THE NEED OF MEN
MR. PUNCH (to the Comber-out): "More power to your elbow, sir. But when are you going to fill up that silly gap?"
SIR AUCKLAND GEDDES: "Hush! Hush! We're waiting for the Millennium."
THE NEW LANGUAGE
TOMMY (to inquisitive French children): "Nah, then, alley toot sweet, an the tooter the sweeter!"
Lord Rhondda, who listened from the Peers' gallery to the recent debate in the Commons on Food Control, has received a quantity of advice intended to help him in minding his p's and q's, particularly the latter. In China, we read in the Daily Express, a chicken can still be purchased for sixpence; intending purchasers should note, however, that at present the return fare to Shanghai brings the total cost to a figure a trifle in excess of the present London prices. More bread is being eaten than ever, according to the Food Controller: but it appears that the stuff is now eaten by itself instead of being spread thinly on butter, as in pre-war days. Bloaters have reached the unprecedented price of sixpence each. This is no more, as we have seen, than a chicken fetches in China, but it is enough to dispel the hope that bloaters, at any rate over the Christmas season, would remain within the reach of the upper classes. At a Guildford charity fête the winner of a hurdle race has been awarded a new-laid egg. If he succeeds in winning it three years in succession it is to become his own property.
Christmas has come round again, and peace still seems a far-off thing. "What shall he have that killed the deer?" someone asks somebody else in As You Like It. But there is a better question than that, and it is this: "What shall they have that preserve the little dears?" And the answer is--honour and support. For there can be no doubt that in these critical times, when the life of the best and bravest and strongest is so cheap, no duty is more important than the cherishing of infancy, and the provision of seasonable joys to the youngest generation, gentle and simple. More than ever Mr. Punch welcomes the coming of Santa Klaus:
Thou who on earth was namèd Nicholas--
There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power
To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,
And pop down all the chimneys as you pass
With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size
For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.
Not so thy singer, who believes in thee
Because he has a young and foolish spirit;
Because the simple faith that bards inherit
Of happiness is still the master key,
Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings
To the dim beauty of imagined things.