Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 156 March 5 1919 by Various

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Ebook has 202 lines and 18105 words, and 5 pages

Heavens, how our arms ached, for it was over two miles to the billet! A collision of milk-trains could hardly have made more noise than we did as we clashed and clanged down the main street. Of course we met everybody we knew. People we hadn't seen for years, people we didn't like, people who didn't like us--all seemed to have been paraded especially for the occasion.

We got home in the end, and it was a great triumph. The only unenthusiastic person was Mr. Brown, my batman, who surveyed the things in silence, betokening that he knew quite well he would be called upon to sew them up in sacking and label them "Officer's Spare Kit, c/o Cox and Co." Then he looked sadly at my soiled tunic and my British warm and asked if I had carried them far.

"Over two miles," I replied proudly. "Pity," he said; "there's a whole dump of them at the bottom of the garden here."

There the matter might have ended if the fat Roley had not lurched up again the next day with a steel box containing a dial-sight off a field-gun. The dial-sight was a complicated affair of prisms and lenses which probably cost the Bosch about sixty pounds, and we felt a little sick at having overlooked such a find.

"Awful job I had too," he went on. "Some fellows were seen yesterday taking stuff away and they've put a sentry on the train."

"Serve them right," we said.

Next day we returned to the trucks to try again. The sentry was engaged in a little conversation, and whilst Chardenal took his photograph I slipped behind the trucks, opened a couple of lids in the tails of some field-guns, picked out two cases of sights and hurried off. Chardenal joined me later and, concealing our swag under our British warms, we walked as quickly as we could until the Brigadier stopped and had a little chat with us about things in general. And there we had to stand for a quarter of an hour on a freezing afternoon with two fingers holding the box and the other fingers holding the coat down to effect better concealment. Chardenal was in so much pain and wore such an expression of agonized innocence that the Brigadier wanted him to come into headquarters until he felt better.

"Well, what have you got?" asked Carfax, another candidate for demobilisation, when we finally got back and showed him the cases.

"What lenses are they?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Chardenal, "but, whatever's the heaviest kind, that's the kind we've brought."

And we opened the boxes and they were empty.

The baronial hall will remain unfurnished. I'm fed up with the whole business.

From an Official Form of Application for stripes:--

"I certify that these Members have diligently attended their duties at the Hospital, are always neat in appearance, punctual in their habits and proficient in their cursing. I recommend they be allowed to enter for the Blue Stripe Examination."

From the announcement of a musical service:--

Quite a new "creation."

THE HOUSE HISTRIONIC.

The enterprise of Mr. C.B. COCHRAN, who announces that the oak-parlour used in his play at the St. Martin's Theatre will be sold by auction at the conclusion of the run, has not unnaturally provoked a certain liveliness in architectural circles. Should advertisements of houses for sale ever reappear in the newspapers, it is thought likely that they may include something like this:--

"He kissed her, taking his cigarette out of his mouth to do so."

This courteous consideration is invariably shown in the best circles.

THE SUBALTERNS' PARADISE.

I met Bilsden and congratulated him on being in "civvies."

"What are you going to do now?" I asked. "Back to the old firm?"

"No," said Bilsden gravely; "when a man has acquired the power of leading men he's thrown away in an accountant's office, especially as the junior member of the staff. I see no prospect in England. I have offered to take charge of large departments of English firms, and be responsible for entire supervision, but they fail to recognise what the capacity for leadership gained in the army will do. I'm off to Ceylon--tea-planting. Just to control big gangs of coolies and see that they work. It will be child's play for me. Lovely climate; elephants. An absolutely ideal job."

It seemed to me on that foggy frosty day, that to lie in a hammock in the shade, with the temperature about ninety, watching coolies work, would be the perfect form of labour.

Half-an-hour later I met Parkinson, another second-loot who had just shed his pip.

"Well, what are you going to do now?" I asked.

"I'm a bit dubious," he said.

"Try tea-planting in Ceylon," I suggested. "Elephants, spicy breezes, swing in a hammock all day watching coolies. My dear boy, were I twenty years younger I should be inquiring about a berth on the next steamer."

"Ah," said Parkinson, "of course Ceylon's all right, and I've a lot of pals going out there; but what about rubber-planting in the Malay Peninsula? They've got tigers there. That's rather a pull."

I admitted the attraction of tigers to certain tastes, but not to mine. In my case the pull, I thought, might be on the tiger's side.

Since these interviews I have been going the rounds of my military acquaintances and I find a general feeling in favour of Ceylon or the Malay Peninsula.

Of course it's an excellent thing that they should take up the white man's burden and make the coolies work, only I'm in dread lest the overcrowding we suffer from in England may be extended to the Orient. Will there be enough plantations, coolies and big game to go round amongst our subalterns?

I can see the Government introducing several Bills--

For the extension of the Isle of Ceylon;

For the lengthening of the Malay Peninsula;

For the importation of five million coolies, estimated at the rate of five hundred coolies each, to give employment to ten thousand second-loots;

For the importation of elephants, tigers, lions, buffalo, hippopotami, giraffes and capercailzie.

AT PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE.

"Once more upon the waters! Yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a Steed That knows his master."

A CAREER.

You should see our son James! You should just see our James! As bright as a button, as sharp as a knife! My wife says to me and I say to my wife, "You'll never have seen such a son in your life As our jammy son, James."

He is now three years old; He's a good three years old; When the fellow was two you could see by his brow That this was a coming celebrity. Now He's a stout three-year-old.

Question: What shall he be? Tell us, what shall he be? Shall he follow his father and go to the Bar, Where, passing his father, he's bound to go far? "But one knows," says his mother,"what barristers are. Something else he must be!"

Do you fancy a Haig? Shall our James be a Haig? The War Office tell me he's late for this war, Have the honour to add there won't be any more Since that's what the League of the Nations is for; So it's off about Haig.

But his mother sees light . "This League of the Nations we mentioned above, With the motto, 'Be Quiet,' the trade-mark, a Dove, Will be wanting a President, won't it, my love?" Jimmy's mother sees light.

Yes, that could be arranged; Nay, it must be arranged. In the matter of years Master Jimmy would meet Presidential requirements. What age can compete, In avoiding the gawdy, achieving the neat, With forty to fifty? Thus, forty-five be't. Given forty-two years, he'll be finding his feet And the Treaty of Peace should be getting complete.... And so that's all arranged.

HENRY.

I hope it isn't getting just a little overdone. But I hear that lots of papers are offering only three guineas a column now for quite important signatures, while others actually insist on contributors writing their own articles.

It took quite a long time to collect, and put in their proper order, the waiter, the contents of the tray, her Grace and all the other jazzers who were coming up behind.

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