Read Ebook: Punch or The London Charivari Vol. 148 February 17th 1915 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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"What," she asked, "is a Roman nose?"

"Mine is," I said eagerly. "No nose was ever one-half so Roman as mine. It is the noblest Roman of them all."

"No," she said, with a sigh, "it won't do. I can't pass it as Roman."

"All right," I said, "I'll put it down as 'non-Roman.'"

"Yes, do," she said, "and let's get on to something else."

"Eyes," I said. "How shall I describe them?"

"Green," said Francesca.

"No, grey."

"Green."

"Grey."

"Let's compromise on grey-green."

"Don't scratch it out," she said. "It's a stroke of genius. I've often wondered what I ought to say about your hair, and now I know. Oh, my grey-green-and-gentle-haired one!"

"Very well," I said, "it shall be as you wish. But what about my eyes?"

"Write down 'see hair' in their space and the trick's done."

"Francesca," I said, "you're wonderful this morning. Now I know what it is to have a real helper. Complexion next, please. Isn't 'fresh' a good word for complexion?"

"Yes, for some."

"Another illusion gone," I said. "No matter; I've noticed that people who fill up blank spaces always use the word 'normal' at least once. I shall call my complexion normal and get it over."

After this there was no further difficulty. I took the remaining blank spaces in my stride, and in a few minutes the application form was filled up. Having then secured a clergyman who consented to guarantee my personal respectability and having attached two photographs of myself I packed the whole thing off to the Foreign Office. I have not yet had any special acknowledgment from Sir EDWARD GREY, but I take this opportunity to warn the French authorities that within a few days a gentleman with a non-Roman nose, grey-green and gentle hair, see-hair eyes and a normal complexion may be seeking admission to their country. R. C. L.

THE WATCH DOGS.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--It must be upwards of a month since you heard from me; I trust you have had sleepless nights in consequence. To be honest, I am still in England, prepared to go out at a moment's notice, sworn to go, medically approved, equipped and trained to go, but never in fact going. War, of course, is not open to any member of the public who cares to turn up on the field and proffer his entrance-money; it is an invitation show, and we have not yet received our cards.

Poor old Tolley, to whom Armageddon is an intensely personal affair, and who interested himself in it from the purely private motives of the patriot, in the competitive spirit of the pothunter, or in the wicked caprice of the law-abiding civilian lusting to travel abroad without a ticket, go shooting without a licence and dabble in manslaughter without the subsequent expense of briefing counsel,--poor old Tolley sees a personal slight in this, and is quite sure that K. has a down on all of us and on himself in particular. He has no difficulty in conceiving of the Olympians at the War Office spending five working days and the Saturday half-day in deciding what they shall do about US; writing round to our acquaintances for our references: "Is Lieut. Tolley honest, sober and willing, punctual in his habits, clean in his appearance, an early riser and a good plain warrior?" and receiving under confidential cover unfavourable answers; and at night in his dreams he sees the SECRETARY FOR WAR pondering over our regimental photo and telling himself that there are some likely-looking fellows in the front row, but you never know what they have got hidden away in the middle; counting up the heads and murmuring, as he wonders when he shall send us out, "This year, next year, some time--never."

Meanwhile the soldier's life continues with us very much after the manner of the schoolboy's. We all pretend to ourselves that we are now on terms of complete mutual understanding with the C.O. and the Adjutant, but none the less we all study their expressions with great care before we declare ourselves at breakfast. There are times for jesting and there are times for not jesting; it goes by seasons, fair and stormy, and to the wise the Adjutant's face is a barometer. In my wilder and more dangerous moods I have felt tempted to tap it and see if I couldn't effect an atmospheric change.

The other morning I was come for, that is to say I was proceeding comfortably with my breakfast at 7.55, when I was touched on the shoulder and told that the C.O. would be glad to see me at orderly room at eight, a thing which, by the grace of Heaven and the continual exercise of low cunning on my part, has never happened to me before. At least they might have told me what I had done, thought I, as I ran to my fate, gulping down my toast and marmalade, and improvising a line of defence applicable to any crime. Believe me, the dock is a haven of rest and security compared with orderly, or ordeal, room.

When my turn came I advanced to the table of inquisition, came smartly to attention, saluted, cleared my throat and said, "Sir!" I then cleared my throat again and said, "Sir, it was like this." The C.O. looked slightly nonplussed; the Adjutant, who in all his long experience of crime had never before seen the accused open his mouth, began to open his own. So I pushed on with it. "My defence is this: in the first place I did not do it. I wasn't there at the time, and if I had been I shouldn't have done it. In the second place I did it inadvertently. In the third place it was not a wrong thing to do; and in the fourth place I am prepared to make the most ample apology, to have the same inserted in three newspapers, and to promise never to do it again."

Orderly room was by now thoroughly restive. "If you take a serious view of the matter, Sir," said I, "shoot me now and have done with it. Do not keep me waiting till dawn, for I am always at my worst and most irritable before breakfast."

He smiled indulgently. "Referring to that second piece of toast," he began.

"When we arrive in London," he said, "you will lunch with me." I protested that the honour was enormous, but I was to arrive in London at 1.30 and must needs proceed at 1.50.

"You will lunch with me," he pursued, adding significantly as I still protested, "at the Savoy."

"Stop, Sir?" I asked.

"Ay, stop," said he, "and begin all over again" ... and so when we got to the last liqueur, I held it up and said, "Sir, if I may, your very good health," meaning thereby that I forgave him not only all the harsh things he has said to me in the past, but even all the harsher things he proposes to say to me in the future.

From the monotony of training we have only occasional relief in the actual, as for instance when we are kept out of bed all night, Zepping. But this is a poor game, Charles; there is not nearly enough sport in it to satisfy the desires of a company of enthusiasts, armed with a rifle and a hundred rounds of ball ammunition apiece. We feel that the officer of the day, who inspects the shooting party at 9.30 P.M. and then sends it off about its business, is trifling with tragic matter when he tells us: "Now, remember; no hens!" Yours ever, HENRY.

Good. Now we can devote our attention to the other war on the Continent.

OXFORD IN WAR TIME.

Distracted by a world-wide strife, The calm routine of study ceases; And Oxford's academic life Is broken all to pieces.

No more the intellectual youth Feeds on perpetual paradoxes; No longer in the quest of truth The mental compass boxes.

Gone are the old luxurious days When, always craving something subtler, To BERGSON'S metaphysic maze He turned from SAMUEL BUTLER.

Linked by the brotherhood of arms All jarring coteries are blended; Mere cleverness no longer charms; The cult of Blues is ended.

The boats are of their crews bereft; The parks are given up to training; The scanty hundreds who are left All at the leash are straining.

While those who feel too old to fight Full nobly with the pen are serving To weld conflicting views of right In one resolve unswerving.

No more can essayists inveigh Against the youth of Oxford, slighting Her "young barbarians all at play," When nine in ten are fighting,

And some, the goodliest and the best, Beloved of comrades and commanders, Have passed untimely to their rest Upon the plains of FLANDERS.

No; when two thousand of her sons Are mustered under Freedom's banner, None can declaim--except the Huns-- Against the Oxford manner.

For lo! amid her spires and streams, The lure of cloistered ease forsaking, The dreamer, noble in her dreams, Is nobler in her waking.

"Lest we forget."

Our compliments to the Rev. PERCY WESTON, pastor of this pious and patriot flock.

WHAT I DEDUCED.

BY A GERMAN GOVERNESS.

I shall never forget my arrival at the house of my new employers. Into the circumstances which forced me to earn my living as a governess in a strange country I need not now go. Sufficient that I had obtained a situation in the house of a Mr. Brigsworth, an Englishman of high position living in one of the most fashionable suburbs of London. "Chez Nous," The Grove, Cricklewood, was the address of my new home, and thither on that memorable afternoon I wended my way.

"The master and mistress are out," said the maid. "Perhaps you would like to go straight to the nursery and see the children?"

"Thank you," I said, and followed her upstairs. Little did I imagine the amazing scene which was to follow!

In the nursery my two little charges were playing with soldiers; a tall and apparently young man was lying on the floor beside them. At my entrance he scrambled to his feet.

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