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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 147 August 26th 1914 by Various Seaman Owen Editor
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Ebook has 62 lines and 7939 words, and 2 pages
the choir on Sundays and contributing to the larder during the week by his skill as a fisherman. He lived with us until a few months ago, when he unhappily died through inadvertently swallowing a cork. He is buried in our garden, and on the stone are inscribed the following lines composed by my mother--
Here lies Beethoven in his grave, No earthly power could him save; An envious cork blocked up his breath And that was how he met his death.
MRS. PULLAR LEGGE.
CAT OR CHAMELEON?
Piffles was a splendid pink Circassian--perfect in colour and shape, with glorious topaz eyes. But the extraordinary thing about him was a gift that he had for changing his colour. Thus my uncle, an old Anglo-Indian who always drank a bottle of Madeira after dinner, declared that from 10 P.M. onwards Piffles invariably seemed to him to be a bright crimson with green spots. Another peculiarity of Piffles was that he always followed the guns out shooting, and used to retrieve birds from the most difficult places. He practically ruled the household, took the boys back to school after the holidays, attended family prayers, and was learning to play the pianola when he was unfortunately killed by a crocodile which escaped from a travelling menagerie.
IVY WAGG.
A FELINE PRACTICAL JOKER.
Last year I had a cat who, whenever she was offended, used to go to my bedroom and throw various articles out of the window. I was constantly finding purses, powder-puffs, artificial teeth, safety-pins, hymn-books, etc., on the lawn, and never suspected the culprit until she was caught in the act.
She also had a habit of sitting on the top of the front door and dropping golf-balls on the head of the postman, whom, either for his red hair or his Radical opinions, she disliked bitterly.
D. MONK HOWSON.
THE SCRATCH HANDICAP.
"What do you do?" asked Charles, "when people want you to play lawn-tennis?"
"Sometimes I play," I said. "Sometimes I send Sophonisba. Sometimes I tell them that my head-keeper is away and I am obliged to look after the lop-ears. What happens to you?"
"Well, you know what lawn-tennis is like nowadays. In the bygone butter-pat era I could hold my own with the best of them. Golf had hardly come in, and when one wasn't playing cricket, and the spilliken set had been mislaid, and tiddley-winks was voted too rough, a couple of sets or so was rather fun. Soft undulating courts, very hard to keep a footing on, and plenty of sticks and leaves to assist one's screws, and patches of casual whiting here and there so that you could say that it wasn't a fault but hit the line. Now all that is changed. Panther-limbed, hawk-eyed young persons leap about the lawn dressed in white from top to toe. They play on fast and level lawns, entirely circumscribed by a kind of deep-sea trawling apparatus. They want you to hit hard and well. I have only two strokes when I hit hard. One of them pierces the bottom of the seine or drag-net fixed across the fairway, the other brings the man round from the next-door garden but two to say that his cucumbers are catching cold. And then I do not understand their terms. What is a 'fore-hand drive'? It sounds like the coaching Marathon. And how do you put on top spin? Do you wind your racquet round and round the ball and then pull it away suddenly, or what? And cross-volleys--what in the world are they?"
"Goodness knows," I said. "My own volleys are the best-tempered little chaps alive. But, hang it! no one can force you to play lawn-tennis if you don't want to."
"Can't they?" said Charles. "That's just the point. They do. They say to me, 'You play golf and cricket; of course you can play tennis. Easiest thing in the world.' Swish! swish! they go, making a ferocious cross-hand top-lead from baulk with their umbrellas. 'That's how to do it. You'll soon get into the way of the stroke.' 'That's just what I'm afraid of,' I say, leaping nervously on to the table. But it's no good. 'Come round next Saturday afternoon,' they say, 'we shall be expecting you,' and pass rapidly into the night before I can refuse."
"One can always have a sick headache," I reminded him.
"I did that once," said Charles. "I had been asked to play in a tournament, and at dinner the next evening I sat next to the girl who ought to have been my partner in the mixed handicaps, and we had meringues. No, it isn't safe, and besides one might always want to play golf. I think the best thing is to go once and trust to one's own skill not to be asked again. Anyhow, I don't believe the Jenkinsons will give me another invitation for some time."
"No, it wasn't that," he answered, with a dreamy smile. "You know the Jenkinsons. You know how keen they are on tennis and how proud of their court. I did everything I could to save them, but they would have me. I said I had no racquet except the one I had used for landing trout in the spring, and they told me I could get it restrung. I said I had no shoes, and they told me any shoes would do. I couldn't tell them I had no flannels, because they wouldn't have believed me. So I went. I wore an old blue cricket cap on the back of my head: I wore long white trousers not turned up, and I wore brown shoes."
"And your racquet?" I asked.
"I borrowed a real tennis-racquet," replied Charles; "one of those narrow, rather wistful-looking things, with a kink in its head. I thought it would complete the languid artistic effect and help to convince them. It had rained a good deal in the morning, and I rather hoped we might spend the time looking at the conservatory and have muffins for tea. But no. When I reached the house I found that they had decided to play. They laughed at me a good deal, of course--at my cap, and my racquet, and my trousers, and my brown shoes. When we had taken up our stations in the arena they told me I was to serve first. I sent the ball high up into the air underhand and ran swiftly to the net." He paused melodramatically.
"Go on," I said. "Was it the solar plexus or the eye?"
"No," he answered sadly, "I was unwounded; but that was the last stroke I played. When I served that service they laughed at me again, but when I ran to the net they ceased to laugh. They said they could easily find someone else to complete the four. They pressed me to sit and watch for the remainder of the afternoon. Indeed, they were quite firm about it."
"I don't understand," I said. "Was it your face that frightened them in the blue cap?"
"Not so much my face," he answered gently, "as my feet."
"What was the matter with them?"
"There are big nails," he said softly, "in my brown golf shoes."
FROM ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW.
It is a strange thing that, much as women have entered the writing lists with men, there is one branch of literature which they rarely attempt. Take away Mrs. BROWNING and CHRISTINA ROSSETTI and you will scarcely find a love poem by a woman, or, at any rate, a love poem which takes the woman's point of view. Probably many of the most cherished sentimental songs which wake the echoes of the drawing-room and conservatory are the work of women; but they write as men. It is always the masculine aspect which is set before the public; the beloved is always feminine. And yet marriage statistics show that precisely as many men have married as women. But during the preliminary period of exalted emotion any love poetry that was written was written by the men.
Surely, as the advancement of woman proceeds, and she adds territory upon territory to her kingdom, she will redress the balance and write love poetry too.
A very few changes in certain of the classic lyrics indicate how near the two varieties of love poems can be: male and female. Thus, why should not "he" as well as "she" have dwelt among untrodden ways? Why should not "he" have walked in beauty like the night? POE wrote magically about ANNABEL LEE; why should not one of his female relatives, for example, have written in a similar strain? Something like this:--
Women must see to it that men do not have it all their own way for ever. LANDOR was moved to a perfect lyric by love of ROSE AYLMER. Is the following any less perfect?
Ah! what avails the sceptred race? Ah! what the form divine? What every virtue, every grace? George Aylmer, all were thine.
George Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and sighs I consecrate to thee.
George is of course not the only name, nor is Aylmer. The adaptrix, however, must be careful that the Christian name is a monosyllable and the other a dissyllable.
Again, in the following feminine version of a Shakspearean song the name is subject to alteration:--
Who is Bertie? What is he That all the girls commend him? Handsome, brave and wise is he; The heavens such grace did lend him That he might admired be.
Examples might be adduced from many poets, but two more will suffice. A female TENNYSON might have begun a song in the following terms:--
It is the youthful miller, And he is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the pencil That trembles on his ear: For 'midst his curls by day and night I'd touch his neck so warm and white.
Finally, let us look at the very prince of love poets--ROBBIE BURNS. Two of his most famous songs might as well have been written of swains as maidens. Here is one in which in the most natural way in the world lassie becomes laddie, and Mary, Harry:--
Go, fetch to me a cup o' tea, And take it from a silver caddie, That I may drink a health to thee, A service to my bonnie laddie! The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry, The ship rides by the Berwick-Law, And I maun leave my bonnie Harry.
Is that injured by the change? Not a bit. And here is another in which we have successfully introduced a variation of the original name:--
MR. PUNCH'S HOLIDAY STORIES.
For weeks past the press had discussed little but the coming boxing contest between Smasher Mike and the famous heavy-weight champion, Mauler Mills, for a purse of ?20,000 and enormous side stakes. Photographs of the Mauler in every conceivable attitude had been published daily, together with portraits of his wife, his two children, his four maiden aunts and the pink-eyed opossum which he regarded as his mascot. Full descriptions of his training day by day, with details of his diet, his reading, his amusements and his opinions on war, divorce, the clergy and kindred subjects, testified to the extraordinary interest taken by the public in the titanic struggle.
The betting on Mauler Mills was a hundred to one.
Young Lord Tamerton was in desperate straits. The estate to which he had succeeded at the age of ten had been administered during his minority by a fraudulent executor, who had absconded to South America with his ill-gotten wealth. Matters had since gone steadily from bad to worse, and the young peer was now face to face with utter ruin.
Lord Tamerton was seated at a grand piano, playing BACH and moodily reflecting on these matters, when Ralph Wonderson himself entered the room, vaulting lightly over piano and performer as he did so.
"What's the matter, Fred?" he asked. "You look blue."
"This morning I pawned the Island Cup, which you won for us," he said bitterly. "That is the result, and that is what stands between me and starvation." His voice broke, "And--and between Madge and starvation," he added.
A light step was heard behind him, and a small hand stole into his own.
"I would marry you," said Lady Margaret, "I would marry you if it were only ?7,000."
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