PHILIP.
Philip is the morose but rather dressy foreigner who resides in a cage on the verandah. Miss Ropes, who owns him and ought to know, says he is a Grey Cardinal, but neither his voracious appetite for caterpillars nor his gruesome manner of assimilating them are in the least dignified or ecclesiastical. It takes the unremitting efforts of Miss Ropes and the entire available strength of convalescent officers (after deducting the players of bridge, the stalkers of rabbits and the jig-saw squad) to supply Philip with a square meal.
Recently a caterpillar famine began to make itself felt in the parts of the garden near the house, and the enthusiasm of the collectors evaporated at the prospect of searching farther afield.
Ansell was the first to cry off.
"I'm sorry, Miss Ropes," he said firmly, "but I have an instinctive antipathy to reptiles."
"They aren't—they're insects."
"In that case," he replied still more firmly, "the shrieks of the little creatures when Philip gets 'em rend my heartstrings. I don't think the doctor would approve."
Haynes suggested that Philip's behaviour savoured of unpatriotism, and that the one thing needful was the immediate appointment of a caterpillar controller. Miss Ropes countered this by electing herself to the post, and declaring that the supply was adequate to meet all demands, as soon as the regrettable strike of transport-workers was settled.
"Don't you think," I said, "that it would be very much nicer—for Philip—if he were allowed to forage for himself? We had a bullfinch once who spent his days in the garden and always came back to the cage at night."
This apposite though untrue anecdote obviously impressed the lady, but she decided that Philip was too precious to be made the subject of experiment. The transport-workers then returned to their labours, under protest.
However, a day or two later Fate played into our hands. Miss Ropes herself inadvertently left the cage door open, and Philip escaped. The entire establishment devoted the day to his pursuit, without success; but in the evening the truant, dissipated and distended, lurched into his cage of his own accord and went instantly to sleep.
Encouraged by his return and by the regular habits of my hypothetical bullfinch, Miss Ropes let him out again next day. This time he did not come back.
"Probably he's sleeping it off somewhere," said Haynes cheerfully. "He'll be back to-morrow."
However he wasn't. Miss Ropes had his description posted up in the village, and next day a telephone message informed us that a suspicious red-headed character answering to the specification was loitering near the "Waggon and Horses," and was being kept under observation. Miss Ropes and Haynes went off to arrest him, but hardly had they disappeared down the drive when Philip in person appeared on the lawn.
This gave our handy man, James, his chance. James simply loves to make himself useful. If anybody wants anything done he can always rely on James to do it by a more complicated method and with more trouble to himself than the ordinary man could conceive. His education is generally understood to have consisted of an exhaustive study of the "How-To-Make" column in the Boys' Own Paper, completed by a short course of domestic engineering under Mr. W. HEATH ROBINSON.
We first knew that he had undertaken the case when we heard his voice excitedly telling us not to move. Naturally we all turned to look at him. He had got a butterfly net from somewhere and was lying flat on his tummy and whistling seductively an alleged imitation of Philip's usual remark. Philip, about thirty yards away, was eyeing him with contempt.
Suddenly James gathered his limbs beneath him, sprang up, galloped ten yards and flung himself down again, panting loudly. Philip, surprised and alarmed, took refuge in a tree, whereupon James abandoned the stalk (blaming us for having frightened Philip away) and retired to think of another scheme.
Soon he reappeared with some pieces of bamboo and a square yard of white calico, sat down solemnly in the verandah and began to sew.
"Is it a white flag? Are you going to parley with him, or what?" asked Ansell.
"Trap," replied James shortly.
We watched with silent interest while he got more and more entangled in his contrivance.
"I hope Philip'll know how to work the machine," said I, "because I'm sure I shouldn't."
At last it was finished, and James took it out and set it. He disguised it (rather thinly) with half-a-dozen oak leaves and baited it with a lot of caterpillars, and retired behind a tree with the end of a long piece of string in his hand.
"When Philip walks up to the trap," he explained, "he starts eating the caterpillars. I pull the string, and he is caught in the calico. It's called a bow-net."
He waited patiently for an hour-and-a-half, except for a short break while he rounded up the caterpillars, who, not knowing the rules, had walked away. Then we took the luncheon interval; scores, James (in play) 0; Philip 0.
"I don't see," said Ansell soon after the resumption, "why poor old James should do all the work. Let's all help."
We began by posting an appeal in prominent spots about the grounds:—
PHILIP—If this should meet the eye of. Return to your sorrowing family, when all will be forgotten and forgiven and no questions asked.
Next we festooned the estate with helpful notices, such as "This way to the Trap —>" and "Caterpillar Buffet first turn to Left." One of the peacocks was observed to be reading this last with great interest, so we added a few more notices for the special benefit of unauthorised food-hogs: "Free List Suspended until Further Notice," and "Eat Less Worm."
At tea-time Philip was still holding coldly aloof. But while we were indoors Bennett, the gardener, caught him by some simple artifice beneath James's notice. I found him putting the truant back in his cage.
"Don't do that, Bennett," I said. "Put him in Mr. James's trap. He's had a lot of trouble making that trap, and it's a pity to waste it."
Bennett grinned a toothless grin at me and did some dialect, which I understood to mean that I might do as I liked, but that he (Bennett) was not going to catch no more birds for us.
Hardly had I put Philip in the trap when James emerged.
"Good Lord!" he shouted, "it's done it! He's in!"
He dashed on to the lawn, wild with joy. Probably it was the first time any of his devices had succeeded.
"Aha, my beauty," he cried, slipping his hand under the calico. "We've got you safe, have we?"
We had not. There was a flash of red and grey, and the outraged Philip, minus a tail feather, sought the sanctuary of the woods.
He is still absent without leave at the time of writing.
Manager of Labour Exchange (to man whom he has sent to a job for "an intelligent labourer to assist the demonstrator of tanks; one who can hold his tongue about the work"). "WELL, MIKE, HOW'S EVERYTHING GOING?"
Mike (confidentially). "FAITH, BUT THEY'RE A DEAD FAILURE, SORR. WHY, THREE WEEKS I'VE BEEN ON THIM TANKS AND NIVER WAN HAS RIZ OFF THE GROUND YET."