AFTER TEN YEARS.

Candidate for medical degree being examined in the subject of "Bedside Manner."

"Notable things are done around a table. Corporations are formed...."Westminster Teacher.

"Notable things are done around a table. Corporations are formed...."

Westminster Teacher.

The beginnings of them, anyway.

AFTER TEN YEARS.

(Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.)

House of Commons, Tuesday, April 14.—Back to grindstone after so-called Easter recess. Divisions reveal presence of aggregate of something less than 200 Members. Watchful Whip, ever suspicious of ambush, succeeded in mustering four-fifths of the whole. Ministerial majority maintained at average of six-score.

Increased by a unit consequent on return ofPremierafter re-election by faithful Fife. Towards close of Questions was discovered standing at Bar awaitingSpeaker'scall.

"Members desiring to take their seats will please come to the Table."

As he advanced, escorted byChief Whipand Scottish colleague, Liberals and Irish Nationalists leaped to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs in loyal greeting. Only the haughty Labour Member remained seated. Not for him to pay court to chiefs of other parties, howsoever friendly. He is there as representative of the Working Man; is neither to be bought nor sold, cowed nor cajoled.

A fine spectacle. Pity Strangers' Galleries almost empty.

THE NEW MEMBER.Mr.Speaker."Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir. Somehow I seem to know your face."

Mr.Speaker."Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir. Somehow I seem to know your face."

In process of swearing-in new Member nothing taken for granted.Halsburydiscovered this when, far back in the last century, he, known at the time asHardinge Giffard, came up to take his seat for Launceston. Challenged by the Clerk for production of writ of return, made painful discovery that it was not at hand. Sure he put it in his pocket when he left home; but which pocket?

In full gaze of four hundred quizzical Members he proceeded to search. Was there ever mortal man with so many pockets stuffed with such miscellaneous contents asDisraeli'sSolicitor-General littered the Table withal? In the end—and its coming seemed interminable—the desired document was found coyly hidden in his hat left on the seat he had occupied under the Gallery awaiting summons to the Table.

ThePrime Minister, cool and businesslike as usual, had necessary document ready. Handing it to the Clerk, he once more signed the roll of Parliament.

Then came critical moment, awaited with keen interest by House. The roll signed, it is duty of Clerk to conduct new Member toSpeakerand introduce him by name.

"Mr.Asquith!" the Clerk announced.

THE GREAT EAST AFRICAN PROTECTOR."Come under de ole umbrella,Come along, piccaninnies, do;Hark to UncleLulua-callin',Room for all ob you!"—Coon Song.(Mr.Harcourt.)

"Come under de ole umbrella,Come along, piccaninnies, do;Hark to UncleLulua-callin',Room for all ob you!"—Coon Song.(Mr.Harcourt.)

"Come under de ole umbrella,Come along, piccaninnies, do;Hark to UncleLulua-callin',Room for all ob you!"—Coon Song.

"Come under de ole umbrella,

Come along, piccaninnies, do;

Hark to UncleLulua-callin',

Room for all ob you!"—Coon Song.

(Mr.Harcourt.)

With half start of surpriseSpeakerregarded newcomer; thought he recognised him as he stood at the Table. All doubt now removed. Yes, it wasAsquith. With genial smile and friendly grip of the hand he welcomed the new Member. Delighted Ministerialists cheered again at this happy conclusion of the episode.

Business done.—Committee stage of Bill pledging national credit for loan to East African Protectorates entered upon. Not without opposition from Ministerial benches.Alpheus Cleophas Morton, of whom we hear little in these degenerate days, insisted that this kind of charity should begin at home—that is in the Highlands of Scotland.WedgwoodandThornethought Government had gone far enough in the way of lavish expenditure of tax-payers' money by providing them and others with salaries of £400 a year. From other side of HouseBanburymade several speeches in succession. Division called and opposition swamped.

Wednesday.—"Such larks!" asJoe Gargeryused to say toPipwhen they met for confidential confabulation. Of all men it wasCousin Hughbegan them. At first sight difficult to associate tendency to larkiness with austerity of Member for Oxford University. But human nature is complex, and, after all,Cousin Hughis only human.

In a former Parliament he was convicted of what was officially known as loitering in the Lobby. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and in those days debate automatically stood adjourned at half-past five. Business to the fore related to Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister. Every prospect of Resolution being approved if there were opportunity for division. The thing to do was to prevent one taking place. Accordingly, when House divided on Closure motion,Cousin Hughand his confederates were such an unconscionably long time returning to their places that half-past five struck before main question could be put from Chair. Debate accordingly stood adjourned for indefinite period.

A fortnight ago another of those domestic questions which stirCousin Hugh'ssoul to the depths came up. At the ballot-box a Member secured favourable position for motion relating to Divorce.Cousin Hughstraightway blocked it by a bogus Bill. Last Wednesday Opposition proposed on motion for adjournment for Easter to attack Government from divers points of compass. Ministerialists, taking leaf out ofCousin Hugh'sbook, put down notices that blocked the whole lot. To-dayPremier'sattention called to the matter. Admits "situation is scandalous"; undertakes forthwith to submit Resolution dealing with it.

Characteristically odd feature in case is that it wasBrother Bobwho brought matters to a head by tabling a Resolution making impossible in future the vagaries ofCousin Hugh.

Which shows afresh how remarkable are the resources of a family rooted in the spacious times ofQueen Elizabeth.

Business done.—Criminal Justice Administration Bill read a second time.

Thursday.—As at approach of Spring the time of the singing of birds comes, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land, so thus early in the session the voice of the objector is heard in the House of Commons. On days when Private Bills come up for consideration, there is a scene which interests while it perplexes occupants of Ladies' Gallery, in whose full view it is set. As soon asSpeakertakes the Chair, before galleries are open to male strangers, there enters from hidden staircase leading to gallery over clock a procession of businesslike gentlemen. Silently, swiftly, they flood what is known as Distinguished Strangers' Gallery.

Clerk at Table reads list of Private Bills awaiting second reading: (1) Middlesbrough Corporation Bill, (2) Lurgan Gas and Electricity Bill, (3) Northwich Urban District Council Bill. From one side or other of benches below Gangway sounds a single word: "Object!" Title of next Bill on list recited. Again the cabalistic word, and so on to end of catalogue. This reached, anonymous Strangers in gallery rise and depart as swiftly, as silently, as they came, and what is still known as Question-hour (though it is limited to forty-five minutes) opens.

Whisper runs round Ladies' Gallery that mysterious Strangers are detachment of Ulster volunteers out on drill. As a matter of fact they are solicitors concerned for fate of private measures. With extreme rarity is a Private Bill debated on second reading. As a rule that stage is formally conceded, real work being done in select committees upstairs. One of the archaic absurdities of legislative practice remaining in Commons is that a single Member has autocratic power to delay progress of particular Bills approaching Committee stage by murmuring or shouting a magic dissyllable.

Last SessionTim Healy, offended at certain course taken by Board of Trade in respect of Private Bill for which he was concerned, held up for a fortnight the whole course of private legislation. At the end of that time Government with a majority still a hundred strong capitulated. It was an exceptionally weary time for solicitors filing in and filing out of the Gallery, day by day passing and their Bill "getting no forrarder."

Fortunately in these cases there are two Bills that run concurrently. One is the legislative measure to which a Member objects; the other the bill of costs in which these daily attendances at the opening of successive sittings, this mounting and descending of unsympathetic stairways, are doubtless duly noted.

Business done.—Irish Votes in Committee of Supply.

THE THIRD TIME OF ASKING.

ThePostmaster-Generalis making heroic efforts to improve the telephone service. According to the current Post Office Circular the name of the "Coed Talon" exchange has been altered to "Pontybodkin."

Aviation.

Once upon a time there was a little primrose who grew all alone on a sunny bank. All around her were primroses in clusters, but she was a solitary flower.

Having no brothers or sisters to talk to and no very near neighbours, she made a confidant of a bee, who would often sit with her for several minutes at a time. He was brusque and opinionated, but he was wise too, and, having wings, knew the world; and she never tired of hearing of his travels.

He told her of gardens where flowers of every kind and sweetness bloomed. "Not like you," he said—"not wild flowers that no one values, but choice, wonderful, aristocratic flowers that are picked out of catalogues and cost money and need attention from a gardener."

"What is a gardener?" the primrose asked.

"A gardener is a man who does nothing but look after flowers," said the bee. "He brings them water and picks off the dead leaves, and all the time he is thinking how to make them more beautiful."

"How splendid!" said the primrose.

And the bee told her of the houses in these gardens, with pleasant sunny rooms, and pictures, and flowers in vases to cheer the eyes of the rich people who lived there.

"How splendid!" said the primrose again. "I wish I could see it all. I should love to be in a vase in a beautiful room and be admired by rich people."

"You're too simple," said the bee. "You haven't a chance. You've got to stay where you are till you die."

"Why shouldn't I have wings like you?" said the primrose.

"How absurd!" replied the bee as he flew away.

But the next day the primrose looked up and saw a most wonderful thing. A primrose that really had wings! A flying primrose! A primrose that could go anywhere just like the bee. It darted hither and thither so gaily, alighting where it wished and then soaring up again right into the blue sky above the earth.

The solitary primrose called to it, but it did not hear, and was soon out of sight.

"So primroses needn't always stop where they are till they die," she said to herself. "Why did the bee deceiveme? If I were like that I could see the garden and the gardener and the pretty gay sitting-rooms and the rich people."

She waited impatiently for the bee's return, and when he came she told him about the aviator.

"He was so splendid," she said, "so big and strong, and he flew beautifully. How can I get wings, too?"

"Pooh!" said the bee. "That wasn't a primrose. That was a brimstone butterfly; and as for flying—why, he can't compare with me. I could beat him every time: hundred yards, quarter-mile, mile, long distance—everything."

"He looked just like a wonderful big primrose," said the solitary flower wistfully.

"That's because you've got only one eye," said the bee. "He was a butterfly right enough;" and he hurried away laughing at the silliness of her mistake.

But that day the little primrose had part of her wish; for a party of children came into her corner of the wood and began to pick the flowers with cries of delight.

"Here's one all alone!" said a small girl. "I shall pick that for mother." Straightway the primrose was torn from its root and held tightly in a hand which was far too hot to be pleasant.

Down the road the children went, and the primrose looked as well as she could at the hedges and the trees.

"So this is the world," she said to herself. "It seems really interesting, but I should like it better if I didn't feel so faint."

At last they came to a garden gate and passed through it, up a long path, with strange flowers on each side, which the primrose saw mistily, for she was now really ill.

"I am sure it is all very beautiful," she murmured, "but I know I shall die if I don't have some water soon."

And then they entered a room, and the little girl hurried up to a lady and gave her the solitary primrose. "It was growing all alone," she said, "so I brought it for you."

"Put it into a vase at once," said the mother, "or it will die." And the primrose was placed in water, and at once began to revive.

Then she looked about her and saw what a nice room it was, and was happy.

The next morning in came the bee with a great fluster and bumped all over the room.

"Hullo," he said to the little primrose, "you here?"

She told him all her adventures.

"Well, what I said is right, isn't it?" the bee remarked. "It's all very jolly here, isn't it?"

"I suppose so, but I wish I didn't feel so weak. I never had an ache when I was in the wood."

"Ah, but you weren't among the nobs then," said the bee; "make the most of your time while you're here, for it won't be for long, you know."

"Come and see me to-morrow," the little primrose whimpered. "I feel so lonely here. I was happier in the wood."

"You won't be alive to-morrow," said the bee cheerily. "But never mind, you have seen the world." And out he bashed again, blowing his motor-horn to clear the way.

OUR YOUNG VETERANS.He."I say, your Grannie seems rather put out to-night. What's up?"She."Hush! Poor dear, she's just heard my other grannie is engaged and she's so afraid she may be left on the shelf."

He."I say, your Grannie seems rather put out to-night. What's up?"

She."Hush! Poor dear, she's just heard my other grannie is engaged and she's so afraid she may be left on the shelf."

"Pygmalion."

The original Pygmalion took a block of dead ivory and made of it so fair a figure of a woman that he fell in love with his own creation, and Aphrodite, at his request, brought it to life. Mr.Shaw'sPygmaliontakes a live flower-girl, turns her into a lifeless wax figure fit for a milliner's shop-window, and flatters himself, as an artist, on the result, but, as a man, proposes to take no interest in it, moral or physical. So you can easily see why almost any other proper name you can think of would have done better for the title.

We venture to suggest a new attitude to illustrate the ease of manner which one expects from a Master of Phonetics and Deportment.Henry HigginsSirHerbert Tree.

We venture to suggest a new attitude to illustrate the ease of manner which one expects from a Master of Phonetics and Deportment.

Henry HigginsSirHerbert Tree.

The play itself shows the same typical inconsequence, the same freedom from the pedantry of logic.Eliza Doolittle'sambition is to become fitted for the functions of a young lady in a florist's shop.Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics, undertakes for a wager to teach her the manners and diction of a duchess—a smaller achievement, of course, in Mr.Shaw'seyes, but still a step in the right direction. And he is better than his word. After six months she has acquired a mincing speech, from which she is still liable to lapse into appalling indiscretions; but after another six months the product might pass muster in anymodiste'sshowroom. And then she turns on him and protests that he has spoilt her life. As a flower-girl, she tells him, she used to earn her living honestly; now there is nothing she is good for.

Of course, you say, her contact with refined society—"we needs must love the highest when we see it"—has unfitted her for mixing with inferior people. On the contrary. She has, it is true, passed the final test of a series of social functions; but meanwhile all this time of her apprenticeship in manners she has been living her daily life, doing half-menial duties, in the house ofHiggins, who happens to have no manners at all. One trembles, indeed, to picture the figure that he himself, the master, must have cut when he took his pupil to the halls of the great.

Then perhaps, you say, she has fallen into an unrequited passion for him, and this accounts for her peevishness? Well, if she has, we have only Mr.Shaw'sword for it, and she gets no sympathy from us for her deplorable taste in men. There was another man who was always about the house, a man with a habit of courtesy, but this gallant soldier left her cold. Such is the perversity of women—and Mr.Shaw.Higgins'sone act of civility to hisprotégée, on which we had to base our hopes of a happy issue, was to throw a bunch of flowers at her from a balcony in Chelsea—not perhaps a very tactful reminder of her origin. But he was only just in time. Another two seconds of delay and the final curtain would have cut off this tardy and inadequate effort of conciliation.

FROM FLOWER-GIRL TO PERFECT LADY.(Showing middle stage in course of lessons in Polite Conversation.)Eliza Doolittle(Mrs.Patrick Campbell) toMrs. Eynsford-Hill(MissCarlotta Addison). "An aunt of mine died of in-flu-en-za: but it's my be-lief they done h-her in."

(Showing middle stage in course of lessons in Polite Conversation.)

Eliza Doolittle(Mrs.Patrick Campbell) toMrs. Eynsford-Hill(MissCarlotta Addison). "An aunt of mine died of in-flu-en-za: but it's my be-lief they done h-her in."

However, nobody goes to a production of Mr.Shaw'swith the idea of seeing a play. We go to hear him discourse on just anything that occurs to him without prejudice in the matter of his mouthpiece. This time he was represented by a dustman; and for once Mr.Shawconsented to temper his wisdom to the limitations of its repository. HisAlfred Doolittle(father of the flower-girl) threw off a little cheap satire on the morality of the middle-classes, yet admitted the drawbacks of unauthorised union (as practised by himself), since a man's wife is there to be kicked, whereas a mistress is apt to be more exigent of the amenities; you must adopt a more lover-like attitude if you want to retain her. He also argued brightly in defence of his proposal to sell his own daughter to any man for a fiver; let fall a platitude or two in praise of the lot of the undeserving poor; and (having come in for a fortune) found that charity had lost its blessedness—that the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin was only admirable when you did the "touching" yourself. Not bad for a dustman, but Mr.Shawhas done better.

For the rest the attraction lay in the performance of individual actors rather than in the stuff of the play. Mrs.Patrick Campbellwas delicious, both in her unregenerate state, and even more during the middle phase of the refining process. She made the Third Act a pure delight. Later, when she became tragic, she sacrificed something of her particular charm to the author's insincerity.

SirHerbert Tree, always at his best in comedy, was an excellentHigginsin his lighter moods. As for Mr.Edmund Gurney, he was far the best dustman I have ever met. His freedom from scruples, combined with a natural gift for unctuous and persuasive rhetoric, commanded admiration.Higgins, indeed, who could read potentialities at a glance, considered that he might, under happier conditions, have gone far toward attaining Cabinet rank or filling a Welsh pulpit.

Of the others, Mr.Philip Merivaleplayed the too subsidiary part ofColonel Pickeringwith admirable self-repression; and MissRosamond Mayne-Young, as the mother ofHiggins, was a very gracious figure.

The play was curiously uneven. If one might be permitted to enter and leave at one's pleasure I wouldadvise you to miss out the desultory First Act. But if you insist on seeing it then take care to read your programme before the lights go down and find out that the scene is the porch of a church. I thought all the time that it was the porch of a theatre. Make sure in the same way about the Chelsea flat, or you may mistake it for a charming country cottage. The Second and Third Acts are not to be missed on any account, but I shouldn't worry about the Fourth. In the Fifth you should go away for good the moment that the dustman makes his exit. The tedium that follows is most distressing, and can only be explained as the author's revenge for your laughter. It was a cruel thing to do.

But I forgive him. I take away many delightful memories of my evening withPygmalion, and, best of all, the picture of SirHerbert'sfrank and childlike pleasure at having discovered Mr.Bernard Shaw.

Jones(selecting a uniform for his chauffeur). "I like this one best, but it's rather expensive."Expert Salesman."Then I should have it. After all, the guv'nor pays!"

Jones(selecting a uniform for his chauffeur). "I like this one best, but it's rather expensive."

Expert Salesman."Then I should have it. After all, the guv'nor pays!"

"Potash and Perlmutter."

If you have ever been to an American commercial drama, you will know the opening scene of this one before the curtain goes up. The business interior; the typewriter on the left; the head of the firm opening cryptic correspondence and dictating unintelligible answers; spasmodic incursions of cocksure buyers and bagmen; a prevailing air of smartness, of hustle, of get-on-or-get-out. InThe Melting PotMr.Zangwillhas been creating a diversion with an Hebraic theme, his hero being a refugee from Kieff, where his family had perished in a pogrom. This new variation has occurred—independently, no doubt—to the author ofPotash and Perlmutter, who has grafted it (including the detail of the immigrant from Kieff) on the old commercial stock, and done very well indeed with his blend.

His two protagonists in the Teuton-American-Semitic firm of "cloak and suit" manufacturers that gives its title to the play are extraordinarily alive. I am but imperfectly acquainted with this racial variety, but I can easily recognise that Messrs.Augustus YorkeandEgbert Leonard, who represent the two partners, are gifted with the most amazing powers of observation and reproduction.

The pair are alike in their mercenary tastes and in that loyalty which is so fine a feature of the Jewish race, and is here found in frequent conflict with their commercial instincts. The cruel wrench that their generosity always costs them is a true measure of its excellence. They quarrel alike over details of business policy; but they always stand together where profit is obviously to be made by a common attitude, or where they find themselves in a tight corner. Yet the author has preserved a nice distinction between them. It isPotash, the elder of the two, and encumbered by fetters of domestic affection, who is the weaker vessel, and commits the indiscretions with whose issue he is impotent to cope; it isPerlmutter, with the quicker brains, contemptuous but devoted, who throws all the blame where it is due, yet stands by to share the punishment.

I found their language and accent rather hard to follow, a difficulty not shared by the strong Jewish element in an audience that was extremely quick to appreciate the humour that kept one always on the alert. It is profitless to ask how much of the fun was due to the things said and how much to the manner of saying them. The essential matter is that actors and author between them gave us an unusually good time, and I am much obliged to them.

Apart from the leading characters, theMrs. Potashof MissMatilda Cottrellywas a most delightful study, and the breezy methods of Mr.Charles Dicksonas a buyer and Mr.Ezra Matthewsas a salesman were effective of their kind.

The plot, as usual in such plays, was rather elementary. So, too, with the love interest; but the right kind of sentiment was not wanting in the very human characters ofPotashandPerlmutter. For a rare moment or two there was a break in our laughter and tears were not far away.

O. S.

My nephew Rupert has been spending part of his Easter holidays with me. There is nothing like a boy of fifteen for adding an atmosphere to a house—in which term I include a garden. It is a special atmosphere, hard to define, but quite unmistakable when you have once lived in it. It is compounded of football, cricket, hockey—these are not actual, but conversational—of visits to the stables, romps with dogs in a library, tousled hair, muddy trousers, a certain contempt for time, the loan of my collar-stud, an insatiable desire to look through the back volumes ofPunch, long rides on a bicycle and an irresistible tendency of ink to the fingers, presumably caused by the terrible duty of writing letters to parents. There may be other ingredients, but these are the chief. I am bound to add that he is a very amiable boy, with a strong sense of humour, and that he associates on very friendly terms with the little girls, his cousins, who form the majority of this household, it being quite understood that, for the time, they become boys while he remains what he is.

The other morning Rupert evidently had something on his mind. He made various half-hearted and thoroughly unsuccessful efforts to leave the room, twiddled his cap in his hands, tripped over the rug and finally spoke.

"Thanks awfully, Uncle Harry, for lending me your bicycle."

"That's all right," I said. "You're very welcome to it. It's a good thing for it to be used."

"Yes," he said, "but I shan't want it again."

"Tired of it?" I said. "Well, there's no compulsion."

"Oh, I know that—thanks awfully—but it isn't that. It's a ripping bicycle. I should like to ride it for ever, but——"

"Well, what is it? Out with it."

"I've got one of my own."

"One of your own!" I said. "How's that? You hadn't got one yesterday."

"No, but I've got one now. I bought it this morning at Hickleden. There's a bicycle shop there, and I heard there was a good bicycle for sale cheap, so I went over this morning and had a ride on it, and it suited me splendidly, so I bought it, and I've got it here."

"Bought it?" I said. "That's all very well; but how did you pay for it?"

"That," he said, "is where all the bother comes in."

"It generally does," I said. "Either you've got the money, and then it seems such a waste; or you haven't got it, and then it's a lifetime of misery. Debt, my boy, is an awful thing."

"Don't rag, Uncle Harry; I've got the money all right."

"Then be a man and shell out."

"Yes, but that's just what I can't do. It's this way: the price of the bicycle is five pounds seventeen and sixpence."

"And a very good price too."

"It's got three gears and a lamp and everything complete. Well, I've got three pounds ten in the Post-Office Savings Bank. I put it in in London."

"That's a good beginning, anyhow."

"Yes, and Aunt Mary gave me a pound for my birthday, and I put that in at the post-office here yesterday. It's better not to keep pounds in your pocket."

"Quite right," I said; "we have now got to four pounds ten."

"And Grandma sent me a pound this morning in a postal-order."

"We're all but up to it now," I said. "The excitement is becoming intense."

"Isn't it? And I've got the rest in shillings and sixpences and coppers."

"Away you go, then, and pay for the bicycle."

"Ah, but it isn't as easy as all that. I can't get the money out of the Post-Office."

"What," I said—"they won't let you have your own money? They calmly take the savings of a lifetime and then refuse to give them up?"

"I went round there this morning and they said I'd put the money in in London and there were various formalities to be gone through before I could draw it out here."

"The official mind," I said, "delights in technicalities. Let us see how you stand:—

To save you from the silly game of playing drakes and ducksYou banked the cash in Middlesex—but asked for it in Bucks.

To save you from the silly game of playing drakes and ducks

You banked the cash in Middlesex—but asked for it in Bucks.

Or we could put it in this way:—

In order not to spend it all in lollipops and toffeesYou gave it to the P. M. G. to keep it in his office.

In order not to spend it all in lollipops and toffees

You gave it to the P. M. G. to keep it in his office.

Or in this way:—

You bought a three-gear bicycle because you had a will for it,And now you've gone and fetched the thing and cannot pay the bill for it.

You bought a three-gear bicycle because you had a will for it,

And now you've gone and fetched the thing and cannot pay the bill for it.

Rupert, you're in the cart."

"By Jove, Uncle Harry," he said in an awestruck tone, "that's poetry."

"Is it?" I said. "I just threw it off."

"Oh, yes, it's poetry all right. It's got rhymes, you know."

"Rupert," I said, "let us come back to plain prose and consider your desperate financial situation. You cannot get your three pounds ten."

"No, not yet."

"And Aunt Mary's pound?"

"They said that, being holiday time, that wouldn't have got to headquarters yet."

"Gracious goodness," I said, "I never knew a savings bank had so many pitfalls. The whole thing is too complicated for my mind."

"It isn't really complicated," said Rupert. "It's quite plain; but perhaps if you put it into poetry you'll understand it better."

"Rupert," I said, "let us have no sarcasms. The thing is too serious for that. You possess your grandmother's pound in a postal-order and assorted coins to the amount of seven and sixpence, total one pound seven and six, to pay for a bicycle costing five pounds seventeen and sixpence. In short, you are a bankrupt."

"But I shall get the money."

"That is what they all say."

Eventually the matter was arranged and the bicycle man was satisfied. Rupert's correspondence with the Post Office still continues. But his faith in that institution has received a severe shock.

R. C. L.

"The Rev. C. A. Brereton has presented to the St. Pancras Guardians a donkey for the use of the children at Leavesden Poor Law Schools, and a member of the Board has presented an A B C time-table."—Daily News.

Anonymous Benefactor(when the secret of his name leaks out): "No, no, don't thank me.... It was last year's."

Headlines to adjoining columns inThe Toronto Daily Star:—

These Mayors lead a life full of variety.

PLEASURES OF THE POINT TO POINT.Good and encouraging Samaritan(helping sportsman to remount after immersion in the brook). "Next old bruck be heaps bigger'n this un, and he do have a turrible lot o' water in he just now."

Good and encouraging Samaritan(helping sportsman to remount after immersion in the brook). "Next old bruck be heaps bigger'n this un, and he do have a turrible lot o' water in he just now."

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Dodo the Second(Hodder and Stoughton), byE. F. Benson. Doesn't the very title-page sound like a leaf from your dead past? I protest that for my own part I was back on hearing it in the naughty nineties, the very beginning of them indeed (the fact that I was also back in the school-room did little to impair the thrill) and agog to read the clever, audacious book that all the wonderful people who lived in those days were talking about. And behold! here they all are again—not the people who talked, but the audacious characters. Only the trouble is that we have all in the interval become so much more audacious ourselves that their efforts in this kind seem to fail to produce the old impression. This is by no means to say that I didn't enjoyDodo the Second. I enjoyed it very much indeed; and so will you. For one thing, it was the jolliest experience to recognize so many old friends—Dodoherself (now of course thePrincess Waldenech), and the wickedPrince, and the rest of them. OfDodoat least it may be said, moreover, that she has matured credibly; this middle-aging lady is exactly what the siren of twenty years ago would have developed into, still beautiful, still alluring, and still (I must add) capable of infecting everyone else in a conversation with exactly her own trick of cheap and rather fatiguing brilliance. Added to all this there is now a new generation of characters, several of whom are quite pleasant company; for them and for one very impressive piece of descriptive work in the account of a gathering storm, this Twenty Years After may be heartily welcomed. Indeed one leavesDodoof 1914 so vigorously alive that I am not without hope of her turning up yet again as a grandmother in 1934.

I have discovered fromThe Rebellion of Esther(Alston Rivers) why it is that my sympathies, usually at the disposal of insurgents, are withheld from the Suffragette. Anyone who is genuinely out to assert a principle, at the cost of quarrelling with established authority, has a certain merit of altruism which even the most law-abiding may count as a mitigating circumstance, however unworthy the end in view; but the egoism of a young lady (like MissMargaret Legge'sheroine) who in whatever cause defies all institutions with the latent motive of asserting herself will induce even the most lawless to support warmly the powers of suppression.Miss Esther Ballingerhad a number of real grievances, but her point of view was typified in her attitude towards the illicit and incidental motherhood of one of her acquaintances. Without hearing the facts, she pronounced it to be "a courageous stand against conventional morality," which it just possibly might have proved to be upon enquiry, and by no means a weak surrender to immediate desires, as much more probably it was in fact. From my knowledge ofEsthershe had but one reason for expressing this opinion, and that was the personal pleasure of saying the unorthodox thing, an element which accounts for much of the unconventionality of that intellectual class of townsfolk figuring broadcast in the book, and largely discounts the value of its criticisms. I suspected the same flaw in her expressed convictions on religious, political and feminist matters,and I shouldn't be surprised to learn, though there is no hint of it, that she stopped short of complete revolt in her own big affair because she realized instinctively that even a passionate pose may lose its attractions if it has to be maintained for a lifetime. MissMargaret Legge, though alive to the young person's faults, regards her as, on the whole, deep-thinking and right-minded; and I would not for a moment have our personal difference of opinion discourage anybody from reading a carefully studied and ably written novel.

The attitude of Militarist to Pacifist has the makings of a very pretty comedy. When the Mystics (with the Friends and the Tolstoians) were evangelical enough to preach their message of peace even to the point of non-resistance, they were broadly scouted as sentimental and idealistic idiots, and reminded of a nature red in tooth and claw rampant in this most sordid of all possible worlds. Now that the Rationalists take up the case against war from another end, they are denounced as squalid souls, with a greengrocer's outlook, morbidly anxious about the price of peas and potatoes, and urged to remember that not by bread alone doth man live. InThe Foundations of International Polity(Heinemann), a series of lectures developing phases of the argument of the Great Illusion, Mr.Norman Angellincidentally deals with this greengrocery business. Nobody with knowledge of his shrewd and vigorous method will be surprised that without bluster or rhetoric he establishes a very clear verdict of acquittal. One has always the impression that the rationalist in him is deliberately repressing the mystic, lest his case be weakened by a suspicion of sentimentalism. For it must be obvious that not a cold, still less a squalid, but a generous purpose alone could inspire the fervour that flashes between the reasoned lines. When Mr.Angellpleads that policy is directed towards "self-interest," an easily misunderstandable pronouncement, it is no mean self-interest he has in view but a quality of high civilising and social value. He argues cogently that defence is not incompatible with, but rather a part of, rational pacifism, which is the protest against coercion; re-emphasises the difference between soldiering and policing; and illustrates the essential shallowness of that venerable tag, "Human nature doesn't change," by pointing to the decay of the duello, and the decline of the grill as a means of reasoning with heretics and witches. Were this learned Clerk a politician (which Heaven avert!), he would move for yet another increment to the Supplementary Navy Estimates—to wit, the price of a battleship to be expended in the distribution of this fighting pacifist's books to all journalists, attachés, clergymen, bazaar-openers, club oracles, professors, head-masters and other obvious people in both Germany and Britain.

In his new satirical study of certain modern cranks and their unpleasantness Mr.Oliver Onionshas, I think, allowed his bitterness to outrun his sense of proportion.A Crooked Mile(Methuen) is a sequel to his earlier book,The Two Kisses. We meet again those two young women,DorothyandAmory, and the natural characteristics that they once presented seem now to be tortured into caricature.Amoryhas indeed all my sympathy, so badgered is she by Mr.Onions, so relentlessly forced into ignominious positions; and I cannot feel, as I should do, that she would have achieved those ignominies without Mr.Onions'impelling hand behind her. I have myself considerable sympathy for cranks, and perhaps that is why I regard Mr.Onions'satire as a dry, gritty business. His humour is, of course, always a delightful thing, but here I fancy that he has not drawn the true line between comedy and farce, between satire that preserves the probabilities and indiscriminate exaggeration. Of the three Mr.Onionseswho have at different times given me pleasure—the author ofWiddershins, the author ofIn Accordance with the Evidence, and the author ofLittle Devil Doubt—I greatly prefer the first. InA Crooked Milethere is one chapter worthy of all three of them—that chapter whereAmorydiscovers that her lover is going away with another woman. That is fine work. For the rest I hope that he will grow tired of his social satire and soon give us again some more of his delicate imagination and fancy.

What I felt aboutThe Girl on the Green(Methuen) was that, however charming and capable, she was not quite likely, after but a few short months of golf, to have put up such a good fight in her great match with the crack amateur,Jim Beverley, who was giving her a half. I couldn't manage to believe it. However, that was not my business, butMark Allerton's. According to him,Franktook her match to the last green, in spite of a number of cats, headed by the Vicar's wife, who did their best to put her off her game. Yes, you are right to presume that what began as a single developed into a flirtsome, and that the twain lived happily ever after in a nice little dormy house, and thatJimbested theHiltonsand theOuimets, whileFrankput permanently out of joint all the noses of all the MissesLeitch. Those who not only play but talk, dream, read and generally live for golf will, I can say with confidence, be grateful to Mr.Mark Allertonfor this easy, hopeful narrative.

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