There are some men whose patronymics are swallowed up in their nicknames, and my friend "Conky" is one of these. He has quite a decorative surname of his own, but it never counted. For the rest he is the possessor of a big booming bass voice, which he uses with more gusto than art. He is, apart from a certain pride in his musical accomplishments, a very good fellow; and so is Mrs. "Conky"—an amiable and agreeable woman, whose only fault is an excessive anxiety for the comfort of her guests, leading her at times to forget, in the words of the Chinese proverb, that "inattention is often the highest form of civility."
They are a devoted couple, and the only cloud on their happiness was caused by Conky's expectations from a mysterious and eccentric uncle. For a long time I was inclined to disbelieve in his existence, as he never "materialised." But I was converted from my scepticism, some three years ago, when, on meeting Conky, I was informed that Uncle Joseph had invited himself on a short visit. My friend betrayed a certain agitation. "You know," he said, "it is twenty years since I saw him last, when he came to look me up at school, and rather frightened me."
"Frightened you! But how?"
"Well, you see, he's got a way of thinking aloud, and it's rather embarrassing. I don't mind being called 'Conky,' as you know, but it was rather trying to hear him say, 'I hope his nose has stopped growing.' However, I couldn't very well put him off now. I'm his only nephew; he's an old man, and said to be very rich." Conky sighed, but added more hopefully, "Anyhow, I'm sure Marjorie will rise to the occasion." Personally I was by no means so sure. I felt that Marjorie might overdo it: also that Conky, who loved the sound of his voice, might be tempted to soothe the old man with intempestive gusts of song.
Unhappily my misgivings were realised. A few weeks later, on my way home from the club, I called in late one afternoon on the Conkys. They greeted me cordially as usual, but I could see something was amiss, and soon it all came out. The visit had been a fiasco. Uncle Joseph had been very friendly and even courteous, but at intervals he thought aloud with devastating frankness. Marjorie had exhausted herself in the labours of hospitality, but all in vain. Conky had sung, but the voice of the charmer had failed. And just as Uncle Joseph was going he observed in a final burst of candour, "Goo-ood people, very goo-ood people; but she's a second-rate Martha, and he sings like a bank-holiday trombone-player on Blackpool sands."
From that day till a week ago I never heard Conky or his wife allude to Uncle Joseph. The memory was too painful. And yet it is impossible to deny that the experience was salutary. Marjorie is certainly less overwhelming in her hospitality, and Conky less prodigal of song. And when Conky told me last week that Uncle Joseph had died and left him £10,000, I felt that the old man had atoned handsomely for his unconscious indulgence in a habit for which, after all, a good deal was to be said.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
The latest of our novelists to succumb to the temptations of the school story is Mr. E. F. Benson; and I am pleased to add that in David Blaize (Hodder and Stoughton) he seems to have scored a notable success. It is the record of a not specially distinguished, but entirely charming, lad during his career at his private and public schools. Incidentally, as such records must, it becomes the history of certain other boys, two especially, and of David's relations with them. It is this that is the real motive of the book. The friendship between Maddox and David, its dangers and its rewards, seems to me to have been handled with the rarest delicacy and judgment. The hazards of the theme are obvious. There have been books in plenty before now that, essaying to navigate the uncharted seas of schoolboy friendship, have foundered beneath the waves of sloppiness that are so ready to engulph them. The more credit then to Mr. Benson for bringing his barque triumphantly to harbour. To drop metaphor, the captious or the forgetful may call the whole sentimental—as if one could write about boys and leave out what is the greatest common factor of the race. But the sentiment is never mawkish. There is indeed an atmosphere of clean, fresh-smelling youth about the book that is vastly refreshing. Friendship and games make up the matter of it; there is nothing that I could repeat by way of plot; but if you care for a close and sympathetic study of boyhood at its happiest here is the book for your money. Finally I may mention that, though in sympathetic studies of boyhood the pedagogue receives as a rule scant courtesy, Mr. Benson's masters are (with one unimportant exception) such delightful persons that I can only hope that they are actual and not imaginary portraits.