Munafa ebook

Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 153 September 26 1917 by Various

Font size:

Background color:

Text color:

Ebook has 265 lines and 17686 words, and 6 pages

"What!" shouted the Mandril. "I quite forgot. A beggar!--the wretched impostor." He rushed to the window. An old man had rounded the corner of the house and was crossing the road on his way to a small caf? opposite.

"He's going to drink it," screamed the Mandril; "battery will fire a salvo;" and he seized two oranges from the sideboard. The first was a perfect shot and hit the target between the shoulder-blades, and the second burst with fearful force against the wall of the caf?. The victim turned and looked about him in a dazed fashion and then disappeared.

That night I received a note from Monsieur Le Roux, hardware merchant and incidentally our landlord, thanking me for sixteen francs seventy-five centimes paid in advance to his workman, and asking me to name a day on which he could call to mend our broken stove.

SUGAR CONTROL.

"Good evening, Sir," said Lord RHONDDA'S minion , moistening his lips with a bit of pencil. "You were allocated one hundredweight of sugar for jam-making in respect of your soft fruit, I believe?"

"This being the case," he went on , "I must request you to show me your fruit-trees and also your jam cupboard."

"The latter," I said--for he had called just after tea--"is rather full at present, but doing nicely, thanks. As you observe, however, we think it wiser not to try to close the bottom button of the door."

"Perhaps your wife--" suggested the man tentatively.

"Alas!" said my wife, "the secret chamber is where we keep the jam."

She smiled subtly at me and then winningly at the inspector as she turned towards him.

"Step this way, please," she continued.

I caught the idea at once and, blessing the quick wit of woman, followed in the victim's wake, ready to close the secret panel behind him and leave him to a lingering death.

My wife slid open the trap, turning with a triumphant smile as she did so, and I saw at once that the death of anyone shut up inside would be a lot more lingering than I had imagined, for the place seemed full of jam. I was surprised.

"Can I be going to eat all that?" I thought; and life seemed suddenly a very beautiful thing.

The inspector ran a hungry eye over it all, and if he had tried to clamber inside for a closer inspection I should not have given him the quick push I had planned. I should have held him back by his coat. My own way of testing the amount of jam which my wife had made was not for the likes of him.

"About a hundred-and-fifty pounds," he said at last.

"Just a little over," nodded my wife.

"I tell you," I whispered, "this chap knows everything." Then aloud, "I say, Sir, if you wouldn't mind putting me on to something for the Cotsall Selling Plate. Simply," I added hastily, "in the national interest, of course. Keeping up the breed of horses."

The inspector changed the subject again. "You were allocated one hundredweight of sugar, I believe, Ma'am," he said.

"Oh, yes," replied my wife. "But you see some of our jam is still sticking to the trees. Perhaps this gentleman would like to see the orchard, Wenceslaus," she added, turning to me.

So I took the inspector off to see the orchard, pausing on the way at the strawberry bed.

"This," I explained, "was to have made up quite fifty pounds of our allocation, but I'm afraid the crop failed this year. So that must account for any little discrepancy in the weight of fruit." I was very firm about this.

"Strawberries have done well enough elsewhere," said Nemesis suspiciously. "I'm surprised that yours should have failed."

"When I say 'failed,'" I explained, "I mean 'failed to get as far as the preserving pan.' I always retain an option on eating the crop fresh."

The inspector frowned and was going to make a note of this, so I tried to distract his attention.

"Do you know," I said, "a short time ago people persisted in mistaking me for a brother of the Duke of Cotsall?"

"Why?" he asked--rather rudely.

"Because of the strawberry mark on my upper lip. Ah, I think this is the orchard. There was a wealth of bloom here when I put in my application."

"Applications were not made till the fruit was on the trees," said Lord RHONDDA'S minion, sharply. "Ah, there's a nice lot of plums."

This seemed more satisfactory.

One really gets very tired of people who go on harping on the same thing over and over again.

"What about raspberries?" I inquired.

"Soft fruit, of course," said the inspector.

"But they contain stones," I urged. "Nasty little things wot gits into the 'ollers of your teeth somethink cruel, as cook says. Really, the Government ought to give us more careful instructions. And what about the apples? Are pips stones?"

"Apples are not used for jam-making," he retorted.

"What!" I exclaimed. "Tell that to the--to the Army in general! Plum-and-apple jam, my dear Sir! And that reminds me: a jam composed of half stone and half soft fruit--how do we stand in respect to that?"

"Well, Sir," said the inspector, closing his notebook grudgingly, "I don't think we need go into that. I think you've got just about the requisite amount of soft fruit for the one hundredweight of sugar which, I believe, you were allocated."

"There's still the rose garden," I said, "if you're not satisfied."

"Been turning that into an orchard, have you?" he asked. "Very patriotic, I'm sure."

"It would be more patriotic perhaps," observed Lord RHONDDA'S minion sententiously, "not to make jam at all."

"Ah!" I said. "Have a glass of beer before you go."

W. B.

"KAISER'S 1904 PLOTS"

No doubt there were quite as many as that, but we should like to know how our contemporary arrives at the exact number.

AN EXTRAORDINARY DAY.

NOTE-- The Marker was not court-martialled for spreading alarm and despondency in His Majesty's forces; but

The quality of mercy was fearfully strained.

Truly an extraordinary day. Shall we ever live to see it, I wonder?

Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 153 September 26 1917 by Various

Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page

Ebook has 265 lines and 17686 words, and 6 pages

Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page

Back to top Use Dark Theme