MAYBIRDS.
I can see some justification for keeping peacocks, especially if you have shaven lawns and terraces and sundials, though sundials, I imagine, are rather a nuisance now-a-days, because of the trouble of having them reset for summer and winter time. Peacocks at any rate are beautiful, and, if their voices are apt in England to become a little hoarse, that is only because they screech when the weather is going to be bad.
The pheasant is also a useful and beautiful fowl. One may put down bread-crumbs to attract the pheasant to one's garden when he is alive, or to one's plate when he is dead.
But I can see no justification whatever for keeping maybirds, for they are neither useful nor beautiful. Perhaps you do not know what a maybird is. I have five maybirds. I have them because people here would keep saying to me, "Look at the price of fresh eggs, and how much nicer it is to have your own." It is a curious thing about the country that people are always giving one disinterested advice in the matter of domestic economy. In London it is different. In London people let you take a twopenny bus ticket to Westminster instead of walking across the Park, and go to ruin in your own sweet way. They rather admire your dash. But in the country they tell you about these things.
So I went to a man and confessed to him my trouble about fresh eggs.
"I see," he said; "you want maybirds."
"No, I don't," I said; "I want hens."
"It's the same thing," he told me. "How many would you like?"
"Five," I said. I thought five would be an unostentatious number and make it clear that I was not trying to compete with the wholesale egg-dealers.
He segregated five maybirds and explained their points to me.
It appeared that one of them was a Buff Orpington and three were white Wyandottes and one had no particular politics. I should say now that it was an Independent. It has speckles and is the one that keeps getting into the garden.
I asked him when the creatures would begin to enter upon their new duties, and he said they would do so at once.
"What is their maximum egg-laying velocity?" I inquired.
"They'll lay about three eggs a day between them," he said, "these five birds."
"Why between them?" I enquired. But I consented to buy his birds, and he said if I liked he would run round to my garden at once and run up a hen-house and a hen-run for me. "Run" seemed rather a word with him.
I said, "Yes, by all means."
He came round that evening and hewed down an apple-tree under the light of the moon to make room for the maybird-run, and in the morning he brought a large roll of wire-netting, and the next day he built a wooden house, and the day after that he brought his five maybirds, and the day after that he came round and asked for some cinders. He sprinkled these all over the enclosure, and I watched him while he worked.
"What is that for?" I asked.
"They want something to scratch in when they run about," he explained. "Exercise is what they need."
"They seem to be scratching already, but they don't seem to be running," I said. "Wouldn't it have been better to put a cinder-track all round the edge and train them to run races round it?"
He said that he hadn't thought of that, but I could try it if I liked. Then he gave me a bag of food, which he said was particularly efficacious for maybirds, and produced his bill.
All this happened about a month ago, and for the last four weeks the principal preoccupation of my household has been the feeding of these five birds. I have had to lay a gravel-path from the aviary to the back premises in order to sustain the weight of the traffic. Huge bowls of hot food are constantly being mixed and carried to them, without any apparent consciousness on their part of their reciprocal responsibilities. What I mean to say is that there are no eggs. The food which they eat resembles Christmas-pudding at the time when it is stirred, and I have suggested that a sixpence should be concealed in it every now and then—sixpence being apparently the current price of an egg—in order to indicate the nature of our hopes.
I have made other valuable suggestions. I have suggested putting an anthracite stove in their sitting-room, and papering the walls with illustrations representing various methods of mass production, ordinary methods having failed. I notice that cabbages are suspended by a string across the top of the parade-ground in order that the birds may obtain exercise by springing at them. The cabbages are eaten, but I do not believe that the birds jump. I believe that they clamber up the wire with their claws, walk along the tight-rope and bite the cabbage off with their teeth.
Sometimes, as I think I have mentioned, the one with speckles escapes into the garden, and I have several times been asked to chase it home. Nothing makes one look more ridiculous than chasing an independent maybird of no particular views across an onion bed. The rest of the animals appear to spend most of their time in walking about the run with their hands in their pockets looking for things on the ground.
But every now and then one or other of them makes the loud cry which is usually associated with successful egg-production; the whole household troops beaming with anticipation along the gravel-path; and it is then discovered that the Buff has knocked one of the Whites off her perch, or that one of the Whites has scratched a cinder on which the Buff had set her eye, or that the Independent member has made a bitter speech which is deeply resented by the Coalition. But there are no eggs.
About a week ago the corn which apparently forms a part of the necessary nourishment of maybirds, and is kept in an outhouse, was attacked by rats. I was told that I must do something about this. I buttered some slices of bread with arsenic and laid them down on the outhouse floor. The rats ate the bread and arsenic and went on with the corn. Unless a great improvement is manifested in the New Year I have decided to butter the maybirds with arsenic and place them in the outhouse too.
Evoe.
Nurse. "Little gentlemen, Master Eric, leave the last mince-pie to their sisters."
Generous Little Girl. "O Nurse, do let him be a little cad."
Cyclone in the Channel Islands.
"Meteorological Notes.
Harbour Office, Jersey.
Wind - E.W.E. - Strong Breeze."
Jersey Paper.
"To get away, the man must have jumped from a height of about ten feet to the ground, then across a garden, and over a wall about eight feet high into a laneway."
—Irish Paper.
Some "lep," as they say in Ireland.
"In the House of Lords on Saturday, the expiring Lords Continuance Bill [was] read a third time and passed."
—Provincial Paper.
Trust the Peers for looking after themselves.
Child (saying prayers). "Give us this day our daily bread-and-butter."
Governess. "No, dear—not butter." Child. "Marge, then."
LETTERS I NEVER POSTED.
CONCERNING GOOD RESOLUTIONS.
To the girl at the Exchange.
The New Year is upon us and with it comes the determination to mend our bad habits and make serious efforts to turn over a new leaf. Perhaps you have already thought of this and have made some good resolutions; perhaps, on the other hand, you cannot think of anything amiss that needs correcting. In this case will you let me help you? In every other respect you may be perfection, but as an exchange operator, which is the only capacity in which (alas!) I know you, you are often lacking. I have no doubt that you are charming in private life and that we should get on famously if we met at dinner; but you have an irritating way of giving me the wrong number, which I do most cordially hope you will lose during 1921. When I protest, you merely say you are sorry, but what I suggest is that an ounce of careful listening at first is worth tons of sorrow later. Kingston doesn't really sound a bit like Brixton, and yet yesterday, when I asked for a Kingston number, you put me at once on to the same number in the other suburb. Constantly when I say I want 2365 you give me 2356. To give you your due you are always, I will admit, sorry; but ...
Another thing. Sometimes, when you ring me up and I answer, all you do is to ask, "Number, please," as though I had rung you. (It is then that I feel most that I should like to wring you.) When I reply, "But you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it be a year of gladness.
Sometimes I am perfectly certain you don't ring up the number I want until after you have asked me once or twice if they have answered. Isn't that so? "I'll ring them again," you say with a kind of resigned adventurousness; but, knowing as I do that they have been waiting for my call, I am not taken in. But what I want to know is—what were you doing instead of ringing up at first? I suppose that these secrets will never be penetrated by the ordinary subscriber outside the sacred precincts; but I wish you would give me fewer of such problems to ponder during the year that is coming.
P.S.—Have you ever considered, with proper alarm, what would happen to a cinema story if a wrong number were provided by the operator, or if any delay whatever occurred? This should make you think.
To a Racing Journalist.
I suggest that you should include among your good resolutions for the New Year the decision not to allow your readers to participate in your special information as to which horse will come in first. Tell them all you like about yesterday's sport, but dangle no more "security tips" before their diminishing purses. If they must bet—which of course they must, as betting is now the principal national industry—let them at least have the fun of selecting the "also-ran" themselves.
To Many an Editor.
In contemplating your 1921 programme of regeneration could you not make a vow to dispense with all headlines that ask questions? Probably you never see the paper yourself and therefore have no feeling in the matter, but I can assure you that the habit can become very wearisome. "Will it freeze to-day?" "Can Beckett win?" "Will Hobbs reach his 3,000 runs?" "Are the Lords going to pass the Bill?" Won't you make an effort to do without this formula? It is futile in itself and has the unfortunate effect of raising what surely are undesirable doubts as to whether journalists are any more sensible than their readers.
To One Editor in Particular.
No comic hats in 1921, please.
To the P.M.G.
There is, as everyone (except possibly Mr. Austen Chamberlain and the cynic who professes to hate letters so much that he wishes that they cost a shilling a-piece to send) will agree, one good resolution which above all others you should concentrate upon for 1921, and that is to get back our penny postage. With so many comparatively unnecessary things still untaxed, it never should have been sacrificed.
To A Pork Butcher.
Among the problems of this latter day of discontents few are more pressing than speculating as to why sausages and pork-pies have so degenerated. Under the malign influence of Peace, sausages have become tasteless and pork-pies nothing but pies with pork in them; the crust chiefly plaster-of-Paris, and the meat not an essential element, soft and seductive and fused with the pastry, but an alien assortment of half-cooked cubes. I can understand that after a great war a certain deterioration must set in, but I fail to see why sausages and pork-pies, if made at all, should not be made as well as ever, especially as you get such a long price for them. Couldn't you—wouldn't you—try in 1921 to make them with some at least of the old care?
To a Cabinet Minister.
Might not a vow against writing for the papers be rather a nice one to observe during 1921? It is quite on the cards that one's duties to the State (not too inadequately paid for) ought to be sufficiently exacting to preclude journalism at all. There's a question of dignity too, although I hesitate to drag that in.
To the Chief of the Police.
Couldn't you (I hope I am addressing the right gentleman) arrange that before 1921 becomes 1922—twelve whole months—a simple device is made for taxis by which a square of red glass can be slipped over one of the lamps at night to indicate that the cab is free? I'm sure it wouldn't really be difficult, and the comfort of London would be enormously increased.
To A Taxi-Driver.
You will perhaps note what I have just said to the Chief of the Police. If you had any interest in your work you would, of course, long since have fixed up something of the kind for yourself. But let that pass. All I am suggesting to you as a 1921 amendment is that you should bank in a more accessible part of your clothing. Waiting for change in this weather (especially with the flag still down) can be an exasperating experience. Won't you make a resolution during the coming year to keep your money nearer the surface?
E. V. L.
Neighbour (bearer of message, to billiard enthusiast). "You're wanted at 'ome, Charlie. Yer wife's just presented yer with another rebate off yer income-tax."
How to deal with Windbags.
"The address was punctured throughout with cheers."
—West Indian Paper.
"There would be a grand dinner and music, and splendidly-dressed ladies to look at, and things to eat that strangely twisted the girls' paws when they tried to tell about them,"
Weekly Paper.
Mem.—Never try to talk the deaf-and-dumb language after dinner.
Profiteer (to his wife). "Pretty mixed lot at this hotel. 'Ere come some more o' them pre-war blighters."