THE MUD LARKS.
I met a man in the Club at Lille the other day who told me that he knew all about women. He had studied the subject, he said, and could read 'em like an open book. He admitted that it took a bit of doing, but that once you had the secret they would trot up and eat out of your hand.
Having thus spoken he swallowed three whiskies in rapid succession and rushed away to jump a lorry-ride to Germany, and I have not seen him since, much to my regret, for I need his advice, I do.
We splashed into the hamlet of Sailly-le-Petit at about eight o'clock of a pouring dark night, to find the inhabitants abed and all doors closed upon us.
However, by dint of entreaties whispered through key-holes and persuasions cooed under window-shutters, I charmed most of them open again and got my troop under cover, with the exception of one section. Its Corporal, his cape spouting like a miniature watershed, swam up. "There's a likely-lookin' farm over yonder, Sir," said he, "but the old gal won't let us in. She's chattin' considerable." I found a group of numb men and shivering horses standing knee-deep in a midden, the men exchanging repartee with a furious female voice that shrilled at them from a dark window. "Is that the officer?" the voice demanded. I admitted as much. "Then remove your band of brigands. Go home to England, where you belong, and leave respectable people in peace. The War is finished."
I replied with some fervour (my boots were full of water and my cap dribbling pints of iced-water down the back of my neck) that I was not playing the wandering Jew round one-horse Picard villages in late December for the amusement I got out of it and that I could be relied on to return to England at the earliest opportunity, but for the present moment would she let us in out of the downpour, please? The voice soared to a scream. No, she would not, not she. If we chose to come soldiering we must take the consequences, she had no sympathy for us. She called several leading saints to witness that her barn was full to bursting anyhow and there was no room. That was that. She slammed the window-shutter and retired, presumably to bed. The Corporal, who had been scouting round about, returned to report room for all hands in the barn, which was quite empty. Without further ado I pushed all hands into the barn and left them for the night.
Next morning, while walking in the village street, I beheld a remarkable trio approaching. It consisted of a venerable cleric—his skirts held high enough out of the mud to reveal the fact that he favoured flannel underclothing and British army socks—and a massive rustic dressed principally in hair, straw-ends and corduroys. The third member was a thick short bulldog of a woman, who, from the masterly way in which she kept corduroys from slipping into the village smithy and saved the cleric from drifting to a sailor's grave in the duck-pond, seemed to be the controlling spirit of the party. By a deft movement to a flank she thwarted her reluctant companions in an attempt to escape up a by-way, and with a nudge here and a tug there brought them to a standstill in front of me and opened the introductions.
"M. le Curé," indicating the cleric, who dropped his skirts and raised his beaver.
"M. le Maire," indicating corduroys, who clutched a handful of straw out of his beard and groaned loudly.
"Moi, je suis Madame, Veuve Palliard-Dubose," indicating herself.
I bowed, quailing inwardly, for I recognized the voice. She gave corduroys a jab in the short ribs with her elbow. "Eh bien, now speak."
Corduroys rolled his eyes like a driven bullock, sneezed a shower of straw and groaned again.
"Imbécile!" spat Madame disgustedly and prodded the Curé. But the Curé was engaged in religious exercises, beads flying through his fingers, lips moving, eyes tight closed. Madame shrugged her shoulders eloquently as if to say, "Men—what worms! I ask you," and turned on me herself. She led off by making some unflattering guesses as to my past career, commented forcibly on my present mode of life, ventured a few cheerful prophecies as to my hereafter and polished off a brisk ten minutes heart-to-heart talk by snapping her fingers under my nose and threatening me with the guillotine if I did not instantly remove my man-eating horses from her barn.
"Observe," she concluded triumphantly, "I have the Church and State on my side."
"Have you?" I queried. "Have you? Look again."
She turned to the right for the Mayor, but a strong trail of straw running up the by-way told that that massive but inarticulate dignitary had slunk home to his threshing. She turned to the left for the Curé, but the whisk of a skirt and a flannel shank disappearing into the church-porch showed that the discreet clerk had side-stepped for sanctuary. I thought it kinder to leave Madame the widow Palliard-Dubose to herself at this juncture, but something told me I had not heard the last of her. Nor had I. A week later an imposing document was forwarded from the orderly-room for my "information and necessary action, please." It emanated from the French Military Mission and claimed from me the modest sum of two thousand three hundred and fourteen francs on behalf of one Madame Veuve Palliard-Dubose, of the village of Sailly-le-Petit, Pas de Calais, the claimant alleging that my troopers had stolen unthreshed wheat to that value wherewith to feed their horses. A prompt settlement would oblige.
I fled panic-stricken down to stables and wagged the document in the faces of the thieves. They were virtuously indignant; hadn't pinched no wheat-straw at all—not in Sailly-le-Petit. Might have been a bit absent-minded-like at Auchy-en-Artois, and again at Pressy-aux-Bois mistakes may have been made, but here never—no, Sir, s'welp-them-Gawd. I wrote to the French Mission denying the impeachment. They replied with a fresh shower of claims. I answered with a storm of denials. The sky snowed correspondence. Just when the French were putting it all over me and my orderly-room was hinting that I had best pay up and save the Entente Cordiale, the French ran out of paper and sent one of their missionaries in a car to settle the matter verbally. I gave him a good lunch, an excellent cigar and spread all the facts of the case before him as one human to another. He spent an hour nosing about the village, and the result of his investigations was that Madame Veuve Palliard-Dubose, so far from having her wheat stolen, had had no wheat to steal, and furthermore never in the course of her agricultural activities had she harvested crops to the value of Francs 2314. Virtue triumphant. Evil vanquished. Madame the widow Palliard-Dubose retired grimly into her cabin, slamming the door on the world.
Yesterday was New Year's Day. Imagine my surprise when, on visiting the horses at mid-day, Madame Veuve Palliard-Dubose leaned over the half-door of her dwelling and waved her hand to me. "Ah, ha, Monsieur le Lieutenant", she crowed, "many felicitations on this most auspicious day! Bon jour, belle année!"
I was so staggered I treated her to my perfecto superfino, my very best salute (usually reserved for Generals and Field Cashiers). "The same to you, Madame, and many of 'em. Vive la France!"
Madame bowed and smiled with all her features. "Vive l'Angleterre!" What a lot of weather we were having, weren't we? and what a glorious victory it had been, hadn't it?—mainly due to the dear soldiers, she felt sure. She hoped I found myself enjoying robust health.
I replied that I was in the pink myself and trusted she was the same.
Never pinker in her life, she said; everything was perfectly lovely. She beckoned me nearer. She had a small favour to ask. At this season of peace and goodwill would the so amiable Lieutenant deign to enter her modest abode and take a little glass of vin blanc with her?
The "amiable Lieutenant" would be enchanted.
She swung the door open and bowed me in. The glasses were already filled and waiting on the table—a big one for me, a little one for her.
We clicked rims and lifted our elbows to the glorious victory, to the weather (which was rotten) and our mutual pinkness.
"A votre santé, mon Lieutenant!" crooned Madame the widow Palliard-Dubose.
"À votre, Madame," replied her Lieutenant, quaffing the whole issue in one motion. Paraffin, ladies and gentlemen, pure undiluted paraffin—paugh! wow! ouch!
If the fellow I met in the Lille Club who reads women's souls and gets 'em to feed out of his hand should also happen to read this, will he please write and tell me what my next move is? PATLANDER.
"TOO LATE FOR CLASSIFICATION.
12 March and April pullets laying rabbits."—Advt. in Local Paper.
Personally we should place these admirable birds in a class by themselves.
"HUNT FOR CIGARETTES.
STATE CONTROL ENDS, BUT SUPPLY STILL SCARCE."—Daily Chronicle.
Is this the fag-end of State control, or the State control of fag-ends?
"Girl, about 18, for grocery; permanency; experience not necessary; must love locally."—Daily Paper.
But we doubt if this attempt to constrain the tender passion within geographical limits will prove a "permanency."
There was a young man from Dundee
Who didn't succeed with the Sea;
So they gave him command
Of the Air and the Land
Just to make it quite fair for all three.