Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 158 1920-05-12 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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The Very Great Man spoke. His opening remarks showed that his interest was centred in me personally. He spoke again, and these are his exact words: "Mr. Jones," he said, "I perceive that you are a student of King's Regulations, and that you conform your actions to those estimable rules. You will be demobilised forthwith, and in view of your gallant service I have pleasure in awarding you a bonus of two hundred pounds in addition to your gratuity; but please understand that this exceptional remuneration is given on the condition that you are out of uniform within two hours."

With my feet turned out at an angle of about forty-five degrees, my knees straight, my body erect and carried evenly over the thighs, I saluted, about turned and marched to the door. Everything had proceeded according to plan.

As I reached the door the Very Great Man spoke to the Great Man. "You will draft an Army Order at once," he said, "in these words: King's Regulations. Amendment. Para. 1696 will be amended, and the following words deleted:--'Whiskers, if worn, will be of moderate length.'"

I am still in the Army. The truth of the matter is that what I have described did not really happen. My nerve failed me at the door of Mr. Nathan's. But I believe that whiskers, detachable, red, can be obtained from Mr. Nathan for a few shillings.

DENMARK TO HAVE A MANDATE FOR IRELAND.

SENSATION IN POLITICAL CIRCLES.

Dashing round to Downing Street on our motor-scooter we were just in time to catch Sir PHILIP KERR by one of his coat-tails as he was disappearing into the door of No. 10 and to ask him whether the strange rumour as to the PRIME MINISTER'S latest project was true.

"Let's see, wasn't he a Marathon runner?" we asked.

"You are thinking of LONGBOAT," he replied. "The Earl of PEMBROKE was invited to enter Ireland by DESMOND MACMOROGH, and between you and me and the lamp-post DESMOND was a bad hat. Look at the way he stole DEVORGHAL, the wife of TIGHEIRANACH O'ROURKE."

"Quite, quite," we replied. As a matter of fact, if he had mentioned "The Silent Wife" we should have felt a bit more at home with the situation.

"Now take the Danes," said Sir PHILIP. "Do you ever hear an Irishman complain of the injustice done to Ireland by the Danes? After that little scrap at Clontarf they accepted the Danish invasion quite naturally. Anyhow, the Danes got there first, and the PRIME MINISTER'S view is 'first come first served.'"

"But will Denmark undertake the mandate?" we asked doubtfully.

"Why not? They have Iceland already, and there is only one letter different."

Scooting thoughtfully away, we went to visit Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR, feeling sure he would have some light to throw on the situation. We found him overjoyed with the proposal.

"Ireland and Denmark are simply made for each other," he pointed out; "both are butter-producing countries and, welded together, they will form one homogeneous and indissoluble pat. Peace will reign in Ireland from marge to marge."

Mr. DEVLIN was less optimistic. The rule of Dublin Castle under OLAF TRYGVESSON was, he declared, not a whit better than the rule of Dublin Castle to-day. It was true that TURGES the Dane was King of All Ireland in 815, but it was not until that chieftain had been very rightly and carefully killed by MELACHLIN that the Golden Age of Ireland began. He was doubtful whether Mr. EDMUND DE VALERA would consent to be a toparch under Danish suzerainty. As for himself, he held by the Home Rule Bill of 1914 or, failing that, BRIAN BORU.

When we asked Sir EDWARD CARSON how he viewed the prospect of becoming a Scandinavian jarl, he adopted a morose expression reminding us not a little of the "moody Dane."

"If the PRIME MINISTER'S proposal becomes law," he said firmly, "I shall have no alternative but to hand over Ulster to Holland."

We scooted slowly back to the office, forced to the conclusion that the Irish Question is not settled even yet.

GENIUS AT PLAY.

Shall I ever see again In the human head a brain Like the article that fills That interior of Bill's?

Never a day can pass but he Makes some great discovery; His inventions are so many That you cannot think of any Realm of science, wit or skill That is not enriched by Bill.

To relieve the awful strain Of possessing such a brain William always used to play Eighteen holes each Saturday. But he scarce could see at all, And he often lost his ball, Plus his temper and his pelf, So he made a ball himself, Which, if it should chance to roam Out of sight, played "Home, Sweet Home" On a small euphonium he Had inserted in its tummy.

Next he wrought with cunning hand Round its waist an endless band, An ingenious affair Such as tanks delight to wear; And, inside, a little motor Started every time you smote or Even when you topped your shot; And, once started, it would not Stop, for if it came within Half a furlong of the pin, Then it was designed to roll Straight and true towards the hole. This is scarcely strange, because It was bound by Nature's laws, And a magnet was the force Which, thought he, would make it feel Drawn towards a pin of steel.

Then he found to his dismay Every time he tried to play That the ball with sundry hoots Chased the hob-nails in his boots. Finally he had to use On his feet a pair of shoes Of a most peculiar shape Made of insulating tape.

So the final test arrives When once more he tees and drives. Joy! As soon as he has hit he Sees it toddling down the pretty, Never swerving left or right Till it waddles out of sight, Plodding through a bunker and Braying like a German band.

As distinct from a Papal Bull.

SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.

Mr. Punch hopes that this additional publicity will lead to the recovery of the missing magistrates.

Literature is becoming so commercialised that it is to be expected that before long popular authors, who already surreptitiously practise the tradesman's art, will go a step further and write their own advertisements. No longer will they be content to get themselves interviewed on the subject of their next book, their new car and their favourite poodle, or to depend on the oleaginous eulogies of the publishers.

For instance:

Or again:

You incur NO RISK in asking for these exquisite samples.

Or yet again:

Or once more:

Poems of every description completed at the SHORTEST NOTICE.

DER TAG ONCE MORE.

Lightly loose the silken cable, Swell, ye sails, by zephyrs kissed, Bearing me the walnut table Thumped by BETHMANN-HOLLWEG'S fist; Steering, not by course erratic, Safe to the appointed wharf, Bring, O bark, the diplomatic Kneehole desk of LUDENDORFF.

Softly now, ye dockers, pardie, Cease your wrangling for a bit, Dump the seat whereon BERNHARDI Bowed his dreadful form to sit; Make no scratch however tiny When the circling crane-arm sags On the chair that rendered shiny HINDENBURG'S enormous bags.

Blotting-papered, india-rubbered, Good as new, with pencils piled, Bring me the immortal cupboard Where the Hymn of Hate was filed; Who can say how oft, when brisker Beat the heart behind his ribs, TIRPITZ wiped upon a whisker Pensively these part-worn nibs?

Waft them then, ye winds, let Fritz's Office furniture be mine; Each one of these priceless bits is Salvage from a Junker shrine; Breathing still the ancient essence, They shall give me, when I speak, Something of the German presence And the blazing German cheek.

EVOE.

MANUAL PLAY.

In my house the cry goes up with peculiar force about Easter-time, when I repaint as much of the house as I am allowed and whitewash the rest, and can appreciate what I am missing in my everyday calling. It is astonishing to think that one used actually to pay people money to paint and whitewash, and looked on with meek wonder, for six weeks, while they did it. Bourgeois I may be, but I have put aside that folly. The Easter holidays now are to me the best holidays of the year, because for four whole days I can do almost unlimited decorating. I begin with the conservatory; I do it a delicate pale blue, and it looks very lovely. The vine in the conservatory no longer yields her increase as she used to do, but I can't help that. After the conservatory I start on the basement, and the opportunities in the basement are endless. It is a curious thing that brain-workers who do much decorating in their spare time do most of it in the basement and not in the rooms they have to occupy themselves. The basement is fair game. Another curious thing is that the people who do have to occupy the basement never seem to appreciate what you are doing for them. They appear to think you are merely amusing yourself.

When you have got rid of the staff you can get to work on the scullery and whitewash the ceiling. Whitewashing is much superior to painting. Painting looks lovely while you are doing it, but is very horrible when it is dry, being streaky or blistery or covered with long hairs. Whitewash looks horrible while you are doing it, but marvellous when it is dry, which is much more satisfactory. In a life of average prosperity and no small public distinction, including an intimacy with a professional tenor and two or three free lunches with noblemen, I can recall few moments of such genuine rapture as the one when you creep down to the basement to find the whitewash dry at last and brilliant as the driven snow.

Personally I don't pay too much attention to the rather arbitrary rules on painting laid down by the Painters' Union. Life is too short. For instance, I don't put my brushes in turpentine when I have finished for the day; and if I do I put the green brush and the light-blue brush and the black brush and the white brush in the same pot, and terrible things happen. I don't like my art to be hampered by petty notions of economy, and if brushes persist in crystallising into tooth-brushes when left to themselves for an hour or two I simply use a new brush.

Nor do I insist on "cleaning thoroughly the surface before the paint is applied." Anyone who sets out in practice to clean thoroughly the surface of the basement before applying the paint will find that the Easter holidays have slipped away long before any paint is applied at all. Besides, one of the main objects of paint is to hide the dirt, so why waste time in removing it?

On the other hand, I am not content with mere painting; I go in thoroughly for all the refinements like driers and varnishes and gold-size. Driers and gold-size are extremely necessary when painting the basement, because if there is one thing the staff enjoy more than tea-cups coming away in the 'and, it is really rubbing themselves against wet paint and wandering round muttering complaints about it. Without a driers or some drier or whatever it is, the basement remains wet for ever, and all work ceases while the staff amble about, ecstatically rubbing themselves against the doorposts and saying "T'tt, t'tt," in a meaning way.

It is a sad quality of oil-paint that when it is dry it no longer looks so lovely and shiny as it looks when it is wet. It was found that the sense of disappointment which this produced was greater than the Painters' Union could bear; so someone, in order to prevent industrial strife, invented some stuff called varnish, by which, at the very moment of disillusion, the maximum of shininess can be again produced with the minimum of effort. It is one of the few inventions which make a man grateful for the advance of science.

Well, that is all there is about painting. The only difficulty, once you have begun, is to know when to stop. Painting is a kind of fever. The painting of a single chair makes the whole room look dirty; so the whole room has to be painted. Then, of course, the outside of the windows has to be brought up to the same standard; and if once you have painted the outside of a window you are practically committed to painting the whole house.

The only thing that stops me painting is a turpentine crisis, which usually occurs just before church on Sunday morning, when one has three workmanlike coats of glossy enamel or pale-green on one's hands. Week-end painters should keep a close eye on the situation, and cease work while there is yet sufficient turpentine to cope with the workmanlike coats; for I find that in these days the churchwardens look askance at you if you put in a penny with a pale-green hand.

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