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 (they should have known that babies like looking the other way always) 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.
Then they cut each other dead.
Side by side they recline on the couch. Judy, pouting with sleep, is buffeting her face with her little white boxing-gloves, while Peter stares fascinated at the fire, quite sure that social functions are not in his line. "O-o!"
With only three months' experience, Judy has not yet attained complete mastery of the art of manipulating difficult things like limbs. Inadvertently, and in excess of zeal to kick higher than any other baby, she has landed out a beautiful backhander and caught Peter hard in the tummy. Peter's eyes open wide. Creases appear on his face and widen. A cavern opens and a roar follows:—
"Ya—o-o!"
"Hullo!" (Judy looks up in amazement, for there is only one noise in the house like that, and she has the sole rights of it). "Hullo, is that me? I didn't know I was doing it"—(the roars from Peter continue)—"but I suppose I am. I must be. Let's have a lot more of this very good noise I am making—Ya—o-o!"
The duet produces a crescendo astounding to them both, for there has never been a noise so wonderful as this in all their experience. Then to Judy a very strange thing happens. She pauses for breath, but the noise goes on. "This is amazing—how do I do it?..."
She joins in again—and then Peter stops. He too is puzzled vaguely. However, bother introspection, the concert proceeds, both artists doing their level best. Now one of them pauses, now the other, and at length serious doubts begin to creep in. There is something queer afoot—something....
The matter resolves itself. Turning suddenly they behold each other, both yelling splendidly. Amazement! Cavern confronts cavern! Face to face they roar their hardest, demanding the reason for this strange phenomenon, "this other me who does when I don't."
They pause—their mouths remain agape. Slowly they close and smiles succeed. Joy! A reasonable-sized face at last. What a relief after the enormous faces, the great mouths, the Cyranese noses of the Big People who are wont to come and peer. Here at last is a true face, a face that—no, they both agree not to dwell unduly on the discovery.
Indifferent to each other once again they regard the special objects of their attention, their hands waving gently in the air, seeking the fairies that babies' hands are always trying to catch.
Ha! their hands have met.
"Hoo! It's a reasonable hand. It's got proper fingers, not stumps of bananas."
"Moreover," says Peter politely, "if you care to take advantage of my offer you will find that it is properly moistened, succulent and suitable to a baby's taste. You needn't mind; I prepared it myself."
"Goo! Gool-gur!" All is peace and chuckles. Hand-in-hand they survey their mothers. "Our mothers, yours—mine. Ha, ha—he, he—goo!"
The inner thoughts of the two babies may be hidden from me (I accept the punishment), but I know—I know what the two mothers are thinking of. Twenty years hence, a paragraph in The Times: "Peter—Judy—" Oh, you fatuous mothers!
L.
"Public interest remains unabated in the remarkable occurrences at the poultry-house farm at Brickendon, where spirit rappings in the morse code have been heard for weeks past.... One question put to the spirit last night was 'How many people are outside?' And the reply was 'Rorty,' which proved to be correct."—Liverpool Paper.
And possibly furnishes some clue to the identity of the spirit concerned.
Officer. "What have you got there?"
Lighterman. "Coal."
Officer. "I can see that. What kind of coal?"
Lighterman. "Black coal."