal with the baker while you tackle the grocer, and then we'll wind up by doing the washing-book together."
The washing-book was a teaser, the items being apparently entered in Chaldee, but we stumbled through it at last.
"And now," I said, "we can take up the subject of thrift."
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, "I'm thoroughly tired of it. We've talked too much about it already."
"You're wrong there; we haven't talked half enough. If we had, the books wouldn't have gone up."
"They haven't gone up," she said. "They're about the same, but we've been having less."
"Noble creature," I said, "do you mean to say that you've docked me of one of my Sunday sausages and the whole of my Thursday roly-poly pudding and never said a word about it?"
"Well, you didn't seem to notice it, so I left it alone."
"Ah, but I did notice it," I said, "but I determined to suffer in silence in order to set an example to the children."
"That was bravely done," she said. "It encourages me to cut down the Saturday sirloin."
"But what will the servants say? They won't like it."
"They'll have to lump it then."
"But I thought servants never lumped it. I thought they always insisted on their elevenses and all their other food privileges."
"Anyhow," she said, "I'm going to make a push for economy and the servants must push with me. They won't starve, whatever happens."
"No, and if they begin to object you can talk to them about tonnage."
"That ought to bowl them over. But hadn't I better know what it means before I mention it?"
"Yes, that might be an advantage."
"You see," she said, "Mrs. Mincer devotes to the reading of newspapers all the time she can spare from the cooking of meals and she'd be sure to trip me up if I ventured to say anything about tonnage."
"You don't seem very sure about it. Hadn't you better look it up?"
"But why should there be an insufficiency of tonnage?"
"Because," I said, "the Government have taken up so much tonnage for the purposes of the War. How did you think the Army got supplied with food and shells and guns and men? Did you think they flew over to France and Egypt and Salonica?"
"Don't be rude," she said. "I didn't introduce this question of tonnage. You did. And even now I don't see what tonnage has got to do with our sirloin of beef."
"I will," I said kindly, "explain it to you all over again. We have ample tonnage for necessaries, but not for luxuries."
"But my sirloin of beef isn't a luxury."
"For the purpose of my argument," I said, "it is a luxury and must be treated as such."
"Do you know," she said, "I don't think I'll bother about tonnage. I'll tackle Mrs. Mincer in my own way."
"You're throwing away a great opportunity," I said.
"Never mind," she said. "If I feel I'm being beaten I'll call you in. Your power of lucid explanation will pull me through."
R. C. L.
CANADIAN REMOUNTS.
Bronco dams they ran by on the ranges of the prairies, Heard the chicken drumming in the scented saskatoon, Saw the jewel humming-birds, the flocks of pale canaries, Heard the coyotes dirging to the ruddy Northern moon; Woolly foals, leggy foals, foals that romped and wrestled, Rolled in beds of golden-rod and charged to mimic fights, Saw the frosty Bear wink out and comfortably nestled Close beside their vixen dams beneath the wizard Lights.
Far from home and overseas, older now--and wiser, Branded with the arrow brand, broke to trace and bit, Tugging up the grey guns "to strafe the blooming Kaiser," Up the hill to Kemmel, where the Mauser bullets spit; Stiffened with the cold rains, mired and tired and gory, Plunging through the mud-holes as the batteries advance, Far from home and overseas--but battling on to glory With the English eighteen-pounders and the soixante-quinzes of France!
AT THE PLAY.
"Mrs. Pretty and the Premier."
He is on safer ground when he tells us that "in curiously vivid and pungent fashion this little play outlines the breezy freshness and the originality of outlook which almost invariably characterise the politicians and statesmen of the Prairie, the Veldt and the Bush, and which more than anything else perhaps differentiates them from the men of an older land, hampered as these latter often are by long and stately traditions." Certainly, in the matter of addressing its Premier by a familiar abbreviation of his Christian name the new world differs from the old. I cannot so much as contemplate the thought of Mr. Asquith being addressed by the Minister Of Munitions as "Herb," or even "Bert."
A NAVAL REVELATION.
Edward Brown's official sheet, Humble though his station, Showed a record which the Fleet Viewed with admiration.
Fifteen stainless summers bore Fruit in serried cluster; Conduct stripes he proudly wore, One for every lustre.
Picture then the blank amaze When this model rating Suddenly developed traits Most incriminating.
Faults in baser spirits deemed Merely peccadillos In that crystal mirror seemed Vast as Biscay billows.
Cautioned not to over-run Naval toleration, He replied in language un- Fit for publication.
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