Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 159 1920-11-03 by Various Seaman Owen Editor

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Ebook has 234 lines and 17551 words, and 5 pages

"Nor do you ever perhaps send home garments belonging to other people while one's own are missing?"

"Never, I can assure you, Madam."

"Does the man who delivers the washing habitually turn the basket upside down so that the heavy things below crush all the delicate frilly things that ought to be on top?"

She seemed incapable of conceiving that such perverted creatures could exist.

"Do they never whistle in an objectionable manner while waiting for the soiled clothes?"

"Whistling on duty is strictly forbidden, Madam."

"Well, all these things I have mentioned my laundry does to me, and even more, and when I write to complain they disregard my letters."

"We rarely have complaints, Madam, and all such receive prompt attention. I can give references in this street--in this block of flats even."

"Well," said I, "if you like to give me a card I am willing to let you have a trial."

The young woman opened her bag with alacrity and handed me a card.

"The Superfection Laundry," I read with amazement. "Surely there must be some mistake?"

"Are you not Mrs. Fulton?" asked the young woman.

"No, you have come a floor too high. Mrs. Fulton lives in the flat below me."

"I must apologise for my call, then; I was sent to see Mrs. Fulton. But all the same may we not add you to the list of our customers?"

"Impossible," I said.

"May I ask your reasons, Madam?"

"Because the laundry I employ at present is the Superfection."

This kind of thing had been going on morning after morning until I was quite tired.

It is extraordinary how many things one ought to get hold of in the country. Sometimes it is a wood-chopper and sometimes a couple of hundred cabbages, and sometimes a cartload of manure, and sometimes a few good hens. I find this very exhausting to the grip.

That is how Trotsky came to us. Nobody but a reckless propagandist would say that he is either a mastiff or a boar-hound, though he once stopped when we came to a pig. I do not mind that. What I do mind is their saying, now that they have palmed him off on me, "I saw you out with your what-ever-it-is yesterday," or "I did not know you had taken to sheep-breeding," or "What is that thing you have tied up to the kennel at the back?" There seems to be something about the animal's tail that does not go with its back, or about its legs that does not go with its nose, or about its eyes that does not go with its fur. If it is fur, that is to say. And the eyes are a different colour and seem to squint a little. They say that one of them is a wall-eye. I think that is the one he watches the house with. Personally I consider that they are very handsome eyes in their own different lines, and my opinion is that he is a Mull-terrier; or possibly a Rum. Anyhow he is a good dog to get hold of, for he is very curly.

The village policeman came round to the house the other day. I think he really came to talk to the cook, but I fell into conversation with him.

"You ought to be getting a licence for that dog of yours," he said.

"What dog?" I asked.

"Why, you've got a dog tied up at the back there, haven't you?" he said.

And we went out and looked at it together. Trotsky looked at me with one eye and at the policeman with the other, and he wagged his tail. At least I am not sure that he wagged it; "shook" would be a better word.

"Where did you get it?" he inquired.

"Oh, I just got hold of it," I said airily. "It's rather good, don't you think?"

He stood for some time in doubt.

"It's a dog," he said at last.

I shook him warmly by the hand.

"You have taken a great load off my mind," I told him. "I will get a licence at once."

This will score off them pretty badly.

After all you can't go behind a Government certificate, can you? EVOE.

Oh, bitter are the insults And bitter is the shame Heaped on deserving authors Of high and strenuous aim, When all the best booksellers Their shelves and windows cram With novels from the nursery And poems from the pram.

Unfairly WINSTON CHURCHILL Invades the Sunday sheets; Unfairly MRS. ASQUITH With serious scribes competes; But these are minor evils-- What makes me cuss and damn Are novels from the nursery And poems from the pram.

When on the concert platform The prodigy appears I do not grudge his welcome, The clappings and the cheers; But I can't forgive the people Who down our throats would cram The novelists from the nursery, The poets from the pram.

I met a best seller, And I took him by the hand, And asked, "How's OPAL WHITELEY And how does DAISY stand?" He answered, "I can only See sloppiness and sham In novels from the nursery And poems from the pram."

The archangel was a great catch.

Shoving, we suppose, for all they are worth.

If it was not for the paper-shortage I should at once re-write EUCLID, or those parts of him which I understand. The trouble about old EUCLID was that he had no soul, and few of his books have that emotional appeal for which we look in these days. My aim would be to bring home his discoveries to the young by clothing them with human interest; and I should at the same time demonstrate to the adult how often they might be made practically useful in everyday life. When one thinks of the times one draws a straight line at right angles to another straight line, and how seldom one does it EUCLID'S way ... every time one writes a T....

Well, let us take, for example--

Let ABC be that horrible round bed where you had the geraniums last year. This year, I gather, the idea is to have it nothing but rose-trees, with a great big fellow in the middle. The question is, where is the middle? I mean, if you plant it in a hurry on your own judgment, everyone who comes near the house will point out that the bed is all cock-eye. Besides, you can see it from the dining-room and it will annoy you at breakfast.

CONSTRUCTION.--Well, this is how we go about it. First, you draw any chord AB in the given bed ABC. You can do that with one of those long strings the gardener keeps in his shed, with pegs at the end.

Bisect AB at D.

Now from D draw DC at right angles to AB, and meeting the lawn at C. You can do that with a hoe.

Produce CD to meet the lawn again at E.

Now we do some more of that bisecting; this time we bisect EC at F.

Then F shall be the middle of the bed; and that's where your rose-tree is going.

Just cast your eye over the two triangles GDA and GDB.

Therefore, you fool, the angle GDA is equal to the angle GDB.

Therefore they are both right angles.

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