Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 158 1920-02-11 by Various

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"I can't. It baffled description. Well, they drifted apart; but often afterwards, when that young laddy was studying his Manual of Military Law in his lonely dug-out, the image of Sister Carruthers glowed on the printed page. But I never met her again until the other day, when I was having a gentle toddle round Quelquepart and saw her gliding along the quay. Something gripped me by the heart; I took my courage in both hands and spoke to her.

"'Don't you remember me, Sister?' I said. 'It was you who nursed me in No. 99 General.'

"She looked at me coldly.

"'As you are the third young officer who has adopted a similar method of introduction this afternoon,' she said, 'you must forgive me if I ask for some confirmation.'

"'Surely you haven't forgotten?' I cried. 'You drew me a sweet little design in dots and dashes to hang over my bed. When I was evacuated to England I wanted to thank you, to ask if we might meet again, but you thrust a clinical thermometer between my teeth and told me not to speak till you gave me permission. Then you left me, and I was whisked away to the boat clinging grimly to the thermometer, inarticulate and heartbroken.'

"'And I presume your object in speaking to me to-day is to return the thermometer?' she said primly.

"The old Army fault of unpreparedness," remarked Percival. "You ought to go to hospital."

"Don't be juvenile! What have hospitals to do with heartache?"

"Everything, if you go to the right one--the one where your ministering angel ministrates, for instance."

"Percival, old ace," said Frederick, with admiration, "you'll rank among the world's great thinkers yet. Turn on the current again and tell me what is my complaint."

"Digestive trouble," said Percival promptly. "There's already been rumours about, and you'll be doing a public service by going to dock with dyspepsia. Binnie will be so stricken by remorse that he'll at once start providing the Mess with decent food."

"Then for your sakes I'll rehearse the symptoms. But my curse will be on your head if I get to the wrong hospital."

It was unfortunate that the M.O. was in an unsympathetic mood next morning. He thumped Frederick on the lower chest and pooh-poohed the idea of hospital. "All you want is a few of these tablets," he said, "and you'll be fit as nails in a day or two."

Frederick crawled away dispiritedly to confide in Percival. That sapient youth counselled perseverance.

"You must go right off your feed," he said. "Let the doc. see you feebly pecking and he'll soon get alarmed. In the meantime I'm off to give Binnie critical accounts of your appetite and send him to market right away."

Only a burning passion and stealthy bars of chocolate could have sustained Frederick through the next few days. To sit down to breakfast with a healthy appetite and refuse his egg and rasher put the biggest possible strain on his constancy. His task was made doubly difficult by the scheming of Percival, who was constantly inciting Binnie to procure fresh delicacies.

"You've crocked poor Freddy," he said; "and there will be others going the same way if you don't improve the messing. Now I saw some nice plump chickens to-day in the...."

Thus harried, that evening Binnie provided a dinner that almost reduced Frederick to breaking-point. Only the fact that the M.O. was sitting opposite gave him strength to refuse the soup and fish, to trifle with the chicken and turn wearily from the sweet. As the savoury was being served he caught a scrap of conversation across the table.

"... to the boat to see her off for demob.," the M.O. was saying to the Padre. "Jolly nice girl--Jim Carruthers' daughter, you know."

Frederick pricked up his ears.

"I remember," said the Padre. "She used to be at 99 General."

There was no doubt who was the girl referred to. Frederick sat back in his chair with a heavy sense of disappointment and loss. He felt acutely sorry for himself. But presently above the pain in his heart there arose a stronger and more compelling feeling.

PICTURES.

"Some likes picturs o' women" "an' some likes 'orses best," As he fitted a pair of fancy shackles on to his old sea-chest; "But I likes picturs o' ships" , "an' you can keep the rest.

"An' if I was a ruddy millionaire with dollars to burn that way, Instead of a dead-broke sailorman as never saves his pay, I'd go to some big paintin' guy, an' this is what I'd say:--

"'An' you might do 'er outward bound, with a sky full o' clouds, An' the tug just droppin' astern an' gulls flyin' in crowds, An' the decks shiny-wet with rain an' the wind shakin' the shrouds.

"'Or else racin' up-Channel with a sou'-wester blowin', Stuns'ls set aloft and alow an' a hoist o' flags showin', An' a white bone between her teeth, so's you can see she's goin'.

"'Or you might do 'er off Cape Stiff in the 'igh latitudes yonder, With her main-deck a smother of white an' her lee-rail dipping under, And the big greybeards drivin' by an' breakin' aboard like thunder.

"'Or I'd like old Tuskar somewhere around--or Sydney 'eads, maybe, Or Bar Light, or the Tail o' the Bank, or a glimp o' Circular Quay, Or a junk or two, if she's tradin' East, to show it's the China Sea.

"'Nor I don't want no dabs o' paint as you can't tell what they are, Whether they're shadders or fellers' faces or blocks or blobs o' tar, But I want gear as looks like gear an' a spar that's like a spar.

C.F.S.

EGYPTIAN DARKNESS.

Or, so far as we are concerned, even one way.

THE BIG-GAME CURE.

In other times I might have made For those wild lands where growls the grisly, Have tracked him And held a broken-hearted Bisley; Now that my Maud has murmured, "Nay," Shrinking from matrimony's tight knot, I might have acted thus, I say .

In any case to-day I shrink From thus evading Sorrow's trammels; A sense of duty bids me think How costly are the larger mammals; To kill them just to soothe my mind Would seem to savour of the wasteful, A thing all patriot poets find Exceedingly distasteful.

Not mine the immemorial cure; The voice of conscience warns me off it; I'll leave the following of the spoor To those who follow it for profit; I feel they would not thank me for Turning the jungle to a shambles, Who speculate in lions or Have elephantine gambles.

And so this poet will not roam; Remaining on his native heath, he Will seek an anodyne at home, Nor look beyond the Thames for Lethe; And if he fades away, denied The usual balm in cardiac crises, Say only this of him, "He died A prey to soaring prices."

HOW TO ACT IN EMERGENCIES.

The old plan of offering a burglar a cigarette and asking him to take a chair while you telephone to the police is not now so successful as in the past. The best plan is to tackle the fellow right away. For this purpose you should step behind him, take hold of his coat and force it over his face. Then tie his left arm to his right leg across the back. Properly carried out, this method rarely fails.

To attract the attention of the young lady behind a post-office counter, fire a revolver three times in succession, using blank cartridges. After first aid has been rendered to the attendants step up to the counter and purchase your stamp.

If you should be knocked down by a taxi, don't be alarmed and try to creep out from under the thing. And don't blame the driver. Apologise to him, and, as you are being carried away, shake hands and tell him that while it was his cab it was your fault. Treated in this manner, drivers are not nearly so offensive when they knock you down the next time.

Should the telephone-bell ring in your house, don't get excited. Keep calm. Remember General GRANT. Remove the women and children to a place of safety, lift off the receiver and say, "Good Heavens! Whoever can it be?"

Let us suppose that you are being attacked by a man with a chopper. Wait until the weapon is well poised over your head. Just as he begins the down stroke step aside smartly. The hatchet will then be found buried in the ground. This means that bygones are bygones.

PETER AND JUDY.

Except for the fact that they had different sets of parents and were born some hundred miles apart, Peter and Judy are practically twins. Consequently, after an interval of three months, strenuous efforts were made by the two young mothers to bring about a proper introduction between the two wonders.

The occasion was to be one of great importance, for it was Judy's very first tea-party, marking, as it were, the dawn of her social career. For days the post-office wrestled with the correspondence necessary to bring about the meeting. The mothers, both in person and by proxy, had scoured the precincts of Kensington and Oxford Street respectively for the necessary adornments to do their offspring justice, changing their minds so often that the assistants came to take as much interest in the party as if they were going to it themselves.

And yet, when the great moment arrived and the strong silent man was borne into the room, round-eyed and expectant, he found his hostess already tired out with her first tea-party and fast asleep. He could scarcely believe his eyes; nor could Judy's scandalised father.

Peter was very good about it. He bore this chilly reception stoically, deprecating any desire to wake the sleeping beauty--deprecating, in fact, any interest in her or her cot whatsoever. Ignoring the efforts of the Big People to fix his attention by pointing him directly at the main object of the tea-party he remained passively interested in a fascinating brass knob, the while getting his gloves into a satisfactory state of succulence before the Big People should take it on themselves to remove them.

At last his patience is rewarded. The hostess, sighing sleepily, is beginning to show signs of realising her responsibilities. Two immense arms, two enormous fistfuls of fingers gather her up and she is borne through the air triumphantly.... Peter and Judy are introduced.

I doubt whether any two people in this world ever displayed greater indifference. Solemnly they turn their eyes upon every other object in the room except each other. It is not until the number of permutations in which two people can look at everything is exhausted mathematically that their eyes meet at last.

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