AT THE PLAY.

Doctor(examining recruit). "And do you always stutter like that?"Recruit. "N-n-no, Sir. Only w-w-w-when I t-t-talk."

Doctor(examining recruit). "And do you always stutter like that?"

Recruit. "N-n-no, Sir. Only w-w-w-when I t-t-talk."

Mr.John O'Connordeveloped a really ingenious argument. To show that martial law ought now to be dropped he mentioned that if he attempted to hold a recruiting meeting in his constituency his life would not be worth half-an-hour's purchase. Members who were thinking of spending the recess in Ireland were greatly impressed.

Sir Geoffrey Pomfret, "that almighty man, the county god," claimed to exercise the same divine right over the souls of his village that he exercised, in the matter of breeding, over the bodies of his cattle and pigs. Nothing, I think, has brought the present War more closely home to my bosom than the humours of this feudal relic—taken in all seriousness by everyone, including the author. It seems almost inconceivable that Mr.Vachell's play deals with conditions that still survived only a few years ago. Yet the Squire's devotion to the science of eugenics establishes its date as quite recent. It was his sole taint of modernity; and indeed where his own son's marriage was concerned he omitted to apply his scientific principles, and made a choice for him in which no regard was paid to eugenics, but only to established social traditions.

At first the play opened up prospects of a pleasant gaiety. A love scene, conducted in a rich Western brogue, between theSquire's footman and his still-room maid, and the embarrassment caused by her eagerness to learn the philosophy of "eujanics," were full of promise. It was confirmed by the appearance of Mr.Ainley, whose manner reminded us of his many triumphs in the art of eccentric detachment. His part—the title-rôle—was that ofSir Geoffrey'sfaithful butler, on such familiar, though respectful, terms with his master that the two sipped port together in the former's room in broad daylight while discussing family matters. They took an unconscionable time about it, but, as I said, it promised well. However, Mr.Vachellhad other designs than our mere amusement. We were not to have our comedy without paying for it with our heart's blood. Very soon the shadow of melodramatic pathos and mystery crept over the sunny scene.Fishpingletakes a box from a cupboard and glances at a miniature and a bundle of letters. There is illegitimacy in the air, and a lady near me in the stalls confides to her neighbour that "he's theSquire'shalf-brother." I can't think where she got her information, for the rest of us never learned the facts of the mystery till the very end of the evening, and even then the details ofFishpingle'sorigin only transpired (as they say) under extreme pressure arising out of his dismissal by his master on the strength of a violent disagreement about fundamentals.

Sir Geoffrey'sfather, it seems, had before his marriage run away with a girl not of his own rank, who had generously refused to spoil the family tree by marrying him; andFishpinglewas the result. You might judge from the peculiarity of his surname that the matter was taken lightly by his parents. But you would be wrong. His mother died when he was born, and his first name (for I cannot call it a Christian name) wasBenoni, which, being interpreted, means "the child of sorrow."Sir Geoffrey'sgrandmother, who had discouraged the legal adjustment of the relationship between the lovers, had tried to repair matters by educatingFishpingleabove the obscurity of his irregular birth; hence his comparative erudition, rare in a butler.

THE BREED OF THE POMFRETS.Fishpingle(to himself). "How anybody can fail to see the extraordinary family likeness between us I cannot imagine."Fishpingle.... Mr.Henry Ainley.Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. Mr.Allan Aynesworth.

THE BREED OF THE POMFRETS.

Fishpingle(to himself). "How anybody can fail to see the extraordinary family likeness between us I cannot imagine."

Fishpingle.... Mr.Henry Ainley.Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. Mr.Allan Aynesworth.

Now the opening of the play had put me into a mood which was not the right one for the reception of this extract from a deplorable past. Some comedies would be all the better for a little tragic relief; but this was too much. Mr.Vachellhad no business to give his play a title likeFishpingle. He should have called it "Nature's Nobleman, or The Tragical Romance of a Faithful Butler's Birth," and then I might have known what to expect. As it was I felt aggrieved. It was not, of course, a question of asking for my money back at the doors (critics, to be just to them, never do this in the case of a complimentary seat), but I felt I had a right to protest against this attempt to harrow my heart-strings, attuned as they were to the key of comedy, with a painful drama dating back to more than half a century before the rise of the curtain, and with its chief actors all dead. And the irritating mystery in which it was wrapped only made things worse. Further, I suffered a considerable strain on both my head and my heart in consequence of obscure hints (vaguely involving a photograph on his mantelpiece) as to the reason whyFishpingleremained a bachelor to the bitter end.

But I am ashamed to appear flippant, for Mr.Ainleyplayed with exquisite feeling and a fine sincerity. And I have to thank Mr.Vachellfor giving us some excellent studies of character—not character developed before our eyes by circumstance (except perhaps a little at the last), but admirably observed as a kind of fixture to be taken with the house.

And if the play is not quite on the high level of Mr.Galsworthy'sThe Eldest Son, which it faintly recalls, it is much more worthy of Mr.Vachell'sgifts than the poor thing,Penn, which died so young. Also he is very much more fortunate this time in his cast. MissMarion Terry, asLady Pomfret, was a pattern of sweet graciousness; and Mr.Allan Aynesworthwas at his happiest asSir Geoffrey. And the two pairs of lovers, Mr.Cyril Raymondand MissMaud Bellabove stairs, and Mr.Reginald Bachand MissDoris Lyttonbelow (they were really all of them on the ground floor, the butler's room being the common trysting-place), served as delightful examples of natural selection—both on their own part and that of the management—and were as fresh and healthy as the most eugenical could desire.

O. S.

Daddy Long-Legsis a pleasant American sentimental comedy made byJean Websterout of her very jolly book, and not so sticky as some of our importations of the same general type. The four Acts are phases in the development ofJudy(orJerusha)Abbott, orphan; and, as normally happens in book-plays, development is extremely abrupt. Act I. shows usJudyas the drudge of the orphanage breaking into flame of rebellion on the day of the visit of the trustees. Naturally the trustees are all trusteespour rire, except one real good rich man,Jervis Pendleton, who admires the orphan's spirit, and decides that she is to have her chance at his charges; but is on no account to know her benefactor.

In Act II., a year later,Judyis not merely the most popular but the best dressed girl in her college. She still dreams about her unknown benefactor, whom she callsDaddy Long-Legs,and assumes to be a hoary old man.Pendletoncomes to Commem., or its equivalent, to have a peep at his ward, and loses his heart. In the Third Act, three years later, our heroine is a famous author, andPendleton, coming (still incog.) to propose, is refused by aJudywho has taken to worrying unduly (and not altogether convincingly, if you ask me) about her lack of family. And, of course, in Act IV., wedding bells.

MissRenée Kellyhas a charming personality, and a smile which alone is worth going to see. She trounced the matron and the incredible trustees with a fierce fury, and seemed to have easy command of the changes of mood and tense which her fast-moving circumstances required. A pretty twinkling star. Mr.Charles Waldronis a skilful actor. If he, perhaps, grimaced a little too much by way of not letting us miss the obvious points of the little mystery, he made as admirable a proposal of marriage as I have ever heard on the stage (or off it for that matter, with perhaps one exception); but to suppose that so accomplished a lover would accept a mere mournful shake of the head as a final refusal is simply too absurd. MissFay Davismade quite a little triumph of gentle gracious kindliness out of one of those potentially tiresome explanatory parts without which no mystifications can be contrived. MissKate Jepsonis a comédienne of rich grain, and gave a very amusing study of the hero's old nurse. MissJean Gadell, that clever specialist in dour unpleasant stage women, made a properly repulsive thing out of the matron of the orphanage. Mr.Hylton Allenscored his points as a comic lover with droll effect. If the distinctly clever children of the home (Judyexcepted) had been effectively put on the contraband list I should not have worried. They were unduly noisy (for art, not for life perhaps), and they overdid their parts, being not only rowdy in the absence, and abject in the presence, of authority, but different kinds of children—not merely the same children in two moods.

Altogether a pleasant play pleasantly and competently performed.

"Cabinet Leekage."—Daily Paper.

Now why, we wonder, do they spell it that way?

"The prisoners got the same food as the submarine crew. Here is the bill of fare: Breakfast consisted of coffee, black bread, submarine commander and he pilot."Provincial Paper.

"The prisoners got the same food as the submarine crew. Here is the bill of fare: Breakfast consisted of coffee, black bread, submarine commander and he pilot."

Provincial Paper.

"Jimmy Wilde, the fly-weight champion, took part in two contests at Woolwich on Saturday, winning them both with great ease. Darkey Saunders, Camberwell, was beaten in three months."—Burton Daily Mail.

The reporter also seems to have been knocked out of time.

"If the area of the garden cannot be increased, the quantity and quality of the crops should be improved by the extra hour of daylight."—The Times.

For this discovery our contemporary is hereby recommended for the famous Chinese Order of the Excellent Crop.

"A letter sent on Friday saying, 'We are starting a central mess for 1,200 men on Monday,' and asking: 'Can you send cooks?' brings as a reply 24 trained women cooks, who roll up their sleeves and cook breakfast for the number stated inside 12 hours!"The Times.

The Times.

What was breakfast to some must have been supper to others.

When I travel up to London by an early morning trainOr return into the country when the day is on the wane,At the smallest railway stationThere's a dreadful demonstrationWhich causes me unmitigated pain.I'm aware that milk is needed for our infant girls and boys;That it aids adult dyspeptics to regain "digestive poise";But I've never comprehendedWhy its transport is attendedBy the maximum of diabolic noise.I admit the railway porter who can deftly twirl a canIn each hand along the platform is no ordinary man;But what kills me is the bangingAnd the clashing and the clangingAs he hurls them in or hauls them from the van.Now if some new material for these vessels could be found—Non-metallic and in consequence a silencer of sound—There would be within our bordersFewer nerve and brain disordersAnd more of moral uplift to go round.I know a dashing journalist, a credit to his trade,Who's always in the thick of it whenever there's a raid.Bombs of various sorts and sizesHe describes and analyses,But he can't endure a long milk-cannonade.I've written to our Member, Dr. Philadelphus Snell,To ask a question in the House—I think he'd do it well—If our cows' nerves should be mangledBy the way their milk is jangled;And, if he doesn't play, I'll tryGinnell.

When I travel up to London by an early morning train

Or return into the country when the day is on the wane,

At the smallest railway station

There's a dreadful demonstration

Which causes me unmitigated pain.

I'm aware that milk is needed for our infant girls and boys;That it aids adult dyspeptics to regain "digestive poise";But I've never comprehendedWhy its transport is attendedBy the maximum of diabolic noise.

I'm aware that milk is needed for our infant girls and boys;

That it aids adult dyspeptics to regain "digestive poise";

But I've never comprehended

Why its transport is attended

By the maximum of diabolic noise.

I admit the railway porter who can deftly twirl a canIn each hand along the platform is no ordinary man;But what kills me is the bangingAnd the clashing and the clangingAs he hurls them in or hauls them from the van.

I admit the railway porter who can deftly twirl a can

In each hand along the platform is no ordinary man;

But what kills me is the banging

And the clashing and the clanging

As he hurls them in or hauls them from the van.

Now if some new material for these vessels could be found—Non-metallic and in consequence a silencer of sound—There would be within our bordersFewer nerve and brain disordersAnd more of moral uplift to go round.

Now if some new material for these vessels could be found—

Non-metallic and in consequence a silencer of sound—

There would be within our borders

Fewer nerve and brain disorders

And more of moral uplift to go round.

I know a dashing journalist, a credit to his trade,Who's always in the thick of it whenever there's a raid.Bombs of various sorts and sizesHe describes and analyses,But he can't endure a long milk-cannonade.

I know a dashing journalist, a credit to his trade,

Who's always in the thick of it whenever there's a raid.

Bombs of various sorts and sizes

He describes and analyses,

But he can't endure a long milk-cannonade.

I've written to our Member, Dr. Philadelphus Snell,To ask a question in the House—I think he'd do it well—If our cows' nerves should be mangledBy the way their milk is jangled;And, if he doesn't play, I'll tryGinnell.

I've written to our Member, Dr. Philadelphus Snell,

To ask a question in the House—I think he'd do it well—

If our cows' nerves should be mangled

By the way their milk is jangled;

And, if he doesn't play, I'll tryGinnell.

(TheGerman Emperorand theCrown Prince.)

The German Emperor.Sit down, won't you?

The Crown Prince.Oh, thanks, I rather prefer standing. One's legs get so cramped in a motor-car.

The G. E.Sit down!

The C. P.Really, I——

The G. E.SIT DOWN!!

The C. P.Oh, if you're going to take it like that, I'll—yes, yes, there I am. Are you happy now?

The G. E.I don't know why I tolerate this impertinence from a whipper-snapper like you. If I did my duty——

The C. P.I know what you're going to say: if you did your duty you'd have me arrested and packed off to prison. Isn't that it? Yes, I thought so. You want to be like oldFrederick William. He hadFrederick the Greatsentenced to death, and, by Jove, he all but had the sentence carried out too. It was a deuced near thing.Frederick Williamwas mad, you know—as mad as a hatter, and——

The G. E.Stop it. I will not have you add to your other misdeeds the crime of irreverence against one of the greatest and worthiest members of our royal House.

The C. P.Well, it's my House as well as yours. I dare say you regret that, but there it is, and you won't alter it by glaring at me and threatening me with your moustache. I'm glare-proof and moustache-proof by this time.

The G. E.What have I done to deserve such a son?

The C. P.If it comes to that there's another way of putting it. What haveIdone to deserve such a father?—that's what I might ask; but I'm too respectful, too careful of your feelings. And what's my reward? You're always nag-nag-nagging at me, morning, noon and night. Why can't you give it a rest?

The G. E.This is beyond endurance. But it has always been the same from the time you cut your teeth until now—no filial piety, no consideration for your mother and me; only a cross-grained selfishness and bad temper. What happened in India?

The C. P.Oh, if you're going over that old story again, I'm off.

The G. E.Donnerwetter noch einmal!Sit still, I tell you. I say again, what happened in India? You never thought of ingratiating yourself with the native chiefs. You couldn't even keep your engagements or be punctual. All you thought of was running after some girl whose face happened to take your fancy. I might as well have kept you at home or sent you to London. What a creature to be a Crown Prince!

The C. P. (wearily).There you go again. But I protest against such treatment. I'd far rather be back before Verdun with oldVon Häselergrandmothering me all over the place.

The G. E.I wonder you dare to mention the word Verdun in my presence.

The C. P.Why shouldn't I? I didn't appoint myself Commander of the Verdun armies. You did that, and I've done my best to obey your orders and those of the High Command. If the French fight well, and if we lose thousands upon thousands of men, how am I responsible? Do be reasonable, my respected father. It was you who wanted Verdun. You won't be happy till you get it, and if you do get it now it won't be as useful as an old shoe without a sole. Anyhow, I'm bearing the burden, and if we succeed in breaking through it's you that will have the credit of it. If Verdun falls you'll be there in double quick time to take the salute in your shining——

The G. E.Silence, jackanapes!

The C. P.And if we don't get through poor oldVon Häselerwill have to retire. You'll send him your photograph in a gold frame to console him, just as you consoledBismarck. Pity there's noBismarcknow. However, we can't have everything, can we?

(Left quarrelling.)

"A damaged Zeppelin was observed to descend in the Thames Estuary, and it surrendered on the approach of patrol goat."The Journal (Calcutta).

"A damaged Zeppelin was observed to descend in the Thames Estuary, and it surrendered on the approach of patrol goat."

The Journal (Calcutta).

This incident is believed to be unique, but German submarines have no doubt before now been accounted for by our naval rams.

"We give these things long words. We talk of the 'triumph of organisation.' Is it not simpler to say—that when a man knows exactly what he wants done, exactly how every part of it should be done, and can pick a man for each task, and apportion his requirements to what is possible; and then, by far the most important thing of all, can so deal with the many under his command that each is most furiously anxious to do what the leader wants—why then, things go right."—Westminster Gazette.

The answer is in the negative.

"There is much matter for thinking over in the observations of this 'Student' who was at Sandhurst twelve years ago, and at Oxford later on, and seems to have got the best out of both forms of training—the unhasting and unresting labour of 'the Shop,' which aims only at making competent gunners and sappers, and the easy-going round of University life which enlarges one's sympathy and stimulates the imagination."—Morning Paper.

Judging by his description of Sandhurst we think that the writer of the above extract must also have been at Oxford, where the imagination gets stimulated.

Farmer (who has got a lady-help in the dairy)."Ullo, Missy, what in the would be ye doin'?"Lady."Well, you told me to water the cows and I'm doing it. They don't seem to like it much."

Farmer (who has got a lady-help in the dairy)."Ullo, Missy, what in the would be ye doin'?"

Lady."Well, you told me to water the cows and I'm doing it. They don't seem to like it much."

I am the Neutral Journalist who wanders round Europe. I am absolutely impartial. I am absolutely trustworthy. My perfect integrity is vouched for at the head of all my articles. Pleasant it is to come over to London, sell one set of articles to the Boom Press and another to the Gloom Press, and then sit down with smiling face and begin an article for Germany: "I sit in a hovel amongst the ruins of Fleet Street, with the wreck of the armoured fort of St. Paul's in view. I hear a stir outside. A wild mob of conscientious objectors is beating a recruiting officer to death. Such things happen hourly in defeated Albion." My series of London, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham—all in ashes—has proved so successful that I propose to cover all the large towns and construct a Baedeker of ruins.

Yet I pride myself more on my work for England's Press. My German articles have all to be in the same vein. Only the Boom Press exists in Germany. But in England one can vary one's view and do artistic work. You must have read my story of the struggle for the last sausage in a Frankfort butcher's shop—how the troops intervened and the crowd attacked them, and how ultimately 1,400 civilians were mown down with machine guns—and the sausage was eaten by the General Officer commanding the Army Corps that suppressed the rising. You must also have seen my description of theKaiser—his white hair, bent shoulders, deathlike look as he passed, protected by his Guards from the wild fury of the Berlin mob. Of course I have anotherKaiser, the bright smiling man whose youth seems to have been renewed by the War, who waves his hand to the madly enthusiastic crowds waiting round the Palace for a glimpse of their divinity.

You must have read my secret interviews with distinguished Germans, who whispered to me thatHindenburghad thrown down his sword and declared that if the useless slaughter did not cease he would march on Berlin. I have told you their promises of bloody revolutions and fierce risings. Also I have given you interviews with other distinguished Germans, who confided to me that now Germany could turn out one submarine and one Zeppelin every week-day and two on Sundays, and I have thrilled you with the details of the great trade war which will come directly peace is declared, when Germany will win back all her wealth by selling everything fifty per cent. below cost.

How my dinners vary in that strange Teutonic land! I pay twenty marks for two tiny slices of fish, a thin piece of indigestible potato bread, and a section of rancid sausage. At other times I spend two marks and get a delightful meal which could not be procured in a London restaurant for five shillings. I walk through Berlin and see scarcely a cripple or a wounded man. I let you know that ninety-five per cent. of German wounded, owing to the skill of German doctors, go back to the Front in a week. To other English readers I confide that all the maimed, wounded and blind are sent into the very centre of Germany. There are huge districts without a whole man in them.

Did you ask for the actual facts? I will give you one—and it is this: the only persons in Germany whose waist-measurements have increased in the War are the neutral journalists.

InHearts of Alsace(Smith, Elder) your interest will be held less by the actual story than by the profoundly moving and poignant picture that MissBetham-Edwardshas drawn of life in the Reichsland under the increasing burden of Prussian tyranny. It is a picture that one feels to be absolutely true. The author writes of what she knows. This Alsatian family—oldJean Barthélemy, the city father, crushed and embittered by the fate of his loved Mulhouse; his two daughters and the circle of their friends within the town—all live and move and look longingly towards the West, as so many others must have done these forty and odd years past. The plot, what there is of it, concerns the clandestine love ofClaire, the petted younger daughter of the Gley house, for an officer in the conqueror's host, whom she had met during a visit to Strasburg.Clairemarries herKurt, a shady worthless knave, and, as the book ends with the outbreak of war, is left to an unknown fate. Very stirring are the chapters that tell of the tumult of emotion that broke loose when the French guns were heard in Mulhouse; though here—as in all those war stories whose only satisfactory end is the final confusion of Kaiserdom—one feels that there is a chapter yet to be added. MissBetham-Edwardswrites with all the vigour (I might add all the garrulity) of intense personal feeling. Her book, as a race study, is a real contribution to the literature of the War.

These are days in which some measure of sacrifice is rightly considered the common duty of everyone, so long as it is sacrifice with an object. Perhaps this consideration gives me less patience with the preposterous kind, which, as a motive in fiction, usually consists in the hero inviting all and sundry to trample upon his prospects and reputation. This is what the chief character inProud Peter(Hutchinson) did. He began by allowing it to be supposed that he was the father of his brother's illegitimate child, the bright peculiar fatuousness of which pretence was that thereby the said brother was enabled to marry, and break the heart of, the heroine, whom, of course, Peter himself adored. Also, many years after, when the child, now an objectionable young man, nay more, an actor, was pursuing another heroine with his unwelcome attentions, he very nearly spikedPeter'sguns, on being threatened, by exclaiming, "I am thy son"—or words to that effect. Fortunately, however, there existed, as I had somehow known would be the case, a signed photograph that put all that right. Why, I wonder, is Mr. W. E.Norrisalways so sharp with the dramatic profession? Was it not in one of his earlier stories that somebody quite seriously questions whether a good actor can also be a good man? On the whole, as you may have gathered, while I should call Proud Peter a comfortable tale of the eupeptic type, I enjoyed it rather less than other stories from the same facile pen.

Arthur Green'sThe Story of a Prisoner of War(Chatto and Windus) can be recommended to all who can still digest the uncooked facts. "I can swear," he says, "that all that is written is Gospel truth," but without any such assurance it would be impossible for even the most sceptical to doubt the writer's honesty. Wounded and taken prisoner in August, 1914, he suffered severely at the hands of the Germans, and his account of the camp at Wittenburg does nothing to decrease one's loathing for that pestilential spot. For many reasons it gives that a civilized race can sink to such depths of cruelty and cowardice. Perhaps the only people to whom it will give any comfort are those who have sent food and clothing to our prisoners. But I am glad that this book came my way, because I would choose to read facts of the War baldly written by a soldier rather than any war fiction composed by imaginative civilians. "Of course I'm not an author," he writes, and as far as grammar and spelling go it is not for me to contradict him, but he has seen and suffered, and in these days no one who has handled a bayonet need apologise for taking a turn with a pen.

Encouraged, no doubt, by the reception accorded to that cheery little volume,Minor Horrors of War, its author, Dr. A. E.Shipley, has now followed it with an equally entertaining sequel in More Minor Horrors (Smith,Elder). This deals more especially with the pests attached to the Senior Service, and familiar to those who go down to the sea in ships—the Cockroach, the Mosquito, the Rat, the Biscuit-Weevil and others. Of each Dr.Shipleyhas some pleasant word of instruction or comment to say, in his own highly entertaining manner. I like, for example, his remark about the mosquito (whose infinite variety is recognised in no fewer than five chapters), that, if he could talk, the burden of his song would be that of the guests at the dinner-party inDavid Copperfield—"Give us blood!" And I found good omen in the cockroach world on learning thatPeriplaneta Orientalis, or the common English sort, hasP. Germanicathoroughly beat in the matter of empire-building. In short, Dr.Shipley'ssecond volume, like his first, combines instruction with amusement, and is well worth its modest eighteen-pence to those on land who may wish to learn about the intimate associates of their dear ones who are defending them upon the sea.

"In the Midst of Life——"

"Good Greengrocer and Mixed Business, sure living; death cause of leaving."—Provincial Paper.

The Author (dictating)."'The room was filled with dynamite, gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, cans of petrol and other high explosives. A train of powder had been laid and was swiftly burning its way to the heap of combustibles. Clarence, tied to a post, listened to the retreating footsteps of the Huns, a smile of contempt curling his sensitive nostrils.' Clarence is in a tight place, Miss Brown, and I don't know yet how we'll get him out of it. Can you suggest anything?"Amanuensis (brightly)."Why not have peace proclaimed?"

Amanuensis (brightly)."Why not have peace proclaimed?"

Back to Index Next