Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 152 June 27 1917 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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Ebook has 266 lines and 17281 words, and 6 pages

Betty has an appealing eye, freckles, and most fascinating red-gold hair, and on the morning of which I write, after preparing the attack with the first, she gently massaged my face with the second and third, the while insinuating into my own a small hand not innocent of marmalade. Betty is seven or thereabouts. "Mr. --er," she said, "what shall we be to-day?"

"Let us," I replied hastily, "pretend to be not quite at our best this morning, and have a quiet time in the deck-chairs on the lawn." Betty very naturally paid no regard whatever to this cowardly suggestion.

"I'm not quite sure," she said, "if we will be pirates or soldiers or just sailors. What do you think?"

Pirates sounded rather strenuous for so hot a day. Soldiers, I felt sure, involved my becoming a German prisoner and parading the garden paths with my arms up, crying "Kamerad!" while Betty, gun in hand, shepherded and prodded me from behind. Just sailors, on the other hand, smacked of gentle sculling exercise in the dinghy on the lake, so I said, "Let's be just sailors."

But a sailor's life, as interpreted by Betty, is no rest cure. On land it includes an exaggerated rolling gait--itself somewhat fatiguing--and intervals of active participation in that most exacting dance, the hornpipe, to one's own whistling accompaniment. At odd moments, also, it appears that the best sailors double briskly to such melodies as "Tipperary" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning."

It was only when we arrived by the lake-side that Betty observed my gumboots; instantly a return to the house in search of Daddy's nautical footgear was necessitated. This, though generous in dimensions, was finally induced to remain in position on Betty's small feet, her own boots being, of course, retained.

Our vessel also changed its character with lightning rapidity. It was in turn a ferry-boat--imitation of passengers descending the gangway by rhythmical patting of hand on thwart; a hospital ship chased by a submarine--cormorant's neck and head naturally mistaken for periscope; a destroyer attacking a submarine--said cormorant kindly obliging with quick diving act when approached; a food-ship laden with bananas represented by rushes culled from the banks; and a smuggler running cargoes of French wine contained in an elderly empty bottle discovered in the mud above high-water mark. It was breathless work.

The disaster occurred when Betty, against my maturer judgment, insisted upon the exploration on foot of a mangrove swamp on the shore of a cannibal-infested South Sea island. The immediate cause was a suddenly developed attachment on the part of one of Daddy's sea-boots to the mud on the lake-side. The twain refused to be parted, and the youthful explorer measured her length in the mire.

Generously overlooking my carelessness in not warning her that we were traversing a quicksand, Betty, rather shaken, very muddy and with a suspicion of tears in her voice, bound me by a blood-curdling nautical oath not to breathe a word of the mishap to Mummy, Daddy or Miss Watt, her governess. The pledge having been given, Betty, the offending boots discarded, fled to her own room by way of the back-door.

It was then twelve o'clock, and in the hour that remained before luncheon I was fertile in excuses for Betty's absence from the scene; in fact, the necessity for concealing the calamity quite marred what should have been a time of well-earned relaxation.

At last we sat down to the midday meal, and the members of the house-party began to relate their morning's adventures. Finally some thoughtless person said, "Well, Betty, and what mischief have you been up to?"

Betty, quite recovered and with a radiant smile, replied, "Oh, Mr. --er and I had a scrumptious time on the lake. We were sailors--just sailors--and did all sorts of lovely things, didn't we, Mr. --er?"

I agreed, and Betty went on to her peroration:

WIMMIN.

Behind wi' the sowin', An' rent-day to meet, For first time o' knowin' John Buckham was beat; Torpedoed an' swimmin' An' fairly done in, When someone said, "Wimmin Would suit ye at Lynn."

Dal Midwood, at Mutcham, Who runs by old rules, Said, "John, don't 'ee touch em-- A pa'sel o' fules Aye dabbin' an' trimmin' Wi' powder an' pin; No, don't 'ee have wimmin, John Buckham, at Lynn."

Well, back wi' the sowin', An' rent-day to meet, I had to get goin' Or own I were beat. The banks needed trimmin'; The roots wasn't in; 'Twas either take wimmin Or walk out o' Lynn.

They came. They was pretty An' white o' the hand, But good-heart an' gritty An' chockful o' sand; Wi' energy brimmin' Right up to the chin-- An' that sort o' wimmin Was welcome at Lynn.

At ploughin' they're able, Or drainin' a fen, They'll muck out a stable As well as the men. Their praises I'm hymnin', For where would ha' bin, If it weren't for the wimmin, John Buckham, at Lynn?

W.H.O.

The Sphinx has been requested to furnish an explanation.

OUR INDOMITABLES.

"THE ENGLISH GIRL.

"STANDING IN WITNESS-BOX WITHOUT A QUIVER.

Our English girls to-day are only as old as they feel.

"Mrs. A. Thomson writes a vigorous protest against the carelessness with which the W.F.L. resolution urging the Prime Minister to make Woman Suffrage an integral part of the Bill, was acknowledged on his behalf. The acknowledgment was as follows:--

But was it carelessness, or humour?

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

"NAVAL APPOINTMENTS.

"ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE.

If this is how the Government hopes to get the Member for Leicester to Petrograd there is still the difficulty of enlisting a crew

For the sake of precision we could have wished that the measurement had been worked out to inches.

Not every woman is so well-equipped for showing contempt of the enemy.

Whatever its religion a car of this age must be almost past praying for.

Having regard to the high price of poultry might not the new Food-Controller get these women to explain how they do it?

THE BUFFER'S VINDICATION.

THE WATCH DOGS.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I've become so artful these days in disguising identities under assumed names that I'm hanged if I can remember myself which of my people is which. Still I daresay your own memory isn't too good, so we'll call him Ross this time, and trust to luck that that is what we called him last time. He is that one of my friends and fellow sinners who was plugging along nicely at the Bar in 1914, and was just about to take silk, when he changed his mind, came to France and got mixed up in what he calls "this vulgar brawl on the Continent." After nearly three years of systematic warfare in the second line he has at last achieved the rank of full lieutenant, which is not so bad for a growing lad of forty-five; and is running one of those complicated but fascinating side-shows which, to oblige Their Exigencies, we have to label Queer Trades, and leave at that.

He began by putting some searching and dreadfully intelligent questions to Ross; dissatisfied with Ross's answers, he concentrated his mind on the business for twenty-four consecutive hours, at the end of which period he was the master of it in more senses than one. Since that time Ross has ensured the efficient running of his office by keeping out of it when it is busy. When for appearance sake he has to be there he does as his Mr. Brown tells him, and never wastes the latter's time by arguing.

In the Army, all fleas have bigger fleas upon their backs to bite 'em. Were this not so somebody would have to act upon his own responsibility, and that, as you will admit, would make war an impossibility. Accordingly in every department there is a series of authorities, starting with "other ranks" at the bottom, proceeding in an ascending scale of dignity and worth, and disappearing through a cloud of Generals into an infinite of which no man knoweth the nature. Thus, with Ross's business the letter which the Corporal writes the Lieutenant signs on behalf of the Major. It is when the Major wants to do something more active that trouble arises. Let us take an incidental matter of administrative detail for example, setting it forth, as all military matters should be set forth, in paragraphs, separately numbered:--

Suddenly the Major declared his intention of putting the whole of Ross's establishment on what he called a satisfactory basis by a series of orders which he proposed to draft himself. Ross, always ready to be put on a satisfactory basis by anybody, took note of the draft, and laid it before his Mr. Brown. The latter was aghast, and proved, by infallible reasons, the fatal results which would follow if the matter was stirred up. Ross made a careful note of the reasons, and laid them before the Major. The Major explained gently that discipline was discipline. And so Ross went to and fro between the two, until the Major said, "Really, Ross!" and his Mr. Brown said, "I'm very sorry, Sir, but there it is;" and yet Ross couldn't sack his Major, and he couldn't break away from his Mr. Brown.

He was between the Devil and the Deep Sea. What was he to do about it? Well, he just told the Deep Sea to keep calm a little longer, and went and waited outside the Devil's Mess. He saluted and asked the Devil if he'd care to come for a walk, and, the latter consenting, he led him to the Deep Sea. Then, when the Devil himself had been introduced to the Deep Sea itself, Ross slipped off and left them in his office to fix it up between themselves.

It was a good idea to introduce the Major and Mr. Brown, wasn't it, Charles? The Major says he was the first to suggest it, and Ross is careful to leave the credit with the Major, because he is sure that the idea really originated in the fertile and masterful brain of his Mr. Brown.

Yours ever,

HENRY.

ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.

From a South African Parish Magazine:--

"A bird flew into Willesden Court yesterday and perched above the magistrate's head.

"Alderman Pinkham: 'It's not often we 'get the bird' on the bench.'"

But the "Beak" is there all the time.

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

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