REGINALD BYSAKI(H. H. MUNRO) THIRD EDITION METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W. C. LONDON _First Published_ . . . _September 1904_ _Second Edition_ . . . _July 1905_ _Third Edition_ . . . _1911_ _These sketches originally appeared in the_ "_Westminster Gazette_, " _tothe courtesy of the Proprietor of which the author is indebted forpermission to republish them_. Contents: Reginald Reginald on Christmas Presents Reginald on the Academy Reginald at the Theatre Reginald's Peace Poem Reginald's Choir Treat Reginald on Worries Reginald on House-Parties Reginald at the Carlton Reginald on Besetting Sins Reginald's Drama Reginald on Tariffs Reginald's Christmas Revel Reginald's Rubaiyat The Innocence of Reginald REGINALD I did it--I who should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go tothe McKillops' garden-party against his will. We all make mistakes occasionally. "They know you're here, and they'll think it so funny if you don't go. And I want particularly to be in with Mrs. McKillop just now. " "I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a prospective wifefor Wumples--or a husband, is it?" (Reginald has a magnificent scorn fordetails, other than sartorial. ) "And I am expected to undergo socialmartyrdom to suit the connubial exigencies"-- "Reginald! It's nothing of the kind, only I'm sure Mrs. McKillop Wouldbe pleased if I brought you. Young men of your brilliant attractions arerather at a premium at her garden-parties. " "Should be at a premium in heaven, " remarked Reginald complacently. "There will be very few of you there, if that is what you mean. Butseriously, there won't be any great strain upon your powers of endurance;I promise you that you shan't have to play croquet, or talk to theArchdeacon's wife, or do anything that is likely to bring on physicalprostration. You can just wear your sweetest clothes and moderatelyamiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the appetite of a_blase_ parrot. Nothing more is demanded of you. " Reginald shut his eyes. "There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date youngwomen who will ask me if I have seen _San Toy_; a less progressive gradewho will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee--the historic event, notthe horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw theAllies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past?They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them fora suit long after you've ceased to wear it. " "I'll order lunch for one o'clock; that will give you two and a halfhours to dress in. " Reginald puckered his brow into a tortured frown, and I knew that mypoint was gained. He was debating what tie would go with whichwaistcoat. Even then I had my misgivings. * * * * * During the drive to the McKillops' Reginald was possessed with a greatpeace, which was not wholly to be accounted for by the fact that he hadinveigled his feet into shoes a size too small for them. I misgave morethan ever, and having once launched Reginald on to the McKillops' lawn, Iestablished him near a seductive dish of _marrons glaces_, and as farfrom the Archdeacon's wife as possible; as I drifted away to a diplomaticdistance I heard with painful distinctness the eldest Mawkby girl askinghim if he had seen _San Toy_. It must have been ten minutes later, not more, and I had been having_quite_ an enjoyable chat with my hostess, and had promised to lend her_The Eternal City_ and my recipe for rabbit mayonnaise, and was justabout to offer a kind home for her third Persian kitten, when Iperceived, out of the corner of my eye, that Reginald was not where I hadleft him, and that the _marrons glaces_ were untasted. At the samemoment I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying to tell hisclassic story of how he introduced golf into India, and that Reginald wasin dangerous proximity. There are occasions when Reginald is caviare tothe Colonel. "When I was at Poona in '76"-- "My dear Colonel, " purred Reginald, "fancy admitting such a thing! Sucha give-away for one's age! I wouldn't admit being on this planet in'76. " (Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits tobeing more than twenty-two. ) The Colonel went to the colour of a fig that has attained great ripeness, and Reginald, ignoring my efforts to intercept him, glided away toanother part of the lawn. I found him a few minutes later happilyengaged in teaching the youngest Rampage boy the approved theory ofmixing absinthe, within full earshot of his mother. Mrs. Rampageoccupies a prominent place in local Temperance movements. As soon as I had broken up this unpromising _tete-a-tete_ and settledReginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers, Iwandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at thepoint where they had been interrupted. I did not succeed in running herdown at once, and eventually it was Mrs. McKillop who sought me out, andher conversation was not of kittens. "Your cousin is discussing _Zaza_ with the Archdeacon's wife; at least, he is discussing, she is ordering her carriage. " She spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a French exercise, and I knew that as far as Millie McKillop was concerned, Wumples wasdevoted to a lifelong celibacy. "If you don't mind, " I said hurriedly, "I think we'd like our carriageordered too, " and I made a forced march in the direction of the croquet-ground. I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and thewar in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortablechair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just afterit had desolated entire villages. The Archdeacon's wife was buttoning upher gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold. Ishall have to treble my subscription to her Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fundbefore I dare set foot in her house again. At that particular moment the croquet players finished their game, whichhad been going on without a symptom of finality during the wholeafternoon. Why, I ask, should it have stopped precisely when a counter-attraction was so necessary? Everyone seemed to drift towards the areaof disturbance, of which the chairs of the Archdeacon's wife and Reginaldformed the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled uponthe company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn--when yourneighbours don't happen to keep poultry. "What did the Caspian Sea?" asked Reginald, with appalling suddenness. There were symptoms of a stampede. The Archdeacon's wife looked at me. Kipling or someone has described somewhere the look a foundered camelgives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate. Thepeptonised reproach in the good lady's eyes brought the passage vividlyto my mind. I played my last card. "Reginald, it's getting late, and a sea-mist is coming on. " I knew thatthe elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not guaranteed to survive asea-mist. * * * * * "Never, never again, will I take you to a garden-party. Never . . . Youbehaved abominably . . . What did the Caspian see?" A shade of genuine regret for misused opportunities passed overReginald's face. "After all, " he said, "I believe an apricot tie would have gone betterwith the lilac waistcoat. " REGINALD ON CHRISTMAS PRESENTS I wish it to be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I don't want a"George, Prince of Wales" Prayer-book as a Christmas present. The factcannot be too widely known. There ought (he continued) to be technical education classes on thescience of present-giving. No one seems to have the faintest notion ofwhat anyone else wants, and the prevalent ideas on the subject are notcreditable to a civilised community. There is, for instance, the female relative in the country who "knows atie is always useful, " and sends you some spotted horror that you couldonly wear in secret or in Tottenham Court Road. It _might_ have beenuseful had she kept it to tie up currant bushes with, when it would haveserved the double purpose of supporting the branches and frightening awaythe birds--for it is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit ofcommerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relativein the country. Then there are aunts. They are always a difficult class to deal with inthe matter of presents. The trouble is that one never catches themreally young enough. By the time one has educated them to anappreciation of the fact that one does not wear red woollen mittens inthe West End, they die, or quarrel with the family, or do somethingequally inconsiderate. That is why the supply of trained aunts is alwaysso precarious. There is my Aunt Agatha, _par exemple_, who sent me a pair of gloves lastChristmas, and even got so far as to choose a kind that was being wornand had the correct number of buttons. But--_they were nines_! I sentthem to a boy whom I hated intimately: he didn't wear them, of course, but he could have--that was where the bitterness of death came in. Itwas nearly as consoling as sending white flowers to his funeral. Ofcourse I wrote and told my aunt that they were the one thing that hadbeen wanting to make existence blossom like a rose; I am afraid shethought me frivolous--she comes from the North, where they live in thefear of Heaven and the Earl of Durham. (Reginald affects an exhaustiveknowledge of things political, which furnishes an excellent excuse fornot discussing them. ) Aunts with a dash of foreign extraction in themare the most satisfactory in the way of understanding these things; butif you can't choose your aunt, it is wisest in the long-run to choose thepresent and send her the bill. Even friends of one's own set, who might be expected to know better, havecurious delusions on the subject. I am _not_ collecting copies of thecheaper editions of Omar Khayyam. I gave the last four that I receivedto the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, withFitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have agedmothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think. Personally, I can't see where the difficulty in choosing suitablepresents lies. No boy who had brought himself up properly could fail toappreciate one of those decorative bottles of liqueurs that are soreverently staged in Morel's window--and it wouldn't in the least matterif one did get duplicates. And there would always be the supreme momentof dreadful uncertainty whether it was _creme de menthe_ orChartreuse--like the expectant thrill on seeing your partner's handturned up at bridge. People may say what they like about the decay ofChristianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse cannever really die. And then, of course, there are liqueur glasses, and crystallised fruits, and tapestry curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life that makereally sensible presents--not to speak of luxuries, such as having one'sbills paid, or getting something quite sweet in the way of jewellery. Unlike the alleged Good Woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies. Whenfound, by the way, she must have been rather a problem at Christmas-time;nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the situation. Perhapsit's as well that she's died out. The great charm about me (concluded Reginald) is that I am so easilypleased. But I draw the line at a "Prince of Wales" Prayer-book. REGINALD ON THE ACADEMY "One goes to the Academy in self-defence, " said Reginald. "It is the onetopic one has in common with the Country Cousins. " "It is almost a religious observance with them, " said the Other. "A kindof artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die they go"-- "To the Chantrey Bequest. The mystery is _what_ they find to talk aboutin the country. " "There are two subjects of conversation in the country: Servants, and Canfowls be made to pay? The first, I believe, is compulsory, the secondoptional. " "As a function, " resumed Reginald, "the Academy is a failure. " "You think it would be tolerable without the pictures?" "The pictures are all right, in their way; after all, one can always_look_ at them if one is bored with one's surroundings, or wants to avoidan imminent acquaintance. " "Even that doesn't always save one. There is the inevitable female whomyou met once in Devonshire, or the Matoppo Hills, or somewhere, whocharges up to you with the remark that it's funny how one always meetspeople one knows at the Academy. Personally, I _don't_ think it funny. " "I suffered in that way just now, " said Reginald plaintively, "from awoman whose word I had to take that she had met me last summer inBrittany. " "I hope you were not too brutal?" "I merely told her with engaging simplicity that the art of life was theavoidance of the unattainable. " "Did she try and work it out on the back of her catalogue?" "Not there and then. She murmured something about being 'so clever. 'Fancy coming to the Academy to be clever!" "To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in theevening. " "Which reminds me that I can't remember whether I accepted an invitationfrom you to dine at Kettner's to-night. " "On the other hand, I can remember with startling distinctness not havingasked you to. " "So much certainty is unbecoming in the young; so we'll consider thatsettled. What were you talking about? Oh, pictures. Personally, Irather like them; they are so refreshingly real and probable, they takeone away from the unrealities of life. " "One likes to escape from oneself occasionally. " "That is the disadvantage of a portrait; as a rule, one's bitterestfriends can find nothing more to ask than the faithful unlikeness thatgoes down to posterity as oneself. I hate posterity--it's so fond ofhaving the last word. Of course, as regards portraits, there areexceptions. " "For instance?" "To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to heaven prematurely. " "With the necessary care and impatience, you may avoid that catastrophe. " "If you're going to be rude, " said Reginald, "I shall dine with you to-morrow night as well. The chief vice of the Academy, " he continued, "isits nomenclature. Why, for instance, should an obvious trout-stream witha palpable rabbit sitting in the foreground be called 'an evening dreamof unbeclouded peace, ' or something of that sort?" "You think, " said the Other, "that a name should economise descriptionrather than stimulate imagination?" "Properly chosen, it should do both. There is my lady kitten at home, for instance; I've called it Derry. " "Suggests nothing to my imagination but protracted sieges and religiousanimosities. Of course, I don't know your kitten"-- "Oh, you're silly. It's a sweet name, and it answers to it--when itwants to. Then, if there are any unseemly noises in the night, they canbe explained succinctly: Derry and Toms. " "You might almost charge for the advertisement. But as applied topictures, don't you think your system would be too subtle, say, for theCountry Cousins?" "Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect the fattedcalf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return. Another darling weakness of the Academy is that none of its luminariesmust 'arrive' in a hurry. You can see them coming for years, like aBalkan trouble or a street improvement, and by the time they have painteda thousand or so square yards of canvas, their work begins to berecognised. " "Someone who Must Not be Contradicted said that a man must be a successby the time he's thirty, or never. " "To have reached thirty, " said Reginald, "is to have failed in life. " REGINALD AT THE THEATRE "After all, " said the Duchess vaguely, "there are certain things youcan't get away from. Right and wrong, good conduct and moral rectitude, have certain well-defined limits. " "So, for the matter of that, " replied Reginald, "has the Russian Empire. The trouble is that the limits are not always in the same place. " Reginald and the Duchess regarded each other with mutual distrust, tempered by a scientific interest. Reginald considered that the Duchesshad much to learn; in particular, not to hurry out of the Carlton asthough afraid of losing one's last 'bus. A woman, he said, who iscareless of disappearances is capable of leaving town before Goodwood, and dying at the wrong moment of an unfashionable disease. The Duchess thought that Reginald did not exceed the ethical standardwhich circumstances demanded. "Of course, " she resumed combatively, "it's the prevailing fashion tobelieve in perpetual change and mutability, and all that sort of thing, and to say we are all merely an improved form of primeval ape--of courseyou subscribe to that doctrine?" "I think it decidedly premature; in most people I know the process is farfrom complete. " "And equally of course you are quite irreligious?" "Oh, by no means. The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mindwith an Agnostic conscience: you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of theone with the modern conveniences of the other. " The Duchess suppressed a sniff. She was one of those people who regardthe Church of England with patronising affection, as if it were somethingthat had grown up in their kitchen garden. "But there are other things, " she continued, "which I suppose are to acertain extent sacred even to you. Patriotism, for instance, and Empire, and Imperial responsibility, and blood-is-thicker-than-water, and allthat sort of thing. " Reginald waited for a couple of minutes before replying, while the Lordof Rimini temporarily monopolised the acoustic possibilities of thetheatre. "That is the worst of a tragedy, " he observed, "one can't always hearoneself talk. Of course I accept the Imperial idea and theresponsibility. After all, I would just as soon think in Continents asanywhere else. And some day, when the season is over and we have thetime, you shall explain to me the exact blood-brotherhood and all thatsort of thing that exists between a French Canadian and a mild Hindoo anda Yorkshireman, for instance. " "Oh, well, 'dominion over palm and pine, ' you know, " quoted the Duchesshopefully; "of course we mustn't forget that we're all part of the greatAnglo-Saxon Empire. " "Which for its part is rapidly becoming a suburb of Jerusalem. A verypleasant suburb, I admit, and quite a charming Jerusalem. But still asuburb. " "Really, to be told one's living in a suburb when one is conscious ofspreading the benefits of civilisation all over the world! Philanthropy--Isuppose you will say _that_ is a comfortable delusion; and yet even youmust admit that whenever want or misery or starvation is known to exist, however distant or difficult of access, we instantly organise relief onthe most generous scale, and distribute it, if need be, to the uttermostends of the earth. " The Duchess paused, with a sense of ultimate triumph. She had made thesame observation at a drawing-room meeting, and it had been extremelywell received. "I wonder, " said Reginald, "if you have ever walked down the Embankmenton a winter night?" "Gracious, no, child! Why do you ask?" "I didn't; I only wondered. And even your philanthropy, practised in aworld where everything is based on competition, must have a debit as wellas a credit account. The young ravens cry for food. " "And are fed. " "Exactly. Which presupposes that something else is fed upon. " "Oh, you're simply exasperating. You've been reading Nietzsche till youhaven't got any sense of moral proportion left. May I ask if you aregoverned by _any_ laws of conduct whatever?" "There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort. For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-beardedstranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on theContinent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden. " "The restraint must be dreadfully irksome to you. When I was younger, boys of your age used to be nice and innocent. " "Now we are only nice. One must specialise in these days. Which remindsme of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice ofwhat he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honoursand dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came tohim also. " "I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book. " "Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett. " REGINALD'S PEACE POEM "I'm writing a poem on Peace, " said Reginald, emerging from a sweepingoperation through a tin of mixed biscuits, in whose depths a macaroon ortwo might yet be lurking. "Something of the kind seems to have been attempted already, " said theOther. "Oh, I know; but I may never have the chance again. Besides, I've got anew fountain pen. I don't pretend to have gone on any very originallines; in writing about Peace the thing is to say what everybody else issaying, only to say it better. It begins with the usual ornithologicalemotion-- 'When the widgeon westward winging Heard the folk Vereeniginging, Heard the shouting and the singing'"-- "Vereeniginging is good, but why widgeon?" "Why not? Anything that winged westward would naturally begin with a_w_. " "Need it wing westward?" "The bird must go somewhere. You wouldn't have it hang around and lookfoolish. Then I've brought in something about the heedless hartebeestgalloping over the deserted veldt. " "Of course you know it's practically extinct in those regions?" "I can't help _that_, it gallops so nicely. I make it have all sorts ofunexpected yearnings-- 'Mother, may I go and maffick, Tear around and hinder traffic?' Of course you'll say there would be no traffic worth bothering about onthe bare and sun-scorched veldt, but there's no other word that rhymeswith maffick. " "Seraphic?" Reginald considered. "It might do, but I've got a lot about angels lateron. You must have angels in a Peace poem; I know dreadfully little abouttheir habits. " "They can do unexpected things, like the hartebeest. " "Of course. Then I turn on London, the City of Dreadful Nocturnes, resonant with hymns of joy and thanksgiving-- 'And the sleeper, eye unlidding, Heard a voice for ever bidding Much farewell to Dolly Gray; Turning weary on his truckle- Bed he heard the honey-suckle Lauded in apiarian lay. ' Longfellow at his best wrote nothing like that. " "I agree with you. " "I wish you wouldn't. I've a sweet temper, but I can't stand beingagreed with. And I'm so worried about the aasvogel. " Reginald stared dismally at the biscuit-tin, which now presented anunattractive array of rejected cracknels. "I believe, " he murmured, "if I could find a woman with an unsatisfiedcraving for cracknels, I should marry her. " "What is the tragedy of the aasvogel?" asked the Other sympathetically. "Oh, simply that there's no rhyme for it. I thought about it all thetime I was dressing--it's dreadfully bad for one to think whilst one'sdressing--and all lunch-time, and I'm still hung up over it. I feel likethose unfortunate automobilists who achieve an unenviable motoriety bycoming to a hopeless stop with their cars in the most crowdedthoroughfares. I'm afraid I shall have to drop the aasvogel, and it didgive such lovely local colour to the thing. " "Still you've got the heedless hartebeest. " "And quite a decorative bit of moral admonition--when you've worried themeaning out-- 'Cease, War, thy bubbling madness that the wine shares, And bid thy legions turn their swords to mine shares. ' Mine shares seems to fit the case better than ploughshares. There's lotsmore about the blessings of Peace, shall I go on reading it?" "If I must make a choice, I think I would rather they went on with thewar. " REGINALD'S CHOIR TREAT "Never, " wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, "be a pioneer. It'sthe Early Christian that gets the fattest lion. " Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer. None of the rest of his family had anything approaching Titian hair or asense of humour, and they used primroses as a table decoration. It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late tobreakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about theuniverse. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even theweather forecast. Therefore the family was relieved when the vicar's daughter undertook thereformation of Reginald. Her name was Amabel; it was the vicar's oneextravagance. Amabel was accounted a beauty and intellectually gifted;she never played tennis, and was reputed to have read Maeterlinck's _Lifeof the Bee_. If you abstain from tennis _and_ read Maeterlinck in asmall country village, you are of necessity intellectual. Also she hadbeen twice to Fecamp to pick up a good French accent from the Americansstaying there; consequently she had a knowledge of the world which mightbe considered useful in dealings with a worldling. Hence the congratulations in the family when Amabel undertook thereformation of its wayward member. Amabel commenced operations by asking her unsuspecting pupil to tea inthe vicarage garden; she believed in the healthy influence of naturalsurroundings, never having been in Sicily, where things are different. And like every woman who has ever preached repentance to unregenerateyouth, she dwelt on the sin of an empty life, which always seems so muchmore scandalous in the country, where people rise early to see if a newstrawberry has happened during the night. Reginald recalled the lilies of the field, "which simply sat and lookedbeautiful, and defied competition. " "But that is not an example for us to follow, " gasped Amabel. "Unfortunately, we can't afford to. You don't know what a world oftrouble I take in trying to rival the lilies in their artisticsimplicity. " "You are really indecently vain of your appearance. A good life isinfinitely preferable to good looks. " "You agree with me that the two are incompatible. I always say beauty isonly sin deep. " Amabel began to realise that the battle is not always to thestrong-minded. With the immemorial resource of her sex, she abandonedthe frontal attack, and laid stress on her unassisted labours in parishwork, her mental loneliness, her discouragements--and at the right momentshe produced strawberries and cream. Reginald was obviously affected bythe latter, and when his preceptress suggested that he might begin thestrenuous life by helping her to supervise the annual outing of thebucolic infants who composed the local choir, his eyes shone with thedangerous enthusiasm of a convert. Reginald entered on the strenuous life alone, as far as Amabel wasconcerned. The most virtuous women are not proof against damp grass, andAmabel kept her bed with a cold. Reginald called it a dispensation; ithad been the dream of his life to stage-manage a choir outing. Withstrategic insight, he led his shy, bullet-headed charges to the nearestwoodland stream and allowed them to bathe; then he seated himself ontheir discarded garments and discoursed on their immediate future, which, he decreed, was to embrace a Bacchanalian procession through the village. Forethought had provided the occasion with a supply of tin whistles, butthe introduction of a he-goat from a neighbouring orchard was a brilliantafterthought. Properly, Reginald explained, there should have been anoutfit of panther skins; as it was, those who had spotted handkerchiefswere allowed to wear them, which they did with thankfulness. Reginaldrecognised the impossibility, in the time at his disposal, of teachinghis shivering neophytes a chant in honour of Bacchus, so he started themoff with a more familiar, if less appropriate, temperance hymn. Afterall, he said, it is the spirit of the thing that counts. Following theetiquette of dramatic authors on first nights, he remained discreetly inthe background while the procession, with extreme diffidence and thegoat, wound its way lugubriously towards the village. The singing haddied down long before the main street was reached, but the miserablewailing of pipes brought the inhabitants to their doors. Reginald saidhe had seen something like it in pictures; the villagers had seen nothinglike it in their lives, and remarked as much freely. Reginald's family never forgave him. They had no sense of humour. REGINALD ON WORRIES I have (said Reginald) an aunt who worries. She's not really an aunt--asort of amateur one, and they aren't really worries. She is a socialsuccess, and has no domestic tragedies worth speaking of, so she adoptsany decorative sorrows that are going, myself included. In that wayshe's the antithesis, or whatever you call it, to those sweet, uncomplaining women one knows who have seen trouble, and worn blinkersever since. Of course, one just loves them for it, but I must confessthey make me uncomfy; they remind one so of a duck that goes flappingabout with forced cheerfulness long after its head's been cut off. Duckshave _no_ repose. Now, my aunt has a shade of hair that suits her, and acook who quarrels with the other servants, which is always a hopefulsign, and a conscience that's absentee for about eleven months of theyear, and only turns up at Lent to annoy her husband's people, who areconsiderably Lower than the angels, so to speak: with all these naturaladvantages--she says her particular tint of bronze is a naturaladvantage, and there can be no two opinions as to the advantage--ofcourse she has to send out for her afflictions, like those restaurantswhere they haven't got a licence. The system has this advantage, thatyou can fit your unhappinesses in with your other engagements, whereasreal worries have a way of arriving at meal-times, and when you'redressing, or other solemn moments. I knew a canary once that had beentrying for months and years to hatch out a family, and everyone lookedupon it as a blameless infatuation, like the sale of Delagoa Bay, whichwould be an annual loss to the Press agencies if it ever came to pass;and one day the bird really did bring it off, in the middle of familyprayers. I say the middle, but it was also the end: you can't go onbeing thankful for daily bread when you are wondering what on earth verynew canaries expect to be fed on. At present she's rather in a Balkan state of mind about the treatment ofthe Jews in Roumania. Personally, I think the Jews have estimablequalities; they're so kind to their poor--and to our rich. I daresay inRoumania the cost of living beyond one's income isn't so great. Overhere the trouble is that so many people who have money to throw aboutseem to have such vague ideas where to throw it. That fund, forinstance, to relieve the victims of sudden disasters--what is a suddendisaster? There's Marion Mulciber, who _would_ think she could playbridge, just as she would think she could ride down a hill on a bicycle;on that occasion she went to a hospital, now she's gone into aSisterhood--lost all she had, you know, and gave the rest to Heaven. Still, you can't call it a sudden calamity; _that_ occurred when poordear Marion was born. The doctors said at the time that she couldn'tlive more than a fortnight, and she's been trying ever since to see ifshe could. Women are so opinionated. And then there's the Education Question--not that I can see that there'sanything to worry about in that direction. To my mind, education is anabsurdly over-rated affair. At least, one never took it very seriouslyat school, where everything was done to bring it prominently under one'snotice. Anything that is worth knowing one practically teaches oneself, and the rest obtrudes itself sooner or later. The reason one's eldersknow so comparatively little is because they have to unlearn so much thatthey acquired by way of education before we were born. Of course I'm abeliever in Nature-study; as I said to Lady Beauwhistle, if you want alesson in elaborate artificiality, just watch the studied unconcern of aPersian cat entering a crowded salon, and then go and practise it for afortnight. The Beauwhistles weren't born in the Purple, you know, butthey're getting there on the instalment system--so much down, and therest when you feel like it. They have kind hearts, and they never forgetbirthdays. I forget what he was, something in the City, where thepatriotism comes from; and she--oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English accent. So public-spirited ofher. I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's sodesperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. Not that it reallymatters nowadays, as I told her: I know some perfectly virtuous peoplewho are received everywhere. REGINALD ON HOUSE-PARTIES The drawback is, one never really _knows_ one's hosts and hostesses. Onegets to know their fox-terriers and their chrysanthemums, and whether thestory about the go-cart can be turned loose in the drawing-room, or mustbe told privately to each member of the party, for fear of shockingpublic opinion; but one's host and hostess are a sort of human hinterlandthat one never has the time to explore. There was a fellow I stayed with once in Warwickshire who farmed his ownland, but was otherwise quite steady. Should never have suspected him ofhaving a soul, yet not very long afterwards he eloped with a lion-tamer'swidow and set up as a golf-instructor somewhere on the Persian Gulf;dreadfully immoral, of course, because he was only an indifferent player, but still, it showed imagination. His wife was really to be pitied, because he had been the only person in the house who understood how tomanage the cook's temper, and now she has to put "D. V. " on her dinnerinvitations. Still, that's better than a domestic scandal; a woman wholeaves her cook never wholly recovers her position in Society. I suppose the same thing holds good with the hosts; they seldom have morethan a superficial acquaintance with their guests, and so often just whenthey do get to know you a bit better, they leave off knowing youaltogether. There was _rather_ a breath of winter in the air when I leftthose Dorsetshire people. You see, they had asked me down to shoot, andI'm not particularly immense at that sort of thing. There's such adeadly sameness about partridges; when you've missed one, you've missedthe lot--at least, that's been my experience. And they tried to rag mein the smoking-room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, asort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly andthinking they were teasing it. So I got up the next morning at earlydawn--I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, andthe grass looked as if it had been left out all night--and hunted up themost conspicuous thing in the bird line that I could find, and measuredthe distance, as nearly as it would let me, and shot away all I knew. They said afterwards that it was a tame bird; that's simply _silly_, because it was awfully wild at the first few shots. Afterwards itquieted down a bit, and when its legs had stopped waving farewells to thelandscape I got a gardener-boy to drag it into the hall, where everybodymust see it on their way to the breakfast-room. I breakfasted upstairsmyself. I gathered afterwards that the meal was tinged with a veryunchristian spirit. I suppose it's unlucky to bring peacock's feathersinto a house; anyway, there was a blue-pencilly look in my hostess's eyewhen I took my departure. Some hostesses, of course, will forgive anything, even unto pavonicide(is there such a word?), as long as one is nice-looking and sufficientlyunusual to counterbalance some of the others; and there _are_ others--thegirl, for instance, who reads Meredith, and appears at meals withunnatural punctuality in a frock that's made at home and repented atleisure. She eventually finds her way to India and gets married, andcomes home to admire the Royal Academy, and to imagine that anindifferent prawn curry is for ever an effective substitute for all thatwe have been taught to believe is luncheon. It's then that she is reallydangerous; but at her worst she is never quite so bad as the woman whofires _Exchange and Mart_ questions at you without the least provocation. Imagine the other day, just when I was doing my best to understand halfthe things I was saying, being asked by one of those seekers aftercountry home truths how many fowls she could keep in a run ten feet bysix, or whatever it was! I told her whole crowds, as long as she keptthe door shut, and the idea didn't seem to have struck her before; atleast, she brooded over it for the rest of dinner. Of course, as I say, one never really _knows_ one's ground, and one maymake mistakes occasionally. But then one's mistakes sometimes turn outassets in the long-run: if we had never bungled away our Americancolonies we might never have had the boy from the States to teach us howto wear our hair and cut our clothes, and we must get our ideas fromsomewhere, I suppose. Even the Hooligan was probably invented in Chinacenturies before we thought of him. England must wake up, as the Duke ofDevonshire said the other day; wasn't it? Oh, well, it was someone else. Not that I ever indulge in despair about the Future; there always havebeen men who have gone about despairing of the Future, and when theFuture arrives it says nice, superior things about their having actedaccording to their lights. It is dreadful to think that other people'sgrandchildren may one day rise up and call one amiable. There are moments when one sympathises with Herod. REGINALD AT THE CARLTON "A most variable climate, " said the Duchess; "and how unfortunate that weshould have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear!So distressing for the poor. " "Someone has observed that Providence is always on the side of the bigdividends, " remarked Reginald. The Duchess ate an anchovy in a shocked manner; she was sufficiently old-fashioned to dislike irreverence towards dividends. Reginald had left the selection of a feeding-ground to her womanlyintuition, but he chose the wine himself, knowing that womanly intuitionstops short at claret. A woman will cheerfully choose husbands for herless attractive friends, or take sides in a political controversy withoutthe least knowledge of the issues involved--but no woman ever cheerfullychose a claret. "Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me, " said Reginald:"they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering whatthe next course is going to be like--and during the rest of the menu onewishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres. Don't you love watchingthe different ways people have of entering a restaurant? There is thewoman who races in as though her whole scheme of life were held togetherby a one-pin despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment;it's really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety. Then thereare the people who troop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as ifthey were angels of Death entering a plague city. You see that type ofBriton very much in hotels abroad. And nowadays there are always theJohannesbourgeois, who bring a Cape-to-Cairo atmosphere with them--whatmay be called the Rand Manner, I suppose. " "Talking about hotels abroad, " said the Duchess, "I am preparing notesfor a lecture at the Club on the educational effects of modern travel, dealing chiefly with the moral side of the question. I was talking toLady Beauwhistle's aunt the other day--she's just come back from Paris, you know. Such a sweet woman"-- "And so silly. In these days of the over-education of women she's quiterefreshing. They say some people went through the siege of Paris withoutknowing that France and Germany were at war; but the Beauwhistle aunt iscredited with having passed the whole winter in Paris under theimpression that the Humberts were a kind of bicycle . . . Isn't there abishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animals we haveknown on earth in another world? How frightfully embarrassing to meet awhole shoal of whitebait you had last known at Prince's! I'm sure in mynervousness I should talk of nothing but lemons. Still, I daresay theywould be quite as offended if one hadn't eaten them. I know if I wereserved up at a cannibal feast I should be dreadfully annoyed if anyonefound fault with me for not being tender enough, or having been kept toolong. " "My idea about the lecture, " resumed the Duchess hurriedly, "is toinquire whether promiscuous Continental travel doesn't tend to weaken themoral fibre of the social conscience. There are people one knows, quitenice people when they are in England, who are so _different_ when theyare anywhere the other side of the Channel. " "The people with what I call Tauchnitz morals, " observed Reginald. "Onthe whole, I think they get the best of two very desirable worlds. And, after all, they charge so much for excess luggage on some of thoseforeign lines that it's really an economy to leave one's reputationbehind one occasionally. " "A scandal, my dear Reginald, is as much to be avoided at Monaco or anyof those places as at Exeter, let us say. " "Scandal, my dear Irene--I may call you Irene, mayn't I?" "I don't know that you have known me long enough for that. " "I've known you longer than your god-parents had when they took theliberty of calling you that name. Scandal is merely the compassionateallowance which the gay make to the humdrum. Think how many blamelesslives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people. Tellme, who is the woman with the old lace at the table on our left? Oh, _that_ doesn't matter; it's quite the thing nowadays to stare at peopleas if they were yearlings at Tattersall's. " "Mrs. Spelvexit? Quite a charming woman; separated from her husband"-- "Incompatibility of income?" "Oh, nothing of that sort. By miles of frozen ocean, I was going to say. He explores ice-floes and studies the movements of herrings, and haswritten a most interesting book on the home-life of the Esquimaux; butnaturally he has very little home-life of his own. " "A husband who comes home with the Gulf Stream _would_ be rather a tied-up asset. " "His wife is exceedingly sensible about it. She collects postage-stamps. Such a resource. Those people with her are the Whimples, very oldacquaintances of mine; they're always having trouble, poor things. " "Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at anymoment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--once you start ityou've got to keep it up. " "Their eldest son was such a disappointment to them; they wanted him tobe a linguist, and spent no end of money on having him taught tospeak--oh, dozens of languages!--and then he became a Trappist monk. Andthe youngest, who was intended for the American marriage market, hasdeveloped political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing ofthe poor. Of course it's a most important question, and I devote a gooddeal of time to it myself in the mornings; but, as Laura Whimple says, it's as well to have an establishment of one's own before agitating aboutother people's. She feels it very keenly, but she always maintains acheerful appetite, which I think is so unselfish of her. " "There are different ways of taking disappointment. There was a girl Iknew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness, borne by her withChristian fortitude, and then he died and left his money to a swine-feverhospital. She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time, and now she gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call beingvindictive. " "Life is full of its disappointments, " observed the Duchess, "and Isuppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions. Butthat, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older. " "I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. The young haveaspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of whatnever happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious oftheir limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them. Butone never is. " "After all, " said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend onour way of assessing it. In the minds of those who come after us we maybe remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of thereckoning. " "It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of thosewho come after us. There may have been disillusionments in the lives ofthe mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased ifthey could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadayschiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, if you cantear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffeeunder the palms that are so necessary for our discomfort. " REGINALD ON BESETTING SINS: THE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TRUTH There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all atonce, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on anapparently healthy tree. She had no children--otherwise it might havebeen different. It began with little things, for no particular reasonexcept that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to slipinto the habit of telling the truth in little matters. And then itbecame difficult to draw the line at more important things, until at lastshe took to telling the truth about her age; she said she was forty-twoand five months--by that time, you see, she was veracious even to months. It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister was notgratified. On the Woman's birthday, instead of the opera-tickets whichshe had hoped for, her sister gave her a view of Jerusalem from the Mountof Olives, which is not quite the same thing. The revenge of an eldersister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, itarrives in its own good time. The friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from over-indulgence inthe practice, but she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it wasremarked that it was scarcely logical to be so much together in public. (No really provident woman lunches regularly with her husband if shewishes to burst upon him as a revelation at dinner. He must have time toforget; an afternoon is not enough. ) And after a while her friends beganto thin out in patches. Her passion for the truth was not compatiblewith a large visiting-list. For instance, she told Miriam Klopstock_exactly_ how she looked at the Ilexes' ball. Certainly Miriam had askedfor her candid opinion, but the Woman prayed in church every Sunday forpeace in our time, and it was not consistent. It was unfortunate, everyone agreed, that she had no family; with a childor two in the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free anindulgence in the truth. Children are given us to discourage our betteremotions. That is why the stage, with all its efforts, can never be asartificial as life; even in an Ibsen drama one must reveal to theaudience things that one would suppress before the children or servants. Fate may have ordained the truth-telling from the commencement and shouldjustly bear some of the blame; but in having no children the Woman wasguilty, at least, of contributory negligence. Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once beenmerely an idle propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tellsninety per cent. Of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent. Is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respectingclient trespasses. Madame Draga's establishment was a meeting-ground fornaked truths and over-dressed fictions, and it was here, the Woman felt, that she might make a final effort to recall the artless mendacity ofpast days. Madame herself was in an inspiring mood, with the air of asphinx who knew all things and preferred to forget most of them. As aWar Minister she might have been celebrated, but she was content to bemerely rich. "If I take it in here, and--Miss Howard, one moment, if you please--andthere, and round like this--so--I really think you will find it quiteeasy. " The Woman hesitated; it seemed to require such a small effort to simplyacquiesce in Madame's views. But habit had become too strong. "I'mafraid, " she faltered, "it's just the least little bit in the world too"-- And by that least little bit she measured the deeps and eternities of herthraldom to fact. Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on aprofessional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found itafterwards in the bill. And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all alongthat it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which sheharried her waking hours. On a raw Wednesday morning, in a fewill-chosen words, she told the cook that she drank. She remembered thescene afterwards as vividly as though it had been painted in her mind byAbbey. The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went. Miriam Klopstock came to lunch the next day. Women and elephants neverforget an injury. REGINALD'S DRAMA Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who hasrather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact. "One of these days, " he said, "I shall write a really great drama. Noone will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to theirhomes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives andsurroundings. Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget. " "But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" saidthe Other. "They can always put down new stair-carpets, " pursued Reginald, "and, anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending. Theplay would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies. I should get abishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought ofthat before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and theywould stay on out of sheer nervousness. After all, it requires a greatdeal of moral courage to leave in a marked manner in the middle of thesecond act, when your carriage isn't ordered till twelve. And it wouldcommence with wolves worrying something on a lonely waste--you wouldn'tsee them, of course; but you would hear them snarling and scrunching, andI should arrange to have a wolfy fragrance suggested across thefootlights. It would look so well on the programmes, 'Wolves in thefirst act, by Jamrach. ' And old Lady Whortleberry, who never misses afirst night, would scream. She's always been nervous since she lost herfirst husband. He died quite abruptly while watching a county cricketmatch; two and a half inches of rain had fallen for seven runs, and itwas supposed that the excitement killed him. Anyhow, it gave her quite ashock; it was the first husband she'd lost, you know, and now she alwaysscreams if anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner. And afterthe audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing would be fairlylaunched. " "And the plot?" "The plot, " said Reginald, "would be one of those little everydaytragedies that one sees going on all round one. In my mind's eye thereis the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which in an unpretentious way hasquite an Enoch Arden intensity underlying it. They'd only been marriedsome eighteen months or so, and circumstances had prevented their seeingmuch of each other. With him there was always a foursome or somethingthat had to be played and replayed in different parts of the country, andshe went in for slumming quite as seriously as if it was a sport. Withher, I suppose, it was. She belonged to the Guild of the Poor DearSouls, and they hold the record for having nearly reformed a washerwoman. No one has ever really reformed a washerwoman, and that is why thecompetition is so keen. You can rescue charwomen by fifties with alittle tea and personal magnetism, but with washerwomen it's different;wages are too high. This particular laundress, who came from Bermondseyor some such place, was really rather a hopeful venture, and they thoughtat last that she might be safely put in the window as a specimen ofsuccessful work. So they had her paraded at a drawing-room "At Home" atAgatha Camelford's; it was sheer bad luck that some liqueur chocolateshad been turned loose by mistake among the refreshments--really liqueurchocolates, with very little chocolate. And of course the old soul foundthem out, and cornered the entire stock. It was like finding a whelk-stall in a desert, as she afterwards partially expressed herself. Whenthe liqueurs began to take effect, she started to give them imitations offarmyard animals as they know them in Bermondsey. She began with adancing bear, and you know Agatha doesn't approve of dancing, except atBuckingham Palace under proper supervision. And then she got up on thepiano and gave them an organ monkey; I gather she went in for realismrather than a Maeterlinckian treatment of the subject. Finally, she fellinto the piano and said she was a parrot in a cage, and for an impromptuperformance I believe she was very word-perfect; no one had heardanything like it, except Baroness Boobelstein who has attended sittingsof the Austrian Reichsrath. Agatha is trying the Rest-cure at Buxton. " "But the tragedy?" "Oh, the Mudge-Jervises. Well, they were getting along quite happily, and their married life was one continuous exchange of picture-postcards;and then one day they were thrown together on some neutral ground wherefoursomes and washerwomen overlapped, and discovered that they werehopelessly divided on the Fiscal Question. They have thought it best toseparate, and she is to have the custody of the Persian kittens for ninemonths in the year--they go back to him for the winter, when she isabroad. There you have the material for a tragedy drawn straight fromlife--and the piece could be called 'The Price They Paid for Empire. ' Andof course one would have to work in studies of the struggle of hereditarytendency against environment and all that sort of thing. The woman'sfather could have been an Envoy to some of the smaller German Courts;that's where she'd get her passion for visiting the poor, in spite of themost careful upbringing. _C'est le premier pa qui compte_, as the cuckoosaid when it swallowed its foster-parent. That, I think, is quiteclever. " "And the wolves?" "Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the backgroundthat would never be satisfactorily explained. After all, life teems withthings that have no earthly reason. And whenever the characters couldthink of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, theycould open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. But thatwould be very seldom. " REGINALD ON TARIFFS I'm not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald); I wish tobe original. At the same time, I think one suffers more than onerealises from the system of free imports. I should like, for instance, areally prohibitive duty put upon the partner who declares on a weak redsuit and hopes for the best. Even a free outlet for compressed verbiagedoesn't balance matters. And I think there should be a sort of bounty-fed export (is that the right expression?) of the people who impress onyou that you ought to take life seriously. There are only two classesthat really can't help taking life seriously--schoolgirls of thirteen andHohenzollerns; they might be exempt. Albanians come under anotherheading; they take life whenever they get the opportunity. The oneAlbanian that I was ever on speaking terms with was rather a decadentexample. He was a Christian and a grocer, and I don't fancy he had everkilled anybody. I didn't like to question him on the subject--thatshowed my delicacy. Mrs. Nicorax says I have no delicacy; she hasn'tforgiven me about the mice. You see, when I was staying down there, amouse used to cake-walk about my room half the night, and none of theirsilly patent traps seemed to take its fancy as a bijou residence, so Idetermined to appeal to the better side of it--which with mice is theinside. So I called it Percy, and put little delicacies down near itshole every night, and that kept it quiet while I read Max Nordau's_Degeneration_ and other reproving literature, and went to sleep. Andnow she says there is a whole colony of mice in that room. That isn't where the indelicacy comes in. She went out riding with me, which was entirely her own suggestion, and as we were coming home throughsome meadows she made a quite unnecessary attempt to see if her ponywould jump a rather messy sort of brook that was there. It wouldn't. Itwent with her as far as the water's edge, and from that point Mrs. Nicorax went on alone. Of course I had to fish her out from the bank, and my riding-breeches are not cut with a view to salmon-fishing--it'srather an art even to ride in them. Her habit-skirt was one of thoseopen questions that need not be adhered to in emergencies, and on thisoccasion it remained behind in some water-weeds. She wanted me to fishabout for that too, but I felt I had done enough Pharaoh's daughterbusiness for an October afternoon, and I was beginning to want my tea. SoI bundled her up on to her pony, and gave her a lead towards home as fastas I cared to go. What with the wet and the unusual responsibility, herabridged costume did not stand the pace particularly well, and she gotquite querulous when I shouted back that I had no pins with me--and nostring. Some women expect so much from a fellow. When we got into thedrive she wanted to go up the back way to the stables, but the ponies_know_ they always get sugar at the front door, and I never attempt tohold a pulling pony; as for Mrs. Nicorax, it took her all she knew tokeep a firm hand on her seceding garments, which, as her maid remarkedafterwards, were more _tout_ than _ensemble_. Of course nearly the wholehouse-party were out on the lawn watching the sunset--the only day thismonth that it's occurred to the sun to show itself, as Mrs. Nic. Viciously observed--and I shall never forget the expression on herhusband's face as we pulled up. "My darling, this is too much!" was hisfirst spoken comment; taking into consideration the state of her toilet, it was the most brilliant thing I had ever heard him say, and I went intothe library to be alone and scream. Mrs. Nicorax says I have nodelicacy. Talking about tariffs, the lift-boy, who reads extensively between thelandings, says it won't do to tax raw commodities. What, exactly, is araw commodity? Mrs. Van Challaby says men are raw commodities till youmarry them; after they've struck Mrs. Van C. , I can fancy they prettysoon become a finished article. Certainly she's had a good deal ofexperience to support her opinion. She lost one husband in a railwayaccident, and mislaid another in the Divorce Court, and the current onehas just got himself squeezed in a Beef Trust. "What was he doing in aBeef Trust, anyway?" she asked tearfully, and I suggested that perhaps hehad an unhappy home. I only said it for the sake of making conversation;which it did. Mrs. Van Challaby said things about me which in her calmermoments she would have hesitated to spell. It's a pity people can'tdiscuss fiscal matters without getting wild. However, she wrote next dayto ask if I could get her a Yorkshire terrier of the size and shadethat's being worn now, and that's as near as a woman can be expected toget to owning herself in the wrong. And she will tie a salmon-pink bowto its collar, and call it "Reggie, " and take it with her everywhere--likepoor Miriam Klopstock, who _would_ take her Chow with her to thebathroom, and while she was bathing it was playing at she-bears with hergarments. Miriam is always late for breakfast, and she wasn't reallymissed till the middle of lunch. However, I'm not going any further into the Fiscal Question. Only Ishould like to be protected from the partner with a weak red tendency. REGINALD'S CHRISTMAS REVEL They say (said Reginald) that there's nothing sadder than victory exceptdefeat. If you've ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged tobe the festive season, you can probably revise that saying. I shallnever forget putting in a Christmas at the Babwolds'. Mrs. Babwold issome relation of my father's--a sort of to-be-left-till-called-forcousin--and that was considered sufficient reason for my having to accepther invitation at about the sixth time of asking; though why the sins ofthe father should be visited by the children--you won't find anynotepaper in that drawer; that's where I keep old menus and first-nightprogrammes. Mrs. Babwold wears a rather solemn personality, and has never been knownto smile, even when saying disagreeable things to her friends or makingout the Stores list. She takes her pleasures sadly. A state elephant ata Durbar gives one a very similar impression. Her husband gardens in allweathers. When a man goes out in the pouring rain to brush caterpillarsoff rose-trees, I generally imagine his life indoors leaves something tobe desired; anyway, it must be very unsettling for the caterpillars. Of course there were other people there. There was a Major Somebody whohad shot things in Lapland, or somewhere of that sort; I forget what theywere, but it wasn't for want of reminding. We had them cold with everymeal almost, and he was continually giving us details of what theymeasured from tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make themwarm under-things for the winter. I used to listen to him with a raptattention that I thought rather suited me, and then one day I quitemodestly gave the dimensions of an okapi I had shot in the Lincolnshirefens. The Major turned a beautiful Tyrian scarlet (I remember thinkingat the time that I should like my bathroom hung in that colour), and Ithink that at that moment he almost found it in his heart to dislike me. Mrs. Babwold put on a first-aid-to-the-injured expression, and asked himwhy he didn't publish a book of his sporting reminiscences; it would be_so_ interesting. She didn't remember till afterwards that he had givenher two fat volumes on the subject, with his portrait and autograph as afrontispiece and an appendix on the habits of the Arctic mussel. It was in the evening that we cast aside the cares and distractions ofthe day and really lived. Cards were thought to be too frivolous andempty a way of passing the time, so most of them played what they calleda book game. You went out into the hall--to get an inspiration, Isuppose--then you came in again with a muffler tied round your neck andlooked silly, and the others were supposed to guess that you were "WeeMacGreegor. " I held out against the inanity as long as I decently could, but at last, in a lapse of good-nature, I consented to masquerade as abook, only I warned them that it would take some time to carry out. Theywaited for the best part of forty minutes, while I went and playedwineglass skittles with the page-boy in the pantry; you play it with achampagne cork, you know, and the one who knocks down the most glasseswithout breaking them wins. I won, with four unbroken out of seven; Ithink William suffered from over-anxiousness. They were rather mad inthe drawing-room at my not having come back, and they weren't a bitpacified when I told them afterwards that I was "At the end of thepassage. " "I never did like Kipling, " was Mrs. Babwold's comment, when thesituation dawned upon her. "I couldn't see anything clever in_Earthworms out of Tuscany_--or is that by Darwin?" Of course these games are very educational, but, personally, I preferbridge. On Christmas evening we were supposed to be specially festive in the OldEnglish fashion. The hall was horribly draughty, but it seemed to be theproper place to revel in, and it was decorated with Japanese fans andChinese lanterns, which gave it a very Old English effect. A young ladywith a confidential voice favoured us with a long recitation about alittle girl who died or did something equally hackneyed, and then theMajor gave us a graphic account of a struggle he had with a wounded bear. I privately wished that the bears would win sometimes on these occasions;at least they wouldn't go vapouring about it afterwards. Before we hadtime to recover our spirits, we were indulged with some thought-readingby a young man whom one knew instinctively had a good mother and anindifferent tailor--the sort of young man who talks unflaggingly throughthe thickest soup, and smooths his hair dubiously as though he thought itmight hit back. The thought-reading was rather a success; he announcedthat the hostess was thinking about poetry, and she admitted that hermind was dwelling on one of Austin's odes. Which was near enough. Ifancy she had been really wondering whether a scrag-end of mutton andsome cold plum-pudding would do for the kitchen dinner next day. As acrowning dissipation, they all sat down to play progressive halma, withmilk-chocolate for prizes. I've been carefully brought up, and I don'tlike to play games of skill for milk-chocolate, so I invented a headacheand retired from the scene. I had been preceded a few minutes earlier byMiss Langshan-Smith, a rather formidable lady, who always got up at someuncomfortable hour in the morning, and gave you the impression that shehad been in communication with most of the European Governments beforebreakfast. There was a paper pinned on her door with a signed requestthat she might be called particularly early on the morrow. Such anopportunity does not come twice in a lifetime. I covered up everythingexcept the signature with another notice, to the effect that before thesewords should meet the eye she would have ended a misspent life, was sorryfor the trouble she was giving, and would like a military funeral. A fewminutes later I violently exploded an air-filled paper bag on thelanding, and gave a stage moan that could have been heard in the cellars. Then I pursued my original intention and went to bed. The noise thosepeople made in forcing open the good lady's door was positivelyindecorous; she resisted gallantly, but I believe they searched her forbullets for about a quarter of an hour, as if she had been an historicbattlefield. I hate travelling on Boxing Day, but one must occasionally do things thatone dislikes. REGINALD'S RUBAIYAT The other day (confided Reginald), when I was killing time in thebathroom and making bad resolutions for the New Year, it occurred to methat I would like to be a poet. The chief qualification, I understand, is that you must be born. Well, I hunted up my birth certificate, andfound that I was all right on that score, and then I got to work on aHymn to the New Year, which struck me as having possibilities. Itsuggested extremely unusual things to absolutely unlikely people, which Ibelieve is the art of first-class catering in any department. Quite thebest verse in it went something like this-- "Have you heard the groan of a gravelled grouse, Or the snarl of a snaffled snail (Husband or mother, like me, or spouse), Have you lain a-creep in the darkened house Where the wounded wombats wail?" It was quite improbable that anyone had, you know, and that's where itstimulated the imagination and took people out of their narrow, humdrumselves. No one has ever called me narrow or humdrum, but even I feltworked up now and then at the thought of that house with the strickenwombats in it. It simply wasn't nice. But the editors were unanimous inleaving it alone; they said the thing had been done before and doneworse, and that the market for that sort of work was extremely limited. It was just on the top of that discouragement that the Duchess wanted meto write something in her album--something Persian, you know, and just alittle bit decadent--and I thought a quatrain on an unwholesome egg wouldmeet the requirements of the case. So I started in with-- "Cackle, cackle, little hen, How I wonder if and when Once you laid the egg that I Met, alas! too late. Amen. " The Duchess objected to the Amen, which I thought gave an air offorgiveness and _chose jugee_ to the whole thing; also she said it wasn'tPersian enough, as though I were trying to sell her a kitten whose motherhad married for love rather than pedigree. So I recast it entirely, andthe new version read-- "The hen that laid thee moons ago, who knows In what Dead Yesterday her shades repose; To some election turn thy waning span And rain thy rottenness on fiscal foes. " I thought there was enough suggestion of decay in that to satisfy ajackal, and to me there was something infinitely pathetic and appealingin the idea of the egg having a sort of St. Luke's summer of commercialusefulness. But the Duchess begged me to leave out any politicalallusions; she's the president of a Women's Something or other, and shesaid it might be taken as an endorsement of deplorable methods. I nevercan remember which Party Irene discourages with her support, but I shan'tforget an occasion when I was staying at her place and she gave me apamphlet to leave at the house of a doubtful voter, and some grapes andthings for a woman who was suffering from a chill on the top of a patentmedicine. I thought it much cleverer to give the grapes to the formerand the political literature to the sick woman, and the Duchess was quiteabsurdly annoyed about it afterwards. It seems the leaflet was addressed"To those about to wobble"--I wasn't responsible for the silly title ofthe thing--and the woman never recovered; anyway, the voter wascompletely won over by the grapes and jellies, and I think that shouldhave balanced matters. The Duchess called it bribery, and said it mighthave compromised the candidate she was supporting; he was expected tosubscribe to church funds and chapel funds, and football and cricketclubs and regattas, and bazaars and beanfeasts and bellringers, andpoultry shows and ploughing matches, and reading-rooms and choir outings, and shooting trophies and testimonials, and anything of that sort; butbribery would not have been tolerated. I fancy I have perhaps more talent for electioneering than for poetry, and I was really getting extended over this quatrain business. The eggbegan to be unmanageable, and the Duchess suggested something with aFrench literary ring about it. I hunted back in my mind for the mostfamiliar French classic that I could take liberties with, and after alittle exercise of memory I turned out the following:-- "Hast thou the pen that once the gardener had? I have it not; and know, these pears are bad. Oh, larger than the horses of the Prince Are those the general drives in Kaikobad. " Even that didn't altogether satisfy Irene; I fancy the geography of itpuzzled her. She probably thought Kaikobad was an unfashionable Germanspa, where you'd meet matrimonial bargain-hunters and emergency Serviankings. My temper was beginning to slip its moorings by that time. Ilook rather nice when I lose my temper. (I hoped you would say I lose itvery often. I mustn't monopolise the conversation. ) "Of course, if you want something really Persian and passionate, with redwine and bulbuls in it, " I went on to suggest; but she grabbed the bookaway from me. "Not for worlds. Nothing with red wine or passion in it. Dear Agathagave me the album, and she would be mortified to the quick"-- I said I didn't believe Agatha had a quick, and we got quite heated inarguing the matter. Finally, the Duchess declared I shouldn't writeanything nasty in her book, and I said I wouldn't write anything in hernasty book, so there wasn't a very wide point of difference between us. For the rest of the afternoon I pretended to be sulking, but I was reallyworking back to that quatrain, like a fox-terrier that's buried adeferred lunch in a private flower-bed. When I got an opportunity Ihunted up Agatha's autograph, which had the front page all to itself, and, copying her prim handwriting as well as I could, I inserted above itthe following Thibetan fragment:-- "With Thee, oh, my Beloved, to do a dak (a dak I believe is a sort of uncomfortable post-journey) On the pack-saddle of a grunting yak, With never room for chilling chaperone, 'Twere better than a Panhard in the Park. " That Agatha would get on to a yak in company with a lover even in thecomparative seclusion of Thibet is unthinkable. I very much doubt ifshe'd do it with her own husband in the privacy of the Simplon tunnel. But poetry, as I've remarked before, should always stimulate theimagination. By the way, when you asked me the other day to dine with you on the 14th, I said I was dining with the Duchess. Well, I'm not. I'm dining withyou. THE INNOCENCE OF REGINALD Reginald slid a carnation of the newest shade into the buttonhole of hislatest lounge coat, and surveyed the result with approval. "I am just inthe mood, " he observed, "to have my portrait painted by someone with anunmistakable future. So comforting to go down to posterity as 'Youthwith a Pink Carnation' in catalogue--company with 'Child with Bunch ofPrimroses, ' and all that crowd. " "Youth, " said the Other, "should suggest innocence. " "But never act on the suggestion. I don't believe the two ever really gotogether. People talk vaguely about the innocence of a little child, butthey take mighty good care not to let it out of their sight for twentyminutes. The watched pot never boils over. I knew a boy once who reallywas innocent; his parents were in Society, but they never gave him amoment's anxiety from his infancy. He believed in company prospectuses, and in the purity of elections, and in women marrying for love, and evenin a system for winning at roulette. He never quite lost his faith init, but he dropped more money than his employers could afford to lose. When last I heard of him, he was believing in his innocence; the juryweren't. All the same, I really am innocent just now of somethingeveryone accuses me of having done, and so far as I can see, theiraccusations will remain unfounded. " "Rather an unexpected attitude for you. " "I love people who do unexpected things. Didn't you always adore the manwho slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day? But about this unfortunateinnocence. Well, quite long ago, when I'd been quarrelling with morepeople than usual, you among the number--it must have been in November, Inever quarrel with you too near Christmas--I had an idea that I'd like towrite a book. It was to be a book of personal reminiscences, and was toleave out nothing. " "Reginald!" "Exactly what the Duchess said when I mentioned it to her. I wasprovoking and said nothing, and the next thing, of course, was thateveryone heard that I'd written the book and got it in the press. Afterthat, I might have been a gold-fish in a glass bowl for all the privacy Igot. People attacked me about it in the most unexpected places, andimplored or commanded me to leave out things that I'd forgotten had everhappened. I sat behind Miriam Klopstock one night in the dress circle atHis Majesty's, and she began at once about the incident of the Chow dogin the bathroom, which she insisted must be struck out. We had to argueit in a disjointed fashion, because some of the people wanted to listento the play, and Miriam takes nines in voices. They had to stop herplaying in the 'Macaws' Hockey Club because you could hear what shethought when her shins got mixed up in a scrimmage for half a mile on astill day. They are called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellowcostumes, but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam'slanguage. I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I had got it aSpitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was firm. She megaphoned backtwo minutes later, 'You promised you would never mention it; don't youever keep a promise?' When people had stopped glaring in our direction, I replied that I'd as soon think of keeping white mice. I saw hertearing little bits out of her programme for a minute or two, and thenshe leaned back and snorted, 'You're not the boy I took you for, ' asthough she were an eagle arriving at Olympus with the wrong Ganymede. That was her last audible remark, but she went on tearing up herprogramme and scattering the pieces around her, till one of herneighbours asked with immense dignity whether she should send for awastepaper basket. I didn't stay for the last act. " "Then there is Mrs. --oh, I never can remember her name; she lives in astreet that the cabmen have never heard of, and is at home on Wednesdays. She frightened me horribly once at a private view by saying mysteriously, 'I oughtn't to be here, you know; this is one of my days. ' I thought shemeant that she was subject to periodical outbreaks and was expecting anattack at any moment. So embarrassing if she had suddenly taken it intoher head that she was Cesar Borgia or St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Thatsort of thing would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a privateview. However, she merely meant to say that it was Wednesday, which atthe moment was incontrovertible. Well, she's on quite a different tackto the Klopstock. She doesn't visit anywhere very extensively, and, ofcourse, she's awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred atone of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she accidentally hitthe shins of a Serene Somebody or other with a croquet mallet and that heswore at her in German. As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing onthe Gordon-Bennett affair in French. (I never can remember if it's a newsubmarine or a divorce. Of course, how stupid of me!) To bedisagreeably exact, I fancy she missed him by about twoinches--over-anxiousness, probably--but she likes to think she hit him. I've felt that way with a partridge which I always imagine keeps onflying strong, out of false pride, till it's the other side of the hedge. She said she could tell me everything she was wearing on the occasion. Isaid I didn't want my book to read like a laundry list, but she explainedthat she didn't mean those sort of things. " "And there's the Chilworth boy, who can be charming as long as he'scontent to be stupid and wear what he's told to; but he gets the idea nowand then that he'd like to be epigrammatic, and the result is likewatching a rook trying to build a nest in a gale. Since he got wind ofthe book, he's been persecuting me to work in something of his about theRussians and the Yalu Peril, and is quite sulky because I won't do it. " "Altogether, I think it would be rather a brilliant inspiration if youwere to suggest a fortnight in Paris. "