I sing of George Augustus Chadd,Who'd always from a baby hadA deep affection for his Dad—In other words, his Father;Contrariwise, the father's oneAnd only treasure was his son,Yes, even when he'd gone and doneThings which annoyed him rather.
For instance, if at Christmas (say)Or on his parent's natal dayThe thoughtless lad forgot to payThe customary greeting,His father's visage only tookThat dignified reproachful lookWhich dying beetles give the cookAbove the clouds of Keating.
As years went on such looks were rare;The younger Chadd was always thereTo greet his father and to shareHis father's birthday party;The pink "For auld acquaintance sake"Engraved in sugar on the cakeWas his. The speech he used to makeWas reverent but hearty.
The younger Chadd was twentyishWhen War broke out, but did not wishTo get an A.S.C. commishOr be a rag-time sailor;Just Private Chadd he was, and wentTo join his Dad's old regiment,While Dad (the dear old dug-out) sentFor red tabs from the tailor.
To those inured to war's alarmsI need not dwell upon the charmsOf raw recruits when sloping arms,Nor tell why Chadd was hopingThat, if his sloping-powers increased,They'd give him two days' leave at leastTo join his Father's birthday feast …And so resumed his sloping.
One morning on the training ground,When fixing bayonets, he foundThe fatal day already round,And, even as he fixed, heDecided then and there to stateTo Sergeant Brown (at any rate)His longing to congratulateHis sire on being sixty.
"Sergeant," he said, "we're on the eveOf Father's birthday; grant me leave"(And here his bosom gave a heave)"To offer him my blessing;And, if a Private's tender thanks—Nay, do not blank my blanky blanks!I could not help but leave the ranks;Birthdays are more than dressing."
The Sergeant was a kindly soul,He loved his men upon the whole,He'd also had a father'srôlePressed on him fairly lately."Brave Chadd," he said, "thou speakest sooth!O happy day! O pious youth!Great," he extemporized, "is Truth,And it shall flourish greatly."
The Sergeant took him by the handAnd led him to the Captain, andThe Captain tried to understand,And (more or less) succeeded;"Correct me if you don't agree,But one of you wantswhat?" said he,And George Augustus Chadd said, "Me!"Meaning of course thathedid.
The Captain took him by the earAnd gradually brought him nearThe Colonel, who was far from clear,But heard it all politely,And asked him twice, "You want awhat?"The Captain said thathedid not,And Chadd saluted quite a lotAnd put the matter rightly.
The Colonel took him by the hairAnd furtively conveyed him whereThe General inhaled the air,Immaculately booted;Then said, "Unless I greatly errThis Private wishes to preferA small petition to you, Sir,"And so again saluted.
The General inclined his headTowards the two of them and said,"Speak slowly, please, or shout instead;I'm hard of hearing, rather."So Chadd, that promising recruit,Stood to attention, clicked his boot,And bellowed, with his best salute,"A happy birthday, Father!"
"As man of the world," said Blake, stretching himself to his full height of five foot three, and speaking with the wisdom of nineteen years, "I say that it can't be done. In any other company, certainly; at headquarters, possibly; but not in D Company. D Company has a reputation."
"All I say," said Rogers, "is that, if you can't run any mess in the trenches on four francs a day, you're a rotten mess president."
Blake turned dramatically to his company commander.
"Did you hear that, Billy?" he asked.
"Yes," said Billy. "I was just going to say it myself."
"Then, in that case, I have the honour to resign the mess presidency."
"Nothing doing, old boy. You're detailed."
"You can't be detailed to be a president. Presidents are elected by popular acclamation. They resign—they resign—"
"To avoid being shot."
"Well, anyhow, they resign. I shall send my resignation in to the Army Council to-night. It will appear in 'The Gazette' in due course. '2nd Lieut. Blake resigns his mess presidency owing to the enormous price of sardines per thousand and the amount of lime juice consumed by casual visitors.' I'll tell you what—I'll run the mess on four francs, if you'll bar guests."
"Rot, it's nothing to do with guests. We never have any."
"Never have any!" said Blake indignantly. "Then I shall keep a visitors' book just to show you."
So that was how the D Company Visitors' Book was inaugurated. I had the honour of opening it. I happened to be mending a telephone line in this particular trench one thirsty day, and there was the dug-out, and—well, there was I. I dropped in.
"Hallo," said Blake, "have a drink."
I had a lime juice. Then I had another. And then, very reluctantly, I got up to go. Army Form Book 136 was handed to me.
"The visitors' book," said Blake. "You can just write your name in it, or you can be funny, whichever you like."
"What do they usually do?" I asked.
"Well, you're the first, so you'll set the tone. For God's sake don't be too funny."
It was an alarming responsibility. However, as it happened, I had something which I wanted to say.
"Thursday, 12.45 p.m.," I wrote. "Pleasantly entertained as usual by D Company. Refused a pressing invitation to stay to lunch, although it was a hot day and I had a long walk back to my own mess."
I handed the book back to Blake. He read it; and with one foot on the bottom step of the dugout I waited anxiously.
"Oh, I say, do stay to lunch," he said.
I gave a start of surprise.
"Oh, thanks very much," I said, and I took my foot off the step. "It would be rather—I think, perhaps—well, thanks very much."
Once begun, the book filled up rapidly. Subalterns from other companies used to call round for the purpose of being funny; I suppose that unconsciously I had been too humorous—anyway, the tone had been set. The bombing officer, I remember, vowed that Mrs. Blake's hospitality was so charming that he would bring his wife and family next time. A gunner officer broke into verse—a painful business. One way and another it was not long before the last page was reached.
"We must get the General for the last page," said Blake.
"Don't be an ass," said Rogers.
"Whatever's the matter? Don't you think he'd do it?"
"You wouldn't have the cheek to ask him."
"Good lord, you don't stop being a human being, because you command a brigade. Why on earth shouldn't I ask him?"
I happened to turn up just then. The telephone line from headquarters to D Company always seemed to want attention, whatever part of the line we were in.
"Hallo," said Blake, "have a drink."
"Well, I am rather thirsty," I said, and I took out a pencil. "Pass the visitors' book and let's get it over."
"No, you don't," said Blake, snatching it away from me, "that's for theGeneral."
"This way, sir," said a voice above, and down came Billy, followed by theBrigadier. We jumped up.
"You'll have a drink, sir?" said Billy.
"Oh, thanks very much."
"What will you have, sir?" asked Blake, looking round wildly. "Lime juice or—or lime juice?"
"I'll have lime juice, thank you," said the General after consideration.
Blake produced the book nervously.
"I wonder if you'd mind," he began.
The General looked inquiring, and started feeling for his glasses. He was just feeling in his fifth pocket when Billy came to the rescue.
"It's only some nonsense of Blake's, sir," he said. "He keeps a visitors' book."
"Ah, well," said the General, getting up, "another day, perhaps."
When we were alone again Blake turned on Billy.
"You are a silly ass," he said. "If you hadn't interfered, he'd have done it. Well, I shall fill it in myself now."
He took a pencil and wrote:
"Monday—Hospitably received by 'D' Company and much enjoyed the mess president's amusing conversation. The company commander and a subaltern named Rogers struck me as rather lacking in intelligence. R. Blake, D.S.O., Brig.-Gen."
* * * * *
I had been out of it for a long time, and when quite accidentally I met an officer of the battalion in London I was nearly a year behind the news.
"And Blake," I said, after he'd told me some of it, "that nice child in'D' Company; what happened to him?"
"Didn't you hear? He had rather a funny experience. He went into that last show as senior subaltern of 'D.' Billy was knocked out pretty early and Blake took on. After that we had a lot of casualties, and finally we were cut off from headquarters altogether and had to carry on on our own. Billy was the senior company commander and took charge of the battalion. I don't quite know how it happened after that. We all got rather mixed up, I suppose. Anyway, at one time Blake was actually commanding the brigade. He was splendid; simply all over the place. He got the D.S.O. He's rather bucked with himself. Young Blake as a Brigadier—funny, isn't it?"
"Not so very," I said.
In days of peace my fellow-menRightly regarded me as more likeA Bishop than a Major-Gen.,And nothing since has made me warlike;But when this age-long struggle endsAnd I have seen the Allies dish upThe goose of Hindenburg—oh, friends!I shall out-bish the mildest Bishop.
When the War is over and the Kaiser's out of print,I'm going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint;When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe,I'm going to keep a jelly-fish and listen to it breathe.
I never really longed for gore,And any taste for red corpusclesThat lingered with me left beforeThe German troops had entered Brussels.In early days the Colonel's "Shun!"Froze me; and, as the War grew older,The noise of someone else's gunLeft me considerably colder.
When the War is over and the battle has been won,I'm going to buy a barnacle and take it for a run;When the War is over and the German Fleet we sink,I'm going to keep a silk-worm's egg and listen to it think.
The Captains and the Kings depart—It may be so, but not lieutenants;Dawn after weary dawn I startThe never-ending round of penance;One rock amid the welter standsOn which my gaze is fixed intently—An after-life in quiet landsLived very lazily and gently.
When the War is over and we've done the Belgians proud,I'm going to keep a chrysalis and read to it aloud;When the War is over and we've finished up the show,I'm going to plant a lemon-pip and listen to it grow.
Oh, I'm tired of the noise and the turmoil of battle,And I'm even upset by the lowing of cattle,And the clang of the bluebells is death to my liver,And the roar of the dandelion gives me a shiver,And a glacier, in movement, is much too exciting,And I'm nervous, when standing on one, of alighting—Give me Peace; that is all, that is all that I seek …Say, starting on Saturday week.
Occasionally I receive letters from friends, whom I have not seen lately, addressed to Lieutenant M —— and apologizing prettily inside in case I am by now a colonel; in drawing-rooms I am sometimes called "Captain-er"; and up at the Fort the other day a sentry of the Royal Defence Corps, wearing the Créçy medal, mistook me for a Major, and presented crossbows to me. This is all wrong. As Mr. Garvin well points out, it is important that we should not have a false perspective of the War. Let me, then, make it perfectly plain—I am a Second Lieutenant.
When I first became a Second Lieutenant I was rather proud. I was a Second Lieutenant "on probation." On my right sleeve I wore a single star. So:
*
(on probation, of course). On my left sleeve I wore another star. So:
*
(also on probation).
They were good stars, none better in the service; and as we didn't like the sound of "on probation" Celia put a few stitches in them to make them more permanent. This proved effective. Six months later I had a very pleasant note from the King telling me that the days of probation were now over, and making it clear that he and I were friends.
I was now a real Second Lieutenant. On my right sleeve I had a single star. Thus:
* (not on probation).
On my left sleeve I also had a single star. In this manner:
*
This star also was now a fixed one.
From that time forward my thoughts dwelt naturally on promotion. There were exalted persons in the regiment called Lieutenants. They had two stars on each sleeve. So:
**
I decided to become a Lieutenant.
Promotion in our regiment was difficult. After giving the matter every consideration I came to the conclusion that the only way to win my second star was to save the Colonel's life. I used to follow him about affectionately in the hope that he would fall into the sea. He was a big strong man and a powerful swimmer, but once in the water it would not be difficult to cling round his neck and give an impression that I was rescuing him. However, he refused to fall in. I fancy that he wore somebody's Military Soles which prevent slipping.
Years rolled on. I used to look at my stars sometimes, one on each sleeve; they seemed very lonely. At times they came close together; but at other times as, for instance, when I was semaphoring, they were very far apart. To prevent these occasional separations Celia took them off my sleeves and put them on my shoulders. One on each shoulder. So:
*
And so:
*
There they stayed.
And more years rolled on.
One day Celia came to me in great excitement.
"Have you seen this in the paper about promotion?" she said eagerly.
"No; what is it?" I asked. "Are they making more generals?"
"I don't know about generals; it's Second Lieutenants being Lieutenants."
"You're joking on a very grave subject," I said seriously. "You can't expect to win the War if you go on like that."
"Well, you read it," she said, handing me the paper.
I took the paper with a trembling hand, and read. She was right! If the paper was to be believed, all Second Lieutenants were to become Lieutenants after eighteen years' service. At last my chance had come.
"My dear, this is wonderful," I said. "In another fifteen years we shall be there. You might buy two more stars this afternoon and practise sewing them on, in order to be ready. You mustn't be taken by surprise when the actual moment comes."
"But you're a Lieutenantnow," she said, "if that's true. It says that 'after eighteen months—'"
I snatched up the paper again. Good Heavens! it was eighteenmonths—not years.
"Then Iama Lieutenant," I said.
We had a bottle of champagne for dinner that night, and Celia got the paper and read it aloud to my tunic. And just for practice she took the two stars off my other tunic and sewed them on this one—thus:
** **
And we had a very happy evening.
"I suppose it will be a few days before it's officially announced," I said.
"Bother, I suppose it will," said Celia, and very reluctantly she took one star off each shoulder,
leaving the matter—so:
* *
And the years rolled on….
And I am still a Second Lieutenant….
I do not complain; indeed I am even rather proud of it. If I am not gaining on my original one star, at least I am keeping pace with it. I might so easily have been a corporal by now.
But I should like to have seen a little more notice taken of me in the "Gazette." I scan it every day, hoping for some such announcement as this:
"Second Lieutenant M——to remain a Second Lieutenant."
Or this:
"Second Lieutenant M——to be seconded and to retain his present rank of Second Lieutenant."
Or even this:
"Second Lieutenant M——relinquishes the rank of Acting Second Lieutenant on ceasing to command a Battalion, and reverts to the rank of Second Lieutenant."
Failing this, I have thought sometimes of making an announcement in thePersonal Column of "The Times":
"Second Lieutenant M —— regrets that his duties as a Second Lieutenant prevent him from replying personally to the many kind inquiries he has received, and begs to take this opportunity of announcing that he still retains a star on each shoulder. Both doing well."
But perhaps that is unnecessary now. I think that by this time I have made it clear just how many stars I possess.
One on the right shoulder. So:
*
And one on the left shoulder. So:
*
That is all.
The Joke was born one October day in the trench called Mechanics, not so far from Loos. We had just come back into the line after six days in reserve, and, the afternoon being quiet, I was writing my daily letter to Celia. I was telling her about our cat, imported into our dug-out in the hope that it would keep the rats down, when suddenly the Joke came. I was so surprised by it that I added in brackets, "This is quite my own. I've only just thought of it." Later on the Post-Corporal came, and the Joke started on its way to England.
"Do you remember that joke about the rats in one of your letters?" saidCelia one evening.
"Yes. You never told me if you liked it."
"I simply loved it. You aren't going to waste it, are you?"
"If you simply loved it, it wasn't wasted."
"But I want everybody else—Couldn't you use it in the Revue?"
I was supposed to be writing a Revue at this time for a certain impresario. I wasn't getting on very fast, because whenever I suggested a scene to him, he either said, "Oh, that's been done," which killed it, or else he said, "Oh, but that's never been done," which killed it even more completely.
"Good idea," I said to Celia. "We'll have a Trench Scene."
I suggested it to the impresario when next I saw him.
"Oh, that's been done," he said.
"Mine will be quite different from anybody else's," I said firmly.
He brightened up a little.
"All right, try it," he said.
I seemed to have discovered the secret of successful revue-writing.
The Trench Scene was written. It was written round the Joke, whose bright beams, like a perfect jewel in a perfect setting—However, I said all that to Celia at the time. She was just going to have said it herself, she told me.
So far, so good. But a month later the Revue collapsed. The impresario and I agreed upon many things—as, for instance, that the War would be a long one, and that Hindenburg was no fool—but there were two points upon which we could never quite agree: (1) What was funny, and (2) which of us was writing the Revue. So, with mutual expressions of goodwill, and hopes that one day we might write a tragedy together, we parted.
That ended the Revue; it ended the Trench Scene; and, for the moment, it ended the Joke.
"You haven't got that Joke in yet."
She had just read an article of mine called "Autumn in a CountryVicarage."
"It wouldn't go in there very well," I said.
"It would go in anywhere where there were rats. There might easily be rats in a vicarage."
"Not in this one."
"You talk about 'poor as a church mouse.'"
"I am an artist," I said, thumping my heart and forehead and other seats of the emotions. "I don't happen toseerats there, and if I don't see them I can't write about them. Anyhow, they wouldn't be secular rats, like the ones I made my joke about."
"I don't mind whether the rats are secular or circular," said Celia, "but do get them in soon."
Well, I tried. I really did try, but for months I couldn't get those rats in. It was a near thing sometimes, and I would think that I had them, but at the last moment they would whisk off and back into their holes again. I even wrote an article about "Cooking in the Great War," feeling that that would surely tempt them, but they were not to be drawn….
But at last the perfect opportunity came. I received a letter from a botanical paper asking for an article on the Flora of Trench Life.
"Horray!" said Celia. "There you are."
I sat down and wrote the article. Working up gradually to the subject of rats, and even more gradually intertwining it, so to speak, with the subject of cats, I brought off in one perfect climax the great Joke.
"Lovely!" said Celia excitedly.
"There is one small point which has occurred to me. Rats arefauna, notflora; I've just remembered."
"Oh, does it matter?"
"For a botanical paper, yes."
And then Celia had a brilliant inspiration.
"Send it to another paper," she said.
I did. Two days later it appeared. Considering that I hadn't had a proof, it came out extraordinarily well. There was only one misprint. It was at the critical word of the Joke.
"That's torn it," I said to Celia.
"I suppose it has," she said sadly.
"The world will never hear the Joke now. It's had it wrong, but still it's had it, and I can't repeat it."
Celia began to smile.
"It's sickening," she said; "but it's really rather funny, you know."
And then she had another brilliant inspiration.
"In fact you might write an article about it."
And, as you see, I have.
Having read thus far, Celia says, "But you still haven't got the Joke in."
Oh, well, here goes.
Extract from letter: "We came back to the line to-day to find that the cat had kittened. However, as all the rats seem to have rottened we are much as we were."
"Rottened" was misprinted "rattened," which seems to me to spoil theJoke….
Yet I must confess that there are times now when I feel that perhaps after all I may have overrated it….
But it was a pleasant joke in its day.
Let others hymn the weariness and pain(Or, if they will, the glory and the glamour)Of holding fast, from Flanders to Lorraine,The thin brown line at which the Germans hammer;My Muse, a more domesticated maid,Aspires to sing a song of Marmalade.
O Marmalade!—I do not mean the sort,Sweet marrow-pulp, for babes and maidens fitter,But that wherein the golden fishes sportOn oranges seas (with just a dash of bitter),Not falsely coy, but eager to paradeTheir Southern birth—in short, O Marmalade!
Much have I sacrificed: my happy home,My faith in experts' figures, half my money,The fortnight that I meant to spend in Rome,My weekly effort to be fairly funny;But these are trifles, light as air when weighedAgainst this other—Breakfast Marmalade.
Fair was the porridge in the days of peace,And still more fair the cream and sugar taken;Plump were the twin poached eggs, yet not obese,Upon their thrones of toast, and crisp the bacon—I face their loss undaunted, unafraid,If only I may keep my Marmalade.
An evening press without Callisthenes;A tables Staff; an immobile spaghetti;A Shaw with whom the Common Man agrees;A Zambra searching vainly for Negretti;When spades are trumps, a hand without a spade—So is my breakfast lacking Marmalade.
O Northcliffe (Lord)! O Keiller! O Dundee!O Crosse and Blackwell, Limited! O Seville!O orange groves along the Middle Sea!(O Jaffa, for example) O the devil—Let Beef and Butter, Rolls and Rabbits fade,But give me back my love, my Marmalade.
"Why don't you write a war story?" said Celia one autumn day when that sort of story was popular.
"Because everybody else does," I said. "I forget how many bayonets we have on the Western Front, but there must be at least twice as many fountain-pens."
"It needn't be about the Western Front."
"Unfortunately that's the only front I know anything about."
"I thought writers used their imagination sometimes," said Celia to anybody who might happen to be listening.
"Oh, well, if you put it like that," I said, "I suppose I must."
So I settled down to a story about the Salonica Front.
The scene of my story was laid in an old clay hut amid the wattles.
"What are wattles?" asked Celia, when I told her the good news.
"Local colour," I explained. "They grow in Bulgaria."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure that these ones did; I don't know about any others."
Of course more local colour was wanted than a mere wattle or two. It was necessary therefore for my Bulgarians always to go about incomitadjis. Celia thought that these were a kind of native trouser laced at the knee. She may be right. My own impression is that they are a species of platoon. Anyhow the Bulgars always went about in them.
There was a fierce fight which raged round the old clay hut in the wattles. The Greeks shouted "[Greek: Tuptô tuptomai]" The Serbs, for reasons into which I need not enter, were inarticulate with rage. With the French and British I had, of course, no difficulty, and the Bulgars (fortunately) were content with hoarse guttural noises. It was a fierce fight while it lasted, and I was sorry when it was over, because for the first time I began to feel at home with my story. I need not say that many a Bulgar had licked the wattles before I had finished.
Unfortunately something else happened before I had finished.
"What do you think?" cried Celia, bursting into my room one evening, just when I was wondering whether my readers would expect to know more of the heroine's native costume than that it was "simple yet becoming."
"Wait a moment," I said.
"It's too good to wait," said Celia excitedly. "Bulgaria has surrendered."
Celia may be a good patriot, but she lacks the artistic temperament.
"Oh, has she?" I said bitterly. "Then she's jolly well spoilt my story."
"The one about the wattles?"
"Yes."
"Tut-tuttles," said Celia frivolously.
Well, I wasn't going to waste my wattles. With great presence of mind I decided to transfer my story to the Palestine Front.
Under a hard blue sky of intense brilliance the old clay hut stood among the wattles. Awadiran by the side of it; not a small Turkish dog, as Celia thought, but—well, everybody knows what awadiis. The battle went on much as before, except that the Turks were naturally more outspoken than the Bulgars, calling freely upon Allah at the beginning of the fight, and reconciling themselves to the end of it with "Kismet." I also turned some of the horses into camels, and (for the sake of the Indian troops) several pairs of puttees intochupaties. It was a good story while it lasted.
However, nobody seems to care about art nowadays.
"What do you think?" cried Celia, bursting into my room.
I held up a delaying hand. I had suddenly thought of the word "adobe." My story seemed to need it somewhere. If possible, among the wattles.
"But listen!" She read out the headline: "'Turkey Surrenders atDiscretion.'"
"Discretion!" I said indignantly. "I have never heard of anything so tactless. And it isn't as though I could even move on to Mesopotamia."
"Couldn't there be a little local rising in Persia?" suggested Celia.
"I doubt it, I doubt it," I said thoughtfully. "You can't do much with just wattles and a little sherbet—I mean you can't expect the public to be interested in Persia at such a moment as this. No, we shall have to step westward. We must see what we can do with the Italian Front."
But I had very little hope. A curious foreboding of evil came over me as I placed those wattles tenderly along the west bank of the Piave. The old clay hut still stood proudly amid them; the Bersaglieri advanced impetuously with cries of "En avant!"—no, that's wrong—with cries of—well, anyhow they advanced.
They advanced….
And as I shut my eyes I seemed to see—no, not that old clay hut amid the wattles, nor yet the adobe edifice on the heights of Asiago, but Celia coming into the library with another paper announcing that yet another country was deaf to the call of art.
* * * * *
If anybody wants a really good story about the Peninsular War and will drop me a line, I shall be glad to enter into negotiations with him. The scene is laid in the neighbourhood of Badajoz, and the chief interest centres round an old—yes, you have guessed it—an old clay hut in the wattles.
1888, 1919
("Dispersal Areas, 10a, 10b, 10c—Crystal Palace.")
It was, I think, in '88That Luck or Providence or FateAssumed the more material stateOf Aunt (or Great-Aunt) Alice,And took (the weather being fine,And Bill, the eldest, only nine)Three of us by the Brighton lineTo see the Crystal Palace.
Observe us, then, an eager fourAdvancing on the Western Door,Or possibly the Northern, or—Well, anyhow, advancing;Aunt Alice bending from the hips,And Bill in little runs and trips,And John with frequent hops and skips,While I was fairly dancing.
Aunt Alice pays; the turnstile clicks,And with the happy crowds we mixTo gaze upon—well, I was six,Say, getting on for seven;And, looking back on it to-day,The memories have passed away—I find that I can only say(Roughly) to gaze on heaven.
Heaven it was which came to passWithin those magic walls of glass(Though William, like a silly ass,Had lost my bag of bull's-eyes).The wonders of that wonder-hall!The—all the things I can't recall,And, dominating over all,The statues, more than full-size.
Adam and Niobe were there,Disraeli much the worse for wear,Samson before he'd cut his hair,Lord Byron and Apollo;A female group surrounded byA camel (though I don't know why)—And all of them were ten feet highAnd all, I think, were hollow.
These gods looked down on us and smiledTo see how utterly a childBy simple things may be beguiledTo happiness and laughter;It warmed their kindly hearts to seeThe joy of Bill and John and meFrom ten to lunch, from lunch to tea,From tea to six or after.
That evening, when the day was dead,They tucked a babe of six in bed,Arranged the pillows for his head,And saw the lights were shaded;Too sleepy for the Good-night kissHis only conscious thought was this:"No man shall ever taste the blissThat I this blessed day did."
When one is six one cannot tell;And John, who at the Palace fellA victim to the Blondin Belle,Is wedded to another;And I, my intimates allow,Have lost the taste for bull's-eyes now,And baldness decorates the browOf Bill, our elder brother.
Well, more than thirty years have passed…But all the same on Thursday lastMy heart was beating just as fastWithin that Hall of Wonder;My bliss was every bit as greatAs what it was in '88—Impossible to look sedateOr keep my feelings under.
The gods of old still gazed uponThe scene where, thirty years agone,The lines of Bill and me and JohnWere cast in pleasant places;And "Friends," I murmured, "what's the oddsIf you are rather battered gods?This is no time for IchabodsAndeheu—er—fugaces."
Ah, no; I did not mourn the years'Fell work upon those poor old dears,Nor Pitt nor Venus drew my tearsAnd set me slowly sobbing;I hailed them with a happy laughAnd slapped old Samson on the calf,And asked a member of the staffFor "Officers Demobbing."
That evening, being then dispersedI swore (as I had sworn it firstWhen three of us went on the burstWith Aunt, or Great-Aunt, Alice),"Although one finds, as man or boy,A thousand pleasures to enjoy,For happiness without alloyGive me the Crystal Palace!"
Sydney Smith, or Napoleon or Marcus Aurelius (somebody about that time) said that after ten days any letter would answer itself. You see what he meant. Left to itself your invitation from the Duchess to lunch next Tuesday is no longer a matter to worry about by Wednesday morning. You were either there or not there; it is unnecessary to write now and say that a previous invitation from the Prime Minister—and so on. It was Napoleon's idea (or Dr. Johnson's or Mark Antony's—one of that circle) that all correspondence can be treated in this manner.
I have followed these early Masters (or whichever one it was) to the best of my ability. At any given moment in the last few years there have been ten letters that I absolutelymustwrite, thirty which Ioughtto write, and fifty which any other person in my positionwouldhave written. Probably I have written two. After all, when your profession is writing, you have some excuse for demanding a change of occupation in your leisure hours. No doubt if I were a coal-heaver by day, my wife would see to the fire after dinner while I wrote letters. As it is, she does the correspondence, while I gaze into the fire and think about things.
You will say, no doubt, that this was all very well before the War, but that in the Army a little writing would be a pleasant change after the day's duties. Allow me to disillusion you. If, years ago, I had ever conceived a glorious future in which my autograph might be of value to the more promiscuous collectors, that conception has now been shattered. Four years in the Army has absolutely spoilt the market. Even were I revered in the year 2000 A.D. as Shakespeare is revered now, my half-million autographs, scattered so lavishly on charge-sheets, passes, chits, requisitions, indents and applications would keep the price at a dead level of about ten a penny. No, I have had enough of writing in the Army and I never want to sign my own name again. "Yours sincerely, Herbert Asquith," "Faithfully yours, J. Jellicoe"—these by all means; but not my own.
However, I wrote a letter in the third year of the war; it was to the bank. It informed the Manager that I had arrived in London from France and should be troubling them again shortly, London being to all appearances an expensive place. It also called attention to my new address—a small furnished flat in which Celia and I could just turn round if we did it separately. When it was written, then came the question of posting it. I was all for waiting till the next morning, but Celia explained that there was actually a letterbox on our own floor, twenty yards down the passage. I took the letter along and dropped it into the slit.
Then a wonderful thing happened. It went
Flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty— flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—FLOP.
I listened intently, hoping for more … but that was all. Deeply disappointed that it was over, but absolutely thrilled with my discovery, I hurried back to Celia.
"Any letters you want posted?" I said in an off-hand way.
"No, thank you," she said.
"Have you written any while we've been here?"
"I don't think I've had anything to write."
"I think," I said reproachfully, "it's quite time you wrote to your—your bank or your mother or somebody."
She looked at me and seemed to be struggling for words.
"I know exactly what you're going to say," I said, "but don't say it; write a little letter instead."
"Well, as a matter of fact Imustjust write a note to the laundress."
"To the laundress," I said. "Of course, just a note."
When it was written I insisted on her coming with me to post it. With great generosity I allowed her to place it in the slit. A delightful thing happened. It wentFlipperty—flipperty—flipperty flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty flipperty—flipperty—FLOP.
Right down to the letter-box in the hall. Two flipperties a floor. (A simple calculation shows that we are perched on the fifth floor. I am glad now that we live so high. It must be very dull to be on the fourth floor with only eight flipperties, unbearable to be on the first with only two.)
"O-oh!Howfas-cinating!" said Celia.
"Now don't you think you ought to write to your mother?"
"Oh, Imust."
She wrote. We posted it. It went.
Flipperty—flipperty—However, you know all about that now.
Since this great discovery of mine, life has been a more pleasurable business. We feel now that there are romantic possibilities about Letters setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter goflipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty… and behold! there is no FLOP … and still it goes on—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—growing fainter in the distance … until it arrives at some wonderland of its own. One day it must happen so. For we cannot listen always for that FLOP, and hear it always; nothing in this world is as inevitable as that. One day we shall look at each other with awe in our faces and say, "But it's still flipperting!" and from that time forward the Hill of Campden will be a place holy and enchanted. Perhaps on Midsummer Eve—
At any rate I am sure that it is the only way in which to post a letter to Father Christmas.
Well, what I want to say is this: if I have been a bad correspondent in the past I am a good one now; and Celia, who was always a good one, is a better one. It takes at least ten letters a day to satisfy us, and we prefer to catch ten different posts. With the ten in your hand together there is always a temptation to waste them in one wild rush of flipperties, all catching each other up. It would be a great moment, but I do not think we can afford it yet; we must wait until we get more practised at letter-writing. And even then I am doubtful; for it might be that, lost in the confusion of that one wild rush, the magic letter would start on its way—flipperty—flipperty—to the never-land, and we should forever have missed it.
So, friends, acquaintances, yes, and even strangers, I beg you now to give me another chance. I will answer your letters, how gladly. I still think that Napoleon (or Canute or the younger Pliny—one of the pre-Raphaelites) took a perfectly correct view of his correspondence … but thenhenever had a letter-box which went
Flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty—flipperty flipperty—FLOP.
Every now and then doctors slap me about and ask me if I was always as thin as this.
"As thin as what?" I say with as much dignity as is possible to a man who has had his shirt taken away from him.
"As thin as this," says the doctor, hooking his stethoscope on to one of my ribs, and then going round to the other side to see how I am getting on there.
I am slightly better on the other side, but he runs his pencil up and down me and produces that pleasing noise which small boys get by dragging a stick along railings.
I explain that I was always delicately slender, but that latterly my ribs have been overdoing it.
"You must put on more flesh," he says sternly, running his pencil up and down them again. (He must have been a great nuisance as a small boy.)
"I will," I say fervently, "I will."
Satisfied by my promise he gives me back my shirt.
But it is not only the doctor who complains; Celia is even more upset by it. She says tearfully that I remind her of a herring. Unfortunately she does not like herrings. It is my hope some day to remind her of a turbot and make her happy. She, too, has my promise that I will put on flesh.
We had a fortnight's leave a little while ago, which seemed to give me a good opportunity of putting some on. So we retired to a house in the country where there is a weighing-machine in the bathroom. We felt that the mere sight of this weighing-machine twice daily would stimulate the gaps between my ribs. They would realize that they had been brought down there on business.
The first morning I weighed myself just before stepping into the water.When I got down to breakfast I told Celia the result.
"Youarea herring," she said sadly.
"But think what an opportunity it gives me. If I started the right weight, the rest of the fortnight would be practically wasted. By the way, the doctor talks about putting on flesh, but he didn't say how much he wanted. What do you think would be a nice amount?"
"About another stone," said Celia. "You were just a nice size before theWar."
"All right. Perhaps I had better tell the weighing-machine. This is a co-operative job; I can't do it all myself."
The next morning I was the same as before, and the next, and the next, and the next.
"Really," said Celia, pathetically, "we might just as well have gone to a house where there wasn't a weighing-machine at all. I don't believe it's trying. Are you sure you stand on it long enough?"
"Long enough for me. It's a bit cold, you know."
"Well, make quite sure to-morrow. I must have you not quite so herringy."
I made quite sure the next morning. I had eight stone and a half on the weight part, and the-little-thing-you-move-up-and-down was on the "4" notch, and the bar balanced midway between the top and the bottom. To have had a crowd in to see would have been quite unnecessary; the whole machine was shouting eight-stone-eleven as loudly as it could.
"I expect it's got used to you," said Celia when I told her the sad state of affairs. "It likes eight-stone-eleven people."
"We will give it," I said, "one more chance."
Next morning the weights were as I had left them, and I stepped on without much hope, expecting that the bar would come slowly up to its midway position of rest. To my immense delight, however, it never hesitated but went straight up to the top. At last I had put on flesh!
Very delicately I moved the-thing-you-move-up-and-down to its next notch. Still the bar stayed at the top. I had put on at least another ounce of flesh!
I continued to put on more ounces. Still the bar remained up! I was eight-stone-thirteen…. Good heavens, I was eight-stone-fourteen!
I pushed the-thing-you-move-up-and-down back to the zero position, and exchanged the half-stone weight for a stone one. Excited but a trifle cold, for it was a fresh morning, and the upper part of the window was wide open, I went up from nine stone ounce by ounce….
At nine-stone-twelve I jumped off for a moment and shut the window….
At eleven-stone-eight I had to get off again in order to attend to the bath, which was in danger of overflowing….
At fifteen-stone-eleven the breakfast gong went….
At nineteen-stone-nine I realized that I had overdone it. However I decided to know the worst. The worst that the machine could tell me was twenty-stone-seven. At twenty-stone-seven I left it.
Celia, who had nearly finished breakfast, looked up eagerly as I came in.
"Well?" she said.
"I am sorry I am late," I apologized, "but I have been putting on flesh."
"Have you really gone up?" she asked excitedly.
"Yes." I began mechanically to help myself to porridge, and then stopped."No, perhaps not," I said thoughtfully.
"Have you gone up much?"
"Much," I said. "Quite much."
"How much? Quick!"
"Celia," I said sadly, "I am twenty-stone-seven. I may be more; the weighing-machine gave out then."
"Oh, but, darling, that's much too much."
"Still, it's what we came here for," I pointed out. "No, no bacon, thanks; a small piece of dry toast."
"I suppose the machine couldn't have made a mistake?"
"It seemed very decided about it. It didn't hesitate at all."
"Just try again after breakfast to make sure."
"Perhaps I'd better try now," I said, getting up, "because if I turned out to be only twenty-stone-six I might venture on a little porridge after all. I shan't be long."
I went upstairs. I didn't dare face that weighing-machine in my clothes after the way in which I had already strained it without them. I took them off hurriedly and stepped on. To my joy the bar stayed in its downward position. I took off an ounce … then another ounce. The bar remained down….
At eighteen-stone-two I jumped off for a moment in order to shut the window, which some careless housemaid had opened again….
At twelve-stone-seven I shouted through the door to Celia that I shouldn't be long, and that I should want the porridge after all….
At four-stone-six I said that I had better have an egg or two as well.
At three ounces I stepped off, feeling rather shaken.
* * * * *
I have not used the weighing-machine since; partly because I do not believe it is trustworthy, partly because I spent the rest of my leave in bed with a severe cold. We are now in London again, where I am putting on flesh. At least the doctor who slapped me about yesterday said that I must, and I promised him that I would.
This is a true story. Unless you promise to believe me, it is not much good my going on … You promise? Very well.
Years ago I bought a pianola. I went into the shop to buy a gramophone record, and I came out with a pianola—so golden-tongued was the manager. You would think that one could then retire into private life for a little, but it is only the beginning. There is the music-stool to be purchased, the library subscription, the tuner's fee (four visits a year, if you please), the cabinet for the rolls, the man to oil the pedals, the—However, one gets out of the shop at last. Nor do I regret my venture. It is common talk that my pianola was the chief thing about me which attracted Celia. "Imustmarry a man with a pianola," she said … and there was I … and here, in fact, we are. My blessings, then, on the golden tongue of the manager.
Now there is something very charming in a proper modesty about one's attainments, but it is necessary that the attainments should be generally recognized first. It was admirable in Stephenson to have said (as I am sure he did), when they congratulated him on his first steam-engine, "Tut-tut, it's nothing"; but he could only say this so long as the others were in a position to offer the congratulations. In order to place you in that position I must let you know how extraordinarily well I played the pianola. I brought to my interpretation of different Ops anélan, averve, aje ne sais quoi—and several other French words—which were the astonishment of all who listened to me. But chiefly I was famous for my playing of one piece: "The Charge of the Uhlans," by Karl Bohm. Others may have seen Venice by moonlight, or heard the Vicar's daughter recite "Little Jim," but the favoured few who have been present when Bohm and I were collaborating are the ones who have really lived. Indeed, even the coldest professional critic would have spoken of it as "a noteworthy rendition."
"The Charge of the Uhlans." If you came to see me, you had to hear it. As arranged for the pianola, it was marked to be played throughout at a lightning pace and with the loudest pedal on. So one would play it if one wished to annoy the man in the flat below; but a true musician has, I take it, a higher aim. I disregarded the "FF.'s" and the other sign-posts on the way, and gave it my own interpretation. As played by me, "The Charge of the Uhlans" became a whole battle scene. Indeed, it was necessary, before I began, that I should turn to my audience and describe the scene to them—in the manner, but not in the words, of a Queen's Hall programme:—
"Er—first of all you hear the cavalry galloping past, and then there's a short hymn before action while they form up, and then comes the charge, and then there's a slow bit while they—er—pick up the wounded, and then they trot slowly back again. And if you listen carefully to the last bit you'll actually hear the horses limping."
Something like that I would say; and it might happen that an insufferable guest (who never got asked again) would object that the hymn part was unusual in real warfare.
"They sang it in this piece, anyhow," I would say stiffly, and turn my back on him and begin.
But the war put a stop to music, as to many other things. For years the pianola was not played by either of us. We had other things to do. And in our case, curiously enough, absence from the pianola did not make the heart grow fonder. On the contrary, we seemed to lose our taste for music, and when at last we were restored to our pianola, we found that we had grown out of it.
"It's very ugly," announced Celia.
"We can't help our looks," I said in my grandmother's voice.
"A book-case would be much prettier there."
"But not so tuneful."
"A pianola isn't tuneful if you never play it."
"True," I said.
Celia then became very alluring, and suggested that I might find somebody who would like to be lent a delightful pianola by somebody whose delightful wife had her eye on a delightful bookcase.
"I might," I said.
"Somebody," said Celia, "who isn't supplied with music from below."
I found John. He was quite pleased with the idea, and promised to return the pianola when he got sick of it.
So on Wednesday it went. I was not sorry, because in its silence it was far from beautiful, and we wanted another book-case badly. But on Tuesday evening—its last hours with us—I had to confess to a certain melancholy. It is sad to part with an old and well-tried friend, particularly when that friend is almost entirely responsible for your marriage. I looked at the pianola and then I said to Celia, "I must play it once again."
"Please," said Celia.
"The old masterpiece, I suppose?" I said, as I got it out.
"Do you think you ought to—now? I don't think I want to hear a charge of the Uhlans—beasts; I want a charge of our own men."
"Art," I said grandly, "knows no frontiers." I suppose this has been said by several people several times already, but for the moment both Celia and I thought it was rather clever.
So I placed the roll in the pianola, sat down and began to play….
Ah, the dear old tune….
Dash it all!
"What's happened?" said Celia, breaking a silence which had become alarming.
"I must have put it in wrong," I said.
I wound the roll off, put it in again, and tried a second time, pedalling vigorously.
Dead silence….
Hush! A note … another silence … and then another note….
I pedalled through to the end. About five notes sounded.
"Celia," I said, "this is wonderful."
It really was wonderful. For the first time in its life my pianola refused to play "The Charge of the Uhlans." It had played it a hundred times before the War, but now—no!
We had to have a farewell piece. I put in a waltz, and it played it perfectly. Then we said good-bye to our pianola, feeling a reverence for it which we had never felt before.
* * * * *
You don't believe this? Yet you promised you would … and I still assure you that it is true. But I admit that the truth is sometimes hard to believe, and the first six persons to whom I told the story assured me frankly that I was a liar. If one is to be called a liar, one may as well make an effort to deserve the name. I made an effort, therefore, with the seventh person.
"I put in 'The Charge of the Uhlans,'" I said, "and it played 'GodSave the King.'"
Unfortunately he was a very patriotic man, and he believed it. So that is how the story is now going about. But you who read this know the real truth of the matter.
As soon as Celia had got a cheque-book of her own (and I had explained the mysteries of "—— & Co." to her), she looked round for a safe investment of her balance, which amounted to several pounds. My offers, first of an old stocking and afterwards of mines, mortgages and aerated breads, were rejected at once.
"I'll leave a little in the bank in case of accidents," she said, "and the rest must go somewhere absolutely safe and earn me five per cent. Otherwise they shan't have it."
We did what we could for her; we offered the money to archdeacons and other men of pronounced probity; and finally we invested it in the Blanktown Electric Light Company. Blanktown is not its real name, of course; but I do not like to let out any information which may be of value to Celia's enemies—the wicked ones who are trying to snatch her little fortune from her. The world, we feel, is a dangerous place for a young woman with money.
"Can't Ipossiblylose it now?" she asked.
"Only in two ways," I said. "Blanktown might disappear in the night, or the inhabitants might give up using electric light."
It seemed safe enough. At the same time we watched the newspapers anxiously for details of the latest inventions; and anybody who happened to mention when dining with us that he was experimenting with a new and powerful illuminant was handed his hat at once.
You have Blanktown, then, as the depository of Celia's fortune. Now it comes on the scene in another guise. I made the announcement with some pride at breakfast yesterday.
"My dear," I said, "I have been asked to deliver a lecture."
"Whatever on?" asked Celia.
"Anything I like. The last person lectured on 'The Minor Satellites of Jupiter,' and the one who comes after me is doing 'The Architecture of the Byzantine Period,' so I can take something in between."
"Like 'Frostbites,'" said Celia helpfully. "But I don't quite understand.Where is it, and why?"
"The Blanktown Literary and Philosophical Society ask me to lecture to them at Blanktown. The man who was coming is ill."
"But whyyouparticularly?"
"One comes down to me in the end," I said modestly.
"I expect it's because of my electric lights. Do they give you any money for it?"
"They ask me to name my fee."
"Then say a thousand pounds, and lecture on the need for more electric light. Fancy if I got six per cent!"
"This is a very sordid conversation," I said. "If I agree to lecture at all, it will be simply because I feel that I have a message to deliver … I will now retire into the library and consider what that message is to be."
I placed the encyclopaedia handy and sat down at my desk. I had already grasped the fact that the title of my discourse was the important thing. In the list of the Society's lectures sent to me there was hardly one whose title did not impress the imagination in advance. I must be equally impressive …
After a little thought I began to write.
"Lecture delivered before the Blanktown Literary and Philosophical Society, Tuesday, December 8th.
"Ladies and Gentlemen—"
"Well," said Celia, drifting in, "how's it going?"
I showed her how far I had got.
"I thought you always began, 'My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,'" she said.
"Only if the Lord Mayor's there."
"But how will you know?"
"Yes, that's rather awkward. I shall have to ask the Secretary beforehand."
I began again.
"Lecture delivered, etc….
"My Lord Mayor, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen—"
It looked much better.
"What about Baronets?" said Celia. "There's sure to be lots."
"Yes, this is going to be difficult. I shall have to have a long talk with the Secretary … How's this?—'My Lord Mayor, Lords, Baronets, Ladies and Gentlemen and Sundries.' That's got in everybody."
"That's all right. And I wanted to ask you: Have you got any lantern slides?"
"They're not necessary."