IF I MAY

A. A. MILNE

	* * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOT THAT IT MATTERS

Named by _Life_ in its issue of October 28, 1920, as one of the bestsix current books. 

"No better book for vacation reading. " --_Review_

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

	* * * * *

IF I MAY

BY

A. A. MILNE

AUTHOR OF "NOT THAT IT MATTERS, " ETC. 

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

682 FIFTH AVENUE

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

_First Edition_, October, 1921

_New Popular Edition_, 1925

Printed in the United States of America

	* * * * *

These essays are reprinted, with such alterations and additions asseemed proper, from _The Sphere_, _The Outlook_, _The Daily News_, _The Sunday Express_ (London) and _Vanity Fair_ (New York). 

A. A. M. 

	* * * * *

CONTENTS

THE CASE FOR THE ARTIST

A LONDON GARDEN

THE GAME OF KINGS

FIXTURES AND FITTINGS

EXPERTS

THE ROBINSON TRADITION

GETTING THINGS DONE

CHRISTMAS GAMES

THE MATHEMATICAL MIND

GOING OUT TO DINNER

THE ETIQUETTE OF ESCAPE

GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH

CHILDREN'S PLAYS

THE ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE

A MAN OF PROPERTY

AN ORDNANCE MAP

THE LORD MAYOR

THE HOLIDAY PROBLEM

THE BURLINGTON ARCADE

STATE LOTTERIES

THE RECORD LIE

WEDDING BELLS

PUBLIC OPINION

THE HONOUR OF YOUR COUNTRY

A VILLAGE CELEBRATION

A TRAIN OF THOUGHT

MELODRAMA

A LOST MASTERPIECE

A HINT FOR NEXT CHRISTMAS

THE FUTURE

THE LARGEST CIRCULATION

THE WATSON TOUCH

SOME OLD COMPANIONS

A HAUNTED HOUSE

ROUND THE WORLD AND BACK

THE STATE OF THE THEATRE

THE FIRES OF AUTUMN

NOT GUILTY

A DIGRESSION

HIGH FINANCE

SECRET PAPERS

 * * * * *

IF I MAY

	* * * * *

IF I MAY

 The Case for the Artist

By an "artist" I mean Shakespeare and Me and Bach and Myself andVelasquez and Phidias, and even You if you have ever written fourlines on the sunset in somebody's album, or modelled a Noah's Ark foryour little boy in plasticine. Perhaps we have not quite reached theheights where Shakespeare stands, but we are on his track. Shakespearecan be representative of all of us, or Velasquez if you prefer him. One of them shall be President of our United Artists' Federation. Letus, then, consider what place in the scheme of things our federationcan claim. 

Probably we artists have all been a little modest about ourselveslately. During the war we asked ourselves gloomily what use we were tothe State compared with the noble digger of coals, the much-to-be-reverenced maker of boots, and the god-like grower of wheat. Lookingat the pictures in the illustrated papers of brawny, half-dressed menpushing about blocks of red-hot iron, we have told ourselves thatthese heroes were the pillars of society, and that we were just anincidental decoration. It was a wonder that we were allowed to live. And now in these days of strikes, when a single union of manualworkers can hold up the rest of the nation, it is a bitter refectionto us that, if we were to strike, the country would go on its wayquite happily, and nine-tenths of the population would not even knowthat we had downed our pens and brushes. 

If there is any artist who has been depressed by such thoughts asthese, let him take comfort. _We are all right. _

I made the discovery that we were all right by studying the life ofthe bee. All that I knew about bees until yesterday was derived fromthat great naturalist, Dr. Isaac Watts. In common with every one whohas been a child I knew that the insect in question improved eachshining hour by something honey something something every somethingflower. I had also heard that bees could not sting you if you heldyour breath, a precaution which would make conversation by theherbaceous border an affair altogether too spasmodic; and, finally, that in any case the same bee could only sting you once--though, apparently, there was no similar provision of Nature's that the sameperson could not be stung twice. 

Well, that was all that I knew about bees until yesterday. I used tosee them about the place from time to time, busy enough, no douht, butreally no busier than I was; and as they were not much interested inme they had no reason to complain that I was not much interested inthem. But since yesterday, when I read a book which dealt fully, notonly with the public life of the bee, but with the most intimatedetails of its private life, I have looked at them with a new interestand a new sympathy. For there is no animal which does not get more outof life than the pitiable insect which Dr. Watts holds up as anexample to us. 

Hitherto, it may be, you have thought of the bee as an admirable andindustrious insect, member of a model community which worked day andnight to but one end--the well-being of the coming race. You knewperhaps that it fertilized the flowers, but you also knew that the beedidn't know; you were aware that, it any bee deliberately went abouttrying to improve your delphiniums instead of gathering honey for theState, it would be turned down promptly by the other workers. Fornothing is done in the hive without this one utilitarian purpose. Eventhe drones take their place in the scheme of things; a minor place inthe stud; and when the next generation is assured, and the dronescease to be useful and can now only revert to the ornamental, they areruthlessly cast out. 

It comes, then, to this. The bee devotes its whole life to preparingfor the next generation. But what is the next generation going to do?It is going to spend its whole life preparing for the thirdgeneration... And so on for ever. 

An admirable community, the moralists tell us. Poor moralists! To missso much of the joy of life; to deny oneself the pleasure (to mentiononly one among many) of reclining lazily on one's back in asnap-dragon, watching the little white clouds sail past upon a sea ofblue; to miss these things for no other reason than that the nextgeneration may also have an opportunity of missing them--is thatadmirable? What do the bees think that they are doing? If they live alife of toil and self-sacrifice merely in order that the nextgeneration may live a life of equal toil and self-sacrifice, what hasbeen gained? Ask the next bee you meet what it thinks it is doing inthis world, and the only answer it can give you is, "Keeping up thesupply of bees. " Is that an admirable answer? How much more admirableif it could reply that it was eschewing all pleasure and living thelife of a galley-slave in order that the next generation might haveleisure to paint the poppy a more glorious scarlet. But no. The nextgeneration is going at it just as hard for the same unproductive end;it has no wish to leave anything behind it--a new colour, a new scent, a new idea. It has one object only in this world--more bees. Could anyscheme of life be more sterile?

Having come to this conclusion about the bee, I took fresh courage. Isaw at once that it was the artist in Man which made him lesscontemptible than the Bee. That god-like person the grower of wheatassumed his proper level. Bread may be necessary to existence, butwhat is the use of existence if you are merely going to employ it inmaking bread? True, the farmer makes bread, not only for himself, butfor the miner; and the miner produces coal--not only for himself, butfor the farmer; and the farmer also Produces bread for the maker ofboots, who Produces boots, not only for himself, but for the farmerand the miner. But you are still getting ting no further. It is theLife of the Bee over again, with no other object in it but mereexistence. If this were all, there would be nothing to write on ourtombstones but "Born 1800; Died 1880. _He lived till then. _"

But it is not all, because--and here I strike my breastproudly--because of us artists. Not only can we write on Shakespeare'stomb, "He wrote _Hamlet_" or "He was not for an age, but for alltime, " but we can write on a contemporary baker's tomb, "He providedbread for the man who wrote _Hamlet_, " and on a contemporarybutcher's tomb, "He was not only for himself, but for Shakespeare. "We perceive, in fact, that the only matter upon which any worker, other than the artist, can congratulate himself, whether he bemanual-worker, brain-worker, surgeon, judge, or politician, is that heis helping to make the world tolerable for the artist. It is only theartist who will leave anything behind him. He is the fighting-man, theman who counts; the others are merely the Army Service Corps ofcivilization. A world without its artists, a world of bees, would beas futile and as meaningless a thing as an army composed entirely ofthe A. S. C. 

Possibly you put in a plea here for the explorer and the scientist. The explorer perhaps may stand alone. His discovery of a peak inDarien is something in itself, quite apart from the happy possibilitythat Keats may be tempted to bring it into a sonnet. Yes, if aBeef-Essence-Merchant has only provided sustenance for an Explorer hehas not lived in vain, however much the poets and the painters recoilfrom his wares. But of the scientist I am less certain. I fancy thathis invention of the telephone (for instance) can only be counted tohis credit because it has brought the author into closer touch withhis publisher. 

So we artists (yes, and explorers) may be of good faith. They may tryto pretend, these others, in their little times of stress, that we arenothing--decorative, inessential; that it is they who make the worldgo round. This will not upset us. We could not live without them;true. But (a much more bitter thought) they would have no reason forliving at all, were it not for us. 

 A London Garden

I have always wanted a garden of my own. Other people's gardens areall very well, but the visitor never sees them at their best. He comesdown in June, perhaps, and says something polite about the roses. "Youought to have seen them last year, " says his host disparagingly, andthe visitor represses with difficulty the retort, "You ought to haveasked me down to see them last year. " Or, perhaps, he comes down inAugust, and lingers for a moment beneath the fig-tree. "Poor show offigs, " says the host, "I don't know what's happened to them. Now wehad a record crop of raspberries. Never seen them so plentifulbefore. " And the visitor has to console himself with the thought ofthe raspberries which he has never seen, and will probably miss againnext year. It is not very comforting. 

Give me, therefore, a garden of my own. Let me grow my own flowers, and watch over them from seedhood to senility. Then shall I missnothing of their glory, and when visitors come I can impress them withmy stories of the wonderful show of groundsel which we had last year. 

For the moment I am contenting myself with groundsel. To judge by thepresent state of the garden, the last owner must have prided himselfchiefly on his splendid show of canaries. Indeed, it would notsurprise me to hear that he referred to his garden as "theback-yard. " This would take the heart out of anything which wastrying to flower there, and it is only natural that, with theexception of the three groundsel beds, the garden is now a wilderness. Perhaps "wilderness" gives you a misleading impression of space, theactual size of the pleasaunce being about two hollyhocks by one, butit is the correct word to describe the air of neglect which hangs overthe place. However, I am going to alter that. 

With a garden of this size, though, one has to be careful. One cannotdecide lightly upon a croquet-lawn here, an orchard there, and arockery in the corner; one has to go all out for the one particularthing, whether it is the last hoop and the stick of a croquet-lawn, amulberry-tree, or an herbaceous border. Which do we want most--a fruitgarden, a flower garden, or a water garden? Sometimes I think fondlyof a water garden, with a few perennial gold-fish flashing swiftlyacross it, and ourselves walking idly by the margin and pointing themout to our visitors; and then I realize sadly that, by the time anadequate margin has been provided for ourselves and our visitors, there will be no room left for the gold-fish. 

At the back of my garden I have a high brick wall. To whom the bricksactually belong I cannot say, but at any rate I own the surface rightson this side of it. One of my ideas is to treat it as the back clothof a stage, and paint a vista on it. A long avenue of immemorial elms, leading up to a gardener's lodge at the top of the wall--I mean at theend of the avenue--might create a pleasing impression. My workroomleads out into the garden, and I have a feeling that, if the door ofthis room were opened, and then hastily closed again on the plea thatI mustn't be disturbed, a visitor might obtain such a glimpse of theavenue and the gardener's lodge as would convince him that I had comeinto property. He might even make an offer for the estate, if he wereset upon a country house in the heart of London. 

But you have probably guessed already the difficulty in the way of myvista. The back wall extends into the gardens of the householders oneach side of me. They might refuse to co-operate with me; they mightinsist on retaining the blank ugliness of theirs walls, orendeavouring (as they endeavour now, I believe) to grow someunenterprising creeper up them; with the result that my vista wouldfail to create the necessary illusion when looked at from the side, This would mean that our guests would have to remain in one position, and that even in this position they would have to stand toattention--a state of things which might mar their enjoyment of ourhospitality. Until, then, our neighbours give me a free hand withtheir segments of the wall, the vista must remain a beautiful dream. 

However, there are other possibilities. Since there is no room in thegarden for a watchdog and a garden, it might be a good idea to paint aphosphorescent and terrifying watchdog on the wall. Perhaps awatchlion would be even more terrifying--and, presumably, just as easyto paint. Any burglar would be deterred if he came across a lionsuddenly in the back garden. One way or another, it should be possibleto have something a little more interesting than mere bricks at theend of the estate. 

And if the worst comes to the worst--if it is found that no flowers(other than groundsel) will flourish in my garden, owing to lack ofsoil or lack of sun--then the flowers must be painted on the walls. This would have its advantages, for we should waste no time over theearly and uninteresting stages of the plant, but depict it at once inits full glory. And we should keep our garden up to date. Whendelphiniums went out of season, we should rub them out and give youchrysanthemums; and if an untimely storm uprooted the chrysanthemums, in an hour or two we should have a wonderful show of dahlias to taketheir place. And we should still have the floor-space free for asundial, or--if you insist on exercise--for the last hoop and thestick of a full-sized croquet-lawn. 

 The Game of Kings

I do not claim to be an authority on either the history or thepractice of chess, but, as the poet Gray observed when he saw his oldschool from a long way off, it is sometimes an advantage not to knowtoo much of one's subject. The imagination can then be exercised moreeffectively. So when I am playing Capablanca (or old Robinson) for thechampionship of the home pastures, my thoughts are not fixedexclusively upon the "mate" which is threatening; they wander offinto those enchanted lands of long ago, when flesh-and-blood knightsrode at stone-built castles, and thin-lipped bishops, all smiles andside-long glances, plotted against the kings who ventured to opposethem. This is the real fascination of chess. 

You observe that I speak of castles, not of rooks. I do not knowwhence came this custom of calling the most romantic piece on theboard by the name of a very ordinary bird, but I, at least, will notbe a party to it. I refuse to surrender the portcullis and the moat, the bastion and the well-manned towers, which were the features ofevery castle with which hitherto I have played, in order to take thefield with allies so unromantic as a brace of rooks. You may tell methat "rook" is a corruption of this or that word, meaning somethingwhich has never laid an egg in its life. It may be so, but in thatcase you cannot blame me for continuing to call it the castle whichits shape proclaims it. 

Knowing nothing of the origin of the game, I can tell myself storiesabout it. That it was invented by a woman is obvious, for why elseshould the queen be the most powerful piece of them all? She lived, this woman, in a priest-ridden land, but she had no love for theChurch. Neither bland white bishop nor crooked-smiling black bishopdid she love; that is why she made them move sideways. Yet she couldnot deny them their power. They were as powerful as the gallant youngknight who rode past her window singing to battle, where he swoopedupon the enemy impetuously from this side and that, heedless of theobstacles in the way, or worked two of them into such a position that, though one might escape, the other was doomed to bite the dust, Yetthe bishop, man of peace though he proclaimed himself, was as powerfulas he, but not so powerful as a baron in his well-fortified castle. For sometimes there were places beyond the influence of the Church, ifone could reach them in safety; though when the Church hunted incouples, the king's priest and the queen's priest out together, thenthere was no certain refuge, and one must sally upon them bravely andrun the risk of being excommunicated. 

No, she did not love the Church. Sometimes I think that she washerself a queen, who had suffered at the hands of the bishops; and, just as you or I put our enemies into a book, thereby gaining muchprivate satisfaction even though they do not recognize themselves, soshe made a game of her enemies and enjoyed her revenge in secret. Butif she were a queen, then she was a queen-mother, and the king was nother husband but her little son. This would account for the perpetualintrigues against him, and the fact that he was so powerless to aidhimself. Probably the enemy was too strong for him in the end, and heand his mother were taken into captivity together. It was in prisonthat she invented the royal game, the young king amused himself bycarving out the first rough pieces. 

But was she a queen? Sometimes I think that I have the story wrong;for what queen in those days would have assented to a proposition sodemocratic as that a man-at-arms (a "pawn" in the language of theunromantic) could rise by his own exertions to the dignity of Royaltyitself? But if she were a waiting-maid in love with the king's ownman-at-arms, then it would be natural that she should set no limit toher ambitions for him. The man-at-arms crowned would be in keepingwith her most secret dreams. 

These are the things of which I think when I push my king'sman-at-arms two leagues forward. A game of chess is a romance sportwhen it is described in that dull official notation "P to K4 Kt toKB3"; a story should be woven around it. One of these days, perhaps, I shall tell the story of my latest defeat. Lewis Carroll had somesuch intention when he began _Alice Through the Looking Glass_, but hewent at it half-heartedly. Besides, being a clergyman and writing ashe did for children, he was handicapped; he dared not introduce thebishops. I shall have no such fears, and my story will be serious. 

Consider for a moment the romance which underlies the most ordinarygame. You push out the king's pawn and your opponent does the same. Itis plain (is it not?) that these are the heralds, meeting at theborder-line between the two kingdoms--Ivoria and Ebonia, let us say. There I have my first chapter: The history of the dispute, thechallenge by Ivoria, the acceptance of the challenge by Ebonia. Chapter Two describes the sallying forth of the knights--"Kt to KB3, Kt to QB3. " In the next chapter the bishop gains the queen's ear andsuggests that he should take the field. He is no fighter, but he hasthe knack of excommunicating. The queen, a young and beautiful widow, with an infant son, consents ("B to QB4"), and set about removingher child to a place of safety. She invokes the aid of Roqueblanc, anindependent chieftain, who, spurred on by love for her, throws all hisforces on to her side, offering at the same time his well-guardedfastness as a sanctuary for her boy. ("Castles. ") Then the queenmusters all her own troops and leads them into battle by the side ofthe Baron Roqueblanc.... 

But I must not tell you the whole story now. You can imagine foryourself some of the more exciting things which happen. You canpicture, for instance, that vivid chapter in which the young king, ata moment when his very life is threatened by an Ebonian baron, issaved by the self-sacrifices of Roqueblanc, who hurls himself in frontof the royal youth's person and himself falls a victim, to be avengedimmediately by a watchful man-at-arms. You can follow, if you will, the further adventures of that man-at-arms, up to that last chapterwhen he marries the still beautiful queen, and henceforward acts inher name, taking upon himself a power similar to her own. In fact, youcan write the book yourself. But if you do not care to do this, let mebeg you at least to bring a little imagination to the next game whichyou play. Then whether you win or (as is more likely) you lose, youwill at least be worthy of the Game of Kings. 

 Fixtures and Fittings

There was once a young man who decided to be a poodle-clipper. He feltthat he had a natural bent for it, and he had been told that afashionable poodle-clipper could charge his own price for hisservices. But his father urged him to seek another profession. "It isan uncertain life, poodle-clipping, " he said, "To begin with, veryfew people keep poodles at all. Of these few, only a small proportionwants its poodles clipped. And, of this small proportion, a stillsmaller proportion is likely to want its poodles clipped by _you_. "So the young man decided to be a hair-dresser instead. 

I thought of this story the other day when I was bargaining with ahouse-agent about "fixtures, " and I decided that no son of mineshould become a curtain-pole manufacturer. I suppose that the price ofa curtain-rod (pole or perch) is only a few shillings, and, once made, it remains in a house for ever. Tenants come and go, new landlords buyand sell, but the old brass rod stays firm at the top of the window, supporting curtain after curtain. How many new sets are made in ayear? No more, it would seem, than the number of new houses built. Farbetter, then to manufacture an individual possession like atooth-brush, which has the additional advantage of wearing out everyfew months. 

But from the consumer's point of view, a curtain-rod is a pleasantthing. He has the satisfaction of feeling that, having once bought it, he has bought it for the rest of his life. He may change his house andwith it his Fixtures, but there is no loss on the brass part of thetransaction, however much there may be on the bricks and mortar. Whathe pays out with one hand, he takes in with the other. Nor is hisproperty subject to the ordinary mischances of life. There was anhistoric character who "lost the big drum, " but he would become evenmore historic who had lost a curtain-rod, and neither parlour-maid norcat is ever likely to wear a guilty conscience over the breaking ofone. 

I have not yet discovered, in spite of my recent familiarity withhouse-agents, the difference between a fixture and a fitting. It ispossible that neither word has any virtue without the other, as is thecase with "spick" and "span. " One has to be both; however dapper, one would never be described as a span gentleman. In the same way itmay be that a curtain-rod or an electric light is never just a fixtureor a fitting, but always "included in the fixtures and fittings. "Then there is a distinction, apparently, between a "landlord'sfixture" and a "tenant's fixture, " which is rather subtle. Afire-dog is a landlord's fixture; so is a door-plate. If you buy ahouse you get the fire-dogs and the door-plates thrown in, which seemsunnecessarily generous. I can understand the landlord deciding tothrow in the walls and the roof, because he couldn't do much with themif you refused to take them, but it is a mystery why he should includea door-plate, which can easily be removed and sold to somebody else. And if a door-plate, why not a curtain-rod? A curtain-rod is anecessity to the incoming tenant; a door-plate is merely a luxury forthe grubby-fingered to help them to keep the paint clean. One mightbe expected to bring one's own door-plate with one, according to thesize of one's hand. 

For the whole idea of a fixture or fitting can only be that it issomething about which there can be no individual taste. We furnish ahouse according to our own private fancy; the "fixtures" are thefurnishings in regard to which we are prepared to accept the generalfancy. The other man's curtain-rod, though easily detachable and ableto fit a hundred other windows, is a fixture; his carpet-as-planned(to use the delightful language of the house-agent), though securelynailed down and the wrong size for any other room but this, is not afixture. Upon some such reasoning the first authorized schedule offixtures and fittings must have been made out. 

It seems a pity that it has not been extended. There are other thingsthan curtain-rods and electric-light bulbs which might be left behindin the old house and picked up again in the new. The silvercigarette-box, which we have all had as a birthday or wedding present, might safely be handed over to the incoming tenant, in the certaintythat another just like it will be waiting for us in our next house. True, it will have different initials on it, but that will only makeit the more interesting, our own having become fatiguing to us by thistime. Possibly this sort of thing has already been done in anunofficial way among neighbors. By mutual agreement they leave theiraspidistras and their "Maiden's Prayer" behind them. It savestrouble and expense in the moving, which is an important thing inthese days, and there would always be the hope that the nextaspidistra might be on the eve of flowering or laying eggs, orwhatever it is that its owner expects from it. 

 Experts

The man in front of the fire was telling us a story about his wife anda bottle of claret. He had taken her to the best restaurant in Parisand had introduced her to a bottle of the famous Chateau Whatsitsname, 1320 (or thereabouts), a wine absolutely priceless--although themanagement, with its customary courtesy, had allowed him to pay acertain amount for it. Not realizing that it was actually the famousWhatsitsname, she had drunk it in the ordinary way, neither holding itup to the light and saying, "Ah, there's a wine!" nor rolling itround the palate before swallowing. On the next day they went to acommonplace restaurant and drank a local and contemporary vintage atfive francs the bottle, of similar colour but very differenttemperament. When she had finished her glass, she said hesitatingly, "Of course, I don't know anything about wine, and I dare say I'mquite wrong, but I can't help feeling that the claret we had lastnight was better than this. "

The man in front of the fire was rather amused by this, as were mostof his audience. For myself, I felt that the lady demanded myadmiration rather than my amusement. Without the assistance of thelabels, many of us might have decided that it was the five-francvintage which was the better wine. She didn't. Indeed, I am inclinedto read more into the story than is perhaps there; I believe that shehad misunderstood her husband, and had thought that the second bottlewas the famous, aged, and priceless Chateau Whatsitsname, and that, inspite of this, she gave it as her opinion that the first wine, cheapand modern though it might be, was the better. Hats off, then, to abrave woman! How many of us would have her courage and her honesty?

But perhaps you who read this are an expert on wine. If so, you arelucky. I am an expert on nothing--nothing, anyhow, that matters. Ienvy all you experts tremendously. When I see a cigar-expert listeningto his cigar before putting it in his mouth I wish that I were asgreat a man as he. Privately sometimes I have listened to a cigar, butit has told me nothing. The only way I can tell whether it is good orbad is by smoking it. Even then I could not tell you (without theassistance of the band) whether it was a Sancho Panza or a GuocoPiano. I could only tell you whether I liked it or not, a question ofno importance whatever. 

Lately I have been trying to become a furniture-expert, but it is adisheartening business. I have a book called Chats on Old Furniture--aterrible title to have to ask for in a shop, but I asked boldly. Perhaps the word "chat" does not make other people feel as unhappyas it makes me. But even after reading this book I am not really anexpert. I know now that it is no good listening to a Chippendale chairto see if it is really Chippendale; one must stroke it in order tofind out whether it is a "genuine antique" or only a modernreproduction; but it is obvious that years of stroking would benecessary before an article of furniture would be properly responsive. Is it worth while wasting these years of one's life? Indeed, is itworth while (I ask nervously) bothering whether a chair or a table isantique or modern so long as it is both useful and beautiful?

Well, let me tell you what happened to us yesterday. We found adresser which appealed to us considerably, and we stood in front ofit, looking at it. We decided that except for a little curley-wiggleat the top it was the jolliest dresser we had seen, "That's a fineold dresser, " said the shopman, coming up at that moment, and hesmacked it encouragingly. "A really fine old dresser, that. " Weagreed. "Except for those curley-wiggles, " I added, pointing to themwith my umbrella. "If we could take those off. " He looked at mereproachfully. "You wouldn't take those off----" he said. "Why, that's what tells you that it's a Welsh dresser of 1720. " We didn'tbuy that dresser. We decided that the size or the price was all wrong. But I wonder now, supposing we had bought it, whether we should havehad the pluck to remove the curley-wiggles (and let people mistake itfor an English dresser of 1920) in order that, so abbreviated, itmight have been more beautiful. 

For furniture is not beautiful merely because it is old. It is absurdto suppose that everything made in 1720--or 1620 or 1520--was madebeautifully, as it would be absurd to say that everything made in 1920was beautiful. No doubt there will always be people who will regardthe passing of time as sufficient justification for any article offurniture; I could wish that they were equally tolerant among the artsas among the crafts, so that in 2120 this very article which I writenow could be referred to with awe as a genuine 1920; but all that thepassage of time can really do for your dresser is to give a morebeautiful surface and tone to the wood. This, surely, is a matterwhich you can judge for yourself without being an expert. If yourdresser looks old you have got from it all that age can give you; ifit looks beautiful you have got from it all that a craftsman of anyperiod can give you; why worry, then, as to whether or not it is a"genuine antique"? The expert may tell you that it is a fake, butthe fact that he has suddenly said so has not made your dining-roomless beautiful. Or if it is less beautiful, it is only because an"expert" is now in it. Hurry him out. 

 The Robinson Tradition

Having read lately an appreciation of that almost forgotten authorMarryat, and having seen in the shilling box of a second-handbookseller a few days afterward a copy of _Masterman Ready_, I went inand bought the same. I had read it as a child, and remembered vaguelythat it combined desert-island adventure with a high moral tone; jamand powder in the usual proportions. Reading it again, I found thatthe powder was even more thickly spread than I had expected; hardly apage but carried with it a valuable lesson for the young; yet thisparticular jam (guava and cocoanut) has such an irresistibleattraction for me that I swallowed it all without a struggle, and wasleft with a renewed craving for more and yet more desert-islandstories. Having, unfortunately, no others at hand, the onlysatisfaction I can give myself is to write about them. 

I would say first that, even if an author is writing for children (aswas Marryat), and even if morality can best be implanted in the youngmind with a watering of fiction, yet a desert-island story is the laststory which should be used for this purpose. For a desert-island is achild's escape from real life and its many lessons. Ask yourself whyyou longed for a desert-island when you were young, and you will findthe answer to be that you did what you liked there, ate what youliked, and carried through your own adventures. It is the "Family"which spoils _The Swiss Family Robinson_, just as it is the Seagravefamily which nearly wrecks _Masterman Ready_. What is the good ofimagining yourself (as every boy does) "Alone in the Pacific" if youare not going to be alone? Well, perhaps we do not wish to be quitealone; but certainly to have more than two on an island is toovercrowd it, and our companion must be of a like age and disposition. 

For this reason parents spoil any island for a healthy-minded boy. Hemay love his father and mother as fondly as even they could wish, buthe does not want to take them bathing in the lagoon with him--stillless to have them on the shore, telling him that there are too manysharks this morning and that it is quite time he came out. Nor forthat matter do parents want to be bothered with children on a SouthSea holiday. In _Masterman Ready_ there is a horrid little boy calledTommy, aged six, who is always letting the musket off accidentally, orgetting bitten by a turtle, or taking more than his share of thecocoanut milk. As a grown-up I wondered why his father did not givehim to the first savage who came by, and so allow himself a chance ofenjoying his island in peace; but at Tommy's age I should haveresented just as strongly a father who, even on a desert-island, couldnot bear to see his boy making a fool of himself with turtle andgunpowder. 

I am not saying that a boy would really be happy for long, whether ona desert-island or elsewhere, without his father and mother. Indeed itis doubtful if he could survive, happily or unhappily. PossiblyWilliam Seagrave could have managed it. William was only twelve, buthe talked like this: "I agree with you, Ready. Indeed I have beenthinking the same thing for many days past.... I wish the savageswould come on again, for the sooner they come the sooner the affairwill be decided. " A boy who can talk like this at twelve is capableof finding the bread-fruit tree for himself. But William is anexception. I claim no such independence for the ordinary boy; I onlysay that the ordinary boy, however dependent on his parents, does liketo pretend that he is capable of doing without them, wherefore hegives them no leading part in the imaginary adventures which hepursues so ardently. If they are there at all, it is only that he maycome back to them in the last chapter and tell them all about it... And be suitably admired. 

_Masterman Ready_ seems to me, then, to be the work of a father, notof an understanding writer for boys. Marryat wrote it for his ownchildren, towards whom he had responsibilities; not for other people'schildren, for whom he would only be concerned to provideentertainment. But even if the book was meant for no wider circle thanthe home, one would still feel that the moral teaching was overdone. It should be possible to be edifying without losing one's sense ofhumour. When Juno, the black servant, was struck by lightning and notquite killed, she "appeared to be very sensible of the wonderfulpreservation which she had had. She had always been attentive wheneverthe Bible was read, but now she did not appear to think that themorning and evening services were sufficient to express hergratitude. " Even a child would feel that Juno really need not havebeen struck by lightning at all; even a child might wonder how manyservices, on this scale of gratitude, were adequate for the rest ofthe party whom the lightning had completely missed. And it was perhapsa little self-centred of Ready to thank God for her recovery on thegrounds that she could "ill be spared" by a family rathershort-handed in the rainy season. 

However, the story is the thing. As long as a desert-island bookcontains certain ingredients, I do not mind if other superfluousmatter creeps in. Our demands--we of the elect who adoredesert-islands--are simple. The castaways must build themselves a hutwith the aid of a bag of nails saved from the wreck; they must catchturtles by turning them over on their backs; they must find thebread-fruit tree and have adventures with sharks. Twice they must bevisited by savages. On the first occasion they are taken by surprise, but--the savages being equally surprised--no great harm is done. Thenthe Hero says, "They will return when the wind is favourable, " andhe arranges his defences, not forgetting to lay in a large stock ofwater. The savages return in force, and then--this is mostimportant--at the most thirsty moment of the siege it is discoveredthat the water is all gone! Generally a stray arrow has pierced thewater-butt, but in _Masterman Ready_ the insufferable Tommy has playedthe fool with it. (He would. ) This is the Hero's great opportunity. Heventures to the spring to get more water, and returns withit--wounded. Barely have the castaways wetted their lips with theprecious fluid when the attack breaks out with redoubled fury. Itseems now that all is lost... When, lo! a shell bursts into the middleof the attacking hordes. (Never into the middle of the defenders. Thatwould be silly. ) "Look, " the Hero cries, "a vessel off-shore withits main braces set and a jib-sail flying"--or whatever it may be. And they return to London. 

This is the story which we want, and we cannot have too many of them. Should you ever see any of us with our noses over the shilling box andan eager light in our eyes, you may be sure that we are on the trackof another one. 

 Getting Things Done

In the castle of which I am honorary baron we are in the middle of anorgy of "getting things done. " It must always be so, I suppose, whenone moves into a new house. After the last furniture van has departed, and the painters' bill has been receipted, one feels that one can nowsettle down to enjoy one's new surroundings. But no. The discoveriesbegin. This door wants a new lock on it, that fireplace wants a bricktaken out, the garden is in need of something else, somebody ought toinspect the cistern. What about the drains? There are a hundred thingsto be "done. "

I have a method in these matters. When I observe that something wantsdoing, I say casually to the baroness, "We ought to do somethingabout that fireplace, " or whatever it is. I say it with the air of aman who knows exactly what to do, and would do it himself if he werenot so infernally busy. The correct answer to this is, "Yes, I'll goand see about it to-day. " Sometimes the baroness tries to put it onto me by saying, "We ought to do something about the cistern, " butshe has not quite got the casual tone necessary, and I have nodifficulty in replying (with the air of a man who, etc. ), "Yes, weought. " The proper answer to this is, "Very well, then. I'll go andsee about it. " In either case, as you will agree, action on the partof the baroness should follow. 

Unfortunately it doesn't. She, it appears, is a partner in myweakness. We neither of us know how to get things done. It is aknowledge which one can never acquire. Either you are born with aninstinct for the man round the corner who tests cisterns, or you areborn without it, in which case you never, never find him. There aremen with the instinct so highly developed that they can tell you at amoment's notice the name and address, not merely of a man who willtest your cistern for you, but of the one man in your neighbourhoodwho will test it most efficiently and most cheaply. If your canarymoulted unduly, and you said to your wife, "We must do somethingabout Ambrose, " they could tell you at once of the best canary-menderto approach. These are the men I admire. But there are weaklings (ofboth sexes, unfortunately) who would not even know whether agreengrocer or a veterinary surgeon was the man to send for, and whoare entirely vague as to whether a cistern is tested for water or forlead-poisoning. 

The press speaks of this or that politician sometimes as the"Minister who gets things done. " I have always felt that, given anadequate permanent staff, I might go down to fame as the householderwho got things done. As you see, my staff lets me down. I am quitecapable of sitting in my office and saying to an under-secretary, "Wemust do something about this shell business. " This, in fact, is justmy line. I am quite capable of saying firmly, "I must have tenmillion big guns by August. " And if the undersecretary only made thecorrect reply, "Very well, sir, I'll see about it, " my photographwould appear in the papers as that of "the man who got the guns. "But when your under-secretary refuses to carry on, where are you?

What I want, and what, I imagine, most people who have moved into anew house want, is an intermediary to get things done for us. Isuggest this as a profession to any demobilized soldier looking forwork. He should walk about London, making a note of the houses whichhave just been sold or let, and as soon as the new residents havetaken possession, he should send round his card. "Tell me what isworrying you, " he would say, "and I will see that something is doneabout it. " He might charge a couple of guineas as his fee. Perhaps itwould be better if he said, "Let me tell you what is likely to worryyou"--if, that is to say, his business was to go round your housedirectly you got into it, to make a list of the jobs that wanteddoing, and then, armed with your authority, to go off and get themdone. Many people would gladly pay him two guineas for such excellentservices, and he could probably pick up a trifle more as commissionfrom the men to whom he gave the work. It would be worth tryinganyway. 

But, of course, such a man would have to have a vast knowledge ofaffairs. He would have to know, for instance, how one buys string. Inthe ordinary way one doesn't buy string; it comes to you, and you takeit off and send it back again. But the occasion may arise when youwant lots and lots of it. Then it is necessary to look for a stringshop. A friend of mine spent the whole of one afternoon trying to buya ball of string. He wandered from one ironmonger to the other (he hada fixed idea that an ironmonger was the man), and finally, in despair, went into a large furnishing shop, noted for its "artistic suites. "He was very humble by this time, and his petition that they shouldsell him some string because he was an old customer of theirs wasunfortunately worded. As far as I know he is still stringless, just asI am still waiting for somebody to do something about the cistern. 

 Christmas Games

The shops are putting on their Christmas dress. The cotton-wool, thattime-hallowed substitute for snow, is creeping into the plate-glasswindows; the pink lace collars are encircling again the cakes; and the"charming wedding or birthday present" of a week ago renews itsyouth as a "suitable Yuletide gift. " Everything calls to us to getour Christmas shopping done early this year, but, as usual, we shallput it off until the latest possible day, and in that last mad rush weshall get Aunt Emily the wrong pair of mittens and overlook poor UncleJohn altogether. 

Before I begin my own shopping I am waiting for an announcement in thepapers. All that my paper has told me is that the Christmas toybazaars of the big stores are now open. I have not yet seen that listand description of the new games of the season for which I wait soeagerly. It is possible that this year will produce themasterpiece--the game which possesses in the highest degree all thequalities of the ideal Christmas game. The unfortunate thing is that, even if such a game were to appear in this year's catalogue, we shouldhave lost it by next year; for the National Sporting Club (or whoeverarranges these things) has always been convinced that "novelty" isthe one quality required at Christmas, the hall-mark of excellencewhich no Christmas shopper can resist. If a game is novel, it isenough. To the manager of a toy department the continued vogue ofcricket must be very bewildering. 

Let us consider the ideal Christmas game. In the first place, it mustbe a round game; that is to say, at least six people must be able toplay it simultaneously. No game for two only is permissible atChristmas--unless, of course, it be under the mistletoe. Secondly, itmust be a game into which skill does not enter, or, if it does, itmust be a skill which is as likely to be shown by a child of eight oran old gentleman of eighty as by a 'Varsity blue. Such skill, forinstance, as manifests itself at Tiddleywinks, that noble game. Yet, even so, Tiddleywinks is too skilful a pursuit. One cannot say what itis that makes a good Tiddleywinker, whether eye or wrist or supplefinger-work, but it is obvious that one who is "winking" badly mustbe depressed by the thought that he is appearing stupid and clumsy tohis neighbours, and that this feeling is not conducive to thathappiness which his many Christmas cards have called down upon him. 

It is better, therefore, that the element of skill should be absent. Let it be a game of luck only; and, since it is impossible to play aChristmas game for money, you will not be depressed if you lose. 

The third and last essential of the ideal game is that it must provokelaughter. You cannot laugh at Tiddleywinks, nor at Ludo (as I hear, but I have never yet discovered what Ludo is), nor at Happy Families. But the ideal game is provocative of that best kind of laughter--laughter at the undeserved misfortunes of others, seasoned by theknowledge that at any moment a similar misfortune may happen tooneself. 

Just before the war I came across the ideal game. I forget what it wascalled, unless it was some such name as "The Prince's Quest. " Sixprinces, suitably coloured, set out to win the hand of the beautifulprincess. They started at one end of a long and winding road, and shewaited for the first arrival at the other end. The road, which passedthrough the most enthralling scenery, was numbered by milestones--"1"to "200". Suppose you were the Red Prince, you shook a die (I mean thehalf of two dice), and if a four turned up, you advanced to the fourthmilestone. And so on, in succession. So far it doesn't sound veryexciting. Rut you are forgetting the scenery. Perhaps at the twelfthmilestone there awaited you the shoes of swiftness, which carried youin one bound to the twentieth milestone; thus by throwing a three atthe ninth, you advanced eleven miles, whereas if you had thrown a fouryou would only have advanced four miles. On arriving at other luckymilestones you received a cloak of darkness, which took you pastvarious obstacles which were holding the others up, or perhaps wereintroduced to a potent dwarf, who showed you a short cut forbidden toyour rivals. One way and another you pushed ahead of the otherprinces. 

And then the inevitable happened. You arrived at the eighty-fourthmilestone (or whatever it was) and you found a wicked enchanterwaiting for you, who cast upon you a backward spell, as a result ofwhich you had to travel backwards for the next three turns. Undauntedby this reverse, you returned bravely to it, and perhaps came upon theeighty-fourth milestone again. But even so you did not despair, forthere was always hope. The Blue Prince, who is now leading, approachesthe ninety-sixth milestone. He is, indeed, at the ninety-fifth. Abreathless moment as he shakes the die. Will he? He does. He throws aone, reaches the ninety-sixth milestone, topples headlong into theunderground river, and is swept back to the starting-point again. 

A great game. But our edition of it went to some hospital during thewar, and I fear now that I shall never play it again. Yet I scan thepapers eagerly, hoping for some announcement of it. Not this actualgame, of course, but some version of it; some "Christmas novelty, "in which, perhaps, the princes are called knights, but the laughterremains the same. 

 The Mathematical Mind

My daily paper just now is full of mathematical difficulties, submitted by its readers for the amusement of one of its staff. Everymorning he appeals to us for assistance in solving tricky littleproblems about pints of water and herrings and rectangular fields. Themagic number "9" has a great fascination for him. It is terrifyingto think that if you multiply any row of figures by 9 the sum of thefigures thus obtained is divisible by 9. It is uncanny to hear that ifa clock takes six seconds to strike six it takes as much as thirteenseconds and a fifth to strike twelve. 

As a relief from searching for news in a press devoid of news, thestudy of these problems is welcome enough, and to the unmathematicalmind, no doubt, the solutions appear to be something miraculous. Butto the mathematical mind a thing more miraculous is the awe with whichthe unmathematical regard the simplest manipulation of figures. Mostof my life at school was spent in such pursuits that I feel bound toclaim the mathematical mind to some extent, with the result that I canlook down wonderingly upon these deeps of ignorance yawning daily inthe papers--much, I dare say, as the senior wrangler looks down uponme. Figures may puzzle me occasionally, but at least they never causeme surprise or alarm. 

Naturally, then, I am jealous for the mathematical mind. If a man whomakes a false quantity, or attributes Lycidas to Keats, is generallyadmitted to be uncultured, I resent it very much that no stigmaattaches to the gentleman who cannot do short division. I rememberonce at school having to do a piece of Latin prose about the BlackHole of Calcutta. It was a moving story as told in our prose book, andI had spent an interesting hour turning into fairly correct and whollyuninspired Latin--the sort of Latin I suppose which a small uneducatedRoman child (who had heard the news) would have written to aschool-boy friend. The size of the Black Hole was given as "twentyfoot square. " I had no idea how to render this idiomatically, but Iknew that a room 20 ft. Square contained 400 square feet. Also I knewthe Latin for one square foot. But you will not be surprised to hearthat my form master, a man of culture and education, leapt upon me. 

"Quadringenti, " he snapped, "is 400, not 20. "

"Quite so, " I agreed. "The room had 400 square feet. "

"Read it again. It says 20 square feet. "

"No, no, 20 feet square. "

He glared at me in indignation. "What's the difference?" he said. 

I sighed and began to explain. I went on explaining. If there had notbeen other things to do than teaching cultured and educatedschoolmasters, I might be explaining still. 

Yes, I resented this; and I resent now the matter-of-fact way in whichwe accept the ignorance of mathematics shown by our presentteachers--the press. At every election in which there are only twocandidates a dozen papers discover with amazement this astoundingcoincidence in the figures: that the decrease in, say, the Liberalvote subtracted from the increase in the Conservative vote is exactlyequal to the increase in the poll. If there should happen to be threecandidates for a seat, the coincidences discovered are yet morenumerous and astonishing. Last Christmas a paper let itself go stillfurther, and dived into the economics of the plum pudding. A plumpudding contains raisins, flour, and sugar. Raisins had gone up 2d. Apound, or whatever it was, flour 6d. , and sugar 1d. Hence the puddingnow would cost 9d. A pound more!

Consider, too, the extraordinary antics of the press over the methodsof scoring in the cricket championship. Wonderful new suggestions aremade which, if followed, could only have the effect of bringing theteams out in exactly the same order as before. The simplest of simpleproblems in algebra would have shown them this, but they feared to mixthemselves up with such unknown powers of darkness. The Theory ofProbability, again, leaves the press entirely cold, so that it isready to father any childish "system" for Monte Carlo. And nine menout of ten really believe that, if you toss a penny five times in theair and it comes down heads each time, it is more likely to come downtails than heads next time. 

Yet papers and people who think like this are considered quite capableof dealing with the extraordinarily complicated figures of nationalfinance. They may boom or condemn insurance bills and fiscal policies, and we listen to them reverently. As long as they know what Mr. Gladstone said in '74, it doesn't seem to matter at all what Mr. Todhunter said in his "Arithmetic for Beginners. "

 Going Out to Dinner

If you are one of those lucky people whose motor is not numbered (asmine is) 19 or 11 or 22, it does not really matter where your host forthe evening prefers to live; Bayswater or Battersea or Blackheath--itis all the same to your chauffeur. But for those of us who have tofight for bus or train or taxicab, it is different. We have to say toourselves, "Is it worth it?" A man who lives in Chelsea (forinstance) demands more from an invitation to Hampstead than from aninvitation to Kensington. If such a man were interested in peoplerather than in food, he might feel that one actor-manager and a ruraldean among his fellow-guests would be sufficient attraction in aKensington house, but that at least two archbishops and arevue-producer would have to be forthcoming at Hampstead before thejourney on a wet night would be justified. On the other hand, if hewere a vulgar man who preferred food to people, he would divide Londonup into whisky, burgundy, and champagne areas according to theiraccessibility from his own house; and on receiving an invitation to ahouse in the outer or champagne area (as it might be at Dulwich), hewould try to discover, either by inquiry among his friends or byemploying a private detective, whether this house fulfilled thenecessary condition. If not, of course, then he would write a politenote to say that he would be in the country, or confined to his bedwith gout, on the day in question. 

I am as fond of going out to dinner as anyone else is, but there is amoment, just before I begin to array myself for it, when I wish thatit were on some other evening. If the telephone bell rings, I say, "Thank Heavens, Mrs. Parkinson-Jones has died suddenly. I mean, howsad, " and, looking as solemn as I can, I pick up the receiver. 

"Is that the Excelsior Laundry?" says a voice. "You only sent backhalf a pair of socks this week. "

I replace the receiver and go reluctantly upstairs to dress. There isno help for it. As I dress, I wonder who my partner at the table willbe, and if at this moment she is feeling as gloomy about the prospectsas I am. How much better if we had both dined comfortably at home. Iremember some years ago taking in a Dowager Countess. Don't think thatI am priding myself on this; I realize as well as you do that amistake of some sort was made. Probably my hostess took me forsomebody else--Sir Thomas Lipton, it may have been. Anyway the DowagerCountess and I led the way downstairs to the dining-room, and all theother guests murmured to themselves, "Who on earth is that?" andtold each other that no doubt I was one of the Serbian Princes who hadrecently arrived in the country. I forgot what the Countess and Italked about; probably yachts, or tea; but I was not paying muchattention to our conversation. I had other things to think about. 

For the Dowager Countess (wisely, I think) was dieting herself. Shewent through the evening on a glass of water and two biscuits. Eachnew dish on its way round the table was brought first to her; shewaved it away, and it came to me. There was nothing to be done. I hadto open it. 

My partciular memory is of a quail-pie. Quails may be all right forMoses in the desert, but, if they are served in the form of pie atdinner, they should be distributed at a side-table, not handed roundfrom guest to guest. The Countess having shuddered at it and resumedher biscuit, it was left to me to make the opening excavation. Thedifficulty was to know where each quail began and ended; the jobreally wanted a professional quail-finder, who might have indicatedthe point on the surface of the crust at which it would be mosthopeful to dig for quails. 

As it was, I had to dig at random, and, being unlucky, I plunged theknife straight into the middle of a bird. It was impossible, ofcourse, to withdraw the quail through the slit I had thus made in thepastry, nor could I get my knife out (with a bird sticking on the endof it) in order to make a second slit at a suitable angle. I tried toshake the quail off inside the pie, but it was fixed too firmly. Itried pulling it off against the inside of the crust, but it becameobvious that if I persisted in this, the whole roof would come off. The footman, with great presence of mind, realized my difficulty andoffered me a second knife. Unfortunately, I misjudged the width ofquails, and plunging this second knife into the pie a little fartheron, I landed into the middle of another quail no less retentive ofcutlery than the first. The dish now began to look more like a gamethan a pie, and, waving away a third knife, I said (quite truly bythis time) that I didn't like quails, and that on second thoughts Iwould ask the Dowager Countess to lend me a biscuit. 

Fortunately, dinner is not all quail-pie. But even in the case of somemore amenable dish, the first-comer is in a position of greatresponsibility. Casting a hasty eye round the company, he has to countthe number of diners, estimate the size of the dish, divide the one bythe other, and take a helping of the appropriate size, knowing thatthe fashion which he inaugurates will be faithfully followed. How muchless exacting is the position of the more lowly-placed man; my own, for instance, on ordinary occasions. There may be two quails and anegg-cup left when the footman reaches me, or even only the egg-cup, but at least I have nobody but myself to consider. 

But let us get away from food for the body, and consider food for themind. I refer to that intellectual conversation which it is thebusiness of the guests at a dinner-party to contribute. Not "Whatshall we eat?" but "What shall be talk about?" is the questionwhich is really disturbing us as we tug definitely at our necktie andgive a last look at ourselves in the glass before following theservant upstairs. 

"Will you take in Miss Montmorency?" says our hostess. 

We bow to Miss Montmorency hopefully. 

"Er--jolly day it's been, hasn't it?"

No, really, we can't say anything about the weather. We must beoriginal. 

"Er--have you been to any theatres lately?"

No, no, everybody says that. Well, then, what can we say? Let us tryagain. 

"How do you do. Er--I see by the paper this evening that theBolsheviks have captured Omsk. "

"Captured Whatsk?"

"Omsk. " Or was it Tomsk? Fortunately it does not matter, for MissMontmorency is not the least interested. 

"Oh!" she says. 

I hate people who say "Oh!" It means that you have to begin all overagain. 

"I've been playing golfsk--I mean golf--this afternoon, " we try. "Do you play at all?"

"No. "

Then it is no good telling her what our handicap is. 

"No doubt your prefer tennis, " we hazard. 

"Oh no. "

"I mean bridge. "

"I don't play any game, " she answers. 

Then the sooner she goes away and talks to somebody else the better. 

"Ah, I expect you're more interested in the theatre?"

"I hardly ever go to the theatre. "

"Well, of course, a good book by the fireside--"

"I never read, " she says. 

Dash the woman, what does she do? But before we can ask her, she letsus into the great secret. 

"I like talking, " she says. 

Good Heavens! What else have we been trying to do all this time?

However, it is only the very young girl at her first dinner-party whomit is difficult to entertain. At her second dinner-party, andthereafter, she knows the whole art of being amusing. All she has todo is to listen; all we men have to do is to tell her about ourselves. Indeed, sometimes I think that it is just as well to begin at once. Let us be quite frank about it, and get to work as soon as we areintroduced. 

"How do you do. Lovely day it has been, hasn't it? It was on justsuch a day as this, thirty-five years ago, that I was born in thesecluded village of Puddlecome of humble but honest parents. Nestlingamong the western hills... "

And so on. Ending, at the dessert, with the thousand we earned thatmorning. 

 The Etiquette of Escape

There is a girl in one of William de Morgan's books who interrupts thenarrator of a breathless tiger-hunting story with the ratherdisconcerting warning, "I'm on the side of the tiger; I always am. "It was the sporting instinct. Tigers may be wicked beasts who defendthemselves when they are attacked, but one cannot help feeling alittle sorry for them. Their number is up. The hunters are too many, the rifles too accurate, for the hunted to have any real chance. Soshe was on the side of the tiger; she always was. 

In the same way I am on the side of the convict; I always am. Not, ofcourse, until he is a convict. But when once the Law has condemnedhim, and he is safely in prison, then he is only one against so many. It is impossible not to sympathize with his attempts to escape. Perhaps, if one lived close to a prison, in a cottage, say, whosetenant was invariably called upon by any escaping prisoner and made toexchange clothes with the help of a crow-bar, one might feeldifferently. But in theory we are all of us inclined to applaud theman who fights successfully such a lone battle against such tremendousodds; yes, even if it was the blackest of crimes which sent him intocaptivity. 

It is, therefore, extraordinarily jolly to read about the escape ofpolitical prisoners from gaol. One has to stifle no protests fromone's conscience while applauding them, for it is absurd to supposethat the world is any the worse place for their being loose again. Probably they are much more dangerous in prison than out of it. Butbesides applauding them, one envies them heartily. What fun they musthave had when arranging it! What fun, too, to attempt an escape, whenthe worst that can happen to you, if you are recaptured, is that thenext escape becomes a little more difficult. No bread and water, nopunishment cell for a political prisoner. 

All the same, these are not quite the ideal escapes. I am a trifleexigent in such matters. I allow my prisoners a little latitude, butthere are certain rules which must be observed. Sinn Feiners, forinstance, make it much too easy for themselves. Their friends fromoutside are permitted to visit them, and to discuss openly (but ofcourse, in Irish) all the arrangements for the great day. When the daycomes, they make off by motor-car, and as likely as not have asteam-yacht waiting for them on the coast. It was not thus that I usedto escape in the early nineties. I observed the rules. 

The first rule was that the only means of communication with outsidewas the roll of bread which formed one's principal meal. Bitingeagerly into the bread, the hungry prisoner found himself entangled ina message from his loved one. Of course, in these last few years hewould just have thought that it was part of the bread, perhaps atrifle more indigestible than usual, but in those days he would haveno excuse for not realizing that his Araminta was getting into touchwith him. This first message did not say much; just "All my love, andI am sending a file to-morrow, " so as to prevent him from breakinghis jaw on it. On the next day, he would open the roll cautiously, andbehold! a small file would be embedded within. 

It is wonderful what can be done with quite a small file. But we mustremember that the world moved more slowly in those days. One hadleisure in which to do a job of work properly. Perhaps our prisonertook a couple of years filing the gyves off his wrists (holding thefile carefully in the teeth), and another year to remove the manaclesfrom his ankles. Fortunately he was left alone to pursue theseavocations. The goaler pushed in the daily portion of bread and water, but made no inquiry about his prisoner's well-being. Only theessential tame rat kept him company, and Araminta outside, to whom hedropped an occasional note to say that he had done another millimetrethat morning. Perhaps she did not get it; it was borne swiftly away bythe river which flowed beneath the walls, and never came to theopposite bank, whereon she waited for him. But she did not lose hope. These things always took a long time. 

And then, when the fetters had been removed, and two of the bars inthe narrow window had been sawn through, there came the great moment. The prisoner was now free to tear his sheet and his blanket and hisunderclothes into strips, and plait himself a rope. One had to timethis for the summer, of course. One couldn't go cutting up one's shirtin the middle of winter. So, upon a dark night in August, the prisonertied his rope to the remaining bar, squeezed through the window, andlet himself down into space. Was the rope long enough? It wasn't, ofcourse; it never was. But, once at the end of it, the prisoner wouldrealize, his senses quickened by the emergency, that it was too lateto go back. From the extreme end he breathed a prayer and dropped.... _Splash!_ And five minutes later he was embracing Araminta. There wasno pursuit; they were sportsmen in those days, and it was recognizedthat he had won. 

That is the classic mode of escape. But there are variants of it whichI am prepared to allow. The goaler may have a daughter, who, moved bythe romantic history and pallor of the prisoner, may exchange clotheswith him. The prisoner may pass himself off for dead, may be actuallyburied, and then rescued from the grave just in time by the pre-warnedand ever-ready Araminta. There are many legitimate ways of escape, butthe essential thing is that all messages to the prisoner from hisAraminta outside should be conveyed in his loaf of bread. To whisperthem in Irish is too easy, too unromantic. 

But in any case I am on the side of the prisoner. I always am. 

 Geographical Research

The other day I met a man who didn't know where Tripoli was. Tripolihappened to come into the conversation, and he was evidently at aloss. "Let's see, " he said. "Tripoli is just down by the--er--youknow. What's the name of that place?" "That's right, " I answered, "just opposite Thingumabob. I could show you in a minute on the map. It's near--what do they call it?" At this moment the train stopped, and I got out and went straight home to look at my atlas. 

Of course I really knew exactly where Tripoli was. About thirty yearsago, when I learnt geography, one of the questions they were alwaysasking me was, "What are the exports of Spain, and where isTripoli?" But much may happen in twenty years; coast erosion andtidal waves and things like that. I looked at the map in order toassure myself that Tripoli had remained pretty firm. As far as I couldmake it out it had moved. Certainly it must have looked differentthirty years ago, for I took some little time to locate it. But nodoubt one's point of view changes with the decades. To a boy Tripolimight seem a long way from Italy--even in Asia Minor; but when he grewup his standards of measurement would be altered. Tripoli would appearin its proper place due south of Sicily. 

I always enjoy these periodic excursions to my atlas. People talk agood deal of nonsense about the importance of teaching geography atschool instead of useless subjects like Latin and Greek, but so longas you have an atlas near you, of what use is geography? Why wastetime learning where Tripoli and Fiume are, when you can turn to a mapof Africa and spot them in a moment? In a leading article in _TheTimes_ (no less--our premier English newspaper) it was stated during ageneral election that Darlington was in Yorkshire. You may say that_The Times_ leader writers ought to have been taught geography; I saythat unfortunately they have been taught geography. They learnt, orthought they learnt, that Darlington was a Yorkshire town. If they hadbeen left in a state of decent ignorance, they would have looked forDarlington in the map and found that it was in Durham. (Onemoment--Map 29--Yes, Durham; that's right. ) As it is, there are atthis moment some hundreds of retired colonels who go about believingimplicitly that Darlington is in Yorkshire because _The Times_ hassaid it. How much more important than a knowledge of geography is thepossession of an atlas. 

My own atlas is a particularly fine specimen. It contains all sorts ofsurprising maps which never come into ordinary geography. I think myfavourite is a picture of the Pacific Ocean, coloured in varyingshades of blue according to the depths of the sea. The deepultramarine terrifies me. I tremble for a ship which is passing overit, and only breathe again when it reaches the very palest blue. Thereis one little patch--the Nero Deep in the Ladrone Basin--which isactually 31, 614 feet deep. I suppose if you sailed over it you wouldfind it no bluer than the rest of the sea, and if you fell into it youwould feel no more alarmed than if it were 31, 613 feet deep; but stillyou cannot see it in the atlas without a moment's awe. 

Then my atlas has a map of "The British Empire showing the greatcommercial highways"; another of "The North Polar regions showingthe progress of explorations"; maps of the trade routes, of gulfstreams, and beautiful things of that kind. It tells you how far it isfrom Southampton to Fremantle, so that if you are interested in theM. C. C. Australian team you can follow them day by day across the sea. Why, with all your geographical knowledge you couldn't even tell methe distance between Yokohama and Honolulu, but I can give the answerin a moment--3, 379 miles. Also I know exactly what a section of theworld along lat. 45 deg. N. Looks like--and there are very few of ourmost learned men who can say as much. 

But my atlas goes even farther than this, though I for one do notfollow it. It gives diagrams of exports and imports; it tells youwhere things are manufactured or where grown; it gives pictures ofsheep--an immense sheep representing New Zealand and a mere insectrepresenting Russia, and alas! no sheep at all for Canada and Germanyand China. Then there are large cigars for America and small mildcigars for France and Germany; pictures in colour of such unfamiliarobjects as spindles and raw silk and miners and Mongolians and ironore; statistics of traffic receipts and diamonds. I say that I don'tfollow my atlas here, because information of this sort does not seemto belong properly to an atlas. This is not my idea of geography atall. When I open my atlas I open it to look at maps--to find out whereTripoli is--not to acquire information about flax and things; yet Icannot forego the boast that if I wanted I could even speak at lengthabout flax. 

And lastly there is the index. Running my eye down it, I can tell youin less than a minute where such different places as Jorobado, Kabba, Hidegkut, Paloo, and Pago Pago are to be found. Could you, even afteryour first-class honours in the Geography Tripos, be as certain as Iam? Of Hidegkut, perhaps, or Jorobado, but not of Pago Pago. 

On the other hand, you might possibly have known where Tripoli was. 

 Children's Plays

At the beginning of every pantomime season, we are brought up againsttwo original discoveries. The first is that Mr. Arthur Collins hasundoubtedly surpassed himself; the other, that "the children'spantomime" is not really a pantomime for children at all. Mr. Collins, in fact, has again surpassed himself in providing anentertainment for men and women of the world. 

One has to ask oneself, then, what sort of pantomime children reallylike. I ought to know, because I once tried to write one, and somekind critic was found to say (as generally happens on these occasions)that I showed "a wonderful insight into the child's mind. " Perhapshe was thinking of the elephant. The manager had a property elephantleft over from some other play which he had produced lately. There itwas, lying in the wings and getting in everybody's way. I think he hadleft it about in the hope that I might be inspired by it. At one ofthe final rehearsals, after I had fallen over this elephant severaltimes, he said, "It's a pity we aren't going to use the elephant. Couldn't you get it in somewhere?" I said that I thought I could. After all, getting an elephant into a play is merely a question ofstagecraft. If you cannot get an elephant on and off the stage in anatural way, your technique is simply hopeless, and you had bettergive up writing plays altogether. I need hardly say that my techniquewas quite up to the work. At the critical moment the boy-hero said, "Look, there's an elephant, " pointing to that particular part of thestage by which alone it could enter, and there, sure enough, theelephant was. It then went through its trick of conveying a bun to itsmouth, after which the boy said, "Good-bye, elephant, " and it washauled off backwards. Of course it intruded a certain grossmaterialism into the delicate fancy of my play, but I did not care tosay so, because one has to keep in with the manager. Besides, therewas the elephant, eating its head off; it might just as well be used. 

Well, so far as the children were concerned, the elephant was thesuccess of the play. Up to the moment of its entrance they were--well, I hope not bored, but no more than politely interested. But as soon asthe hero said, "Look, there's an elephant, " you could feel them alljumping up and down in their seats and saying "Oo!" Nor was this"Oo" atmosphere ever quite dispelled thereafter. The elephant hadwithdrawn, but there was always the hope now that he might come onagain, and if an elephant, why not a giraffe, a hippopotamus, or apolar-bear? For the rest of the pantomime every word was followed withbreathless interest. At any moment the hero might come out withanother brilliant line--"Look, there's a hippopotamus. " Even when itwas proved, with the falling of the final curtain, that the author hadnever again risen to these heights, there was still one chance left. Perhaps if they clapped loudly enough, the elephant would hear, andwould take a call like the others. 

What sort of pantomime do children like? It is a strange thing that wenever ask ourselves "What sort of plays--or books or pictures--dopublic-school men like?" You say that that would be an absurdquestion. Yet it is not nearly so absurd as the other. For the realdifferences of thought and feeling between you and your neighbour werethere when you were children, and your agreements are the result ofthe subsequent community of interests which you have shared--insimilar public-schools, universities, services, or professions. Whyshould two children want to see the same pantomime? Apart from thefact that "two children" may mean such different samples of humanityas a boy of five and a girl of fifteen, is there any reason whySmith's child and Robinson's child should think alike? And as for yourchild, my dear sir (or madam), I have only to look at it--and atyou--to see at once how utterly different it is from every other childwhich has ever been born. Obviously it would want something very muchsuperior to the sort of pantomime which would amuse those veryordinary children of which Smith and Robinson are so proud. 

I cannot, therefore, advance my own childish recollections of my firstpantomime as trustworthy evidence of what other children like. But Ishould wish you to know that when I was taken to _Beauty and theBeast_ at the age of seven, it was no elephant, nor any other kind ofbeast, which made the afternoon sacred for me. It was Beauty. I justgazed and gazed at Beauty. Never had I seen anything so lovely. Forweeks afterwards I dreamed about her. Nothing that was said or done onthe stage mattered so long as she was there. Probably the author hadput some of his most delightful work into that pantomime--"dialoguewhich showed a wonderful insight into the child's mind"; I apologizeto him for not having listened to it. (I can sympathize with him now. )Or it may be that the author had written for men and women of theworld; his dialogue was full of that sordid cynicism about marriedlife which is still considered amusing, so that the aunt who took mewondered if this were really a pantomime suitable for children. Poordear!--as if I heard a word of it, I who was just waiting for Beautyto come back. 

What do children like? I do not think that there is any answer to thatquestion. They like anything; they like everything; they like so manydifferent things. But I am certain that there has never been an idealplay for very young children. It will never be written, for the reasonthat no self-respecting writer could bore himself so completely as towrite it. (Also it is doubtful if fathers and mothers, uncles andaunts, would sacrifice themselves a second time, after they had oncesat through it. ) For very young children do not want humour orwhimsicality or delicate fancy or any of the delightful propertieswhich we attribute to the ideal children's play. I do not say thatthey will rise from their stalls and call loudly for theirperambulators, if these qualities creep into the play, but they canget on very happily without them. All that they want is a continuousprocession of ordinary everyday events--the arrival of elephants (suchas they see at the Zoo), or of postmen and policemen (such as they seein their street), the simplest form of clowning or of practical joke, the most photographically dull dialogue. For a grown-up it would be anappalling play to sit through, and still more appalling play to haveto write. 

Perhaps you protest that your children love _Peter Pan_. Of coursethey do. They would be horrible children if they didn't. And theywould be horrible children if they did not love (as I am sure they do)a Drury Lane pantomime. A nice child would love _Hamlet_. But I alsolove _Peter Pan_; and for this reason I feel that it cannot possiblybe the ideal play for children. I do not, however, love the Drury Lanepantomime... Which leaves me with the feeling that it may really be"the children's pantomime" after all. 

 The Road to Knowledge

My pipe being indubitably smoked out to the last grain, I put it in mypocket and went slowly up to the nursery, trying to feel as much likethat impersonation of a bear which would inevitably be demanded of meas is possible to a man of mild temperament. But I had alarmed myselfunnecessarily. There was no demand for bears. Each child lay on itsfront, engrossed in a volume of _The Children's Encyclopaedia_. Nobodylooked up as I came in. Greatly relieved, I also took a volume of thegreat work and lay down on my front. I came away from my week-end adifferent man. For the first time in my life I was well informed. Ifyou had only met me on the Monday and asked me the right questions, Icould have surprised you. Perhaps, even now... But alas! my knowledgeis slipping away from me, and probably the last of it will be gonebefore I have finished this article. 

For this _Encyclopaedia_ (as you may have read in the advertisements)makes a feature of answering all those difficult questions whichchildren ask grown-ups, and which grown-ups really want to asksomebody else. Well, perhaps not all those questions. There are two towhich there were no answers in my volume, nor, I suspect, in any ofthe other volumes, and yet these are the two questions more oftenasked than any others. "How did God begin?" and "Where do babiescome from?" Perhaps they were omitted because the answers to them areso easy. "That, my child, is something which you had better ask yourmother, " one replies; or if one is the mother, "You must wait tillyou are grown-up, dear. " Nor did I see any mention of the mostdifficult question of all, the question of the little girl who hadjust been assured that God could do anything. "Then, if He can doanything, can He make a stone so heavy that He can't lift it?"Perhaps the editor is waiting for his second edition before he answersthat one. But upon such matters as "Why does a stone sink?" or"Where does the wind come from?" or "What makes thunder?" he isdelightfully informing. 

But I felt all the time that in this part of his book he really hadhis eye on me and my generation rather than on the children. No childwants to know why a stone sinks; it knows the answer already--"Whatelse could it do?" Even Sir Isaac Newton was a grown-up before heasked why an apple fell, and there had been men in the world fiftythousand years before that (yes I have been reading _The Outline ofHistory_, too), none of whom bothered his head about gravitation. Yes, the editor was thinking all the time that you and I ought to know moreabout these things. Of course, we should be too shy to order the bookfor ourselves, but we could borrow it from our young friendsoccasionally on the plea of seeing if it was suitable for them, and sopick up a little of that general knowledge which we lack so sadly. Where does the wind come from? Well, really, I don't think I know now. 

The drawback of all _Guides to Knowledge_ is that one cannot have theeditor at hand in order to cross-examine him. This is particularly soin the case of a _Children's Encyclopaedia_, for the child's firstquestion, "Why does this do that?" is meant to have no more finalitythan tossing-up at cricket or dealing the cards at bridge. The childdoes not really want to know, but it does want to keep up a friendlyconversation, or, if humourously inclined, to see how long you can goon without getting annoyed. Not always, of course; sometimes it reallyis interested; but in most cases, I suspect, the question, "Whatmakes thunder?" is inspired by politeness or mischief. The grown-upis bursting to explain, and ought to be humoured; or else he obviouslydoesn't know, and ought to be shown up. 

But these would not be my motives if the editor of _The Children'sEncyclopaedia_ took me for a walk and allowed me to ask him questions. The fact that light travels at so many hundred thousand miles an hourdoes not interest me; I should accept the information and then ask himmy next question, "How did they find out?" That is always theintriguing part of the business. Who first realized that light was notinstantaneous? What put him up to it? How did he measure its velocity?The fact (to take another case) that a cricket chirps by rubbing hisknees together does not interest me; I want to know why he chirps. Isit involuntary, or is it done with the idea of pleasing? Why does abird sing? The editor is prepared to tell me why a parrot is able totalk, but that is a much less intriguing matter. Why does a bird sing?I do not want an explanation of a thrush's song or a nightingale's, but why does a silly bird go on saying "chiff-chaff" all day long?Is it, for instance, happiness or hiccups?

Possibly these things are explained in some other volume than the onewhich fell to me. Possibly they are inexplicable. We can dogmatizeabout a star a billion miles away, but we cannot say with certaintyhow an idea came to a man or a song to a bird. Indeed, I think, perhaps, it would have been wiser of me to have left the chiff-chaffout of it altogether. I have an uneasy feeling that all last year thechiff-chaff was asking himself why I wrote every day. Was itinvoluntary, he wondered, or was it done with the idea of pleasing?

 A Man of Property

Yes, a gardener's life is a disappointing one. When it was announcedthat we were just too late for everything this year, I decided to buysome ready-made gardens and keep them about the house, until such timeas Nature was ready to co-operate. So now I have three gardens. Thisenables me to wear that superior look (which is so annoying for you)when you talk about your one little garden in front of me. Then youget off in disgust and shoot yourself, and they bury you in what youproudly called your herbaceous border, and people wonder next year whythe delphiniums are so luxuriant--but you are not there to tell them. 

Yes, I have three gardens. You come upon the first one as you areshown up the staircase to the drawing-room. It is outside thestaircase window. This is the daffodil garden--3 ft. 8 ins. By 9 ins. The vulgar speak of it as a window-box; that is how one knows thatthey are vulgar. The maid has her instructions; we are not at homewhen next they call. 

Sometimes I sit on the stairs and count the daffodils in my garden. There are seventy-eight of them; seventy-eight or seventy-nine--Icannot say for certain, because they will keep nodding their heads, sothat sometimes one may escape me, or perhaps I may count another onetwice over. The wall round the daffodil garden is bright blue--Ipainted it myself, and still carry patterns of it about with me--andthe result of all these yellow heads on their long green necks wavingabove the blue walls of my garden is that we are always making excusesto each other for going up and down stairs, and the bell in thedrawing-room is never rung. 

But I have a fault to find with my daffodils. They turn their backs onus. It is natural, I suppose, that they do not care to look in at thewindow to see what we are doing, preferring the blue sky and the sun, and all that they can catch of March and April, but the end of it isthat we see too little of their faces; for even if they are trained inyouth with a disposition towards the window, yet as soon as they beginto come to their full glory they swing round towards the south andhide their beauty from us. But the House Opposite sees them, andbrings his visitors, you may be sure, to his window to look at them. Indeed, I should not be surprised if he boasted of it as "hisgarden" and were even now writing in a book about it. 

My second garden is circular--18 ins. In diameter, and, of course, more than that all the way round. I can see it now as I write--or, more accurately, if I stop writing for a moment--for it is justoutside the library window. The vulgar call it a tub--they would;actually it is the Tulip Garden. At least, the man says so. For thetulips have not bourgeoned yet. No, I am wrong. (That is the worst ofusing these difficult words. ) They have bourgeoned, but they have notblossomed. Their heads are well above ground, they have swelled intobuds, but the buds have not broken. So, for all I know, they may yetbe sun-flowers. However, the man says they will be tulips; he was paidfor tulips; and he assures me that he has had experience in thesematters. For myself, I should never dare to speak with so muchauthority. It is not our birth but our upbringing which makes us whatwe are, and these tulips have had, during their short lives aboveground, a fatherly care and a watchfulness neither greater nor lessthan were bestowed upon the daffodils. That they sprang from differentbulbs seems to me a small matter in comparison with this. However, theman says that they will be tulips. Presumably yellow ones. 

One's gardens get smaller and smaller. My third is only 11 ins. By 9ins. The vulgar call it a Japanese garden--indeed, I don't see whatelse they could call it. East is East and West is West and never thetwain shall meet, but this does not prevent my Japanese garden fromsitting on an old English refectory table in the dining-room. AJapanese garden needs very careful management. I have three nativegardeners working at it day and night. At least they maintain theattitudes of men hard at work, but they don't seem to do much; perhapsthey are afraid of throwing one another out of employment. The headgardener spends his time pointing to the largest cactus, and saying (Isuppose in Japanese), "Look at my cactus!" The other two appear tobe washing his Sunday shirt for him, instead of pruning or pottingout, which is what I pay them for. However, the whole scene is one ofgreat activity, for in the ornamental water in the middle of thegarden two fishermen are hard at it, hoping to land something for mybreakfast. So far they have not had a bite. 

My Japanese garden has this advantage over the others, that it isindependent of the seasons. The daffodils will bow their heads anddroop away. The tulips--well, let us be sure that they are tulipsfirst; but, if the man is correct, they too will wither. But the greenhedgehog which friends tell me is a cactus will just go on and on. Itmust have some source of self-nourishment, for it can derive littlefrom the sand whereon it rests. Perhaps, like most of us, it thriveson appreciation, and the gardener, who points to it so proudly day andnight, is rightly employed after all. He knows that if once he droppedhis hand, or looked the other way, the cactus would give it updisheartened. 

It is fortunate for you that I am writing this week, and not later, for I have now ordered three more gardens, circular ones, to sitoutside the library. There is talk also of a couple of evergreen woodsfor the front of the house. With six gardens, two woods, and anornamental lake I shall be unbearable. In all the gardens of Englandpeople will be shooting themselves in disgust, and the herbaceousborders will flourish as never before. But that is for the future. To-day I write only of my three gardens. I would write of them atgreater length but that my daffodil garden is sending out anirresistible call. I go to sit on the staircase. 

 An Ordnance Map

Spring calls to us to be up and about. It shouts to us to standbareheaded upon hills and look down upon little woods and tiny redcottages, and away up to where the pines stand straight into the sky. Let the road, thin and white, wander on alone; we shall meet it again, and it shall lead us if it will to some comfortable inn; but now weare for the footpath and the stile--we are to stand in the fields andlisten to the skylark. 

Must you stay and work in London? But you will have ten minutes tospare. Look, I have an ordnance map--let us take our walk upon that. 

We will start, if you please, at Buckley Cross. That is the best ofwalking on the map; you may start where you like, and there are notrains to catch. Our road goes north through the village--shall westop a moment to buy an apple or two? Apples go well in the open air;we shall sit upon a gate presently and eat them before we light ourpipes and join the road again. A pound, if you will--and now withbulging pockets for the north. 

Over Buckley Common. You see by the dotted lines that it is anunfenced road, as, indeed, it should be over gorse and heather. A mileof it, and then it branches into two. Let us take this lane on theleft; the way seems more wooded to the west. 

By now we should be passing Buckley Grove. Perhaps it is for sale. Ifso, we might stop for a minute or two and buy it. We can work out howmany acres it is, because it is about three-quarters of an inch eachway, and if we could only remember how many acres went to a squaremile--well, anyhow, it is a good-sized place. But three miles from astation, you say? Ah yes, but look at that little mark there justround the corner. Do you know what _that_ stands for? A wind pump. Howjolly to have one at your very door. "Shall we go and look at thewind pump?" you would say casually to your guests. 

Let us leave the road. Do you see those dots going off to the right?That is a footpath. I have an idea that that will take us to theskylark. They do not mark skylarks on the map--I cannot say why--butsomething tells me that about a mile farther on, where the dots beginto bend.... Ah, do you hear? Up and up and up he goes into the blue, fainter and fainter falls the music. He calls to us to follow him tothe clean morning of the world, whose magic light has shone for us inour dreams so long, yet ever eluded us waking. Bathed in that light, Youth is not so young as we, nor Beauty more beautiful; in that lightHappiness is ours at last, for Endeavour shall have its perfectfulfilment, a fulfilment without regret.... 

Yes, let us have an apple. 

Our path seems to end suddenly here. We shall have to go through thisfarm. All the dogs barking, all the fowls cluttering, all the lambsgalloping--what a jolly, friendly commotion we've made! But we can getinto the road again this way. Indeed, we must get into the road soonbecause it is hungry work out in the air, and two inches to thenorth-west is written a word full of meaning--the most purposeful wordthat can be written upon a map. "Inn, " So now for a steady climb. Wehave dropped down to "200" by the farmhouse, and the inn is marked"500. " But it is only two miles--well, barely that. Come along. 

What shall we have? Ought it not to be bread and cheese and beer? Butif you will excuse me, I would rather not have beer. I know that itsounds well to ask for it--as far as that goes, I will ask for itwillingly--but I have never been able to drink it in any comfort. Ithink I shall have a gin and ginger. That also sounds well. Moreimportant still, it drinks well; in fact, the only thing which I don'tlike about it is the gin. "Oh, good morning. We want some bread andcheese, please, and one pint of beer, and a gin and ginger. And--er--you might leave out the gin. " Yes, of course, I could haveasked straight off for a plain ginger beer, but that sounds so verymild. My way I use the word "gin" twice. Let us be dashing on thisbrave day. 

After lunch a pipe, while we consider where to go next. 

It is anywhere you like, you know. To the north there is GreymoorWood, and we pass a windmill; and to the east there is the littlevillage of Colesford which has a church without a steeple; and to thewest we go quite near another wind pump; and to the south--well, weshould have to cross the line pretty soon. That brings us into touchwith civilization; we do not want that just yet. So the north againlet it be.... 

This is Greymoor Wood. Yes; there is a footpath marked right throughit, but footpaths are hard to see beneath such a carpet of deadleaves. I dare say we shall lose ourselves. One false step and we areoff the line of dots. There you are, there's a dot missing. We havelost the track. Now we must get out as best we can. 

Do you know the way of telling the north by the sun? You turn the hourhand of your watch to the sun, and half-way between that and the XIIis the south. Or else you turn the XII to the sun and take half-waybetween that and the hour hand. Anyhow you do find the southeventually after one or two experiments, and having discovered thesouth it is easy enough to locate the north. With your permission thenwe will push due north through Greymoor Wood. 

We are through and on the road, but it is getting late. I et us hurryon. It would be tempting to wander down to that stream and follow itsbanks for a little; it would be pleasant to turn into that"unmetalled, unfenced" road--ah, doesn't one know those roads?--andlet it carry us to the village of Milden, rich in both telegraphoffice and steeple. There is also, no more than two miles from wherewe stand, a contour of 600 ft. --shall we make for the view at the topof that? But no, perhaps you are right. We had best be getting homenow. It is growing chilly; the sun has gone in; if we lost ourselvesagain, we could never find the north. Let us make for the neareststation. Widdington, isn't it? Three miles away.... 

There! Now we're home again. And must you really get on with yourwork? Well, but it has been a jolly day, hasn't it?

 The Lord Mayor

There is a story of a boy who was asked to name ten animals whichinhabit the polar regions. After a little thought he answered, "Sixpenguins and four seals. " In the same way I suspect that, if you wereasked to give the names of any three Lord Mayors of London, you wouldsay, "Dick Whittington, and--er--Dick Whittington, and ofcourse--er--Dick Whittington, " knowing that he held that high officethree times, and being quite unable to think of anybody else. This iswhere I have the advantage of you. In my youth there was a joke whichwent like this: "Why does the Lord Mayor like pepper? Because withouthis K. N. , he'd be ill. " I have an unfortunate habit of rememberingeven the worst joke, and so I can tell you, all these years after, that there was once a Lord Mayor called Knill. It is because I knowthe names of four Lord Mayors that I can write with such authorityupon the subject. 

To be a successful Lord Mayor demands years of training. Fortunately, the aspiring apprentice has time for preparation. From the moment whenhe is first elected a member of the Worshipful Company of Linendrapershe can see it coming. He can say with confidence that in 1944--or '43, if old Sir Joshua has his stroke next year, as seems probable--he willbecome the first citizen of London; which gives him twenty-four yearsin which to acquire the manner. It would be more interesting if thiswere not so; it would be more interesting to you and me if there weresomething of a struggle each year for the Lord Mayorality, so that wecould put our money on our respective fancies. If, towards the end ofOctober, we could read the Haberdashers' nominee had been for astripped gallop on Hackney Downs and had pulled up sweating badly; ifthe Mayor could send a late wire from Aldgate to tell us that thecandidate from the Drysalters' stable was refusing his turtle soup; ifwe could all try our luck at spotting the winner for November 9, thenit is possible that the name of the new Lord Mayor might be asfamiliar in our mouths as that of this year's Derby favourite. As itis, there is no excitement at all about the business. We are toldcasually in a corner of the paper that Sir Tuttlebury Tupkins is to bethe next Lord Mayor, and we gather that it was inevitable. The nameconveys nothing to us, the face is the habitual face. He duly becomesLord Mayor and loses his identity. We can still only think of DickWhittington. 

One cannot help wondering if it is worth it. He has his crowded yearof glorious life, but it is a year without a name. He is neverhimself, he is just the Lord Mayor. He meets all the great people ofthe day, soldiers, sailors, statesmen, even artists, but they wouldnever recognize him again. He cannot say that he knows them, eventhough he has given them the freedom of the City or a jewelled sword. He can do nothing to make his year of office memorable; nothing thatis, which his predecessor did not do before, or his successor will notdo again. If he raises a Mansion House Fund for the survivors of aflood, his predecessor had an earthquake, and his successor is safefor a famine. And nobody will remember whether it was in this year orin Sir Joshua Potts' that the record was beaten. 

For this one year of anonymous greatness the aspiring Lord Mayor hasto sacrifice his whole personality. He is to be the first citizen ofLondon, but he must be very careful that London has never heard of himbefore. He has to live the life of a hermit, resolute neither to knownor to be known. For a year he shakes hands mechanically, but in theyears before and the years afterwards, nobody, I imagine, has eversmacked him on the back. Indeed, it is doubtful if anybody has evenseen him, so remote is his life from ours. He was dedicated to thisfrom birth, or anyhow from the moment when he was first elected amember of the Worshipful Company of Linendrapers, and he has beenpreparing that wooden expression ever since. 

It is because he has had to spend so many years out of the world thata City Remembrancer is provided for him. The City Remembrancer standsat his elbow when he receives his guests and tells him who they are. Without this aid, how should he know? Perhaps it is Mr. Thomas Hardywho is arriving. "Mr. Thomas Hardy, " says the gentleman with thevoice, and the Lord Mayor holds out his hand. 

"I am very glad, " he says, "to welcome such a verywell-known--h'm--such a distinguished--er----"

"Writer, " says the City Remembrancer behind the hack of his hand. 

"Such a distinguished writer. The author of so many famous biog----"

"Novels, " breathes the City Remembrancer, gazing up at the ceiling. 

"So many famous novels, " continues the Lord Mayor quite undisturbed, for he is used to it by this time. "The author of _East Lynne_----"

The City Remembrancer coughs and walks across to the other side of theLord Mayor, murmuring _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ to the back of theMayoral head as he goes. The Lord Mayor then repeats that he isdelighted to welcome the author of _Death and the Door-bells_ to theCity, and holds out his hand to Mr. John Sargent. 

"The painter, " says the City Remembrancer, his lips, from longpractice, hardly moving. 

In the sanctity of the home that evening, while removing his chains ofoffice, the Lord Mayor (we may suppose) tells his sleepy wife what aninteresting day he has had, and how Mr. Thomas Sargent, the famousstatesman, and Mr. John Hardy, the sculptor, both came to lunch. 

And all the time the year is creeping on. Another day gone. Anotherday nearer to that fatal November 8.... And here, inevitably, isNovember 8, and by to-morrow he will be that most pathetic of allliving creatures, an ex-Lord Mayor of London. Where do they live, theex-Lord Mayors? They must have a colony of their own somewhere, aGarden City in which they can live together as equals. Probably theyhave some arrangement by which they take it in turns to bereminiscent; Sir Tuttlebury Tupkins has "and Wednesdays" on hiscard, and Sir Joshua Potts receives on "3rd Mondays"; and the otherLord Mayors gather round and listen, nodding their heads. On theirbirthdays they give each other gold caskets, and every November 10they march in a body to the station to welcome the new arrival. Poorfellow, the tears are streaming down his cheeks, and his paunch isshaken with sobs, but there is a hot bowl of turtle soup waiting forhim at Lady Tupkins' house, The Mansion Cottage, and he will soon feelmore comfortable. He has been allotted the "4th Fridays, " and it ishoped that by Christmas he will have settled down quite happily atIchabod Lodge. 

 The Holiday Problem

The time for a summer holiday is May, June. July, August, andSeptember--with, perhaps a fortnight in October if the weather holdsup. But it is difficult to cram all this into the few short weeksallowed to most of us. We are faced accordingly with the business ofsingling out one month from the others--a business invidious enough toa lover of the country, but still more so to one who loves London aswell. The question for him is not only which month is most wonderfulby the sea, but also which month is most tolerable out of town. 

I would wash my hands of London in May and come back brown fromcricket and golf and sailing in September with willingness. Alas I itis impossible. But if I pick out July as the month for the open-airlife, I begin immediately to think of the superiority of July overJune as a month to spend in London. Not but what June is a delightfulmonth in town, and May and August for that matter. In May, forinstance----

Let us go into this question. May, of course, is hopeless for aholiday. One must be near one's tailor in May to see about one'ssummer clothes. Choosing a flannel suit in May is one of the momentsof one's life--only equalled by certain other great moments at thehosier's and hatter's. "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" says aparticularly idiotic saw, but as you have already disregarded it bycasting your fur coat, you may as well go through with the businessnow. Socks; I ask you to think of summer socks. Have you ordered yourhalf-hose yet? No. Then how can you go away for your holiday?

Again, taxicabs pull down their shutters in May, and you are able tosee and be seen as you drive through London. Never forget when youdrive in a taxi that you own the car absolutely as long as the clockis ticking; that you are a motorist, a fit member for the RoyalAutomobile Club; that the driver is your chauffeur to obey yourorders; and, best of all, that, May being here, you can put your feetupon the seat opposite in the sight of everybody. Will you miss theglory? In June and July it will have lost something. Pay your fiveshillings in May and expand, live; pay your five pounds if you likeand drive all down the Cromwell Road. Don't bury yourself inDevonshire. 

The long light evenings of June in London! The dances, the dinners inthe warm nights of June! The window-boxes in the squares, the prettypeople in the parks; are we going to leave them? There is so muchgoing on. We may not be in it, but we must be in London to feel thatwe are helping. They also serve who only stand and stare. Besides--Iput it to you--strawberries are ripe in June. You will never getenough in Cumberland or wherever you are. Not good ones; not theshilling-a-seed kind. 

Is it wise to go away in July? What about the Varsity match andGentlemen _v. _ Players? You must be at Lord's for those. Yes; July isthe month for Lord's. Drive there, I beg you, in a hansom, if indeedthere is still one left. A taxi by all means in May or when you are ina hurry, but a day at Lord's must be taken deliberately. Drive thereat your leisure; breathe deeply. Do not he afraid of taking your seatbefore play begins--you can buy a _Sportsman_ on the ground and readhow Vallingwick nearly beat Upper Finchley. It is all part of thegreat game, and if you are to enjoy your day truly, then you must gowith this feeling in the back of your mind--that you ought really tobe working. That is the right condiment for a cricket match. 

Yes; we must be near St. John's Wood in July, but what about August?Everybody, you say, goes away in August; but is not that rather areason for staying? I don't bother to point out that the country willbe crowded, only that London will be so pleasantly empty. In Augustand September you can wander about in your oldest clothes and nobodywill mind. You can get a seat for any play without difficulty--indeed, without paying, if you know the way. It is a rare time for seeing theold churches of the City or for exploring the South Kensington Museum. London is not London in August and September; it is a jolly old townthat you have never seen before. You can dine at the Savoy in yourshirt sleeves--well, nearly. I mean, that gives you the idea. And, best of all, your friends will all be enjoying themselves in thecountry, and they will ask you down for week-ends. Robinson, who ishaving a cricket week for his schoolboy sons, and Smith, who has hireda yacht, will be glad to see you from Friday to Tuesday. If you hadgone to Switzerland for the month, you couldn't have accepted theirkind invitations. "How I wish, " you would have said as you paid theextra centimes on their letters, "how I wish I had taken my holidayin June. " On the other hand, in June----

Well, you see how difficult it is for you. Of course, I don't reallymind what you do. For myself I have almost decided to have a week ineach month. The advantage of this is that I shall go away four timesinstead of once. There is no joy in the world to equal that ofstrolling after a London porter who is looking for an empty smoker inwhich to put your golf clubs. To do it four times, each time with theknowledge of a week's holiday ahead, is almost more than man deserves. True that by this means I shall also come back four times instead ofonce, but to a lover of London that is no great matter. Indeed, I likeit so. 

And another advantage is that I can take five weeks in this way whiledeluding my conscience into thinking that I am only taking four. Aholiday taken in a lump is taken and over. Taken in weeks, with odddays at each end of the weeks, it always leaves a margin for error. Ishall take care that the error is on the right side. And if anybodygrumbles, "Why, you're always going away, " I shall answer withdignity, "Confound it! I'm always coming back. "

 The Burlington Arcade

It is the fashion, I understand, to be late for dinner, but punctualfor lunch. What the perfect gentleman does when he accepts aninvitation to breakfast I do not know. Possibly he has to be early. But for lunch the guests should arrive at the very stroke of theappointed hour, even though it leads to a certain congestion on themat. 

My engagement was for one-thirty, and for a little while my reputationseemed to be in jeopardy. Two circumstances contributed to this. Thefirst one was the ever-present difficulty in these busy days ofsynchronizing an arrival. A prudent man allows himself time for beingpushed off the first half-dozen omnibuses and trusts to surging upwith the seventh wave. I was so unlucky as to cleave my way on to thefirst 'bus of all, with the result that when I descended from it I wasa good ten minutes early. Well, that was bad enough. But, just as Iwas approaching the door, I realized that my calculations had beenmade for a one o'clock lunch. It was now ten to one; I had fortyminutes in hand. 

It is very difficult to know what to do with forty minutes in themiddle of Piccadilly, particularly when it is raining. Until a yearago I had had a club there, and I had actually resigned from it (howlittle one foresees the future!) on the plea that I never had occasionto use it. I felt that I would cheerfully have paid the subscriptionfor the rest of my life in order to have had the loan of its roof atthat moment. My new club--like the National Gallery and the BritishMuseum, those refuges for the wet Londoner--was too far away. TheAcademy had not yet opened. 

And then a sudden inspiration drew me into the Burlington Arcade. Theysay that the churches of London are ill-attended nowadays, but atleast St. James, Piccadilly, can have no cause for complaint, for Isuppose that the merchants of the Arcade, and all those dependent onthem, repair thither twice weekly to pray for wet weather. TheBurlington Arcade is indeed a beautiful place on a wet day. One canmove leisurely from window to window, passing from silk pyjamas tobead necklaces and from bead necklaces back to silk pyjamas again; onecan look for a break in the weather from either the north or thesouth; and at the south end there is a clock conveniently placed forthose who have a watch waiting its turn at the repairer's and aluncheon engagement in forty minutes. 

For a long time I hesitated between a bead necklace and a pair ofpyjamas. A few coloured stones on a chain were introduced to theumbrella-less onlooker as "The Latest Fashion, " followed by theannouncement, superfluous in the circumstances, that it was "VeryStylish. " It came as a shock to read further that one could be in thefashion for so little a sum as six shillings. There were othernecklaces at the same price but of entirely different design, whichwere equally "Stylish, " and of a fashion no less up to date. In thisthe merchant seemed to me to have made a mistake; for the whole gloryof wearing "The Latest Fashion" is the realization that the otherwoman has just missed it by a bead or two. A fashion must beexclusive. St. James, Piccadilly, is all very well, but one has alsoto consider how to draw the umbrella-less within after one has gottheir noses to the shop window. 

I passed on to the pyjamas, which seemed to be mostly in regimentalcolours. This war came upon us too suddenly, so that most of us rushedinto the army without a proper consideration of essentials. I doubt ifanyone who enlisted in the early days stopped to ask himself whetherthe regimental colours would suit him. It will be different in thenext war. If anybody joins the infantry at all (which is doubtful), hewill at least join a regiment whose pyjamas may be worn withself-respect in the happy peace days. 

There are objections to turning up to lunch (however warmly invited)with a pair of pyjamas under the arm. It looks as though you mightstay too long. I moved on to another row of bead necklaces. Theyoffered themselves for two shillings, and all that the owner couldfind to say for them was that they were "Quite New. " If he meantthat nobody had ever worn such a necklace before, he was probablyright, but I feel that he could have done better for them than this, and that, "As supplied to the Queen of Denmark, " or something of thesort, would have justified an increase to two and threepence. 

By this time nearly everybody was lunching except myself, and my clocksaid one twenty-five. If I were to arrive with that exact punctualityupon which I so credit myself, I must buy my bead necklace upon someother day. I said good-bye to the Burlington Arcade, and stepped outof it with the air of a man who has done a successful morning'sshopping. A clock in the hall was striking one-thirty as I entered. Then I remembered. It was Tuesday's lunch which was to be atone-thirty. To-day's was at one o'clock... However, I had discoveredthe Burlington Arcade. 

 State Lotteries

The popular argument against the State Lottery is an assertion that itwill encourage the gambling spirit. The popular argument in favour ofthe State Lottery is an assertion that it is hypocritical to say thatit will encourage the gambling spirit, because the gambling spirit isalready amongst us. Having listened to a good deal of this sort ofargument on both sides, I thought it would be well to look up the word"gamble" in my dictionary. I found it next to "gamboge, " and I cannow tell you all about it. 

To gamble, says my dictionary, is "to play for money in games ofskill or chance, " and it adds the information that the word isderived from the Anglo-Saxon _gamen_, which means "a game". Now, tome this definition is particularly interesting, because it justifiesall that I have been thinking about the gambling spirit in connexionwith Premium Bonds. I am against Premium Bonds, but not for thepopular reason. I am against them because (as it seems to me) there isso very little of the gamble about them. And now that I have looked up"gamble" in the dictionary, I see that I was right. The "chance"element in a state lottery is obvious enough, but the "game" elementis entirely absent. It is nothing so harmless and so human as thegambling spirit which Premium Bonds would encourage. 

We play for money in games of skill or chance--bridge, for instance. But it isn't only of the money we are thinking. We get pleasure out ofthe game. Probably we prefer it to a game of greater chance, such as_vingt-et-un_. But even at _vingt-et-un_ or baccarat there issomething more than chance which is taking a hand in the game; notskill, perhaps, but at least personality. If you are only throwingdice, you are engaged in a personal struggle with another man, and youare directing the struggle to this extent, that you can call the valueof the stakes, and decide whether to go on or to stop. And is thereany man who, having made a fortune at Monte Carlo, will admit that heowes it entirely to chance? Will he not rather attribute it to hiswonderful system, or if not to that, at any rate to his wonderfulnerve, his perseverance, or his recklessness?

The "game" element, then, comes into all these forms of gambling, and still more strongly does it pervade that most common form ofgambling, betting on horses. I do not suggest that the street-cornerboy who puts a shilling both ways on Bronchitis knows anythingwhatever about horses, but at least he thinks he does; and if he winsfive shillings on that happy afternoon when Bronchitis proves himselfto be the 2. 30 winner, his pleasure will not be solely in the money. The thought that he is such a skilful follower of form, that he hassomething of the national eye for a horse, will give him as muchpleasure as can be extracted from the five shillings itself. 

This, then, is the gambling spirit. It has its dangers, certainly, hutit is not entirely an evil spirit. It is possible that the Stateshould not encourage it, but it is not called upon to exorcise it withbell, and book, and candle. I am not sure that I should favour a Stategamble, but my arguments against it would be much the same as myarguments against State cricket or the solemn official endowment andrecognition of any other jolly game. However, I need not trouble youwith those arguments now, for nothing so harmless as a State gamblehas ever been suggested. Instead, we have from time to time a Statelottery offered to us, and that is a very different proposition. 

For in a State lottery--with daily prizes of £50, 000--the game(or gambling) element does not exist. Buy your £100 bond, as athousand placards will urge you to do, and you simply take part in acold-blooded attempt to acquire money without working for it. You cantake no personal interest whatever in the manner of acquiring it. Somebody turns a handle, and perhaps your number comes out. Moreprobably it doesn't. If it doesn't, you can call yourself a fool forhaving thrown away your savings; if it does--well, you have got themoney. May you be happy with it! But you have considerably less onwhich to congratulate yourself than had the street-corner boy whobacked Bronchitis. He had an eye for a horse. Probably you hadn't evenan eye for a row of figures. 

Moreover, the State would be giving its official approval to theunearned fortune. In these days, when the worker is asking for a weekof so many less hours and so many more shillings, the State wouldanswer: "I can show you a better way than that. What do you say to nowork at all, and £20 a week for it?" At a time when the one cryis "Production!" the State adds (behind its hand), "Buy a PremiumBond, and let the other man produce for you. " After all these yearsin which we have been slowly progressing towards the idea of a moreequitable distribution of wealth, the Government would show us thereally equitable way; it would collect the savings of the many, andre-distribute them among the few. Instead of a million ten-poundcitizens, we should have a thousand ten-thousand-pounders and 999, 000with nothing. That would be the official way of making the countryhappy and contented. But, in fact, our social and politicalcontroversies are not kept alive by such arguments as these, nor bythe answers which can legitimately be made to such arguments. The caseof the average man in favour of State lotteries is, quite simply, thathe does not like Dr. Clifford. The case of the average man againstState lotteries is equally simple; he cannot bear to be on the sameside as Mr. Bottomley. 

 The Record Lie

I have just seen it quoted again. Yes, it appears solemnly in print, even now, at the end of the greatest war in history. _Si vis pacem, para bellum. _ And the writer goes on to say that the League of Nationsis all very well, but unfortunately we are "not angels. " Dear, dear!

Being separated for the moment from my book of quotations, I cannotsay who was the Roman thinker who first gave this brilliant paradox tothe world, but I imagine him a fat, easy-going gentleman, whooccasionally threw off good things after dinner. He never thought verymuch of _Si vis pacem, para bellum;_ it was not one of his best; butit seemed to please some of his political friends, one of whom askedif he might use it in his next speech in the Senate. Our fat gentlemansaid: "Certainly, if you like, " and added, with unusual frankness:"I don't quite know what it means. " But the other did not think thatthat would matter very much. So he quoted it, and it had aconsiderable vogue... And by and by they returned to the place fromwhich they had come, leaving behind them the record of the ages, thelie which has caused more suffering than anything the Devil could haveinvented for himself. Two thousand years from now people will still bequoting it, and killing each other on the strength of it. Or perhaps Iam wrong. Perhaps two thousand years from now, if the English languageis sufficiently dead by then, the world will have some casual paradoxof Bernard Shaw's or Oscar Wilde's on its lips, passing it reverentlyfrom mouth to mouth as if it were Holy Writ, and dropping bombs onMars to show that they know what it means. For a quotation is a handything to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business. 

_Si vis pacem, para bellum. _ Yes, it sounds well. It has a conclusivering about it, particularly if the speaker stops there for a momentand drinks a glass of water. "If you want peace, prepare for war, "is not quite so convincing; that might have been his own idea, evolvedwhile running after a motor-bus in the morning; we should not be soready to accept it as Gospel. But _Si vis pacem_----! It is almostblasphemous to doubt it. 

Suppose for a moment that it is true. Well, but this certainly istrue: _Si vis bellum, para bellum. _ So it follows that preparation forwar means nothing; it does not necessarily mean that you want war, itdoes not necessarily mean that you want peace; it is an action whichis as likely to have been inspired by an evil motive as by a goodmotive. When a gentleman with a van calls for your furniture you havemeans of ascertaining whether he is the furniture-remover whom youordered or the burglar whom you didn't order, but there is no way ofdiscovering which of two Latin tags is inspiring a nation's armaments. _Si vis pacem, para bellum_--it is a delightful excuse. Germany wasusing it up to the last moment. 

However, I can produce a third tag in the same language, which isworth consideration. _Si vis amare bellum, para bellum_--said byQuintus Balbus the Younger five minutes before he was called apro-Carthaginian. There seems to be something in it. I have been toldby women that it is great fun putting on a new frock, but I understandthat they like going out in it afterwards. After years in the schoolsa painter does want to show the public what he has learnt. Soldierswho have given their lives to preparing for war may be different; theymay be quite content to play about at manoeuvres and answerexamination papers. I learnt my golf (such as it is) by driving into anet. Perhaps, if I had had the soldier's temperament, I should stillbe driving into a net quite happily. On the other hand, soldiers maybe just like other people, and having prepared for a thing may want todo it. 

No; it is a pity, but Universal Peace will hardly come as the resultof universal preparedness for war, as these dear people seem to hope. It will only come as the result of a universal feeling that war is themost babyish and laughably idiotic thing that this poor world hasevolved. Our writer says sadly that there is no hope of doing withoutarmies--we are not angels. It is not a question of "not beingangels, " it is a question of not being childish lunatics. Possiblythere is no hope of this either, but I think we might make an effort. 

For opinions do spread, if one holds them firmly oneself and is notafraid of confessing them. A _si-vis-pacem_ gentleman said to me once, with a sneer: "How are you going to do it? Speeches and pamphlets?"Well, that was how Christianity got about, even though Paul's lettersdid not appear in a daily paper with a circulation of a million and atelegraphic service to every part of the world. 

But perhaps Christianity is an unfortunate example to give in anargument about war; one begins to ask oneself if Christianity hasspread as much as one thought. There are dear people, of course, towhom it has been revealed in the night that God is really much moreinterested in nations than in persons; it is not your soul or my soulthat He is concerned about, but the British Empire's. Germany Hedislikes (although the Germans were under a silly misapprehensionabout this once), and though the Japanese do not worship Him, yet theyare such active little fellows, not to say Allies of England, thatthey too are under His special protection. And when He deprecatedlying and stealing and murder and bearing false witness, and all thosethings, He meant that if they were done in a really wholesale way--bynations, not by individuals--then it did not matter; for He canforgive a nation anything, having so much more interest in it. All ofwhich may be true, but it is not Christianity. 

However, as our writer says, "we are not angels, " and apparently hethinks that it would be rather wicked of us to try to be. Perhaps heis right. 

 Wedding Bells

Champagne is often pleasant at lunch, it is always delightful atdinner, and it is an absolute necessity, if one is to talk freelyabout oneself afterwards, at a dance supper. But champagne for tea ishorrible. Perhaps this is why a wedding always finds me melancholynext morning. "She has married the wrong man, " I say to myself. "Iwonder if it is too late to tell her. "

The trouble of answering the invitation and of thinking of somethingto give more original than a toast rack should, one feels, have itscompensations. From each wedding that I attend I expect an afternoon'senjoyment in return for my egg stand. For one thing I have my bestclothes on. Few people have seen me in them (and these few won'tbelieve it), so that from the very beginning the day has a certainfreshness. It is not an ordinary day. It starts with this advantage, that in my best clothes I am not difficult to please. The world smilesupon me. 

Once I am in church, however, my calm begins to leave me. As timewears on, and the organist invents more and more tunes, I tremble lestthe bride has forgotten the day. The choir is waiting for her; thebridegroom is waiting for her. I--I also--wait. What if she haschanged her mind at the last minute? But no. The organist has sailedinto his set piece; the choir advances; follows the bride looking solonely that I long to comfort her and remind her of my egg stand; and, last of all, the pretty bridesmaids. The clergyman begins his drone. 

You would think that, reassured by the presence of the bride, I couldbe happy now. But there is still much to bother me. The bridegroom isshowing signs of having forgotten his part, the bride can't get herglove off, one of the bridesmaids is treading on my hat. Worse thanall this, there is a painful want of unanimity among the congregationas to when we stand up and when we sit down. Sometimes I am alone andsitting when everybody else is standing, and that is easy to bear; butsometimes I find myself standing when everybody else is sitting, andthat is very hard. 

They have gone to the vestry. The choir sings an anthem to while awaythe kissing-time, and, right or wrong, I am sitting down, comfortingmy poor hat. There was a time when I, too, used to go into the vestry;when I was something of an authority on weddings, and would attendweekly in some minor official capacity. Any odd jobs that were goingseemed to devolve on me. If somebody was wanted suddenly to sign theregister, or kiss the bride's mother, or wind up the going-away car, it used to be taken for granted that I was the man to do it. I wore awhite flower in my button-hole to show that I was available. I served, I may say, in an entirely honorary capacity, except in so far as I wasexpected to give the happy pair a slightly larger present than theothers. One day I happened to suggest to an intending groom that hehad other friends more ornamental, and therefore more suitable forthis sort of work, than I; to which he replied that they were allmarried, and that etiquette demanded a bachelor for the business. Ofcourse, as soon as I heard this I got married too. 

Here they come. "Doesn't she look sweet?" We hurry after them andrush for the carriages. I am only a friend of the bridegroom's;perhaps I had better walk. 

It must be very easy to be a guest at a wedding reception, where eachof the two clans takes it for granted that all the extraordinarystrangers belong to the other clan. Indeed, nobody with one good suit, and a stomach for champagne and sandwiches, need starve in London. Heor she can wander safely in wherever a red carpet beckons. I suppose Imust put in an appearance at this reception, but if I happen to passanother piece of carpet on the way to the house, and the people goingin seem more attractive than our lot, I shall be tempted to join them. 

This is, perhaps, the worst part of the ceremony, this three hundredyards or so from the hymn-sheets to the champagne. All London is nowgazing at my old top-hat. When the war went on and on and on, and itseemed as though it were going on for ever, I looked back on peacemuch as those old retired warriors at the end of last century lookedback on their happy Crimean days; and in the same spirit as that inwhich they hung their swords over the baronial fireplace, I decided tosuspend my old top-hat above the mantel-piece in the drawing-room. Inthe years to come I would take my grandchildren on my knee and tellthem stories of the old days when grandfather was a civilian, ofdesperate charges by church-wardens and organists, and warmreceptions; and sometimes I would hold the old top-hat reverently inmy hands, and a sudden gleam would come into my eyes, so that thosewatching me would say to each other, "He is thinking of thattea-fight at Rutland Gate in 1912. " So I pictured the future for mytop-hat, never dreaming that in 1920 it would take the air again. 

For I went into the war in order to make the world safe for democracy, which I understood to mean (and was distinctly informed so by thepress) a world safe for those of us who prefer soft hats with a dentin the middle. "The war, " said the press, "has killed thetop-hat. " Apparently it failed to do this, as it failed to do so manyof the things which we hoped from it. So the old veteran of 1912 daresthe sunlight again. We are arrived, and I am greeted warmly by thebride's parents. I look at the mother closely so that I shall know heragain when I come to say good-bye, and give her a smile which tellsher that I was determined to come down to this wedding although I hada good deal of work to do. I linger with the idea of pursuing thispoint, for I want them to know that they nearly missed me, but I ampushed on by the crowd behind me. The bride and bridegroom salute mecordially but show no desire for intimate gossip. A horrible feelinggoes through me that my absence would not have been commented upon bythem at any inordinate length. It would not have spoilt the honeymoon, for instance. 

I move on and look at the presents. The presents are numerous andcostly. Having discovered my own I stand a little way back and listento the opinions of my neighbours upon it. On the whole the receptionis favourable. The detective, I am horrified to discover, is on theother side of the room, apparently callous as to the fate of my eggstand. I cannot help feeling that if he knew his business he would bestanding where I am standing now; or else there should be twodetectives. It is a question now whether it is safe for me to leave mypost and search for food... Now he is coming round; I can trust it tohim. 

On my way to the refreshments I have met an old friend. I like to meetmy friends at weddings, but I wish I had not met this one. She hassowed the seeds of disquiet in my mind by telling me that it is notetiquette to begin to eat until the bride has cut the cake. I answer, "Then why doesn't somebody tell the bride to cut the cake?" but thebride, it seems, is busy. I wish now that I had not met my friend. Whobut a woman would know the etiquette of these things, and who but awoman would bother about it?

The bride is cutting the cake. The bridegroom has lent her his sword, or his fountain-pen, whatever is the emblem of his trade--he is astockbroker--and as she cuts, we buzz round her, hoping for one of themarzipan pieces. I wish to leave now, before I am sorry, but my friendtells me that it is not etiquette to leave until the bride andbridegroom have gone. Besides, I must drink the bride's health. Idrink her health; hers, not mine. 

Time rolls on. I was wrong to have had champagne. It doesn't suit meat tea. However, for the moment life is bright enough. I have lookedat the presents and my own is still there. And I have been given abagful of confetti. The weary weeks one lives through without ahandful of anything to throw at anybody. How good to be young again. Itake up a strong position in the hall. 

They come... Got him--got him! Now a long shot--got him! I feelslightly better, and begin the search for my hostess.... 

I have shaken hands with all the bride's aunts and all thebridegroom's aunts, and in fact all the aunts of everybody here. Eachone seems to me more like my hostess than the last. "Good-bye!"Fool--of course--there she is. "Good-Bye!"

My hat and I take the air again. A pleasant afternoon; and yetto-morrow morning I shall see things more clearly, and I shall knowthat the bridegroom has married the wrong girl. But it will be toolate then to save him. 

 Public Opinion

At the beginning of the last strike the papers announced that PublicOpinion was firmly opposed to dictation by a minority. Towards the endof the strike the papers said that Public Opinion was strongly infavour of a settlement which would leave neither side with a sense ofdefeat. I do not complain of either of these statements, but I havebeen wondering, as I have often wondered before, how a leader-writerdiscovers what the Public Opinion is. 

When one reads about Public Opinion in the press (and one reads a gooddeal about it one way and another), it is a little difficult torealize, particularly if the printer has used capital letters, thatthis much-advertised Public Opinion is simply You and Me and theOthers. Now, since it is impossible for any man to get at the opinionsof all of us, it is necessary that he should content himself with asample half-dozen or so. But from where does he get his sample?Possibly from his own club, limited perhaps to men of his ownpolitical opinions; almost certainly from his own class. PublicOpinion in this case is simply what he thinks. Even if he takes theopinion of strangers--the waiter who serves him at lunch, thetobacconist, the policeman at the corner--the opinion may be onespecially prepared for his personal consumption, one inspired by tact, boredom, or even a sense of humour. If, for instance, the process wereto be reversed, and my tobacconist were to ask me what I thought ofthe strike, I should grunt and go out of his shop; but he would bewrong to attribute "a dour grimness" to the nation in consequence. 

Nor is the investigator likely to be more correct if he judges PublicOpinion from the evidence of his eyes rather than his ears. Thus onereporter noticed on the faces of his companions in the omnibus "alook of stern determination to see this thing through. " If they wereall really looking like that, it must have been an impressive sight. But it is at least possible that this distinctive look was one ofstern determination to get a more comfortable seat on the 'bus whichtook them home again. 

It must be very easy (and would certainly be extremely interesting) togo about forming Public Opinion, I should like to initiate anL. F. P. O. , or League for Forming Public Opinion, and not only forforming it, but for putting it, when formed, into direct action. Sucha League, even if limited to two hundred members, could by itsconcerted action exercise a very remarkable effect. Suppose we decidedto attack profiteering. We should choose our shop--a hosier's, let ussay. Beginning on Monday morning, a member of the League would go inand ask to be shown some ties. Having spent some time in lookingthrough the stock and selecting a couple, he would ask the price. "Oh, but that's ridiculous, " he would say. "I couldn't think ofpaying that. If I can't get them cheaper somewhere else, I'll dowithout them altogether. " The shopman shrugs his shoulders and putshis ties back again. Perhaps he tells himself contemptuously that hedoesn't cater for that sort of customer. The customer goes out, andhalf an hour later the second member of the League arrives. This oneasks for collars. He is equally indignant at the price, and is equallydetermined not to wear a collar at all rather than submit to suchextortion. Half an hour later the third member comes in. He wantssocks.... The fourth member wants ties again... The fifth wantsgloves.... 

Now this is going on, not only all through the day, but all throughthe week, and for another week after that. Can you not imagine that, after a fortnight of it, the haberdasher begins to feel that "PublicOpinion is strongly aroused against profiteering in the hosierytrade"? Is it not possible that the loss of two hundred customers ina fortnight would make him wonder whether a lower price might notbring him in a greater profit? I think it is possible. I do not thinkhe could withstand a Public Opinion so well organized and sorelentlessly concentrated. 

But such a League would have enormous power in many ways. If you wereto write to the editor of a paper complaining that So-and-So'scontributions (mine, if you like) were beneath contempt, the editorwould not be seriously concerned about it. Possibly he had a letterthe day before saying that So-and-So was beyond all other writersdelightful. But if twenty members of the League wrote every week forten weeks in succession, from two hundred different addresses, sayingthat So-and-So's articles were beneath contempt, the editor would bemore than human if he did not tell himself that So-and-So had fallenoff a little and was obviously losing his hold on the popularimagination. In a little while he would decide that it would be wiserto make a change.... 

Of course, the League would not attack a writer or any other publicman from sheer wilfulness, but it would probably have no difficulty inbringing down over-praised mediocrity to its proper level or in givinga helping hand to unrecognized talent. But unless its president were aman of unerring judgment and remarkable restraint, its sense of powerwould probably be too much for it, and it would lose its headaltogether. Looking round for a suitable president, I can think ofnobody but myself. And I am too busy just now. 

 The Honour of Your Country

We were resting after the first battle of the Somme. Naturally all thetalk in the Mess was of after-the-war. Ours was the H. Q. Mess, and Iwas the only subaltern; the youngest of us was well over thirty. Witha gravity befitting our years and (except for myself) our rank, wediscussed not only restaurants and revues, but also Reconstruction. 

The Colonel's idea of Reconstruction included a large army ofconscripts. He did not call them conscripts. The fact that he hadchosen to be a soldier himself, out of all the professions open tohim, made it difficult for him to understand why a million othersshould not do the same without compulsion. At any rate, we must havethe men. The one thing the war had taught us was that we must have areal Continental army. 

I asked why. "Theirs not to reason why" on parade, but in the H. Q. Mess on active service the Colonel is a fellow human being. So I askedhim why we wanted a large army after the war. 

For the moment he was at a loss. Of course, he might have said"Germany, " had it not been decided already that there would be noGermany after the war. He did not like to say "France, " seeing thatwe were even then enjoying the hospitality of the most delightfulFrench villages. So, after a little hesitation, he said "Spain. "

At least he put it like this:--

"Of course, we must have an army, a large army. "

"But why?" I said again. 

"How else can you--can you defend the honour of your country?"

"The Navy. "

"The Navy! Pooh! The Navy isn't a weapon of attack; it's a weapon ofdefence. "

"But you said `defend'. "

"Attack, " put in the Major oracularly, "is the best defence. "

"Exactly. "

I hinted at the possibilities of blockade. The Colonel was scornful. "Sitting down under an insult for months and months, " he called it, until you starved the enemy into surrender. He wanted something muchmore picturesque, more immediately effective than that. (Something, presumably, more like the Somme. )

"But give me an example, " I said, "of what you mean by `insults'and `honour'. "

Whereupon he gave me this extraordinary example of the need for alarge army. 

"Well, supposing, " he said, "that fifty English women in Madridwere suddenly murdered, what would you do?"

I thought for a moment, and then said that I should probably decidenot to take my wife to Madrid until things had settled down a bit. 

"I'm supposing that you're Prime Minister, " said the Colonel, alittle annoyed. "What is England going to do?"

"Ah!... Well, one might do nothing. After all, what is one to do? Onecan't restore them to life. "

The Colonel, the Major, even the Adjutant, expressed his contempt forsuch a cowardly policy. So I tried again. 

"Well, " I said, "I might decide to murder fifty Spanish women inLondon, just to even things up. "

The Adjutant laughed. But the Colonel was taking it too seriously forthat. 

"Do you mean it?" he asked. 

"Well, what would you do, sir?"

"Land an army in Spain, " he said promptly, "and show them what itmeant to treat English women like that. "

"I see. They would resist of course?"

"No doubt. "

"Yes. But equally without doubt we should win in the end?"

"Certainly. "

"And so re-establish England's honour. "

"Quite so. "

"I see. Well, sir, I really think my way is the better. To avenge thefifty murdered English women, you are going to kill (say) 100, 000Spaniards who have had no connexion with the murders, and 50, 000Englishmen who are even less concerned. Indirectly also you will causethe death of hundreds of guiltless Spanish women and children, besidesdestroying the happiness of thousands of English wives and mothers. Surely my way--of murdering only fifty innocents--is just as effectiveand much more humane. "

"That's nonsense, " said the Colonel shortly. 

"And the other is war. "

We were silent for a little, and then the Colonel poured himself out awhisky. 

"All the same, " he said, as he went back to his seat, "you haven'tanswered my question. "

"What was that, sir?"

"What you would do in the case I mentioned. Seriously. "

"Oh! Well, I stick to my first answer. I would do nothing--except, ofcourse, ask for an explanation and an apology. If you can apologizefor that sort of thing. "

"And if they were refused?"

"Have no more official relations with Spain. "

"That's all you would do?"

"Yes. "

"And you think that that is consistent with the honour of a greatnation like England?"

"Perfectly. "

"Oh! Well, I don't. "

An indignant silence followed. 

"May I ask you a question now, sir?" I said at last. 

"Well?"

"Suppose this time England begins. Suppose we murder all the Spanishwomen in London first. What are you going to do--as Spanish Premier?"

"Er--I don't quite----"

"Are you going to order the Spanish Fleet to sail for the mouth ofthe Thames, and hurl itself upon the British fleet?"

"Of course not, She has no fleet. "

"Then do you agree with the--er Spanish Colonel, who goes aboutsaying that Spain's honour will never be safe until she has a fleet asbig as England's?"

"That's ridiculous. They couldn't possibly. "

"Then what could Spain do in the circumstances?"

"Well, she--er--she could--er--protest. "

"And would that be consistent with the honour of a small nation likeSpain?"

"In the circumstances, " said the Colonel unwillingly, "er--yes. "

"So that what it comes to is this. Honour only demands that youshould attack the other man if you are much bigger than he is. When aman insults my wife, I look him carefully over; if he is a stoneheavier than I, then I satisfy my honour by a mild protest. But if heonly has one leg, and is three stone lighter, honour demands that Ishould jump on him. "

"We're talking of nations, " said the Colonel gruffly, "not of men, It's a question of prestige. "

"Which would be increased by a victory over Spain?"

The Major began to get nervous. After all, I was only a subaltern. Hetried to cool the atmosphere a little. 

"I don't know why poor old Spain should be dragged into it likethis, " he said, with a laugh. "I had a very jolly time in Madridyears ago. "

"O, I only gave Spain as an example, " said the Colonel casually. 

"It might just as well have been Switzerland?" I suggested. 

There was silence for a little. 

"Talking of Switzerland----" I said, as I knocked out my pipe. 

"Oh, go on, " said the Colonel, with a good-humoured shrug. "I'vebrought this on myself. "

"Well, sir, what I was wondering was--What would happen to the honourof England if fifty English women were murdered at Interlaken?"

The Colonel was silent. 

"However large an army we had----" I went on. 

The Colonel struck a match. 

"It's a funny thing, honour, " I said. "And prestige. "

The Colonel pulled at his pipe. 

"Just fancy, " I murmured, "the Swiss can do what they like toBritish subjects in Switzerland, and we can't get at them. YetEngland's honour does not suffer, the world is no worse a place tolive in, and one can spend quite a safe holiday at Interlaken. "

"I remember being there in '94, " began the Major hastily.... 

 A Village Celebration

Although our village is a very small one, we had fifteen men servingin the Forces before the war was over. Fortunately, as the Vicar wellsaid, "we were wonderfully blessed in that none of us was called uponto make the great sacrifice. " Indeed, with the exception of CharlieRudd, of the Army Service Corps, who was called upon to be kicked by ahorse, the village did not even suffer any casualties. Our rejoicingsat the conclusion of Peace were whole-hearted. 

Naturally, when we met to discuss the best way in which to giveexpression to our joy, our first thoughts were with our returnedheroes. Miss Travers, who plays the organ with considerable expressionon Sundays, suggested that a drinking fountain erected on the villagegreen would be a pleasing memorial of their valour, if suitablyinscribed. For instance, it might say, "In gratitude to our bravedefenders who leaped to answer their country's call, " followed bytheir names. Embury, the cobbler, who is always a wet blanket on theseoccasions, asked if "leaping" was the exact word for a young fellowwho got into khaki in 1918, and then only in answer to his country'spolice. The meeting was more lively after this, and Mr. Bates, of HillFarm, had to be personally assured by the Vicar that for his part hequite understood how it was that young Robert Bates had been unable toleave the farm before, and he was sure that our good friend Emburymeant nothing personal by his, if he might say so, perhaps somewhatuntimely observation. He would suggest himself that some such phraseas "who gallantly answered" would be more in keeping with MissTravers' beautiful idea. He would venture to put it to the meetingthat the inscription should be amended in this sense. 

Mr. Clayton, the grocer and draper, interrupted to say that they weregetting on too fast. Supposing they agreed upon a drinking fountain, who was going to do it? Was it going to be done in the village, orwere they going to get sculptors and architects and such-like peoplefrom London? And if so The Vicar caught the eye of MissTravers, and signalled to her to proceed; whereupon she explainedthat, as she had already told the Vicar in private, her nephew wasstudying art in London, and she was sure he would be only too glad toget Augustus James or one of those Academy artists to think ofsomething really beautiful. 

At this moment Embury said that he would like to ask two questions. First question--In what order were the names of our gallant defendersto be inscribed? The Vicar said that, speaking entirely withoutpreparation and on the spur of the moment, he would imagine that analphabetical order would be the most satisfactory. There was a general"Hear, hear, " led by the Squire, who thus made his firstcontribution to the debate. "That's what I thought, " said Embury. "Well, then, second question--What's coming out of the fountain?"The Vicar, a little surprised, said that presumably, my dear Embury, the fountain would give forth water. "Ah!" said Embury with greatsignificance, and sat down. 

Our village is a little slow at getting on to things; "leaping" isnot the exact word for our movements at any time, either of brain orbody. It is not surprising, therefore, that even Bates failed torealize for a moment that his son's name was to have precedence on awater-fountain. But when once he realized it, he refused to bepacified by the cobbler's explanation that he had only said "Ah!"Let those who had anything to say, he observed, speak out openly, andthen we should know where we were. Embury's answer, that one couldgenerally guess where some people were, and not be far wrong, wasdrowned in the ecclesiastical applause which greeted the rising of theSquire. 

The Squire said that he--er--hadn't--er--intended--er--to sayanything. But he thought--er--if he might--er--intervene--to--er--saysomething on the matter of--er--a matter which--er--well, they allknew what it was--in short--er--money. Because until they knew howthey--er--stood, it was obvious that--it was obvious--quiteobvious--well it was a question of how they stood. Whereupon he satdown. 

The Vicar said that as had often happened before, the soundcommon-sense of Sir John had saved them from undue rashness andprecipitancy. They were getting on a little too fast. Their valuedfriend Miss Travers had made what he was not ashamed to call asuggestion both rare and beautiful, but alas! in these prosaic moderndays the sordid question of pounds, shillings and pence could not bewholly disregarded. How much money would they have?

Everybody looked at Sir John. There was an awkward silence, in whichthe Squire joined.... 

Amid pushings and whisperings from his corner of the room, CharlieRudd said that he would just like to say a few words for the boys, ifall were willing. The Vicar said that certainly, certainly he might, my dear Rudd. So Charlie said that he would just like to say that withall respect to Miss Travers, who was a real lady, and many was thepacket of fags he'd had from her out there, and all the other boyscould say the same, and if some of them joined up sooner than others, well perhaps they did, but they all tried to do their bit, just likethose who stayed at home, and they'd thrashed Jerry, and glad of it, fountains or no fountains, and pleased to be back again and see themall, just the same as ever, Mr. Bates and Mr. Embury and all of them, which was all he wanted to say, and the other boys would say the same, hoping no offence was meant, and that was all he wanted to say. 

When the applause had died down, Mr. Clayton said that, in hisopinion, as he had said before, they were getting on too fast. Didthey want a fountain, that was the question. Who wanted it? The Vicarreplied that it would be a beautiful memento for their children of thestirring times through which their country had passed. Embury asked ifMr. Bates' child wanted a memento of----"This is a general question, my dear Embury, " said the Vicar. 

There rose slowly to his feet the landlord of the Dog and Duck. Celebrations, he said. We were celebrating this here peace. Now, asman to man, what did celebrations mean? He asked any of them. What didit mean? Celebrations meant celebrating, and celebrating meant sittingdown hearty-like, sitting down like Englishmen and--and celebrating. First, find how much money they'd got, same as Sir John said; that wasright and proper. Then if so be as they wanted to leave the rest tohim, well he'd be proud to do his best for them. They knew him. Dofair by him and he'd do fair by them. Soon as he knew how much moneythey'd got, and how many were going to sit down, then he could get towork. That was all _he'd_ got to say about celebrations. 

The enthusiasm was tremendous. Rut the Vicar looked anxious, andwhispered to the Squire. The Squire shrugged his shoulders andmurmured something, and the Vicar rose. They would be all glad tohear, he said, glad but not surprised, that with his customarygenerosity the Squire had decided to throw open his own beautifulgardens and pleasure-grounds to them on Peace Day and to take upon hisown shoulders the burden of entertaining them. He would suggest thatthey now give Sir John three hearty cheers. This was done, and theproceedings closed. 

 A Train of Thought

On the same day I saw two unsettling announcements in the papers. Thefirst said simply, underneath a suitable photograph, that the ski-ingseason was now in full swing in Switzerland; the second explainedelaborately why it cost more to go from London to the Riviera and backthan from the Riviera to London and back. Both announcements unsettledme considerably. They would upset anybody for whom the umbrella seasonin London was just opening, and who was wondering what was the cost ofa return ticket to Manchester. 

At first I amused myself with trying to decide whether I should preferit to be the Riviera or Switzerland this Christmas. Switzerland won;not because it is more invigorating, but because I had just discovereda woollen helmet and a pair of ski-ing boots, relics of an earliervisit. I am thus equipped for Switzerland already, whereas for theRiviera I should want several new suits. One of the chief beauties ofSwitzerland (other than the mountains) is that it is so uncritical ofthe visitor's wardrobe. So long as he has a black coat for theevenings, it demands nothing more. In the day-time he may fall aboutin whatever he pleases. Indeed, it is almost an economy to go therenow and work off some of one's moth-collecting khaki on it. The sockswhich are impossible with our civilian clothes could renew their youthas the middle pair of three, inside a pair of ski-ing boots. 

Yet to whichever I went this year, Switzerland or the Riviera, I thinkit would be money wasted. I am one of those obvious people who detestan uncomfortable railway journey, and the journey this year willcertainly be uncomfortable. But I am something more than this; I amone of those uncommon people who enjoy a comfortable railway journey. I mean that I enjoy it as an entertainment in itself, not only as arelief from the hair-shirts of previous journeys. I would much soonergo by _wagonlit_ from Calais to Monte Carlo in twenty hours, than bymagic carpet in twenty seconds. I am even looking forward to myjourney to Manchester, supposing that there is no great rush for theplace on my chosen day. The scenery as one approaches Manchester maynot be beautiful, but I shall be quite happy in my corner facing theengine. 

Nowhere can I think so happily as in a train. I am not inspired;nothing so uncomfortable as that. I am never seized with a sudden ideafor a masterpiece, nor form a sudden plan for some new enterprise. Mythoughts are just pleasantly reflective. I think of all the good deedsI have done, and (when these give out) of all the good deeds I amgoing to do. I look out of the window and say lazily to myself, "Howjolly to live there"; and a little farther on, "How jolly not tolive there. " I see a cow, and I wonder what it is like to be a cow, and I wonder whether the cow wonders what it is to be like me; andperhaps, by this time, we have passed on to a sheep, and I wonder ifit is more fun being a sheep. My mind wanders on in a way which wouldannoy Pelman a good deal, but it wanders on quite happily, and the"clankety-clank" of the train adds a very soothing accompaniment. Sosoothing, indeed, that at any moment I can close my eyes and pass intoa pleasant state of sleep. 

But this entertainment which my train provides for me is doublyentertaining if it be but the overture to greater delights. If somemagic property which the train possesses--whether it be the motion orthe clankety-clank--makes me happy even when I am only thinking abouta cow, is it any wonder that I am happy in thinking about thedelightful new life to which I am travelling? We are going to theRiviera, but I have had no time as yet in which to meditate properlyupon that delightful fact. I have been too busy saving up for it, doing work in advance for it, buying cloth for it. Between London andDover I have been worrying, perhaps, about the crossing; between Doverand Calais my worries have come to a head; but when I step into thetrain at Calais, then at last I can give myself up with a whole mindto the contemplation of the happy future. So long as the train doesnot stop, so long as nobody goes in or out of my carriage, I care nothow many hours the journey takes. I have enough happy thoughts to fillthem. 

All this, as I said, is not at all Pelman's idea of success in life;one should be counting cows instead of thinking of them; althoughpresumably a train journey would seem in any case a waste of time toThe Man Who Succeeds. But to those of us to whom it is no more a wasteof time than any other pleasant form of entertainment, thetrain-service to which we have had to submit lately has been doublydistressing. The bliss of travelling from London to Manchester wastorn from us and we were given purgatory instead. Things are a littlebetter now in England; if one chooses the right day one can still comesometimes upon the old happiness. But not yet on the Continent. In thehappy days before the war the journey out was almost the best part ofSwitzerland on the Riviera. I must wait until those days come backagain. 

 Melodrama

The most characteristic thing about a melodrama is that it alwaysbegins at 7. 30. The idea, no doubt, is that one is more in the moodfor this sort of entertainment after a high tea than after a latedinner. Plain living leads to plain thinking, and a solid foundationof eggs and potted meat leaves no room for appreciation of the finershades of conduct; Right is obviously Right, and Wrong is Wrong. Or itmay be also that the management wishes to allow us time for recoveryafterwards from the emotions of the evening; the play ends at 10. 30, so that we can build up the ravaged tissues again with a heartysupper. But whatever the reason for the early start, the result is thesame. We arrive at 7. 45 to find that we alone of the whole audiencehave been left out of the secret as to why Lord Algernon is to bepushed off the pier. 

For melodrama, unlike the more fashionable comedy, gets to grips atonce. It is well understood by every dramatist that a late-diningaudience needs several minutes of dialogue before it recovers from itsbewilderment at finding itself in a theatre at all. Even the expedientof printing the names of the characters on the programme in the orderin which they appear, and of letting them address each other franklyby name as soon as they come on the stage, fails to dispel the mists. The stalls still wear that vague, flustered look, as if they hadexpected a concert or a prize-fight and have just remembered that theconcert, of course, is to-morrow. For this reason a wise dramatistkeeps back his story until the brain of the more expensive seatsbegins to clear, and he is careful not to waste his jokes on the firstfive pages of his dialogue. 

But melodrama plays to cheap seats, and the purchaser of the cheapseat has come there to have his money's worth. Directly the curtaingoes up he is ready to collaborate. It is perfectly safe for theVillain to come on at once and reveal his dastardly plans; theaudience is alert for his confidences. 

"Curse that young cub, Dick Vereker, what ill-fortune has sent himacross my path? Already he has established himself in the affectionsof Lady Alicia, and if she consents to wed him my plans are foiled. Fortunately she does not know as yet that, by the will of her lateUncle Gregory, the ironmaster, two million pounds are settled upon theman who wins her hand. With two million pounds I could pay back mybetting losses and prevent myself from being turned out of theConstitutional Club. And now to put the marked ace of spades in youngVereker's coat-tail pocket. Ha!"

No doubt the audience is the more ready to assimilate this because itknew it was coming. As soon as the Villain steps on to the stage he isobviously the Villain; one does not need to peer at one's programmeand murmur, "Who is this, dear?" It is known beforehand that theHero will be falsely accused, and that not until the last act will heand his true love come together again. All that we are waiting to betold is whether it is to be a marked card, a forged cheque, or abloodstain this time; and (if, as is probable, the Heroine is forcedinto a marriage with the Villain) whether the Villain's first wife, whom he had deserted, will turn up during the ceremony or immediatelyafterwards. For the whole charm of a melodrama is that it is inessentials just like every other melodrama that has gone before. Theauthor may indulge his own fancies to the extent of calling theVillain Jasper or Eustace, of letting the Hero be ruined on thebattle-field or the Stock Exchange, but we are keeping an eye on himto see that he plays no tricks with our national drama. It is our playas well as his, and we have laid down the rules for it. Let the authorstick to them. 

It is strange how unconvincing the Hero is to his fellows on thestage, and how very convincing to us. That ringing voice, thosegleaming eyes--how is it that none of his companions seems able torecognize Innocence when it is shining forth so obviously? "I feelthat I never want to see your face again, " says the Heroine, when thediamond necklace is found in his hat-box, and we feel that she hasnever really seen it at all yet. "Good Heavens, madam, " we long tocry, "have you never been to a melodrama that you can be so deceived?Look again! Is it not the face of the Falsely Accused?" But probablyshe has not been to a melodrama. She moves in the best society, andthe thought of a high tea at 6. 30 would appal her. 

But let me confess that we in the audience are carried away sometimesby that ringing voice, those gleaming eyes. He has us, this Hero, inthe hollow of his hand (to borrow a phrase from the Villain). When thelimelight is playing round his brow, and he stands in the centre ofthe stage with clenched fists, oh! then he has us. "What! Betray myaged mother for filthy gold!" he cries, looking at us scornfully asif it was our suggestion. "Never, while yet breath remains in mybody!" What a cheer we give him then; a cheer which seems to implythat, having often betrayed our own mothers for half a crown or so, weare able to realize the heroic nature of his abstention on thisoccasion. For in the presence of the Hero we lose our sense of values. If he were to scorn an offer to sell his father for vivisectionalpurposes, we should applaud enthusiastically his altruism. 

But it is only the Hero who wins our cheers, only the Villain who winsour hisses. The minor characters are necessary, but we are not greatlyinterested in them. The Villain must have a confederate to whom he canreveal his wicked thoughts when he is tired of soliloquizing; the Heromust have friends who can tell each other all those things which amodest man cannot say for himself; there must be characters of lowerbirth, competent to relieve the tension by sitting down on their hatsor pulling chairs from beneath their acquaintances. We could not dowithout them, but we do not give them our hearts. Even the Heroineleaves us calm. However beautiful she be, she is not more than theHero deserves. It is the Hero whom we have come out to see, and it ispainful to reflect that in a little while he will he struggling to geton the 'bus for Walham Green, and be pushed off again just like therest of us. 

 A Lost Masterpiece

The short essay on "The Improbability of the Infinite" which I wasplanning for you yesterday will now never be written. Last night mybrain was crammed with lofty thoughts on the subject--and for thatmatter, on every other subject. My mind was never so fertile. Tenthousand words on any theme from Tin-tacks to Tomatoes would have beeneasy to me. That was last night. This morning I have only one word inmy brain, and I cannot get rid of it. The word is "Teralbay. "

Teralbay is not a word which one uses much in ordinary life. Rearrangethe letters, however, and it becomes such a word. A friend--no, I cancall him a friend no longer--a person gave me this collection ofletters as I was going to bed and challenged me to make a proper wordof it. He added that Lord Melbourne--this, he alleged, is a well-knownhistorical fact--Lord Melbourne had given this word to Queen Victoriaonce, and it had kept her awake the whole night. After this, one couldnot be so disloyal as to solve it at once. For two hours or so, therefore, I merely toyed with it. Whenever I seemed to be gettingwarm I hurriedly thought of something else. This quixotic loyalty hasbeen the undoing of me; my chances of a solution have slipped by, andI am beginning to fear that they will never return. While this is thecase, the only word I can write about is Teralbay. 

Teralbay--what does it make? There are two ways of solving a problemof this sort. The first is to waggle your eyes and see what you get. If you do this, words like "alterably" and "laboratory" emerge, which a little thought shows you to be wrong. You may then waggle youreyes again, look at it upside down or sideways, or stalk it carefullyfrom the southwest and plunge upon it suddenly when it is not readyfor you. In this way it may be surprised into giving up its secret. But if you find that it cannot be captured by strategy or assault, then there is only one way of taking it. It must be starved intosurrender. This will take a long time, but victory is certain. 

There are eight letters in Teralbay and two of them are the same, sothat there must be 181, 440 ways of writing the letters out. This maynot be obvious to you at once; you may have thought that it was only181, 439; but you may take my word for it that I am right. (Wait amoment while I work it out again.... Yes, that's it. ) Well, nowsuppose that you put down a new order of letters--such as"raytable"--every six seconds, which is very easy going, and supposethat you can spare an hour a day for it; then by the 303rd day--a yearhence, if you rest on Sundays--you are bound to have reached asolution. 

But perhaps this is not playing the game. This, I am sure, is not whatQueen Victoria did. And now I think of it, history does not tell uswhat she did do, beyond that she passed a sleepless night. (And thatshe still liked Melbourne afterwards--which is surprising. ) Did sheever guess it? Or did Lord Melbourne have to tell her in the morning, and did she say, "Why, of _course_!" I expect so. Or did LordMelbourne say, "I'm awfully sorry, madam, but I find I put a `y' intoo many?" But no--history could not have remained silent oversuch a tragedy as that. Besides, she went on liking him. 

When I die "Teralbay" will be written on my heart. While I live itshall be my telegraphic address. I shall patent a breakfast foodcalled "Teralbay"; I shall say "Teralbay!" when I miss a 2-ft. Putt; the Teralbay carnation will catch your eye at the Temple show. Ishall write anonymous letters over the name. "Fly at once; all isdiscovered--Teralbay. " Yes, that would look rather well. 

I wish I knew more about Lord Melbourne. What sort of words did hethink of? The thing couldn't he "aeroplane" or "telephone" or"googly, " because these weren't invented in his time. That gives usthree words less. Nor, probably, would it be anything to eat; a PrimeMinister would hardly discuss such subjects with his Sovereign. I haveno doubt that after hours of immense labour you will triumphantlysuggest "rateably. " I suggested that myself, but it is wrong. Thereis no such word in the dictionary. The same objection applies to"bat-early"--it ought to mean something, but it doesn't. 

So I hand the word over to you. Please do not send the solution to me, for by the time you read this I shall either have found it out or elseI shall be in a nursing home. In either case it will be of no use tome. Send it to the Postmaster-General or one of the Geddeses or MaryPickford. You will want to get it off your mind. 

As for myself I shall write to my fr----, to the person who first said"Teralbay" to me, and ask him to make something of "sabet" and"donureb. " When he has worked out the corrections--which, in case hegets the wrong ones, I may tell him here are "beast" and"bounder"--I shall search the dictionary for some long word like"intellectual. " I shall alter the order of the letters and throw ina couple of "g's" and a "k". And then I shall tell them to keep aspare bed for him in my nursing home. 

Well, I have got "Teralbay" a little off my mind. I feel better ablenow to think of other things. Indeed, I might almost begin my famousessay on "The Improbability of the Infinite. " It would be a pity forthe country to lose such a masterpiece--she has had quite enoughtrouble already what with one thing and another. For my view of theInfinite is this: that although beyond the Finite, or, as one mightsay, the Commensurate, there may or may not be a----

Just a moment. I think I have it now. T--R--A----No.... 

 A Hint for Next Christmas

There has been some talk lately of the standardization of golf balls, but a more urgent reform is the standardization of Christmas presents. It is no good putting this matter off; let us take it in hand now, sothat we shall be in time for next Christmas. 

My crusade is on behalf of those who spend their Christmas away fromhome. Last year I returned (with great difficulty) from such anadventure and I am more convinced than ever that Christmas presentsshould conform to a certain standard of size. My own little offeringswere thoughtfully chosen. A match-box, a lace handkerchief or two, acigarette-holder, a pencil and note-book, _Gems from Wilcox_, and soon; such gifts not only bring pleasure (let us hope) to the recipient, but take up a negligible amount of room in one's bag, and add hardlyanything to the weight of it. Of course, if your fellow-visitor saysto you, "How sweet of you to give me such a darling littlehandkerchief--it's just what I wanted--how ever did you think of it?"you do not reply, "Well, it was a choice between that and ahundredweight of coal, and I'll give you two guesses why I chose thehandkerchief. " No; you smile modestly and say, "As soon as I saw it, I felt somehow that it was yours"; after which you are almost in aposition to ask your host casually where he keeps the mistletoe. 

But it is almost a certainty that the presents you receive will nothave been chosen with such care. Probably the young son of the househas been going in for carpentry lately, and in return for your tie-pinhe gives you a wardrobe of his own manufacture. You thank himheartily, you praise its figure, but all the time you are wishing thatit had chosen some other occasion. Your host gives you a statuette ora large engraving; somebody else turns up with a large brasscandle-stick. It is all very gratifying, but you have got to get backto London somehow, and, thankful though you are not to have receivedthe boar-hound or parrot-in-cage which seemed at one time to bethreatening, you cannot help wishing that the limits of size for aChristmas present had been decreed by some authority who was familiarwith the look of your dressing-case. 

Obviously, too, there should be a standard value for a certain type ofChristmas present. One may give what one will to one's own family orparticular friends; that is all right. But in a Christmas house-partythere is a pleasant interchange of parcels, of which the string andthe brown paper and the kindly thought are the really importantingredients, and the gift inside is nothing more than an excuse forthese things. It is embarrassing for you if Jones has apologized forhis brown paper with a hundred cigars, and you have only excusedyourself with twenty-five cigarettes; perhaps still more embarrassingif it is you who have lost so heavily on the exchange. Anunderstanding that the contents were to be worth five shillingsexactly would avoid this embarassment. 

And now I am reminded of the ingenuity of a friend of mine, William byname, who arrived at a large country house for Christmas without anypresent in his bag. He had expected neither to give nor to receiveanything, but to his horror he discovered on the 24th that everybodywas preparing a Christmas present for him, and that it was taken forgranted that he would require a little privacy and brown paper onChristmas Eve for the purpose of addressing his own offerings toothers. He had wild thoughts of telegraphing to London for somethingto be sent down, and spoke to other members of the house-party inorder to discover what sort of presents would be suitable. 

"What are you giving our host P" he asked one of them. 

"Mary and I are giving him a book, " said John, referring to hiswife. 

William then approached the youngest son of the house, and discoveredthat he and his next brother Dick were sharing in this, that, and theother. When he had heard this, William retired to his room and thoughtprofoundly. He was the first down to breakfast on Christmas morning. All the places at the table were piled high with presents. He lookedat John's place. The top parcel said, "To John and Mary fromCharles. " William took out his fountain-pen and added a couple ofwords to the inscription. It then read, "To John and Mary fromCharles and William, " and in William's opinion looked just aseffective as before. He moved on to the next place. "To Angela fromFather, " said the top parcel. "And William, " wrote William. At hishostess' place he hesitated for a moment. The first present there wasfor "Darling Mother, from her loving children. " It did not seem thatan "and William" was quite suitable. But his hostess was not to bedeprived of William's kindly thought; twenty seconds later thehandkerchiefs "from John and Mary and William" expressed all thenice things which he was feeling for her. He passed on to the nextplace.... 

It is, of course, impossible to thank every donor of a joint gift; onesimply thanks the first person whose eye one happens to catch. Sometimes William's eye was caught, sometimes not. But he was sparedall embarrassment; and I can recommend his solution of the problemwith perfect confidence to those who may be in a similar predicamentnext Christmas. 

There is a minor sort of Christmas present about which also a fewwords must be said; I refer to the Christmas card. 

The Christmas card habit is a very pleasant one, but it, too, needs tobe disciplined. I doubt if many people understand its proper function. This is partly the result of our bringing up; as children we wereallowed (quite rightly) to run wild in the Christmas card shop, withone of two results. Either we still run wild, or else the reaction hasset in and we avoid the Christmas card shop altogether. We convey ourprinted wishes for a happy Christmas to everybody or to nobody. Thisis a mistake. In our middle-age we should discriminate. 

The child does not need to discriminate. It has two shillings in thehand and about twenty-four relations. Even in my time two shillingsdid not go far among twenty-four people. But though presents were outof the question, one could get twenty-four really beautiful Christmascards for the money, and if some of them were ha'penny ones, then onecould afford real snow on a threepenny one for the most importantuncle, meaning by "most important, " perhaps (but I have forgottennow), the one most likely to be generous in return. Of the fun ofchoosing those twenty-four cards I need not now speak, nor of the bestmethod of seeing to it that somebody else paid for the necessarytwenty-four stamps. But certainly one took more trouble in suiting thetastes of those who were to receive the cards than the richest andmost leisured grown-up would take in selecting a diamond necklace forhis wife's stocking or motor-cars for his sons-in-law. It was not onlya question of snow, but also of the words in which the old, old wishwas expressed. If the aunt who was known to be fond of poetry did notget something suitable from Eliza Cook, one might regard her Christmasas ruined. How could one grudge the trouble necessary to make herChristmas really happy for her? One might even explore the fourpennybox. 

But in middle-age--by which I mean anything over twenty and underninety--one knows too many people. One cannot give them a Christmascard each; there is not enough powdered glass to go round. One has todiscriminate, and the way in which most of us discriminate is eitherto send no cards to anybody or else to send them to the first twentyor fifty or hundred of our friends (according to our income andenergy) whose names come into our minds. Such cards are meaningless;but if we sent our Christmas cards to the right people, we could makethe simple words upon them mean something very much more than a merewish that the recipient's Christmas shall be "merry" (which it willbe anyhow, if he likes merriness) and his New Year "bright" (which, let us hope, it will not be). 

"A merry Christmas, " with an old church in the background and arobin in the foreground, surrounded by a wreath of holly-leaves. Itmight mean so much. What I feel that it ought to mean is somethinglike this:--

"You live at Potters Bar and I live at Petersham. Of course, if wedid happen to meet at the Marble Arch one day, it would be awfullyjolly, and we could go and have lunch together somewhere, and talkabout old times. But our lives have drifted apart since those olddays. It is partly the fault of the train-service, no doubt. Glad as Ishould be to see you, I don't like to ask you to come all the way toPetersham to dinner, and if you asked me to Potters Bar--well, Ishould come, but it would be something of a struggle, and I thank youfor not asking me. Besides, we have made different friends now, andour tastes are different. After we had talked about the old days, Idoubt if we should have much to say to each other. Each of us wouldthink the other a bit of a bore, and our wives would wonder why we hadever been friends at Liverpool. But don't think I have forgotten you. I just send this card to let you know that I am still alive, still atthe same address, and that I still remember you. No need, if we everdo meet, or if we ever want each other's help, to begin by saying: `Isuppose you have quite forgotten those old days at Liverpool. ' We haveneither of us forgotten; and so let us send to each other, once ayear, a sign that we have not forgotten, and that once upon a time wewere friends. 'A merry Christmas to you. '"

That is what a Christmas card should say. It is absurd to say this toa man or woman whom one is perpetually ringing up on the telephone; tosomebody whom one met last week or with whom one is dining the weekafter; to a man whom one may run across at the club on almost any day, or a woman whom one knows to shop daily at the same stores as oneself. It is absurd to say it to a correspondent to whom one often writes. Let us reserve our cards for the old friends who have dropped out ofour lives, and let them reserve their cards for us. 

But, of course, we must have kept their addresses; otherwise we haveto print our cards publicly--as I am doing now. "Old friends willplease accept this, the only intimation. "

 The Future

The recent decision that, if a fortune-teller honestly believes whatshe is saying, she is not defrauding her client, may be good law, butit does not sound like good sense. To a layman like myself it wouldseem more sensible to say that, if the client honestly believes whatthe fortune-teller is saying, then the client is not being defrauded. 

For instance, a fortune-teller may inform you, having pocketed yourtwo guineas, that a rich uncle in Australia is going to leave you amillion pounds next year. She doesn't promise you the million poundsherself; obviously that is coming to you anyhow, fortune-teller or nofortune-teller. There is no suggestion on her part that she isarranging your future for you. All that she promises to do for twoguineas is to give you a little advance information. She tells youthat you are coming into a million pounds next year, and if youbelieve it, I should say that it was well worth the money. You have ayear's happiness (if that sort of thing makes you happy), a year inwhich to tell yourself in every trouble, "Never mind, there's a goodtime coming"; a year in which to make glorious plans for the future, to build castles in the air, or (if your taste is not for castles)country cottages and Mayfair flats. And all this for two guineas; itis amazingly cheap. 

And now consider what happens when the year is over. Thefortune-teller has done her part; she has given you a year's happinessfor two guineas. It is now your uncle's turn to step forward. He isgoing to give you twenty years' happiness by leaving you a millionpounds. Probably he doesn't; he hasn't got a million pounds to leave;he has, in fact, just written to you to ask you to lend him a fiver. Well, surely it is the uncle who has let you down, not thefortune-teller. Curse him by all means, cut him out of your will, butdon't blame the fortune-teller, who fulfilled her part of thecontract. The only reason why you went to her was to get yourhappiness in advance. Well, you got it in advance; and seeing that itwas the only happiness you got, her claim on your gratitude shines outthe more clearly. You might decently send her another guinea. 

This is the case if you honestly believe your fortune-teller. Now letus suppose that you don't believe. It seems to me that in this caseyou are entitled to the return of your money. 

Of course, I am not supposing that you are a complete sceptic aboutthese things. It is plainly impossible for a fortune-teller to defrauda sceptic, otherwise than by telling him the truth. For if a scepticwent to consult the crystal, and was told that he would marry againbefore the month was out, when in fact he was a bachelor, then he hasnot been defrauded, for he is now in a position to tell all hisfriends that fortune-telling is absolute nonsense--on evidence forwhich he deliberately paid two guineas. Indeed, it is just on thisground that police prosecutions seem to me to fail. For a policeman(suitably disguised) pays his money simply for the purpose of gettingevidence against the crystal-gazer. Having got his evidence, it isridiculous of him to pretend that he has been cheated. But if hewasted two guineas of the public money, and was told nothing but thetruth about himself and his family, then he could indeed complain thatthe money had been taken from him under false pretences. 

However, to get back to your own case. You, we assume, are not asceptic. You believe that certain inspired people can tell yourfuture, and that the fee which they ask for doing this is a reasonableone. But on this particular occasion the spirits are not workingproperly, and all that emerges is that your uncle in Australia----

But with the best will in the world you cannot believe this. Thespirits must have got mixed; they are slightly under-proof thismorning; you have no uncle. The fortune-teller gives you her word ofhonour that she firmly believes you to have at least three uncles inAustralia, one of whom will shortly leave you a mill---- It is nogood. You cannot believe it. And it seems to me that on the morning'stransaction you have certainly been defrauded. You must insist on "atall dark man from India" at the next sitting. 

It is "the tall dark man" which the amateur crystal-gazer reallywants. He doesn't want the future. There is so little to foretell inmost of our lives. Nobody is going to pay two guineas to be told thathe will be off his drive next Saturday and have a stomach-ache on thefollowing Monday. He wants something a little more romantic than that. Even if he is never going to be influenced by a tall dark man fromIndia, it makes life a little more interesting to be told that he isgoing to be. 

For the average man finds life very uninteresting as it is. And Ithink that the reason why he finds it uninteresting is that he isalways waiting for something to happen to him instead of setting towork to make things happen. For one person who dreams of earning fiftythousand pounds, a hundred people dream of being left fifty thousandpounds. I imagine that if a young man went to a crystal-gazer and wastold that he would work desperately hard for the next twenty years, and would by that time have earned (and saved) a fortune, he would bevery disappointed. Probably he would ask for his money back. 

 The Largest Circulation

There died recently a gentleman named Nat Gould, twenty million copiesof whose books had been sold. They were hardly ever reviewed in theliterary papers; advertisements of them rarely appeared; no puffs norphotographs of the author were thrust upon one, Unostentatiously hewrote them--five in a year--and his million public was assured to him. It is perhaps too late now to begin to read them, but we cannot helpwondering whence came his enormous popularity. 

Mr. Gould, as all the world knows, wrote racing novels. They werecalled, _Won by a Neck_, or _Lost by a Head_, or _Odds On_, or _TheStable-lad's Dilemma_. Every third man in the Army carried one aboutwith him. I was unlucky in this matter, for all my men belonged to theother two-thirds; they read detective stories about a certain SextonBlake, who kept bursting into rooms and finding finger-marks. In yourinnocence you may think that Sherlock Holmes is the supreme Britishdetective, but he is a child to Blake. If I learnt nothing else in theArmy, I learnt that. Possibly these detective stories were a side-lineof Mr. Gould's, or possibly my regiment was the one anti-Gouldregiment in the Army. At any rate, I was demobilized without anyacquaintance with the _Won by a Neck_ stories. 

There must be something about the followers of racing which makes themdifferent from the followers of any other sport. I suppose that I amat least as keen on the Lunch Scores as any other man can be on theTwo-thirty Winner; yet I have no desire whatever to read a successionof stories entitled _How's That, Umpire?_ or _Run Out_, or _Lost by aWicket_. I can waste my time and money with as much pleasure on thegolf-course as Mr. Gould's readers can on the race-course, but thosegreat works, _Stymied_ and _The Foozle on the Fifth Tee_, leave mecold. My lack of interest in racing explains my lack of interest inracing novels, but why is there no twenty million public for_Off-side_ and _Fouled on the Touchline_? It is a mystery. 

Though I have never read a racing novel, I can imagine it quiteeasily. Lord Newmarket's old home is mortgaged, mortgaged everywhere. His house is mortgaged, his park is mortgaged, his stud is mortgaged, his tie-pin is mortgaged; yet he wants to marry Lady Angela. How canhe restore his old home to its earlier glories? There is only onechance. He must put his shirt (the only thing that isn't mortgaged) onFido for the Portland Vase. Fido is a rank outsider--most of thebookmakers thought that he was a fox-terrier, not a horse--and he isstarting at a thousand to one. When the starting-gate goes up, Fidowill carry not only Lord Newmarket's shirt, but Lady Angela'shappiness. Was there ever such a race before in the history of racing?Only in the five thousand other racing novels. But Lord Newmarket isreckoning without Rupert Blacknose. Blacknose has not only sworn towed Lady Angela, but it is he who holds the mortgages on LordNewmarket's old home. It is at Newmarket Villa that he means to settledown when he is married. If Fido wins, his dreams are shattered. Atdead of night he climbs into Fido's stable, and paints him white witha few black splotches. Surely _now_ he will be disqualified as afox-terrier! He climbs out again, laughing sardonically to himself.... The day of the great race dawns. The Portland Vasel Who has not heardof it? In the far-away Malay Archipelago... In the remotest parts ofthe Australian bush... In West Kensington... Etc. , etc. Anyway, thedowns were black with people, and the stands were black with morepeople, and the paddock was packed with black people. But of all thesepeople none concealed beneath a mask of impassivity a heart moreanxious than Lord Newmarket's. He wandered restlessly into theweighing-room. He weighed himself. He had gone down a pound. Hewandered out again. The downs were still black with humanity. Thencame a hoarse cry from twenty thousand throats. _"They're off!"_

Yes, well, Mr. Gould's novels are probably better than that. But it isa terrifying thought that he wrote a hundred and thirty of them. Ahundred and thirty times he described that hoarse cry from twentythousand throats, "They're off!" A hundred and thirty times hedescribed the downs black with humanity, and the grandstand, and therace itself, and what the bookmakers were saying, and the scene in thepaddock. How did he do it? Had he a special rubber stamp for all theseusual features, which saved him the trouble of writing them everytime? Or did he come quite fresh to it with each book? He wrote fiveof them every year; did he forget in March what he said in January, only to forget in June and visualize the scene afresh? To describe arace-course a hundred thirty times--what a man!

Yet perhaps, after all, it is not difficult to understand why he wasso popular, why he had a following even greater than Mr. Garvice. Mr. Garvice wrote love-stories, stories of that sweet and fair youngEnglish girl and that charming, handsome, athletic young Englishman. Every one who is not yet in love, or who is unhappily married, dreamsof meeting one or the other, and to read such stories transports theloveless for a moment into the land where they would be. But thenthere are many more moneyless people in the world than loveless; manymore people who want money than who want love. It is these people whoare transported by Mr. Nat Gould. He does not (I imagine) write of thestern-chinned, silent millionaire who has forced his way to the top bysolid grit; we have no hopes of getting rich that way. But he does (Iimagine) write of the lucky fellow who puts his shirt both ways on anoutsider and pulls off a cool thousand. Well, that might happen to anyof us. It never has yet... But five times a year Mr. Gould carried usaway from the world where it never has into that beautiful dream-worldwhere it happens quite naturally. No wonder that he was popular. 

 The Watson Touch

There used to be a song which affirmed (how truly, I do not know) thatevery nice girl loved a sailor. I am prepared to state, though I donot propose to make a song about it, that every nice man loves adetective story. This week I have been reading the last adventures ofSherlock Holmes--I mean really the last adventures, ending with histriumph over the German spy in 1914. Having saved the Empire, Holmesreturned to his farm on the Sussex downs, and there, for all I mind, he may stay. I have no great affection for the twentieth-centuryHolmes. But I will give the warmest welcome to as many adventures ofthe Baker Street Holmes as Watson likes to reconstruct for us. Thereis no reason why the supply of these should ever give out. "It was, Iremember, at the close of a winter's day in 1894"--when Watson beginslike this, then I am prepared to listen. Fortunately, all the storiesin this last book, with the exception of the very indifferent spystory, are of the Baker Street days, the days when Watson said, "Holmes, this is marvellous!" Reading them now--with, I suppose, amore critical mind than I exhibited twenty years ago--I see thatHolmes was not only a great detective, but a very lucky one. There isan occasion when he suddenly asks the doctor why he had a Turkishbath. Utterly unnerved, Watson asks how he knew, to which the greatdetective says that it is as obvious as is the fact that the doctorhad shared a hansom with a friend that morning. But when Holmesexplains further, we see how lucky he is. Watson, he says, has somemud on his left trouser; therefore he sat on the left side of ahansom; therefore he shared it with a friend, for otherwise he wouldhave sat in the middle. Watson's boots, he continues, had obviouslybeen tied by a stranger; therefore he has had them off in a Turkishbath or a boot shop, and since the newness of the boots makes itunlikely that he has been buying another pair, therefore he must havebeen to a Turkish bath. "Holmes, " says Watson, "this ismarvellous!"

Marvellously lucky, anyway. For, however new his boots, poor oldWatson might have been buying a pair of pumps, or bedroom slippers, ortennis shoes that morning, or even, if the practice allowed suchextravagance, a second pair of boots. And there was, of course, noreason whatever why he should not have sat at the side of his hansom, even if alone. It is much more comfortable, and is, in fact, what onealways did in the hansom days, and still does in a taxi. So if Holmeswas right on this occasion, he was right by luck and not by deduction. 

But that must be the best of writing a detective story, that you canalways make the lucky shots come off. In no other form of fiction, Iimagine, does the author feel so certainly that he is the captain ofthe ship. If he wants it so, he has it so. Is the solution going to betoo easy! Then he puts in an unexpected footprint in the geranium bed, or a strange face at the window, and makes it more difficult, Is thereader being kept too much in the dark? Then a conversation overheardin the library will make it easier for him. The author's only troubleis that he can never be certain whether his plot is too obscure or tooobvious. He knows himself that the governess is guilty, and, inconsequence, she can hardly raise her eyebrows without seeming to himto give the whole thing away. 

There was a time when I began to write a detective story for myself. My murder, I thought, was rather cleverly carried out. The villainsent a letter to his victim, enclosing a stamped addressed envelopefor an answer. The gum of the envelope was poisoned. I did not know, nor did I bother to find out, whether it was possible, but this, as Isaid just now, is the beauty of writing a detective story. If there isno such quick-working poison, then you invent one. If up to the momentwhen the doubt occurs to you, your villain had been living in Brixton, you immediately send him to Central Africa, where he extracts a poisonfrom a "deadly root" according to the prescription of the chiefmedicine-man. ("It is the poison into which the Swabiji dip theirarrows, " you tell the reader casually, as if he really ought to haveknown it for himself. ) Well, then, I invented my poison, and myvillain put it on the gum of a self-addressed envelope, and enclosedit with a letter asking for his victim's autograph. He then posted theletter, whereupon a very tragic thing happened. 

What happened was that, having left the letter in the post for someyears while I formed fours and saluted, I picked up a magazine in theMess one day and began to read a detective story. It was a verybaffling one, and I really didn't see how the murderer could possiblyhave committed his foul deed. But the detective was on to it at once. He searched the wastepaper basket, and, picking an envelope therefrom, said "Ha!" It was just about then that I said "Ha!" too, and alsoother things, for my half-finished story was now useless. Somebodyelse had thought of the same idea. But though I was very sorry forthis, I could not help feeling proud that my idea made such a goodstory. Indeed, since then I have fancied myself rather as adetective-story-writer, and if only I could think of something whichnobody else would think of while I was thinking of it, I would tryagain. 

 Some Old Companions

In the days of the last-war-but-thirty-seven, when (as you willremember) the Peers were fighting the People, Lord Curzon defended thehereditary system by telling us that it worked very well in India, where a tailor's son invariably became a tailor. The obvious answer, if anyone bothered to give it, was that the tailor's son, having hadhis career mapped out for him at birth, presumably prepared to be atailor, whereas a peer's eldest son, as far as one observed, did notprepare to be a statesman. Indeed, the only profession in this countryto which one is apprenticed in one's childhood is that of royalty. Thefuture King can begin to learn the "tactful smile, " the "memory forfaces, " the knowledge of foreign languages and orders, almost as soonas he begins to learn anything. He alone need not regret his youth andsay, "If only I had been taught this, that, and the other instead!"

These gloomy reflections have been forced on me by the re-discovery ofall those educational books which I absorbed, or was supposed to haveabsorbed, at school and college. They made an imposing collection whenI had got them all together; fifty mathematical works by eminent Den, from a well-thumbed, dog's-eared _Euclid_ to a clean uncut copy of_Functions of a Quaternion_. It is doubtful if you even know what aquaternion is, still less how it functions; probably you think of itas a small four-legged animal with a hard shell. You may be right--itis so long since I bought the book. But once I knew all aboutquaternions; kept them, possibly, at the bottom of the garden; and nowI ask myself in Latin (for I learnt Latin too), _"Cui bono?"_ Howmuch better if I had learnt this, that, and the other instead!

History for instance. How useful a knowledge of history would be to menow. To lighten an article like this with a reference to whatGaribaldi said to Cavour in '53; to round off a sentence with thecasual remark, "As was the custom in Alexander's day"; to trace backa religious tendency, or a fair complexion, or the price of boots tosome barbarian invasion of a thousand years ago--how delightfully easyit would be, I tell myself, to write with such knowledge at one'sdisposal. One would never be at a loss for a subject, and plots forstories, plays, and historical novels would be piled up in one's brainfor the choosing. But what can one do with mathematics--save count thewords of an article (when written) with rather more quickness andaccuracy than one's fellow writer? Did I spend ten years atmathematics for this? The waste of it!

But perhaps those years were not so wasted as they seem to have been. Not only Functions of a Quaternion, but other of these books, chattybooks about hydro-mechanics and dynamics of a particle (no, not anarticle--that might have been helpful--a particle), gossipy booksabout optics and differential equations, many of these have acomforting air of cleanness; as if, having bought them at theinstigation of my instructor, I had felt that this was enough, andthat their mere presence in my bookcase was a sufficient talisman; atalisman the more effective because my instructor had marked some ofthe chapters "R"--meaning, no doubt, _"Read carefully"_--and otherchapters "RR" or _"Read twice as carefully. "_ For these seem to bethe only marks in some of the books, and there are no traces ofmidnight oil nor of that earnest thumb which one might expect from theperspiring seeker after knowledge. 

So I feel--indeed, I seem to remember--that the years were not sowasted after all. When I should have been looking after myquaternions, I was doing something else, something not so useful toone who would be a mathematician, but perhaps more useful to a writerwho had already learnt enough to count the words in an article and toestimate the number of guineas due to him. But whether this be so ornot, at least I have another reason for gratitude that I treated someof these volumes so reverently. For I have now sold them all to asecondhand bookseller, and he at least was influenced by the cleanlook of those which I had placed upon the top. 

So they stand now, my books, in a shelf outside the shop waiting for anew master. Fifteen shillings I paid for some of them, and you oranybody else can get them for three and sixpence, with my autographinside and the "R" and "RR" of some of our most learnedmathematicians. I should like to hear from the purchaser, and to knowthat he is giving my books as kind a home as I gave them, treatingthem as reverently, exercising them as gently. He can never be amathematician, or anything else, unless he has them on his shelves, but let him not force his attentions upon them. Left to themselvesthey will exert their own influence. 

I shall wonder sometimes what he is going to be, this young fellow whois now reading the books on which I was brought up. Spurred on by thedifferential equations, will he decide to be a lawyer, or will thedynamics of a particle help him to realize his ambition of painting?Well, whatever he becomes, I wish him luck. And when he sells thebooks again, may he get a better price than I did. 

 A Haunted House

We have been trying to hide it from each other, but the truth must nowcome out. Our house is haunted. 

Well, of course, anybody's house might be haunted. Anybody might havea headless ghost walking about the battlements or the bath-room atmidnight, and if it were no more than that, I should not trouble youwith the details. But our house is haunted in a peculiar way. No housethat I have heard of has ever been affected in quite this way before. 

I must begin by explaining that it is a new house, built just beforethe war. (Before the war, not after; this is a true story. ) Its firstand only tenant was a Mrs. Watson-Watson, who lived here with herdaughter. Add her three servants, and you have filled the house. Nodoubt she could have stowed people away in the cellar, but I havenever heard that she did; she preferred to keep it for such coal andwood as came her way. When Mrs. Watson-Watson decided six months agoto retire to the country, we took the house, and have lived heresince. And very comfortably, except for this haunting business. 

As was to be expected, we were busy for the first few weeks in sendingon Mrs. Watson-Watson's letters. Gradually, as the news of her removalgot round to her less intimate friends, the flow of them grew less, and at last--to our great relief, for we were always mislaying heraddress--it ceased altogether. It was not until then that we feltourselves to be really in possession of our house. 

We were not in possession for long. A month later a letter arrived forLady Elizabeth Mullins. Supposing this to be a _nom-de-guerre_ of Mrs. Watson-Watson's, we searched for, and with great difficulty found, themissing address, and sent the letter on. Next day there were two moreletters for Lady Elizabeth; by the end of the week there were half adozen; and for the rest of that month they came trickling in at therate of one a day. Mrs. Watson-Watson's address was now definitelylost, so we tied Lady-Elizabeth's letters up in a packet and sent themto the ground-landlord's solicitors. Solicitors like letters. 

It was annoying at this time, when one was expecting, perhaps, a veryimportant cheque or communication from the Prime Minister, to godownstairs eagerly at the postman's knock and find a couple of lettersfor Lady Elizabeth and a belated copy of the _Church Times_ for Mrs. Watson-Watson. It was still more annoying, that, just when we weregetting rid of Lady Elizabeth, Mr. J. Garcia should have arrived totake her place. 

Mr. Garcia seems to be a Spaniard. At any rate, most of his letterscame from Spain. This makes it difficult to know what to do with them. There was something clever in Spanish on the back of the last one, which may be the address to which we ought to return it, but on theother hand, may be just the Spanish for "Always faithful" or"Perseverance" or "Down with the bourgeoisie. " He seems to be abusier person than Lady Elizabeth. Ten people wrote to him the otherweek, whereas there were never more than seven letters in a week forher ladyship. 

Until lately, I have always been annoyed by the fact that there is noSunday post in London. To come down to breakfast knowing that on thismorning anyhow there is no chance of an O. B. E. Takes the edge offone's appetite. But lately, I have been glad of the weekly respite. For one day in seven I can do without the excitement of wonderingwhether there will be three letters for Mr. Garcia this morning, ortwo for Lady Elizabeth, or three for Lady Elizabeth, or one for Mrs. Watson-Watson. I will gladly let my own correspondence go in order tobe saved from theirs. But on Sunday last, about tea-time, there came aknock at the front-door and the unmistakable scuttle of a letter beingpushed through the slit and dropping into the hall, My senses are nowso acute in this matter, that I can almost distinguish the scuffle ofa genuine Garcia from that of a Mullins or even a Watson-Watson. Therewas a novelty about this arrival which was interesting. I went intothe hall, and saw a letter on the floor, unstamped and evidentlydelivered by hand. It was inscribed to Sir John Poling. 

Will somebody offer an explanation? I have given you ourstory--leaving out as accidental, and not of sufficient historicinterest, the postcard to the Countess of Westbury and the obviousincome-tax form to Colonel Todgers, C. B. --and I feel that it is up toyou or the Psychical Research Society or somebody to tell us what itall means. My own explanation is this. I think that our house ishaunted by ghosts, but by the ghosts of living persons only, and thatthese ghosts are visible to outsiders, but invisible to the inmatesThus Mr. Lopez, while passing down our street, suddenly sees J. Garcialooking at him from our drawing-room window. "Caramba!" he says, "Ithought he was in Barcelona. " He makes a note of the address, andwhen he gets back to Spain writes long letters to Garcia begging himto come back to his Barcelonian wife and family. At another timesomebody else sees Sir John Poling letting himself in at the frontdoor with a latch-key. "So that's where he lives now, " she says toherself, and spreads the news among their mutual friends. Of course, this is very annoying for us, and one cannot help wishing that theseghosts would confine themselves to one of the back bedrooms. Failingthis, they might leave some kind of address in indelible letters onthe bath-mat. 

Another explanation is that our address has become in some way a sortof typical address, just as "Thomas Atkins" became the typicalsoldier for the purpose of filling up forms, and "John Doe" thetypical litigant. When a busy woman puts our address on an envelopebeneath the name of Lady Elizabeth Mullins, all she means is that LadyElizabeth lives somewhere, and that the secretary had better look upthe proper address and write it in before posting the letter. Everynow and then the secretary forgets to do this, and the letter comeshere. This may be a compliment to the desirability of our house, butit is a compliment of which we are getting tired. I must ask that itshould now cease. 

 Round the World and Back

A friend of mine is just going off for his holiday. He is having alonger holiday than usual this time. Instead of his customary threeweeks, he is having a year, and he is going to see the world. Hebegins with India. Probably some of our Territorials will wonder whyhe wants to see India particularly. They would gladly give him all ofit. However, he is determined to go, and I cannot do less than wishhim luck and a safe return. 

There are several places to which I should be glad to accompany him, but India is not one of them. Kipling ruined India for me, as Isuspect he did for many other of his readers. I picture India as fullof intriguing, snobbish Anglo-Indians, who are always damning the HomeGovernment for ruining the country. It is an odd thing that, althoughI have lived between thirty and forty years in England, nobodybelieves that I know how to govern England, and yet the stupidestAnglo-Indian, who claims to know all about the proper government ofIndia because he has lived there ten or twenty years, is believed byquite a number of people to be speaking with authority. No doubt myfriend will have the decisive word in future in all his arguments onIndian questions with less travelled acquaintances. But he shall notget round me. 

From India he goes to China, and thither I would follow him withgreater willingness, albeit more tremulously. I can never get it outof my head that the Chinese habitually torture the inquiring visitor. Probably I read the wrong sort of books when I was young. One of them, I remember, had illustrations. No doubt they were illustrations ofmediaeval implements; no doubt I am as foolish as the Chinaman wouldbe who had read about the Tower of London and feared to disembark atFolkstone; but it is hard to dispel these early impressions. "Yes, yes, " I should say rather hastily, as they pointed out the Great Wallto me, and I should lead the way unostentatiously but quite definitelytowards Japan. 

Before deciding how long to stay in Japan, one would have to askoneself what one wants from a strange country. I think that the answerin my case is "Scenery. " The customs of Japan, or Thibet, or Utahare interesting, no doubt, but one can be equally interested in adescription of them. The people of these countries are interesting, but then I have by no means exhausted my interest in the people ofEngland, and five minutes or five months among an entirely new set ofpeople is not going to help me very much. But a five-second view of(say) the Victoria Falls is worth acres of canvas or film on thesubject, and as many gallons of ink as you please. So I shall go toJapan for what I can see, and (since it is so well worth seeing)remain there as long as I can. 

I am not sure where we go next. New Zealand, if the holiday were mine;for I have always believed New Zealand to be the most beautifulcountry in the world. Also it is from all accounts a nice cleancountry. If I were to arrange a world-tour for myself, instead offollowing some other traveller about in imagination, my course wouldbe settled, not, in the first place, by questions of climate orscenery or the larger inhabitants, but by consideration of thosesmaller natives--the Tarantula, the Scorpion, and the Centipede. If Iwere told that in such-and-such a country one often found a lion inone's bath, I might be prepared to risk it. I should feel that therewas always a chance that the lion might not object to me. But if Iheard that one might find a tarantula in one's hotel, then thatcountry would be barred to me for ever. For I should be dead longbefore the beast had got to close quarters; dead of disgust. 

This is why South America, which always looks so delightful on themap, will never see me. I have had to give up most of Africa, India(though, as I have said, this is a country which I can spare), theWest Indies, and many other places whose names I have forgotten. In aworld limited to inhabitants with not more than four legs I couldtravel with much greater freedom. At present the two greatdifficulties in my way are this insect trouble, and (much lessserious, but still more important) the language trouble. You canunderstand, then, how it is that, since also it is a beautifulcountry, I look so kindly on New Zealand. 

But I doubt if I could be happy even in a dozen New Zealands, each onemore beautiful than the last, seeing that it would mean being awayfrom London for a year. The number of things which might happen in theyear while one was away! The new plays produced, the literary andpolitical reputations made and lost, a complete cricket championshipfought out; in one's over-anxious mind there would never be such ayear as the year which one was missing. My friend may retain his calmas he hears of our distant doings in Kiplingized India, but it wouldnever do for me. Even to-day, after a fortnight in the country, I ambeginning to get restless. Really, I think I ought to get backto-morrow. 

 The State of the Theatre

We are told that the theatre is in a bad way, that the English Dramais dead, but I suspect that every generation in its turn has been toldthe same thing. I have been reading some old numbers of the TheatricalMagazine of a hundred years ago. These were the palmy days of thestage, when blank verse flourished, and every serious play had tobegin like this:

 _Scene. A place without. _ Rinaldo _discovered dying. Enter_ Marco_. _ _Mar. _ What ho, Rinaldo! Lo, the hornéd moon Dims the cold radiance of the westering stars, Pale sentinels of the approaching dawn. How now, Rinaldo? _Rin. _ Marco, I am dying, Struck down by Tomasino's treacherous hand. _Mar. _ What, Tomasino? _Rin. _ Tomasino. Ere The flaming chariot of Phoebus mounts The vaults of Heaven, Rinaldo will be dead. _Mar. _ Oh, horror piled on horror! Lo, the moon----

And so on. The result was called--and I think rightly--"a tragedy. "The alternative to these tragedies was a farce, in which everybodywent to an inn and was mistaken for somebody else (causing great funand amusement), the heat and burden of the evening resting upon ahumorous man-servant called _Trickett_ (or something good like that). And whether the superior people of the day said that English Drama wasdead, I do not know; but they may be excused for having thought that, if it wasn't dead, it ought to have been. 

Fortunately we are doing better than that to-day. But we are not doingas well as we should be, and the reason generally given is that wehave not enough theatres. No doubt we have many more theatres than wehad a hundred years ago, even if you only count those which confinethemselves to plays without music, but the mass-effect of all thesemusic-hall-theatres is to make many people think and say that EnglishDrama is (once more) dead. 

It is customary to blame the manager for this--the new type ofmanager, the Mr. Albert de Lauributt who has been evolved by the war. He existed before the war, of course, but he limited his activities tothe music-hall. Now he spreads himself over half a dozen theatres, andproduces a revue or a musical comedy at each. He does not care forArt, but only for Money. He would be just as proud of a successfulproduction of _Kiss Me, Katie_, as of _Hamlet_; and, to do himjustice, as proud of a successful production of _Hamlet_, as of _KissMe, Katie_. But by "successful" he means "financially successful";no more and no less. He is frankly out for the stuff, and he thinksthat it is musical comedy which brings in the stuff. 

It seems absurd to single him out for blame, when there are so manythousands of other people in the world who are out for the stuff. Whyshould Mr. Albert de Lauributt lose two thousand pounds over your ormy serious play, when he can make ten thousand over _Hug me, Harriet_?We do not blame other rich men for being as little quixotic with theirmoney. We do not expect a financier to back a young inventor becausehe is a genius, in preference to backing some other inventor becausehe has discovered a saleable, though quite inartistic, breakfast food. So if Mr. De Lauributt produces six versions in his six differenttheatres of _Cuddle Me, Constance_, it is only because this happens tobe his way of making money. He may even be spending his own eveningssecretly at the "Old Vic. " For he runs his theatre, not as anartist, but as a business man; and, as any business man will tell you, "Business is business, my boy. "

We cannot blame him then. But we can regret that he is allowed to ownsix different theatres. In Paris it is "one man, one theatre, " andif it were so in London then there would be less the matter with theEnglish Drama. But, failing such an enactment, all that remains is topersuade the public that what it really wants is something a littlebetter than _Kiss Me, Katie_. For Mr. De Lauributt is quite ready toprovide Shakespeare, Ibsen, Galsworthy, modern drama, modern comedy, anything you like as long as it brings him in pots of money. And hewould probably do the thing well. He would have the sense to know thatthe producer of _Hug Me, Harriet_, would not be the best possibleproducer of _The Wild Duck_; he would try to get the best possibleproducer and the best possible designer and the best possible cast, knowing that all these would help to bring in the best possiblebox-office receipts. Yes, he would do the thing well, if only thepublic really asked for it. 

How can the public ask for it? Obviously it can only do this bystaying away from _Cuddle Me, Constance_, and visiting instead thoseplays whose authors take themselves seriously, whenever such plays areavailable. It should be the business, therefore, of the critics (thepeople who are really concerned to improve the public taste in plays)to lead the public in the right direction; away, that is, from theBareback Theatre, and towards those theatres whose managers have otherthan financial standards. But it is unfortunately the fact that theydon't do this. Without meaning it, they lead the public the wrong way. They mislead them simply because they have two standards ofcriticism--which the public does not understand. They go to theBareback Theatre for the first night of _Kiss Me, Katie_, and theywrite something like this:--

"Immense enthusiasm.... A feast of colour to delight the eye. Mr. Albert de Lauributt has surpassed himself.... Delightfully catchymusic.... The audience laughed continuously.... Mr. Ponk, the newcomedian from America, was a triumphant success.... Ravishing MissRosie Romeo was more ravishing than ever... Immense enthusiasm. "

On the next night they go to see Mr. A. W. Galsbarrie's new play, _Three Men_. They write like this:--

"Our first feeling is one of disappointment. Certainly not Galsbarrieat his best.... The weak point of the play is that the character ofSir John is not properly developed.... A perceptible dragging in theThird Act.... It is a little difficult to understand why.... We shouldhardly have expected Galsbarrie to have... The dialogue is perhaps atrifle lacking in... Mr. Macready Jones did his best with the part ofSir John, but as we have said... Mr. Kean-Smith was extremely unsuitedto the part of George.... The reception, on the whole, wasfavourable. "

You see the difference? Of course there is bound to be a difference, and Mr. A. W. Galsbarrie would be very much disappointed if there werenot. He understands the critic's feeling, which is simply that _KissMe, Katie_, is not worth criticizing, and that _Three Men_ mostemphatically is. Rut it is not surprising that the plainman-in-the-street, who has saved up in order to take his girl to oneof the two new plays of the week, and is waiting for the reviews toappear before booking his seats, should come to the conclusion that_Three Men_ seems to be a pretty rotten play, and that, tired thoughthey are of musical comedy, _Kiss Me, Katie_, is evidently somethingrather extra special which they ought not to miss. 

Which means pots more money for Mr. Albert de Lauributt. 

 The Fires of Autumn

The most important article of furniture in any room is the fireplace. For half the year we sit round it, warming ourselves at its heat; forthe other half of the year we continue to sit round it, moved theretoby habit and the position of the chairs. Yet how many people choosetheir house by reason of its fireplaces, or, having chosen it for someother reason, spend their money on a new grate rather than on a newsofa or a grand piano? Not many. 

For one who has so chosen his house the lighting of the first fire issomething of a ceremony. But in any case the first fire of the autumnis a notable event. Much as I regret the passing of summer, I cannothelp rejoicing in the first autumn days, days so cheerful and so verymuch alive. By November the freshness has left them; one's thoughts gobackwards regretfully to August or forwards hopefully to April; butwhile October lasts, one can still live in the present. It is inOctober that one tastes again the delights of the fireside, and findsthem to be even more attractive than one had remembered. 

But though I write "October, " let me confess that, Coal Controlleror no Coal Controller, it was in September that I lit my first firethis year. Perhaps as the owner of a new and (as I think) veryattractive grate I may be excused. There was some doubt as to whethera fireplace so delightful could actually support a fire, a doubt whichhad to be resolved as soon as possible. The match was struck with allsolemnity; the sticks caught up the flame from the dying paper andhanded it on to the coal; in a little while the coal had made room forthe logs, and the first autumn fire was in being. 

Among the benefits which the war has brought to London, and a littleless uncertain than some, is the log fire. In the country we havealways burnt logs, with the air of one who was thus identifyinghimself with the old English manner, but in London never--unless itwere those ship's logs, which gave off a blue flame and very littleelse, but seemed to bring the fact that we were an island people moreclosely home to us. Now wood fires are universal. Whether the air willbe purer in consequence and fogs less common, let the scientistdecide; but we are all entitled to the opinion that our drawing-roomsare more cheerful for the change. 

However, if you have a wood fire, you must have a pair of bellows. Iknow a man who always calls them "bellus, " which is, I believe, theprofessional pronunciation. He also talks about a "hussif" and a"cold chisel. " A cold chisel is apparently the ordinary sort ofchisel which you chisel with; what a hot chisel is I never discovered. But whether one calls them "bellows" or "bellus, " in these daysone cannot do without them. They are as necessary to a wood fire as apoker is to a coal fire, and they serve much the same purpose. Thereis something very soothing about poking a fire, even if one'scompanions point out that one is doing it all wrong, and offer anexhibition of the correct method. To play upon a wood fire with abellows gives one the same satisfaction, and is just as pleasantlyannoying to the onlookers. They alone know how to rouse the dyingspark and fan it gently to a flame, until the whole log is atriumphant blaze again; you, they tell you, are merely blowing thewhole thing out. 

It is necessary, then, that the bellows-making industry should revive. My impression is that a pair of bellows is usually catalogued underthe heading, "antique furniture, " and I doubt if it is possible tobuy a pair anywhere but in an old furniture shop. There must be alimit to the number of these available, a limit which has very nearlybeen reached. Here is a chance for our ironmongers (or carpenters, orupholsterers, or whoever have the secret of it). Let them get to workbefore we are swamped with German bellows. It is no use to offer uspokers with which to keep our log fires burning; we must have wind. There is one respect in which I must confess that the coal fire hasthe advantage of the wood fire. If your favourite position is on thehearth-rug with your back to whatever is burning, your right handgesticulating as you tell your hearers what is wrong with theconfounded Government, then it does not greatly matter what brings youthat pleasant dorsal warmth which inspires you to such eloquence. Butif your favourite position is in an armchair facing the fire, and yourcustomary habit one of passive thought rather than of active speech, then you will not get those visions from the burning wood which thepictures in a coal fire bring you. There are no deep, glowing cavernsin the logs from which friendly faces wink back at you as your headbegins gently to nod to them. Perhaps it is as well. These are not thedays for quiet reflection, but for action. At least, people tell meso, and I am very glad to hand on the information. 

 Not Guilty

As I descended the stairs to breakfast, the maid was coming up. 

"A policeman to see you, sir, " she said, in a hushed voice. "I'veshown him into the library. "

"Thank you, " I answered calmly, just as if I had expected him. 

And in a sense, I suppose, I had expected him. Not particularly thismorning, of course; but I knew that the day was bound to come when Ishould be arrested and hurried off to prison. Well, it was to be thismorning. I could have wished that it had been a little later in theday, when I had more complete command of myself. I wondered if hewould let me have my breakfast first before taking me away. It isimpossible for an arrested man to do himself justice on an emptystomach, but after breakfast he can play the part as it should beplayed. He can "preserve a calm exterior" while at the same time"hardly seeming to realize his position"; he can "go quietly" tothe police-station and "protest that he has a complete answer to thecharge. " He can, in fact, do all the things which I decided to do asI walked to the library--if only I was allowed to have my breakfastfirst. 

As I entered the library, I wondered what it was that I had done; or, rather, what it was that I had looked as if I were doing. For that ismy trouble--that I look guilty so easily. I never cash a cheque at thebank but I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder and to hear a sternvoice saying, "You cummer longer me. " If I walk through any of thebig stores with a parcel in my hand I expect to hear a voicewhispering in my ear, "The manager would like to see you quietly inhis office. " I have never forged or shoplifted in my life, but theknowledge that a real forger or shoplifter would try to have theoutward appearance of a man as innocent as myself helps to give me theoutward appearance of a man as guilty as he. When I settle a bill bycheque, my "face-of-a-man-whose-account-is-already-overdrawn" can beread across the whole length of the shop as soon as I enter the door. Indeed, it is so expressive that I had to give up banking at Cox'sduring the war. 

"Good morning, " said the policeman. "I thought I'd better tell youthat I found your dining-room window open at six o'clock this morningwhen I came on duty. "

"Oh!" I said, rather disappointed. 

For by this time I had prepared my speech from the dock, and it seemeda pity to waste it. There is no part quite so popular as that of theWrongly Accused. Every hero of every melodrama has had to meet thatfalse accusation at some moment during the play; otherwise we shouldnot know that he was the hero. I saw myself in the dock, protesting myinnocence to the last; I saw myself entering the witness box andremaining unshaken by the most relentless cross-examination; I saw myfriends coming forward to give evidence as to my unimpeachablecharacter.... 

And yet, after all, what could one's friends say? Imagine yourself inthe dock, on whatever charge it may be, and imagine this and thatfriend coming forward to speak to you. What can they say?

What do they know? They know that you are a bore or not a bore, agrouser or not a grouser, generous or mean, sentimental or cynical, anoptimist or a pessimist, and that you have or have not a sense ofhumour. None of these is a criminal offence. Is there anything elsethat your friends can say about you which can establish the likelihoodof your innocence? Not very much. Nor should we be flattered if therewere. When somebody says of us, "Oh, I can read old Jones like abook; I know him inside and out--for the most straightforward, simplecreature, " we protest indignantly. But if somebody says, "There's alot more in Jones than you think; I shall never quite understandhim, " then we look modestly down our nose and tell ourselves that weare Jones, the Human Enigma. Women have learnt all about this. Theyrealize that the best way to flatter us is to say earnestly, with ashake of the head, "Your face is such a mask; I shall never know whatyou're really thinking. " How that makes us purr!

No, our friends cannot help us much, once we are in the dock. Theywill protest, good friends that they are, that we are utterlyincapable of the crime of which we are accused (and in my case, ofcourse, they will be right), but the jury will know that our friendsdo not really know; or at any rate the jury will guess that we havenot asked those of our friends who did know to speak for us. We mustrely on ourselves; on our speech from the dock; on our demeanour undercross-examination; on----

"Your dining-room window open, " said the policeman reproachfully. 

"I'm sorry, " I said; "I won't leave it open again. "

Fortunately, however, they can't arrest you for it. So I led the wayout of the library and opened the front door. The policeman wentquietly. 

 A Digression

My omnibus left the broad and easy way which leads to Victoria Stationand plunged into the strait and narrow paths which land you into theriver at Vauxhall if you aren't careful, and I peered over the back tohave another look at its number. The road-mending season is in fullswing now, but no amount of road-mending could account for such acomprehensive compass as we were fetching. For a moment I thought thatthe revolution had begun. "'Busful of Bourgeoisie Kidnapped" wouldmake a good head-line for the papers. Or perhaps it was merely aprivate enterprise. We were to be held for ransom in some desertedwarehouse on the margin of the Thames, into which, if the money werenot forthcoming, we should be dropped with a weight at the feet onsome dark and lonely night.... Fortunately the conductor came up atthis stage of the journey and said "Ennimorfairplees, " whereupon Ilaid my fears before him and begged him to let me know the worst. Hereplied briefly, "Shorerpersher, " and went down again. So that wasit. 

Why is the Shah of Persia so popular? Even in these days when kingsare two a penny, and there is a never-ending procession of Napoleonsand Nelsons to the Guildhall to receive swords and freedoms andhonorary degrees, the arrival of a Shah of Persia stirs theimagination of the man in the street. He feels something of the oldthrill. But in the nineties, of course, we talked about nothing elsefor weeks. "Have you seen the Shah?" was the popular catch-phrase ofthe day; there were music hall songs about him; he was almost asimportant as a jubilee. 

It is curious that this should have been so, for a Shah of Persia isnot really as important as that. There was never a catch-phrase, "Have you seen the French President?" or even "Have you seen theTsar?" both of whom one would expect to take precedence of a Persianruler. But they are more commonplace people. The Shah makes hisappeal, not on account of his importance but on account of hisromantic associations. He fills the mind with thoughts of uncutrubies, diamond-studded swords, Arab chargers, veiled houris, and thevery best Persian sherbet. One does not stand outside Victoria in thehope of seeing any of these things in the carriage with him, but onefeels that is the sort of man he is, and that if only he could talkEnglish like you or me, he could tell us a story worth the telling. "Hooray for the Shah!"

Seated on my omnibus, and thinking of these things--(we had tacked bythis time, and were beating up for Pimlico)--I remembered suddenly alittle personal incident in connexion with the visit of that earlierShah which is not without its moral for all of us. It teaches us thelesson that--well, we can settle this afterwards. Anyway, here is thestory. 

The Shah of Persia was in England, and all England was talking abouthim. Naturally, we were talking about him at my private school. I wasabout nine at the time; it is not the age at which one knows muchabout high politics, but it is almost the only age when one reallyknows where Persia is. I have no doubt that we "did" Persia in thatterm, out of honour to the Shah. One result of all this talk in theschool about the Persian Potentate was (as you might expect) that acertain boy was nicknamed "The Shah, " presumably on account of somemagnificence of person or costume. Now it happened that the school wasbusying itself just then over some election--to the presidency of theDebating Society, or membership of the Games Committee, or somethingof that sort--and "The Shah" was a very popular candidate. I was oneof his humble but admiring supporters. 

Observe me, then, on the polling day, busily at work in a corner ofthe schoolroom. I am writing in bold capitals on a piece of exercisepaper, "Vote for the shah. " Having written it, I pinned it proudlyup in a corner of the room, and stood back awhile to look at it. Myfirst effort at electioneering. There was no immediate sensation, foreverybody else was too busy over his own affairs to notice my littleposter, and so I went about from one little knot of talkers toanother, hanging shyly on the outskirts in the hope that, when itbroke up, I might lead the way casually towards my masterpiece--"VOTEFOR THE SHAH. "

Suddenly my attention was attracted to another boy, who, even as I hadbeen a few minutes ago, was now busily writing. I kept my eye on him, and when he had finished his work, and was walking across the roomwith a piece of paper in his hand, I followed him eagerly. He was atleast twelve; I was only nine. Can you wonder that he seemed to mealmost the last word in wisdom? So I followed him. Could it really bethat my poster had forstalled his? What glory if it were so! He pinnedup his notice. He moved away, and I read it. It said: "VOTE FOR THESHAR. "

You can imagine my feelings. I went hot all over. "Shar, " of course, not "Shah. " How ever could I have been such an idiot as to havethought it was "Shah"? S-h-a-h obviously spelt shash, not shar. Hownearly I had exposed my appalling ignorance to my fellows! "Vote forthe--"; I blushed again, hardly able to think of it. And oh! howthankful I was now that everybody else had been too busy to read myposter. Hastily I went over to it, and tore it down; hastily I wentback to my desk and wrote another poster. Observe me now again. I amwriting in bold capitals on a piece of exercise paper: "VOTE FOR THESHAR. "

And the moral? Well, my omnibus has now; fetched its compass roundVictoria, we are back on the main route again, and I think I mustleave the moral to you. 

 High Finance

I know very little about the Stock Exchange. I know, of course, thatstockbrokers wear very shiny top-hats, which they remove when theysing "God Save the King, " as they invariably do in a crisis. Whenthey go out to lunch, the younger ones leave their top-hats behindthem, and take the air with plastered polls; and after lunch is over, young and old alike have a round of dominoes before placing threepenceunder the coffee-cup and returning to business. If business is slack, they tell each other jokes, which get into the papers with some suchintroduction as, "A good story going the round of the StockExchange. " Probably it was going the round of the nurseries in 72, but the stockbrokers have been so busy making Consols go up and downthat they have not been able to listen to it before. Anyway, thecareful man always avoids a good story which is going the round of theStock Exchange. 

But apart from these minor activities of the City, the financial worldhas always been a mystery to me. To this day I do not understand whyConsols go up and down. Perhaps they only go down now, but there was atime when they would be 78 1/4 in the morning, 78 1/2 after the StockExchange had returned from its coffee, and 78 when it went out to playdominoes again. When they thudded down to 78, this proved that theGovernment had lost the confidence of the country. But I never heardan explanation of it all which carried any conviction. 

Once I asked a noted financial authority to tell me all about it inwords of one syllable. He did his best. He said it was "simply aquestion of supply and demand. " In that case one would expectumbrellas to go up and down according to the weather--I mean, ofcourse, the price of umbrellas. But apparently umbrellas aren't sosensitive as stocks, which are the most sensitive things in the world. In the happy days before the war, when the President of Nicaragua senta stiff note to the President of Uruguay, Consols immediately droppeda quarter of a point. The President of Uruguay answered, "Sorry, mymistake, " and Consols went back again. Evidently, several gentlemen, who would have bought Consols in the ordinary way on that Thursday, decided to buy Haricot Beans instead, as being, I suppose, more usefulin the event of a war between Nicaragua and Uruguay. So Consolsfeeling the neglect, went down. But on the Friday, as soon as Uruguayhad apologized, the gentlemen who had just sold the Haricot Beanshurried out to buy Consols, as being quite safe again now that therewas no more chance of war. So Consols went cheerfully up again. Yousee?

But the financial problem is getting very much more difficult thanthis, The vagaries of Consols, or even of the reputed gold-mine inwhich I once had shares--(this is a sad story, but, fortunately, whenthey had dropped to six-and-sixpence, there was a demand for them by aman called Wilkinson, poor fellow, which arrested the fall just longenough for me to get out. They are now three a penny, so I hopeWilkinson found a demand, too)--well, then, even the vagaries of theWest African market are a simple matter compared with the vagaries ofthe Exchange. The mystery of the mark, for instance, is so utterlybeyond that, in trying to understand it, I do not even know where tobegin. I see no mental foothold anywhere. 

The mark, we are told, is now worth tuppence-ha'penny. Why? I mean, who said so? Who is it who arranges these things? Is it Rockefeller orone of the Geddeses or Samuel Gompers--a superman of some kind? Or isit a Committee of the Stock Exchange and Greenwich Observatory? Andhow does it decide? Does it put a mark up for auction and see what thedemand is like? Or does it decide on moral grounds? Does it saycontemptuously, "Oh, I should think about tuppence-ha'penny, andserve 'em dashed well right for losing the war"?

Let us go slowly, and see if we can make any sense of it. Suppose thatI produce something worth a shilling, something, that is, which I cansell in this country for a shilling--a blank verse tragedy, say. Letus suppose also that, having received the shilling, I propose to buy abag of nuts. A German offers me a mark for my tragedy. Now that markhas got to be spent in Germany by somebody; not, of course, necessarily by me. I probably hand it to Thomas Cook or his Son, whogives it to somebody else, who eventually takes it back to Germanyagain. Obviously, then, what I have to consider, when I am offered amark instead of the customary shilling for my blank verse, is this:"Can this mark purchase a similar-sized bag of nuts in Germany?" Ifthe answer is "Yes, " then the mark is worth a shilling; if the answeris that it will only buy a bag of about a fifth of the English size, then the mark is worth tuppence-ha'penny. 

Well, is everything in Germany five times as dear as it is in England?No. Not by any means. If a mark is regarded as tuppence-ha'penny, everything is extraordinarily cheap; much cheaper than in England. Also it occurs to me suddenly that if this were the way in which thepundits decided upon the price of the mark and the franc and thepeseta and the cowrie-shell, then the price of living in every countrywould be exactly the same, and we should have nowhere to retire towhen the taxes were too high. Which would be absurd. So we must havedone the sum wrong. Let us try again. 

The price of the mark (this is our new theory) depends on the amountof goods which Germany is exporting. A German offers me a mark for mytragedy, but if no other German has got anything to give me, or ThomasCook or his Son, in exchange for that mark, then the mark is obviouslyno good to us. If, then, we say that the mark is worth tuppence-ha'penny, we mean that Germany is importing (or buying) five times asmuch as she is exporting (or selling). Similarly, when the rouble wasabout ten a penny, Russia was importing a hundred times as much as shewas exporting. But she was not importing anything then because of theblockade. Therefore--no, it's no good. You see, we can't do it. Weshall have to stand about on the Brighton road until one of thosestockbrokers comes by. He will explain it to us. 

But perhaps a better man to consult in these matters of High Financeis the Strong Man whom we see so often upon the stage. Sometimes hebuilds bridges, and sometimes he makes steel, but the one I like bestis the one who controls the markets of the world. He strides to thetelephone and says grimly down it: "Sell Chilled Tomatoes.... No.... Yes... Keep on selling, " and in far-away Nan-Kang-Foo a man shootshimself. He had too many Chilled Tomatoes--or too few. 

But the Strong Man goes on his way. He is married to a young andbeautiful girl, whom he has adored silently for years. He has nevertold her; partly because he thought it would not be fair to her, partly because he knows it would spoil the play. He is too busy to seemuch of her, but sometimes they meet at dinner, and then he strokesher head and asks her kindly what she is doing that evening. Probablyshe is going out with George B. Pusher. What else could you expect?All the time when Staunton is buying Tomatoes and Salmon and Tintacksand Locomotives and Peanuts and lots of things that he doesn't reallywant, George B. Pusher is in attendance on the Heroine. 

There is a terrible scene when Staunton discovers what is going on. Who is this puppy? George B. Pusher? That settles it. He will ruinPusher. 

He sells Tomatoes. Pusher hasn't got any. He buys Raspberry Jam. Pusher doesn't want any. Damn the fellow, he refuses to be ruined. Everybody is shooting himself except Pusher. 

At last. Wire Netting! Why didn't he think of Wire Netting before? Hebuys all the Wire Netting that there is. Then he sells it all. GeorgeR. Pusher is ruined. He comes round to beg for mercy. 

Now, perhaps, if we listen very carefully, we shall understand how itis all done. 

 Secret Papers

The cabinet, or whatever I am to call it, has looked stolidly at mefrom the corner of the library for years. It is nothing more than arow of pigeon-holes in which I keep my secret papers. At least, theman who sold it to me recommended it for this purpose, dwellinglovingly as he did so upon the strength of the lock. So I boughtit--in those first days (how far away!) when I came to London to setthe Thames on fire. 

It was not long before I lost the key. I made one or two half-heartedefforts to get into it with a button-hook; but, finding that the locklived up to its reputation, I resigned myself to regarding it for thefuture as an article for ornament, not for use. In this capacity ithas followed me about from house to house. As an ornament it iswithout beauty, and many people have urged me to throw it away. Myanswer has been that it contained my secret papers. Some day I wouldget a locksmith to open it, and we should see what we should see. 

The war being over, I came into the library and sat down at my desk. Perhaps it was not too late, even now, to set the Thames on fire. Iwould write an incendiary article on--what? The cabinet caught my eye. I went idly up to it and pulled at the drawers, before I rememberedthat it was locked. And suddenly I was annoyed with it for beinglocked; the more I pulled at it, the more I was annoyed; and I endedup by telling it with some heat that, if it persisted in its defiantattitude, I would shoot it down with my revolver. (This is how thehero breaks his way into the room wherein the heroine is immured, andI have often envied him. )

However, the revolver was not necessary. The lock surrendered, after ashort struggle, to the poker. For the first time for seventeen yearsmy secret papers were before me. Can you not imagine how eagerly Iwent through them?

They were a strange collection, these trifles which had (I suppose)seemed so important to me seventeen years ago. There was theinevitable dance programme, covered with initials which must havestirred me delightfully once, but now left me cold. There was areceipt from a Cambridge tailor, my last outstanding Cambridge bill, perhaps--preserved as a sign that I was now free. There was a noticeof a short-story competition, stories not to exceed 5000 words;another of a short-sketch competition, sketches not to exceed 1200words. Apparently I was prepared to write you anything in those days. There was an autograph of a famous man; "Many thanks" and thesignature on a postcard, I suppose I had told him that I admired hisstyle, or that I proposed to model myself on him, or had bought hislast book, or--who knows? At any rate, he had thanked me. 

There were letters from editors; editors whom I know well now, but whoin those distant days addressed me as "Sir, " and were minefaithfully. They regretted that they could not use the presentcontribution, but hoped that I would continue to write. I continued towrite. Trusting that I would persevere, they were mine very truly. Ipersevered. Now they are mine ever. From what a long way off thoseletters have come. "Dear Sir, " the Great Man wrote to me, andoverawed I locked the precious letter up. Yesterday I smacked him onthe back. 

There was a list of my first fifteen contributions to the Press. Threeof them were accepted; two of the three appeared in a paper whichimmediately went bankrupt. For the fifteenth I seem to have receivedfifteen shillings. A shilling an attempt, you see, for those earlyefforts to set the Thames on fire. Reading the titles of them, I amnot surprised. One was called (I blush to record it) "The Diary of aFree-Lance. " Was there ever a literary aspirant who did not beginwith just such an article on just such a subject?--a subject soengagingly fresh to himself, so hackneyed to the editor. I havereturned a hundred of them since without a word of encouragement tothe writers, blissfully forgetful of the fact (now brought to light)that I, too, had begun like that. 

And last of all, in this locked cabinet I came upon an actualcontribution, one of the fifteen which had gone the rounds and hadbeen put away, perhaps for a re-writing.... Dear, dear! I must havebeen very hopeful in those days. Youth and hope--I am afraid thatthose were my only qualifications for setting the Thames on fire. 

Yet I was very scornful of editors seventeen years ago. The outsider, I held forth, was not given a chance; the young writer with freshideas was cold-shouldered. Well, well! Reading this early contributionof mine seventeen years later, reading again what editors had to sayabout it, I am no longer scornful of them. I can only wonder why theyhoped that I would go on writing. 

But I shall not throw the broken cabinet away, even though it is nolonger available for secret papers. It must continue to sit in acorner of the library, a corrective against secret pride.