Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 158 1920-03-31 by Various

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"Sheila," I said--"Sheila, this may be fun for you, but James Wrigley and I may sing in the streets to pay for it."

"You great stupid"--her eyes were sparking as she spoke--"I've booked more orders than you will be able to carry out before you've learned wisdom. Look!" It was practically a nominal roll of the local capitalists that she showed me. "Nobody believes what you say about a car, so you can say what you like. The thing is to get it noticed."

"Did they study these cars much before they let you take their names?"

Sheila looked into my eyes and laughed happily.

W. K. H.

Our Eccentric Advertisers.

"Youth Wanted to Strike."

ABOUT BATHROOMS.

Of all the beautiful things which are to be seen in shop windows perhaps the most beautiful are those luxurious baths in white enamel, hedged round with attachments and conveniences in burnished metal. Whenever I see one of them I stand and covet it for a long time. Yet even these super-baths fall far short of what a bath should be; and as for the perfect bathroom I question if anyone has even imagined it.

And there ought to be rich rugs in it and profound chairs; one would walk about in bare feet on the rich rugs while the bath was running; and one would sit in the profound chairs while drying the ears.

The fact is, a bathroom ought to be equipped for comfort, like a drawing-room, a good, full, velvety room; and as things are it is solely equipped for singing. In the drawing-room, where we want to sing, we put so many curtains and carpets and things that most of us can't sing at all; and then we wonder that there is no music in England. Nothing is more maddening than to hear several men refusing to join in a simple chorus after dinner, when you know perfectly well that every one of them has been singing in a high tenor in his bath before dinner. We all know the reason, but we don't take the obvious remedy. The only thing to do is to take all the furniture out of the drawing-room and put it in the bathroom--all except the piano and a few cane chairs. Then we shouldn't have those terrible noises in the early morning, and in the evening everybody would be a singer. I suppose that is what they do in Wales.

But if we cannot make the bathroom what it ought to be, the supreme and perfect shrine of the supreme moment of the day, the one spot in the house on which no expense or trouble is spared, we can at least bring the bath itself up to date. I don't now, as I did, lay much stress on having a bath with fifteen different taps. I once stayed in a house with a bath like that. There was a hot tap and a cold tap, and hot sea-water and cold sea-water, and PLUNGE and SPRAY and SHOWER and WAVE and FLOOD, and one or two more. To turn on the top tap you had to stand on a step-ladder, and they were all very highly polished. I was naturally excited by this, and an hour before it was time to dress for dinner I slunk upstairs and hurried into the bathroom and locked myself in and turned on all the taps at once. It was strangely disappointing. The sea-water was mythical. Many of the taps refused to function at the same time as any other, and the only two which were really effective were WAVE and FLOOD. WAVE shot out a thin jet of boiling water which caught me in the chest, and FLOOD filled the bath with cold water long before it could be identified and turned off.

No, taps are not of the first importance, though, properly polished, they look well. But no bath is complete without one of those attractive bridges or trays where one puts the sponges and the soap. Conveniences like that are a direct stimulus to washing. The first time I met one I washed myself all over two or three times simply to make the most of knowing where the soap was. Now and then, in fact, in a sort of bravado I deliberately lost it, so as to be able to catch it again and put it back in full view on the tray. You can also rest your feet on the tray when you are washing them, and so avoid cramp.

Again, I like a bathroom where there is an electric bell just above the bath, which you can ring with the big toe. This is for use when one has gone to sleep in the bath and the water has frozen, or when one has begun to commit suicide and thought better of it. Apart from these two occasions it can be used for Morsing instructions about breakfast to the cook--supposing you have a cook. And if you haven't a cook a little bell-ringing in the basement does no harm.

But the most extraordinary thing about the modern bath is that there is no provision for shaving in it. Shaving in the bath I regard as the last word in systematic luxury. But in the ordinary bath it is very difficult. There is nowhere to put anything. There ought to be a kind of shaving tray attached to every bath, which you could swing in on a flexible arm, complete with mirror and soap and strop, new blades and shaving-papers and all the other confounded paraphernalia. Then, I think, shaving would be almost tolerable, and there wouldn't be so many of these horrible beards about.

Next door to the shaving and smoking tray should be the book-rest. I don't myself do much reading in the bath, but I have several sisters-in-law who keep on coming to stay, and they all do it. Few things make the leaves of a book stick together so easily as being dropped in a hot bath, so they had better have a book-rest; and if they go to sleep I shall set in motion my emergency waste mechanism, by which the bath can be emptied in malice from outside.

Another of my inventions is the Progress Indicator. It works like the indicators outside lifts, which show where the lift is and what it is doing. My machine shows what stage the man inside has reached--the washing stage or the merely wallowing stage, or the drying stage, or the exercises stage. It shows you at a glance whether it is worth while to go back to bed or whether it is time to dig yourself in on the mat. The machine is specially suitable for hotels and large country houses where you can't find out by hammering on the door and asking, because nobody takes any notice.

When you have properly fitted out the bathroom on these lines all that remains is to put the telephone in and have your meals there; or rather to have your meals there and not put the telephone in. It must still remain the one room where a man is safe from that.

A. P. H.

NATIONAL COAL.

A great deal of nonsense is being talked about our coal-mines. I should like therefore to throw a little helpful light on the subject of nationalisation. Speaking as an owner and not as a miner , I want to consider some of the pros and cons of this debatable proposition. I take it, first of all, that we shall pay for our coal along with our taxes and in proportion to our income. This will come rather hard, of course, on the kind of people who insist on warming their rooms with three large electric vegetable marrows, or by means of a number of small skeletons pickled in gas. But such people will no doubt be able to claim rebates, and rebating is one of the most healthy and instructive of our British parlour games. Let us pass on, then, to the means of distribution.

I greatly doubt whether under State organisation the practice of opening up those romantic and circular caverns in the middle of the pavement and suddenly filling our cellars with smoke, rain and thunder will be allowed to continue. Rather, I expect, at the moment when John Postman pushes the budget of bills through the slit in the front-door, William Coalman, walking along the roof, will be dropping a couple of Derby Brights, in the mode of Santa Claus, down the chimney. This will get over the basement trouble, and deliveries of course will occur frequently, if irregularly, throughout the day at such times as the Government consider them to be necessary for making up the fire.

But whatever happens about deliveries the Inspector of Grates will be an infernal nuisance. Nothing makes a man more unpopular than interference in a quarrel between husband and wife, and I imagine that there will be many little suburban tragedies like the following:--

Only a simpleton or sawney Falls short in reverence for TAWNEY; Only the man without a soul Disputes the kingliness of COLE.

Labour, no longer gross and brawny, Finds its true hierophant in TAWNEY; And, freed from all save Guild Control, Attains its apogee in COLE.

Proud Prelates in their vestments lawny Quail at the heresies of TAWNEY; And prostrate Dukes in anguish roll, Scared by the scrutiny of COLE.

The Nabob quits his brandy-pawnee To listen to the lore of TAWNEY; The plain beer-drinker bans the bowl, Weaned by the witchery of COLE.

Students however slack or yawny Grow tense beneath the spell of TAWNEY; Footballers score goal after goal, Trained in the principles of COLE.

The shrimp grows positively prawny On list'ning to the voice of TAWNEY; While upward shoots the blindest mole Beneath the airy tread of COLE.

There's something thrilling--Colleen-Bawny-- About the articles of TAWNEY; And no one can so grandly toll The knell of Capital as COLE.

As Cornwall rallied to TRELAWNY So Labour rallies to its TAWNEY; And miners find a "better 'ole" Provided by the creed of COLE.

We don't wonder that two foreign languages were required to veil this shocking observation.

From a feuilleton :--

This incident should "film" well.

SEASIDE ISSUES.

"This summer," said Suzanne, "we must take the bull by the forelock."

"Dearest wife," I cried, "at your age you must not dream of joining in such dangerous sports. Besides I don't think the summer is quite the season for Spain."

"Taking the children to the seaside, of course; and, as I said, we must make our arrangements well in advance, otherwise we shall get left, as we did last year, and have to put up with lodgings in Margate."

"Have you any particular place in view?" I asked.

"And hear the starfish calling to his mate," I extemporised.

"And we'll live a life of freedom in a corner by ourselves," she continued with a disconcerting change of metre into which I could not hope to follow her. But her words gave me an idea.

"I do believe," I said, "I know the exact spot you're pining for. To-morrow, something tells me, is Saturday. On Saturday I down tools at twelve. Meet me on the weighing-machine at Victoria Cross a quarter after noon and I will show you the place you seek."

"The man's a marvel," said Suzanne. "What frocks shall I pack for the week-end?"

"We return before nightfall," I replied.

Next day I sought Suzanne at the appointed hour and station. She had taken my words literally and was steadfastly occupying the automatic weighing machine, with her back impassively turned upon an indignant youth who was itching to gamble a penny on the chance of guessing his avoirdupois. Quietly I crept behind her and placed a coin in the slot, simultaneously pressing my foot upon the platform. Suzanne gazed with mingled horror and fascination at the mounting indicator, and at sixteen stone jumped off with a gasp on to my disengaged foot. For a few moments I could have believed that the machine had recorded the truth.

When we had both regained our composure Suzanne inquired if I had got the tickets. The moment for enlightenment had arrived.

I led her to a hoarding and placed her in front of a poster which depicted a most alluring seaside resort. The sea was of the royalest blue, the sands were a rich 22-carat; there was a cave in the left foreground, a gaily-striped tent on the right, and a tiny harbour with yacht attached in the middle distance; and, with the exception of a lady escaped from a lingerie advertisement whom vandal hands had pasted on the scene, the sole occupants of this coastal Paradise were a gentleman in over-tailored flannels, red blazer and Guards' tie who was dancing a Bacchanale with a bath-towel, a small boy who was apparently fleeing from his parent's frenzy, and a smaller girl, mostly sun-bonnet, who was nursing a jelly-fish. Beneath the picture was the legend, "You Can Let Yourself Go at Giddyville."

I looked anxiously at Suzanne as she surveyed this masterpiece.

"Well," I said at last, "isn't that the place of your dreams? It's all practically as you described it last night, and you will observe that it's by no means overcrowded."

"But what objectionable children!" said Suzanne. "I shouldn't at all care for Barbara to mix with them; and jelly-fish sting. Besides, that boat doesn't look at all safe, and the man's a bounder in every sense of the word. What's this other place?"

I was disappointed, and considered Suzanne's criticism superficial in the extreme. The next pictures showed an emerald sea and pink shore, two piers, a flock of aeroplanes, and a structure that combined the characteristic features of the Eiffel Tower and the Albert Memorial. One suspected a herd of minstrels in the distance, but here again the beach was remarkably and invitingly uncongested. A solitary barefooted maiden communing with a crustacean rather caught my fancy, but it didn't need the angle of Suzanne's nose to tell me that "Puddlesey for Pleasure" was a wash-out; frankly, it was too good to believe that all the holiday-makers but one were content to patronise either the piers or the aeroplanes or the hidden attractions of the architectural outrage, and to leave the beach so desirably vacant.

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