Relatives without Antecedents

(To be continued.)

we'll have to drink the fizz out of port glassesProfiteer Host. "I'm afraid we'll have to drink the fizz out of port glasses."Profiteer Guest. "Oh, we don't mind roughin' it; we're all sportsmen, I take it."

Profiteer Host. "I'm afraid we'll have to drink the fizz out of port glasses."

Profiteer Guest. "Oh, we don't mind roughin' it; we're all sportsmen, I take it."

"Youthful Hostesses.—A few years ago when a bachelor entertained he invited his aunt or his mother to act as hostess for him. Now he asks his grand-daughter."—Daily Paper.

"Ostensibly £it was a move to check the ever-rising cost of living, £and in a way not fully realised by the public £it was a method of riveting control on the industry."

Evening Paper.

With money flung about like this the cost of living is bound to go up again.

SINISTER SIGNS FROM SOUTH KENSINGTONSINISTER SIGNS FROM SOUTH KENSINGTON.Alarmed House Agent."Madam, what have you done to my partner?"Client."I was just giving particulars of my flat, which I am anxious to let, and when I said, 'No premium required,' he crumpled up as if he'd been shot."

Alarmed House Agent."Madam, what have you done to my partner?"

Client."I was just giving particulars of my flat, which I am anxious to let, and when I said, 'No premium required,' he crumpled up as if he'd been shot."

[The taking of finger-prints of all new-born babies is advocated. These will be useful for identification at trials, inquests, etc., since the pattern of the print does not change from the cradle to the grave.]

With paternal pride I used to glowWhen the neighbours dropped their pleasant hintsHow like Daddy Reginald would grow,But to-day they took his finger-prints;Now I am convinced they spoke in haste—Such expressions show a lack of taste.Operator was a kindly man,Formerly a sergeant of police;Dipped our Reggie's digits in a panFilled with printers' ink and oil and grease,pressed them on a card and soothed his moans,Saying "Diddums" in official tones.Mother stood and gazed upon the thing,Lovingly as doting mothers do;Asked, "Does Reggie's hieroglyphic bringMemories of famous men to you—Men who, having made their lives sublime,Left their thumb-prints on the sands of time?"Will it be his destiny to writeOr to earn a living with his brains?Will he share a 'loop' withGrahame White?Do his 'arches' pair with those ofBaines?Is there similarity betweenReggie's 'whorls' and those ofM. Massine?"Operator coughed behind his hand,Moved his feet and shook his hoary head,Thrust his fingers in his bellyband,Then at last reluctantly he said,"I've encountered in the course of bizMany prints that much resembled his."One, I mind me, such impressions made;P'r'aps you never heard of Ginger Hicks,Him what done in uncle with a spadeDown in Canning Town in ninety-six?Ginger was a wrong 'un from the fust;As a child he bellowed fit to bust."Then there was another, something like,Got a lifer seven years ago;Surely you remember Mealy Mike,Robbery with violence at Bow?Michael's thumb-print, though of larger size,Was the spit of Reggie's otherwise."Then again his lines could be compared—"Mother snatched her precious up and fled,Pausing once to ask him how he daredPut such notions in um's little head.Her departure mid a storm of kissingPut the lid on further reminiscing.

With paternal pride I used to glow

When the neighbours dropped their pleasant hints

How like Daddy Reginald would grow,

But to-day they took his finger-prints;

Now I am convinced they spoke in haste—

Such expressions show a lack of taste.

Operator was a kindly man,Formerly a sergeant of police;Dipped our Reggie's digits in a panFilled with printers' ink and oil and grease,pressed them on a card and soothed his moans,Saying "Diddums" in official tones.

Operator was a kindly man,

Formerly a sergeant of police;

Dipped our Reggie's digits in a pan

Filled with printers' ink and oil and grease,

pressed them on a card and soothed his moans,

Saying "Diddums" in official tones.

Mother stood and gazed upon the thing,Lovingly as doting mothers do;Asked, "Does Reggie's hieroglyphic bringMemories of famous men to you—Men who, having made their lives sublime,Left their thumb-prints on the sands of time?

Mother stood and gazed upon the thing,

Lovingly as doting mothers do;

Asked, "Does Reggie's hieroglyphic bring

Memories of famous men to you—

Men who, having made their lives sublime,

Left their thumb-prints on the sands of time?

"Will it be his destiny to writeOr to earn a living with his brains?Will he share a 'loop' withGrahame White?Do his 'arches' pair with those ofBaines?Is there similarity betweenReggie's 'whorls' and those ofM. Massine?"

"Will it be his destiny to write

Or to earn a living with his brains?

Will he share a 'loop' withGrahame White?

Do his 'arches' pair with those ofBaines?

Is there similarity between

Reggie's 'whorls' and those ofM. Massine?"

Operator coughed behind his hand,Moved his feet and shook his hoary head,Thrust his fingers in his bellyband,Then at last reluctantly he said,"I've encountered in the course of bizMany prints that much resembled his.

Operator coughed behind his hand,

Moved his feet and shook his hoary head,

Thrust his fingers in his bellyband,

Then at last reluctantly he said,

"I've encountered in the course of biz

Many prints that much resembled his.

"One, I mind me, such impressions made;P'r'aps you never heard of Ginger Hicks,Him what done in uncle with a spadeDown in Canning Town in ninety-six?Ginger was a wrong 'un from the fust;As a child he bellowed fit to bust.

"One, I mind me, such impressions made;

P'r'aps you never heard of Ginger Hicks,

Him what done in uncle with a spade

Down in Canning Town in ninety-six?

Ginger was a wrong 'un from the fust;

As a child he bellowed fit to bust.

"Then there was another, something like,Got a lifer seven years ago;Surely you remember Mealy Mike,Robbery with violence at Bow?Michael's thumb-print, though of larger size,Was the spit of Reggie's otherwise.

"Then there was another, something like,

Got a lifer seven years ago;

Surely you remember Mealy Mike,

Robbery with violence at Bow?

Michael's thumb-print, though of larger size,

Was the spit of Reggie's otherwise.

"Then again his lines could be compared—"Mother snatched her precious up and fled,Pausing once to ask him how he daredPut such notions in um's little head.Her departure mid a storm of kissingPut the lid on further reminiscing.

"Then again his lines could be compared—"

Mother snatched her precious up and fled,

Pausing once to ask him how he dared

Put such notions in um's little head.

Her departure mid a storm of kissing

Put the lid on further reminiscing.

ALADDIN AND THE MINER'S LAMP.ALADDIN AND THE MINER'S LAMP.The Genie."I AM THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP. I THINK YOU SUMMONED ME."Mr. Smillie."YES, I KNOW. BUT I DIDN'T REALISE YOU'D BE SO UGLY."

The Genie."I AM THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP. I THINK YOU SUMMONED ME."

Mr. Smillie."YES, I KNOW. BUT I DIDN'T REALISE YOU'D BE SO UGLY."

a nice little bus."Yes, a nice little bus. But I say, old top, the footboards are deucedly low. If you ran over anyone you might be capsized—what?"

"Yes, a nice little bus. But I say, old top, the footboards are deucedly low. If you ran over anyone you might be capsized—what?"

John Antony Grunch was one of the mildest, most innocent men I ever knew. He had a wife to whom he was devoted with a dog-like devotion; he went to church; he was shy and reserved, and he held a mediocre position in a firm of envelope-makers in the City. But he had a romantic soul, and whenever the public craving for envelopes fell off—and that is seldom—he used to allay his secret passion for danger, devilry and excitement by writing sensational novels. One of these was recently published, and John Antony is now dead. The novel did it.

Yet it was a very mild sort of "shocker," about a very ordinary murder. The villain simply slew one of his typists in the counting-house with a sword-umbrella and concealed his guilt by putting her in a pillar-box. But it had "power," and it was very favourably reviewed. One critic said that "the author, who was obviously a woman, had treated with singular delicacy and feeling the ever-urgent problem of female employment in our great industrial centres." Another said that the book was "a brilliant burlesque of the fashionable type of detective fiction." Another wrote that "it was a conscientious analysis of a perplexing phase of agricultural life." John thought that must refer to the page where he had described the allotments at Shepherd's Bush. But he was pleased and surprised by what they said.

What he didnotlike was the interpretation offered by his family and his friends, who at once decided that the work was the autobiography of John Antony. You see, the scene was laid in London, and John lived in London; the murdered girl was a typist, and there were two typists in John's office; and, to crown all, the villain in the book had a boar-hound, and John himself had a Skye-terrier. The thing was as plain as could be. Men he met in the City said, "How's that boar-hound of yours?" or "I like that bit where you hit the policeman. When did you do that?" "You," mark you. Old friends took him aside and whispered, "Very sorry to hear you don't hit it off with Mrs. Grunch; I always thought you were such a happy couple." His wife's family said, "Poor Gladys! what a life she must have had!" His own family said, "Poor John! what a life she must have led him to make him go off with that adventuress!" Several people identified the adventuress as Miss Crook, the Secretary of the local Mothers' Welfare League, of which John was a vice-president.

The fog of suspicion swelled and spread and penetrated into every cranny and level of society. No servants would come near the house, or if they did they soon stumbled on a copy of the shocker while doing the drawing-room, read it voraciously and rushed screaming out of the front-door. When he took a parcel of washing to the post-office the officials refused to accept it until he had opened it and shown that there were no bodies in it.

The animal kingdom is very sensitive to the suspicion of guilt. John noticed that dogs avoided him, horses neighed at him, earwigs fled from him in horror, caterpillars madly spun themselves into cocoons as he approached, owls hooted, snakes hissed. Only Mrs. Grunch remained faithful.

But one morning at breakfast Mrs. Grunch said, "Pass the salt, please, John." John didn't hear. He was reading a letter. Mrs. Grunch said again, "Pass the salt, please, John." John was still engrossed. Mrs. Grunch wanted the salt pretty badly, so she got up and fetched it. As she did so she noticed thatthe handwriting of the letter was the handwriting of A Woman. Worse, it was written on the embossed paper of the Mothers' Welfare League. It must be from Miss Crook.And it was.It was about the annual outing. "Ah, ha!" said Mrs. Grunch. (I am afraid that "Ah, ha!" doesn't really convey to you the sort of sound she made, but you must just imagine.) "Ah, ha! Sothat's why you couldn't pass the salt!"

Mad with rage, hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, jealousy and indigestion, John rushed out of the house and went to the office. At the door of the office he met one of the typists. He held the door open for her. She simpered and refused to go in front of him. Being still mad with rage, hatred, chagrin and all those other things, John made a cross gesture with his umbrella. With a shrill, shuddering shriek of "Murder!" the girl cantered violently down Ludgate Hill and was never seen again. Entering the office, John found two detectives waiting to ask him a few questions in connection with the Newcastle Pig-sty Murder, which had been done with some pointed instrument, probably an umbrella.

After thatThe Daily Horrorrang up and asked if he would contribute an article to their series on "Is Bigamy Worth While?"

Having had enough rushing for one day John walked slowly out into the street, trying to remember the various ways in which his characters had committed suicide. He threw himself over the Embankment wall into the river, but fell in a dinghy which he had not noticed; he bought some poison, but the chemist recognised his face from a photograph in the Literary Column ofThe Druggistand gave him ipecacuanha (none of you can spell that); he thought of cutting his throat, but broke his thumb-nail trying to open the big blade, and gave it up. Desperate, he decided to go home. At Victoria he was hustled along the platform on the pretence that there is more room in the rear of trains. Finally he was hustled on to the line and electrocuted.

And everybody said, "So itwastrue."

A. P. H.

There be Mrs. Rouse's"There be Mrs. Rouse's, over agin the church. I believe she do put up with lodgers."

"There be Mrs. Rouse's, over agin the church. I believe she do put up with lodgers."

From an Indian trade-circular:—

"We believe in making a Small Profit and selling Everybody rather than making a Big Profit and selling only a Few."

"Wanted for Tea Estate, Nilgiris, good climate Superintendent."

Indian Paper.

We could do with one here, too.

E. Temple Thurston's Wanderful Play."

Advt. in Daily Paper.

And still the wander grew.

"When the Prime Minister, accompanied by Mr. Lloyd George, appeared a magnificent ovation was accorded them."—Welsh Paper.

This tends to confirm the statements in the anti-Coalition Press that thePrime Ministerwas beside himself.

From an examination-paper at a girls' school:—

Question.Why are the days in summer longer than those in winter?Answer.Because they are warmer and therefore expand.

Lucky to find a hairdresserVisitor."Lucky to find a hairdresser in a small village like this."Native."Well, be rights it's my son's business and 'e's away; but I've done a wunnerful deal of 'orse-clippin'."

Visitor."Lucky to find a hairdresser in a small village like this."

Native."Well, be rights it's my son's business and 'e's away; but I've done a wunnerful deal of 'orse-clippin'."

There is no doubt that Ernest was to blame. I know, of course, that he meant well. But a passion for fresh air, unless it is checked in time, is bound to lead one into all sorts of trouble.

You see, Ernest suffers so from theories. He has theories about eating, sleeping and waking, talking and thinking; but those on fresh air are the worst (or perhaps I ought to say the best) of all. Not that we, who constitute his family, would object to his theories if he didn't get us involved in them as well; but that is exactly what does happen. There was, for example, the camping-out proposition.

It began with Mother sitting at a table one evening in the early autumn and jotting down figures. Her brow was troubled. "We really can't afford a holiday this year, girls," she said, "though I suppose we shallhaveto. What with the price of everything just now and—" She then went on to speak with hostility of things like the Government and SirEric Geddes, though she is a peaceable woman as a rule.

Whereupon Ernest, who was at the open window engaged in a little quiet biceps-training (we won't allow him to do the more rowdy muscular exercises in the living-room), remarked, "But why should we be subjected to these eternal trammels of civilisation? Isn't the open country man's rightful heritage?"

"I see the prices have gone up at the select boarding-house where we stayed last year and met such nice people," went on Mother, ignoring Ernest. "It's five guineas a week each now."

"Monstrous," put in Ernest again. "Five guineas a week just to breathe the pure air of Heaven."

"Oh, they give you more than that," said Mother, "though I suspect the meat isn't English."

Ernest laughed sardonically. "Now let me tell you of my plan," he said, taking a newspaper cutting from his pocket. "Here is my solution to the holiday problem, and it certainly doesn't cost five guineas a week. Why not adopt it?"

"Why, it's an umbrella," commented Mother, feeling for her glasses. "But surely you don't expect it to rain all the time?"

"That is not an umbrella, it is an illustration of a portable tent," explained Ernest. "The canvas folds up and can be carried in the pocket, while the pole also folds and is convertible into a walking-stick by day. Thus you are able to camp where you will; throw off the shackles of convention——"

"It may be all right for throwing off the shackles of convention," remarked Mother, "but nothing would induce me to undress in a thing like that."

"But when it's erected it's perfectly solid——"

"So am I," said Mother, "and I like room to turn round. No, Ernest, I am as fond of fresh air as anyone—you know I always have my bedroom window open at least two inches at night—but air is not everything. Give me a comfortable bed and good catering if I am to go on holiday and enjoy it.Youcan please yourself."

That is the mistake Mother made. Ernest ought not to be allowed to please himself. He doesn't know what is good for him. And, when he departed on his walking tour accompanied by his tent, his sponge-bag, a copy ofOmar Kháyyám, but very little else, Mother felt uneasy.

"What will happen if you get your feet wet?" she asked. "I'm sure you ought to take more things with you, Ernest."

"What more do I want?" he demanded, "'A loaf of bread beneath the bough——'"

"A loaf of bread indeed!" echoed Mother. "Fiddlesticks! Mind you get at least three good meals a day." She thengave him the address of the boarding-house where we had finally decided to spend our holidays and told him to send her a wire at once if he got a cold in the head.

It was the hour of dinner at the Select Boarding Establishment (sep. tables, 3 mins. sea, elec. lt., mod.) where we had spent ten days of our entirely select holiday. Everyone was assembled in the lounge hall waiting for the gong to announce the meal. Mother, basking her soul in the atmosphere of gentility, was chatting with the half-sister of a bishop, who was just remarking that Mother must call on her in town, when a strangefracaswas heard at the back of the hall; a moment later a strange figure thrust itself in our midst and looked wildly round.

"Ernest!" murmured Mother faintly. She was a wise woman to know her own child under the circumstances. Perhaps she identified the tent-pole to which he was still clinging. Otherwise he was scarcely recognisable. His hair was wild and unkempt, his clothing torn and damaged. His boots clung to his feet by the uppers only and were held together by fragments of a sponge-bag.

"Mother!" said Ernest, singling her out from amongst the gay throng. The moment was dramatic.

"I—I was arrested," went on Ernest. He spoke in a purely conversational tone, but it's surprising how far the human voice will carry at times. Everybody about the place, including the lift-boy and the Belgian waiter, seemed to hear that remark.

"Arrested?" whispered Mother in reverberating tone-waves.

"Yes. How was I to know that I had pitched my tent on private property and was unwittingly trespassing? They would have prosecuted me if I hadn't——"

"You had better come up to my room and explain there," interposed Mother; and we followed her, a broken woman, to the lift. People fell aside to make a passage for us.

Mother held up until she got to her own room. Then she sat down and cried. "Why did you disgrace us like this?" she asked at last of Ernest. "Was it necessary for you to comehere?"

"I had to," said Ernest apologetically. "You see I hadn't any money."

Mother looked up quickly. "But what of the extra ten pounds I insisted on your taking with you in case of emergency?"

Ernest appeared slightly shame-faced. "Well, when those fatuous asses hauled me up for trespassing they left me in the charge of a gamekeeper while they 'phoned for the police. I induced the chap to let me go, and I had to square him with a tenner."

There was a long pause. Mother's mind seemed to be working at some abstruse calculation. Then she dried her eyes and looked up with the triumphant smile of the woman who gets the last word and wins her point.

"And so, Ernest," she said, "itdidcost you five guineas a week to 'breathe the pure air of Heaven' after all."

Sorry to hear your husband is laid up again"Sorry to hear your husband is laid up again, Mrs. Griggs.""Yes. The trouble is he be an old man, and hewillturn a deaf ear to the writin' on the wall."

"Sorry to hear your husband is laid up again, Mrs. Griggs."

"Yes. The trouble is he be an old man, and hewillturn a deaf ear to the writin' on the wall."

(By a Student of Jargon.)

By the courtesy of Professor Prawling, F. R. S., who has supplied us with the MS. of his recent lecture before the Psycho-Economical Society, we are in a position to give our readers a full account of that masterly and epoch-making address, of which, strange to say, no adequate notice has so far appeared in any newspaper.

Professor Prawling's credentials, we may premise, are of a nature to inspire the utmost confidence. His father, Theodore Prawling, was the inventor of the speedle, that remarkable implement, fully described byPunchin the early seventies, which rendered possible the emulsification of all gelatinoid substances and revolutionised the marmalade industry. He is duly commemorated by the fine statue which is one of the principal features of Dundee. His son, however, has even greaterclaims on our respect and admiration. Educated at the High School, Crieff, and the Universities of Glasgow, Upsala, the Sorbonne and Princeton, he is generally recognised in the United States as the foremost authority on Pædological Gongorism and the cognate science of Mendelian Economics.

The problem with which he grapples in his latest contribution to these fascinating studies may be tersely summed up in a single sentence: Can a healthy metabolism be superinduced on an economic system already showing symptoms of extrinsic conglucination?

Professor Prawling is of opinion that itcan, but only if and when the evils of co-partnership and co-operation have been neutralized by a diastolic synthesis. To compute exactly the extent to which these evils have been developed he has devised a syncretic abacus, in which, on the principle of the spectroscope, the aplanatic foci are arranged in fluorescent nodules each equidistant from the metacentre. With a frankness that cannot be too highly commended, Professor Prawling admits that this instrument is founded onBentham'sPanopticon. But the deviations fromBenthamand the expansions of his machine are far more remarkable than the resemblances to it. Prawling—if he will allow us the familiarity—is not a utilitarian. His aim is to re-establish our textile pre-eminence by reconciling monistic individualism with the fullest solidarity of the social complex. He is meticulously careful in stressing the point that the demarcations arrived at by the use of his abacus are not absolute, but conditioned byEinstein'stheory of relativity. The ancillary industries, each moving in its orbit, whether jurassic or botulistic, must be placed on a contractual basis with liberty of preferential retaliation. Thus the whole industrial polyphony is linked up by enharmonic modulations, and thrombosis—or, at any rate, conglucination—of the central ganglia of commerce is reduced to negligible dimensions.

At this juncture it is well to point out in the interests of clarity that regurgitation can only be avoided by a rigorous adhesion to the canon ofCrittenden—that the unit of nutrition must vary inversely with the square of dilution.

It will thus be seen that by the logical application of a few simple and easily apprehended principles Professor Prawling has built up a great edifice of practical economics, which, whether we regard it in its subliminal or its pragmatic aspects, cannot fail to have influence on the dynamics of International Industrialism.

One word more. The conglucination theory appeals with especial force toPunch, because it reminds him of the kindred and remarkable speculation on Snooling discussed by him many years ago. The new theory, like the old, deserves to be treated "in no spirit of sedentary sentimentalism, but in its largest and most oleaginous entirety. It is no plan for fixing hat-pegs in a passage, nor is it a mode of treating neuralgia with treacle." How true and appropriate this is.Mutatis mutandiswe may add the further statement that it is "the truest and tenderest thesis that can occupy the most calculating cosmopolite." The corporate pursuit of a granulated conglucination is perhaps the highest achievement of which the present generation is capable.

I trust you'll excuse me mentioning it"I trust you'll excuse me mentioning it, my good fellow, but that is the right entrance—on the opposite side of the road."

"I trust you'll excuse me mentioning it, my good fellow, but that is the right entrance—on the opposite side of the road."

"Cardinal Dubois, Archbishop of Rouen, has been translated, as most of us expected, to the Archbishopric in Paris. Being a very distinguished man of letters, the Académie Française would like to include him among the Immorals, but, alas! they are 'full inside.'"

Evening Paper.

The thrilling incident of the stray cat at "Chez Nous" is never likely to get into the newspapers. On the other hand, lots of incidents which do get in never deserve to. It's all a question of head-lining, which is the bluff by which the public is induced to read matter it would otherwise skip.

The affair began while I was in the City. I learnt afterwards that Marjorie (my wife) was crooning to her needles the unmetrical jumper lullaby, "Six purl, eight plain; then the same all over again." Anyhow she was knitting, when she suddenly found herself looking into the wistful eyes of a tortoiseshell cat which had appeared—merely appeared.

As she told me, she softly exclaimed, "A cat!" (right first time); then, because it looked so wistful, she directed the maid to set before the creature a saucer of milk. In fact—

HOMELESS BLACK-AND-TAN.LUCKY CHANCE CALL.TOOTING GOOD SAMARITAN.

When I arrived home, Marjorie ran into the hall to give me one of her smooth evening kisses. I stepped forward to exchange it for one of my stubbly ones when—

"Oh, Jack," said Marjorie, "you've trodden on her!"

"'Her,'" I said. "Who's 'her'?"

"The dearest little tortoiseshell stray cat," replied Marjorie. "You really might have been more careful."

"I say, that's rather unfair," I said. "I stagger home tired to the teeth after a particularly thin day in the City, followed by a sardine-tin journey, and my own wife turns on me in favour of the first outcast cat that comes along. It's enough to drive a man to dope." Or, as the headlines would have it:—

NEAR BREAKING-POINT.STRAIN OF BUSINESS LIFE.ORIGIN OF THE DRUG HABIT.

After a bath and a change I felt better, and came down to dinner humming a sentimental ballad in Marjorie's honour. But the word "love" died on my lips when I saw that in the lap of Marjorie's pretty pink gown reposed the stray cat. The colour-clash and the misapplication of caresses which should have been my monopoly threw me back with a jerk to a state of bearishness.

"Surely you're not going to keep that animal?" I asked.

"Of course I am, as long as she likes to stay," said Marjorie. "She's very fond of me, aren't you, pussy? Fonder than my husband, I 'spect."

"I know these stray cats," I said. "Stiff with microbes. Tribes of mangy lovers prowling round the house. A nest of kittens in my top-hat. I know."

"Poor li'l pussy," cooed Marjorie. "Don'tum listen to the big coarse man."

"Coarse be——"

In other (and more suitable) words—

HUSBAND'S PROFANITY.MASK OFF AFTER TWO YEARS.PEEVISH ABOUT WIFE'S PET.

Marjorie said coldly that she didn't know I had such a temper. I said hotly that I didn't know she could be so infantile.

We went on discovering things we hadn't known about each other:—

THE TESTING TIMEIN CONJUGAL FELICITY,IS IT THE THIRD YEAR?

Dinner was an ordeal. I felt miles apart from Marjorie. A great gulf filled with black-and-yellow cat lay between us. Once only the topic of the beast arose (on the subject of fish-bones) and just as I was becoming big and coarse again the maid entered with the joint. She must have heard what I said.

SHOULD SERVANTS TELL?BACKDOOR SCANDAL.

Still, the meal itself was a cheering one, and, after Marjorie had risen, the sentimental ballad mood gained on me again. After all, what was a stray cat compared with one's marriage vows? If the dear girl wanted to keep the thing we would have it vetted, definitely named, and warned as to followers.

Marjorie's voice interrupted my amiable planning. "Puss, puss," she called. I joined her and stated my decision to relent.

"But she's vanished," said Marjorie. She had. And she has never come back. Ah! those stray cats.

NINE LIVES SPENT WHERE?FOUR-FOOTED NOMADS.FICKLE FELINE FRIENDSHIPS.

"Look here, old girl," I said, "I take back all I said about your little friend. I'm with you that she was the dearest, most hygienic, most moral cat that ever strafed a mouse."

"Perhaps it's all for the best that she's gone," said Marjorie.

The dear girl inclined her head towards my shoulder. Well, well.

WHAT EVERY WOMAN WANTSTO KNOW.IS KISSING DYING OUT?PRACTICIANS SAY "NO."

"Unfurnished Rooms wanted (two or three), with attendance; one child, 4½ years; at business all day."

Provincial Paper.

[A daily paper points out that many girls find their sweethearts in print, and expresses the hope that when "a real man comes along he may be as brave and tender, as cheery and clean-living," as these heroes of fiction.]

Dear lady, put down for a minuteThat book which you eagerly scan,Intent upon finding within itYour perfect ideal of a man;Its pages reflectively closing,Consider a moment the strainYour standard may soon be imposingUpon some susceptible swain.Those heroes whose fortunes you followI've noticed are able to showThe unparalleled charms of Apollo,The muscles ofSamsonand Co.;But he who comes seeking to win youMay have, for supporting his plea,A palpable shortage of sinewAnd beauty distinctly C 3.And, unprepossessing in mien, heMay also lack some of the artWith which Saccharissa the TweenyWas wooed by Sir Marmaduke, Bart.;His tongue may (conceivably) stammer,His heart (not impossibly) quake,And in stress of emotion his grammarMay even develop a shake.But pause ere you "spurn his addresses;"His merits may still be as highAs the sort that your hero possesses,Though they leap not so quick to the eye;At the least, you've the comfort of knowing,Since his heart atyourfeet he has placed,That in one thing at least he is showingA wholly impeccable taste.

Dear lady, put down for a minute

That book which you eagerly scan,

Intent upon finding within it

Your perfect ideal of a man;

Its pages reflectively closing,

Consider a moment the strain

Your standard may soon be imposing

Upon some susceptible swain.

Those heroes whose fortunes you followI've noticed are able to showThe unparalleled charms of Apollo,The muscles ofSamsonand Co.;But he who comes seeking to win youMay have, for supporting his plea,A palpable shortage of sinewAnd beauty distinctly C 3.

Those heroes whose fortunes you follow

I've noticed are able to show

The unparalleled charms of Apollo,

The muscles ofSamsonand Co.;

But he who comes seeking to win you

May have, for supporting his plea,

A palpable shortage of sinew

And beauty distinctly C 3.

And, unprepossessing in mien, heMay also lack some of the artWith which Saccharissa the TweenyWas wooed by Sir Marmaduke, Bart.;His tongue may (conceivably) stammer,His heart (not impossibly) quake,And in stress of emotion his grammarMay even develop a shake.

And, unprepossessing in mien, he

May also lack some of the art

With which Saccharissa the Tweeny

Was wooed by Sir Marmaduke, Bart.;

His tongue may (conceivably) stammer,

His heart (not impossibly) quake,

And in stress of emotion his grammar

May even develop a shake.

But pause ere you "spurn his addresses;"His merits may still be as highAs the sort that your hero possesses,Though they leap not so quick to the eye;At the least, you've the comfort of knowing,Since his heart atyourfeet he has placed,That in one thing at least he is showingA wholly impeccable taste.

But pause ere you "spurn his addresses;"

His merits may still be as high

As the sort that your hero possesses,

Though they leap not so quick to the eye;

At the least, you've the comfort of knowing,

Since his heart atyourfeet he has placed,

That in one thing at least he is showing

A wholly impeccable taste.

"We spin the yarn ourselves."

Advt. in Daily Paper.

An Impression at Cambridge.

I watch the faces of the 'men,' boys in so many cases, jumping from their trains; from the north, the south, the east, the west they come, and they come not alone butdona ferentes—they carry tennis-racquets, golf-sticks, cycles, sidecars, kitbags, gladstone-bags, trunks, hold-alls."

Evening Paper.

Hefty chaps, these post-war undergraduates.

"Question.—How much has the time for crossing the ocean been shortened since the day of Columbus?

T. E. C.

Answer.—Idaho is a North American Indian word meaning 'Gem of the Mountains' or 'Sunrise Mountains.'"

Boston (Massachusetts) Herald.

We hope that T. E. C. isn't going to be put off with such a simple device as this.

Injured Party.Injured Party."It's all very well, Passon, for you to say wot 'orrible langwidge, but 'appen your missis ain't such a good shot with a flat-iron as mine is."

Injured Party."It's all very well, Passon, for you to say wot 'orrible langwidge, but 'appen your missis ain't such a good shot with a flat-iron as mine is."

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

There is certainly this to be said of Mr.Hugh Walpole—that, having devised a tale of gloom, he allows no weak consideration for his readers' feelings to deter him from making the worst of it. I write, having but now emerged, blinking a little at the familiar sunlight (yet oddly invigorated too), from a perusal of the four-hundred-and-seventy pages of hisCaptives(Macmillan). Of course I have nothing like space to detail for you its plot. Summarised, it tells the life of a young woman,Maggie Cardinal, whom one may briefly call the bemused victim of religions—and relations. You never knew any well-intentioned heroine who had such abysmal luck with both. Her clergyman father, a bad hat, who spared us his acquaintance by expiring on the first page; her semi-moribund aunts in their detestable London home; the circle of the Inner Saints, with their intrigues that centred in the ugly little meeting-house; the seaside parish with its spiritually-dead atmosphere, in whichMaggie'shopeless married life is spent—all these and more are realised with an art that is almost devastating in its unforced effect. Sometimes I hoped that such universal drabness was too bad to be true; one caught touches of manipulation, times in which these poorCaptivesseemed bound less by the chains of circumstance than by the wires of Mr.Walpole. The queer result was that I found myself believing in his compellingly human characters, but protesting that such unbroken misfortune could not, or need not, have encompassed them. To take an example, whenMaggie's"tipsy" uncle was shown into the Vicarage drawing-room on her "At Home day," no other guests had yet arrived. Surely therefore (save for peremptory orders from Mr.Walpole) she might somehow have removed the culprit to another room, or at least denied herself to subsequent callers, who included (of course) the most influential and scandal-mongering of the parish ladies. That is the kind of rather piled-up agony that made me suspect Mr.Walpoleof letting his fortitude get at times the better of his commonsense. But he has written a big book.

Mr.E. F. Benson, of whom it might justly be said that he produces not books but libraries (and the quality of his output under these circumstances remains for me amongst the literary wonders of the age), has been at it again. Hardly have I finished laughing overQueen Lucia, when I find him claiming a wholly different interest with a volume of personal recollections calledOur Family Affairs(Cassell). By its theme and treatment this is work standing naturally a little outside criticism; but I can say at once that Mr.Bensonhas never written with a more sympathetic charm than in these pictures of the childhood of himself and his sister and brothers; of the various scholastic and ecclesiastical homes to which the increasing dignities of that rather alarming parent, the Archbishop, transported his family; and (quite the best and most attractive portrait in the collection) of the mother whom all of them united to adore. There is an actual photograph of her here, taken at the age of twenty, which goes far to explain how she came to be the heroine of the story; the lurking gaiety and laughter of it quaintly foretelling the great ecclesiastical lady who, on one occasion when the Archbishop was absent, could announceto her enraptured children that family prayers should be remitted, "as a treat!" Schooldays at Wellington; Cambridge; some topical memoirs of the Georgianrégimein Athens, and (what will interest many readers most of all) the history of the origin of that famous lady,Dodo—these are but a selection from the contents of a volume that should find hosts of friends.

The Girl in Fancy Dress(Hodder and Stoughton) was so very much disguised in one way and another thatAnthony, the hero, when he asked her to marry him, even for the second time, was taking considerable risks. The speed of the affair must also have been bewildering.Cynthia, the heiress, arrives on a Thursday to stay with his people, but, having tumbled out of a motor-car into a wet ditch on her way, she is dressed, rather like a stage coster-girl, in garments borrowed from a cottager. Naturally, as of course a nursery-governess is much more likely than an heiress to look like that,Anthony'speople mistake her for a poor country cousin who is also expected, andCynthia, discovering that her host and hostess and their dreary daughters intend the heiress to marryAnthonyand, worse than that, that he has called her "the goose with the golden eggs," fosters the mistake and does her best to pay them all out. She leaves on the following Tuesday, but before thatAnthonyhas taken her to one dance as a peasant girl and she has talked to him at another disguised as a green domino, and he has proposed to her as his cousin and withdrawn his declaration when he finds she isn't. Next he sees her asLady Teazlein amateur theatricals, and then comes his final meeting with her in her proper person, which brings about a satisfactory ending for everyone butCynthia'sother lover. I don't say that all these things couldn't have happened; I only say that as a rule they don't. Apart from that, the bright bustling action of Mrs.J. E. Buckrose'sstory has a cheerful charm of its own, andCynthia, as poor relation of one of the anxiously best families in a little country town, provides some amusing situations—for the reader.

If the shade ofRobert Louis Stevensonis jealous of its rights and its copyrights, Mr.Jeffrey Farnolmay look to be hauled up before the Recording Angel, on his arrival, in the matter of hisBlack Bartlemy's Treasure(Sampson Low), which he might just as well have calledBlack Bartlemy's Treasure Islandand have done. Never was such frank adoption of ideas; and yet no God-fearing, adventure-loving Englishman will regret it. For all my devotion to R. L. S. I heartily enjoyed this elaboration of his idea, split me (to quote the thorough-going language of it)—split me crosswise else! There are forty-seven chapters and a bloody fight in every one of them, save in the dozen set apart for an interval of refreshment and romance in the middle. Nay, but was not the primitive romance a gentler combat, itself, betweenMartin ConisbyandLady Joan Brandon, marooned, solitary, upon the Island where they did find (and lose) a treasure even greater thanBlack Bartlemy's? After having "consorted with pirates and like rogues" and having "endured much of harms and dangers, as battle, shipwreck, prison and solitude," it seemed we had sighted happiness at last. But even at the very end things took an ill turn and ourMartin, our dearMartin, is left stranded and in sorry plight. Yet must there be a sequel to this. Had he been left to die on the Island he could not have told us his story thus far; moreover his last word is that the tale is yet to finish. May I be there to hear!

I rather think that the lady who elects to write under the name ofO. Douglasdid less than justice to the peculiar quality of her own gifts in calling her last storyPenny Plain(Hodder and Stoughton). Because really such confectionery as this, covered inches deep with the sweetest and smoothest and pinkest of sugar, could never in these days be bought for many pennies, while as for "plain" ...! Most of the plot (which really isn't at all the right word for such caramel-stuff) takes place in a small Scottish town, where lives a family of book-children, mothered by an elder sister namedJean, all of them rich in char-r-rm but poor in cash. To this town comes, first, a pleasant single lady with a lord for her brother; secondly an aged man full of money; and, because the family (and the tale) is what it is,Jean, in fewer chapters than you would easily credit, has clasped the young lord to her breast and is saying the correct things to the family lawyer of the aged man concerning the responsibilities of being his heiress. So there you have it. I doubt whether anything even temporarily unpleasant so much as suggests itself; for "O. Douglas" has apparently discovered that, in a world still struggling with stale peace-bread, her pink sugar-cakes are not only cheerful to cook but likely to prove highly remunerative.

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