Little Rays of Moonshine

BOOKS BY A. P. HERBERT

THE BOMBER GIPSY
THE SECRET BATTLE
THE HOUSE-BY-THE-RIVER
LITTLE RAYS OF MOONSHINE

New York: Alfred A. Knopf

Little Rays of
Moonshine

By

A. P. Herbert

New York
Alfred · A. · Knopf
1921

Copyright, 1921, by
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEDICATED WITH RESPECT

TO

LESLIE SCOTT, K.C., M.P.

Most of these pieces have appeared in the pages of Punch, and I have to thank the Proprietors of that paper for their courtesy in permitting me to republish. “The Book of Jonah” appeared in The London Mercury, “The Supreme Court” in The Outlook, “The Art of Drawing” and “Reading Without Tears” in Land and Water, which perished a few weeks later. I thank them all. A.P.H.

Contents

Wrong Numbers

I HAVE invented a new telephone game. It is a thoroughly discreditable, anti-social game, and I am not proud of it, but it has been forced upon me by circumstances. It is now clear that my telephone number is the only one the operators know, and my game follows the lines of all the best modern movements, the principle of which is that, if you cannot hit the man you are annoyed with, you hit somebody else instead. Nowadays, when some perfect stranger is introduced to me in error on the telephone, I no longer murmur, “Wrong number, I’m afraid,” in my usual accents of sweet sympathy, cool resignation, irritation, hatred or black despair; I pretend that it is the right number. I lead my fellow-victim on into a morass of mystification; I worm out his precious secrets; I waste his precious time. If you can square your conscience you will find it is a glorious game, though I ought to add that considerable skill is required. It is best, perhaps, to make a general rule of answering the call in the first instance in a high feminine voice, as much like a housemaid, or a charwoman, or a Government typist as possible; then you are prepared for any development.

The following are some of the best matches I have played:——

I

Me. Hullo!

A Voice. Is that the Midland Railway?

Me. Yes, Madam. Which department do you require?

A V. It’s about some eggs. An egg-box was despatched from Hitchin——

Me (obsequious). I will put you through to the Goods and Transit Department, Madam.

A V. (fervent). Oh, thank you!

Me (after a short stroll round the garden—in a gruff railway-voice). Hullo! Motor-vans and Haulage Department——

A V. Oh, it’s about some eggs. An egg-box——

Me (more in sorrow than in anger). You require the Goods and Transit Department. I will put you through.

A V. Oh, thank you!

Me (after planting a few more of those confounded cuttings—very suddenly). The 4.45 to Bunby Major is suspended, Sir.

A V. (apologetic). I want to speak about some eggs——

Me (horrified). Some legs!

A V. (patient). No, some eggs:—E—double G—S, eggs. An egg-box was despatched from Hitchin by a friend of mine on the 21st——

Me (sharply). What name, Madam?

A V. Major Bludyer. It was despatched on——

Me. Is he one of the Buckinghamshire Bludyers?

A V. What? Hullo!... Hullo! It was despatched on——

Me. I mean, is he the Major Bludyer—that well-grown old boy? From what I know of his eggs——

A V. (growing fainter). I can’t hear you very well. It’s about some eggs——

Me. Well, I’m very glad to have had this little talk. Remember me to old Bludyer. Good-bye.

II

Me (squeaky). Hullo!

A Voice (business-like, in a great hurry). Hullo! Is that you, Mortimer?

Me (very deliberate). Mr. Mortimer is in the next room. If you will hold the line I will fetch him. Who is it speaking, please?

A V. Oh, never mind that.

Me (firm). Who is it speaking, please?

A V. Oh, da——! Say it’s George. And be quick, please.

Me (after a good deal of unavoidable delay). Hullo, George!

A V. Hullo, Mortimer! You have been a time! Look here—about this meeting: have you got your minutes ready yet?

Me. Not quite. Practically. I was just doing them——

A V. Oh! Well, it’s like this: I’ve had a talk with Sir Donald and he thinks you’d better leave out that scene about Atkins and the Debentures. He thinks we might have trouble with the Manchester lot if you read that out, but if you don’t say anything about it they’ll never know——

Me. You dirty dog!

A V. What’s that?

Me (innocent). I didn’t say anything. I think there’s someone on the line—(in a brand-new voice) Cuckoo!

A V. (indignant). I say, Sir, do you mind getting off the line? Hullo! Hullo!... He’s gone now. Well, don’t forget that. So long, old man. Sorry you couldn’t come round the other night; I wanted you to meet my fiancée—you haven’t, have you?

Me. Which one.

A V. (skittishly). You old ass—Miss Tickle, of course.

Me.. Oh, I know her. As a matter of fact I was engaged to her myself once—but that’s many years ago.

A V. What’s that? You sound as if you’d got a cold.

Me. I rather think I have. You always make such a draught down the telephone. Good-bye, old man.

III

A Voice. Is that the Box-Office?

Me. Which Box-Office?

A V. Is that the Paragon Theatre?

Me. Yes, Madam.

A V. Oh, have you two seats for next Thursday?

Me. Yes, Madam. There is a stall in row D, and I have one seat left in the back row in the dress-circle—a very good view of the stage, Madam.

A V. Oh, but I want them together.

Me. I’m afraid we never sell seats together, Madam. The Lord Chamberlain——

A V. Oh, but——

Me. May I ask why you want to see this play, Madam?

A V. I can’t hear you.... Hullo!

Me. I mean, between ourselves, it’s a thoroughly bad adaptation of a thoroughly bad foreign play thoroughly badly acted by a rotten lot of actors. Letty Loo is perfectly awful, and there’s no room for your legs, unless you would care for a box, and there isn’t one if you would; so if I were you I should stay quietly at home with Henry. Au revoir!

IV

A Voice (most important). Hullo! Is that the Treasury?

Me (sweetly feminine). Treasury speaking.

A V. (as if the end of the world was in sight). I want to speak to the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary.

Me. The Prime Minister’s Private Secretary is engaged. I can put you through to the Whips’ Office.

A V. (angrily). I don’t want the Whips’ Office. I want——

Me. One moment, please.

[A good many moments pass.]

A V. (menacing). Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!

Me (sweetly, as if conferring some priceless boon). Put three pennies in the slot and turn the handle, please.

A V. (spluttering). Look here, put me through to the supervisor at once.

Me (very far off). Supervisor speaking.

A V. (with suppressed passion, yet pompous withal). Look here—I’m a Member of Parliament. I’ve been——

Me (gently). Do not shout into the receiver, please.

A V. Hullo! I’m a——

Me. Do not say “Hullo!”

A V. (maddened). What’s that? Hullo! Look here—I’m a Member of Parliament, and I’ve been trying for half an hour to get through to the Prime Minister’s——

Me. I am sorry you have been trrrr-roubled. You are thrrrrough now.

A V. Hullo! Is that the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary?

Me (quiet, weary and competent). Which one do you want?

A V. Hullo! Sir Thingummy Jig speaking. I want to speak to the Prime Minister’s——

Me. Yes, I heard that. But do you want the Principal Private Secretary, or the Assistant Principal Private Secretary, or one of the Personal Private Secretaries? I mean there are forty-seven of us altogether and it makes a lot of difference——

A V. (weakening). I can’t quite hear. Perhaps you can help me. It’s about——

Me. One moment, please. Here is the Prime Minister himself. Would you mind speaking to him? I’m rather busy.

A V. (awestruck). Of course.... Hullo!

Me. Hullo!... The Prime Minister speaking.... Look here, Jig, I want to have a word with you. Would you mind holding the line a moment while I speak to my secretary?

A V. (fawning). By all means.... There’s no hurry—no hurry at all.

· · · · ·

As far as I know the poor fellow is holding still.

The Genius of Mr. Bradshaw

NO one will be surprised to hear that the Christian name of Mr. Bradshaw was George. Indeed, it is difficult to think what other name a man of his calibre could have had. But many people will be surprised to hear that Mr. Bradshaw is no longer alive. Whatever one thinks of his work one is inclined to think of him as a living personality, working laboriously at some terminus—probably at the Charing Cross Hotel. But it is not so. He died, in fact, in 1853. His first book—or rather the first edition of his book[1]—was published in 1839; yet, unlike the author, it still lives. He is, in fact, the supreme example of the posthumous serial writer. I have no information about Mr. Debrett and Mr. Burke, but the style and substance of their work are relatively so flimsy that one is justified, I think, in neglecting them. In any case their public is a limited one. So, of course, is Mr. Bradshaw’s; but it is better than theirs. Mr. Debrett’s book we read idly in an idle hour; when we read Mr. Bradshaw’s it is because we feel that we simply must; and that perhaps is the surest test of genius.

[1] “Bradshaw’s General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide for Great Britain and Ireland.”

It is no wonder that in some circles Mr. Bradshaw holds a position comparable only to the position of Homer. I once knew an elderly clergyman who knew the whole of Mr. Bradshaw’s book by heart. He could tell you without hesitation the time of any train from anywhere to anywhere else. He looked forward each month to the new number as other people look forward to the new numbers of magazines. When it came he skimmed eagerly through its pages and noted with a fierce excitement that they had taken off the 5.30 from Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew all the connections; he knew all the restaurant trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was a Saturdays Only or a Saturdays Excepted.

This is the exact truth, and I gathered that he was not unique. It seems that there is a Bradshaw cult; there may even be a Bradshaw club, where they meet at intervals for Bradshaw dinners, after which a paper is read on “Changes I have made, with some Observations on Salisbury.” I suppose some of them have first editions, and talk about them very proudly; and they have hot academic discussions on the best way to get from Barnham Junction to Cardiff without going through Bristol. Then they drink the toast of “The Master” and go home in omnibuses. My friend was a schoolmaster and took a small class of boys in Bradshaw; he said they knew as much about it as he did. I call that corrupting the young.

But apart from this little band of admirers I am afraid that the book does suffer from neglect. Who is there, for example, who has read the “Directions” on page 1, where we are actually shown the method of reading tentatively suggested by the author himself? The odinary reader, coming across a certain kind of thin line, lightly dismisses it as a misprint or a restaurant car on Fridays. If he had read the Preface he would know that it meant a SHUNT. He would know that a SHUNT means that passengers are enabled to continue their journey by changing into the next train. Whether he would know what that means I do not know. The best authorities suppose it to be a poetical way of saying that you have to change—what is called an euphemism.

No, you must not neglect the Preface; and you must not neglect the Appendix on Hotels. As sometimes happens in works of a philanthropic character, Mr. Bradshaw’s Appendix has a human charm that is lacking in his treatment of his principal theme, the arrival and departure of trains. To the careful student it reveals also a high degree of organization among his collaborators, the hotel-managers. It is obvious, for example, that at Bournemouth there must be at least one hotel which has the finest situation on the south coast. Indeed one would expect to find that there was more than one. But no; Bournemouth, exceptionally fortunate in having at once the most select hotel on the south coast, the largest and best-appointed hotel on the south coast and the largest and most up-to-date hotel on the south coast, has positively only one which has the finest position on the south coast. Indeed, there is only one of these in the whole of England, though there are two which have the finest position on the east coast.

How is it, we wonder, that with so much variation on a single theme such artistic restraint is achieved? It is clear, I think, that before they send in their manuscripts the hotel-managers must meet somewhere and agree together the exact terms of their contributions to the book. “The George” agrees that for the coming year “The Crown” shall have the “finest cuisine in England,” provided “The George” may have “the most charming situation imaginable,” and so on. I should like to be at one of those meetings.

This is the only theory which accounts for the curious phrases we find so frequently in the text: “Acknowledged to be the finest”; “Admittedly in the best position.” Who is it that acknowledges or admits these things? It must be the other managers at these annual meetings. Yes, the restraint of the collaborators is wonderful, and in one point only has it broken down. There are no fewer than seventeen hotels with an Unrivalled Situation, and two of these are at Harrogate. For a small place like the British Isles it seems to me that this is too many.

For the rest, what imagery, what exaltation we find in this Appendix! Dazed with imagined beauty we pass from one splendid haunt to another. One of them has three golf-courses of its own; several are replete with every comfort (and is not “replete” the perfect epithet?). Here is a seductive one “on the sea-edge,” and another whose principal glory is its sanitary certificate. Another stands on the spot where Tennyson received his inspiration for the Idylls of the King, and leaves it at that. In such a spot even “cuisine” is negligible.

On the whole, from a literary point of view, the hydros come out better than the mere hotels. But of course they have unequalled advantages. With such material as Dowsing Radiant Heat, D’Arsonval High Frequency and Fango Mud Treatment almost any writer could be sensational. What is High Frequency, I wonder? It is clear, at any rate, that it would be madness to have a hydro without it.

Well, I have selected my hotel—on purely literary grounds. Or rather I have selected two. One is the place where they have the Famous Whirlpool Baths. I shall go there at once.

The manager of the other is a great artist; alone among the collaborators he understands simplicity. His contribution occupies a whole page; but there is practically nothing in it; nothing about cuisine or sanitation, or elegance, or comfort. Only, in the middle, he writes, quite simply:

The Most Perfect Hotel in the World.

Five Inches

THE GREAT JOKE

THEY came and split a turkey with us on Boxing Day, ten old soldiers, all out of a job, and only ten legs between them. At least there were only ten real legs; two of them had admirable imitation ones, and there were sixteen excellent crutches. One of them was a miner—was, of course; just now he is not mining much; perhaps that is why he seemed such a decent fellow, not at all violent or unpleasant, as one knows those practising miners are. In fact he reminded one of the miners one used to have in one’s platoon. Personally I had the honour to have a whole platoon of them. Odd, isn’t it, what capital fellows they were then, and how sadly they deteriorate when they get back to the mines? And it was odd, too, to hear this fellow say that he wished he could be back in the pits; I thought it was such a hateful and dangerous occupation.

Yes, he was a nice miner, and so were the rest of them, very cheerful and respectful. But they didn’t talk much—at first. It was strangely difficult to find a safe subject. A few years ago there would have been no difficulty; one would have talked war-shop. “Were you ever at Ypres?” “I was on Gallipoli.” “Did you know Captain ——?” and so on. We did a little of this, but it didn’t go very well.

In the dining-room I keep a large coloured photograph of the top of the Vimy Ridge on the day of a battle—you know the sort of thing, a hideous expanse of broken brown earth, that dreadful endless brown, with walls of smoke all round the horizon, shells bursting in the middle distance, a battered trench in the foreground, with a few scattered men climbing out of it, gazing at the camera with expressionless faces, stretcher-bearers stooping on the parapet with their stretchers on their shoulders, odd men straying everywhere like lost sheep across the chocolate wilderness, looking aimless, looking small.

Our guests were interested in that picture; it was wonderfully like, they said; but I felt that my usual remark about it was hardly suitable. Usually I tell my guests, and it is true, that I keep the picture as a kind of chastener, so that, when I am moved to complain at the troubles of this world, I can look at the picture and think, “At any rate life is better than it was then——.” It was on the tip of my tongue to say so to the one-legged men when it came to me that for them, perhaps, at the moment, it wasn’t true.

After the turkey and the pudding and the crackers, and of course the beer, there was a slight thaw, but it was still very difficult. We tried to get them to sing. Only a few years ago how easy it was. There was “Tipperary” and many another rousing chorus. One was familiar in those times with the popular songs of the day. Unfortunately these were the only songs we could produce now. And they didn’t suit. “Keep the Home-fires Burning,” for instance—one didn’t like to suggest that. The chief minstrel of the one-legged men, who was also the chief comedian, disinterred from a heap of old music, “Your King and Country Need You.” “How would that go, Bert?” he said. He said it without bitterness, I don’t know why, and Bert’s answer was a silent grin, and one felt that Bert was right. “Pack up your Troubles in your old Kit-bag,” “Till the Boys Come Home”—all the old titles had a certain ironic underlining in that company.

So we abandoned singing and we sat rather silent. There was some desultory conversation about the various “trades” to which a grateful State had trained them, and left it at that; there was some mild chaff of Bill, who had been too old (at thirty-five) to be trained at all, though not too old to learn musketry and lose a leg; but socially one felt the “party” was drifting to disaster.

It was saved, like many parties, by “shop,” and not war-shop, at least not exactly. What sort of shop will amuse ten one-legged men? Why, one-legged shop, of course. Somebody said, “Is your leg comfortable?” and that set the ball rolling. All the tongues wagged gleefully at once; all the technical details of one-leggedness, all the points of the various kinds of “legs,” were brought out and tossed about and hotly contested as if we had been a number of golfers arguing the merits of different makes of putters. Some of us wear “stump-socks”; some of us can’t stand the things. Some of us have “buckets” (graphically described) which we can comfortably pad, and some of us have something else not nearly so good. Some of us are excited about the new “aluminium” legs, four pounds lighter, which are soon to be available, though we think it a terrible waste of money now that we have most of us got wooden ones. Here is a chance for the “economising” campaigners! Now then, Lord Rothermere, “No Aluminium Legs!” What a war-cry! Altogether it is an enthralling topic; there is no more awkwardness....

And it is so amusing. Gad, how we laughed! There was the story of the man on the Underground, a friend of ours. Someone trod on his false foot in the crowded train and, scrambling out in a hurry at a station, he found himself footless on the platform, while the train slid away with the other fellow still standing on his foot. Ha, ha! how we laughed.

But most of us are “above the knee,” and that provides the best joke of all. You see it all depends on the length of your stump (or “stoomp”). If you have five inches left you get an eighty per cent pension; if you have more you get less—even if it is only five and a quarter. That quarter of an inch makes all the difference, financially, though practically it isn’t a great deal of use. How much have you got? Ah, you’re unlucky. I’m four and three-quarters—a near thing, eh? Peals of laughter. “You go back and have another inch off. Ho, ho, ho!” We roll about in our chairs.

Well, well, it’s a queer world; but the party was a great success after all.

Reading Without Tears

I AM teaching my daughter to read. It is very difficult. I cannot imagine how I learned to read myself. And when I look at the classic called Reading Without Tears, which was, I understand, the foundation of my learning, I am yet more puzzled. The author of the book seems to believe strongly in original sin. In the Preface I read: “Tears must be shed by sinful little creatures subject to waywardness and deserving so many reproofs and corrections”; but reading need not be such an occasion; and again, “Observe their minutest actions; shut not your eyes to their sinful nature; nor believe them incapable of injustice or unkindness, of deceit of covetousness.” Perhaps this attitude explains the book.

The author’s great idea is pictures. A is like a hut with a window upstairs. B, on the other hand, is like a house with two windows; and little b is like a child with a wide frock coming to you. When I look at the pictures opposite I see what the author means, but when I look at A and B and little b dispassionately by themselves they suggest nothing at all to me. I simply cannot imagine the hut or the house or the child with the wide frock.

“Did we really...?”

A is like a hut
with a window
upstairs
B is like a
house with two
windows
C is like
an open mouth

But let us look at some more. D is like an old man leaning on a stick; E is like a carriage with a little seat for the driver; G is like a monkey eating a cake. These are no better. Try as I may, I cannot see the little seat for the driver; or if I do, I see it just as vividly in F. But F is like a tree with a seat for a child. So I know that I am wrong.

Now the pictorial memory is a valuable thing; and this pictorial method of teaching is no doubt valuable. But surely the pictures are of no real use unless there is some inevitable connection, however slight, between the form of the thing which it is desired to impress on the memory and the picture with which it is compared. My daughter’s imagination is, of course, much more vivid than mine, but, even so, I cannot imagine her looking coolly at the naked D and saying, “Yes, that is the old man leaning on a stick.” She is more likely to say, “That is the ground-floor of the house with two windows,” for she has a logical mind. And even if she does not remember the futile picture of the old man in a long shirt with his body bent at right angles to his legs, I don’t see why, even then, she should connect him with D. There is nothing peculiarly D-ish about an old man. Yet it seems that I learned my alphabet in this way. I was a clever child, though sinful, I fear.

Then we get on to words. The book follows the first principle of all teachers of languages in arranging that among the first words which the child learns there are as many words as possible which he will never use as a child, and, indeed, will probably never encounter in his entire career. Prominent among the first words in this book are such favourites as pap, bin, hob, sob, and sop, emmet and tome. Each of these is printed three times, in a column, like this:

Over each column is a little picture. When you are teaching the child pap you say to her: “P-aP, pap—do you see the pretty picture? That is a nanny with a baby in her lap. She is giving the baby a bottle. The bottle has pap in it. At least, it is not pap, really, but it is called pap for the purposes of the alphabet. You remember the letters, don’t you? First there is a big P—you know, like a man with a pack on his back. Then a little a, which is like a goose on the water. Then a little p; that is like another man coming to you with a pack on his back. Now we have it all in big letters. Maggie, read them out.”

Maggie (firmly). K.

You. No, no, not K. Don’t you remember the picture?

Maggie. Yes, it was a nanny with a baby.

You. No, not that one. It was a man with a pack on his back—P.

Maggie. P.

You. That’s right. What comes next?

Maggie. A goose on the water.

You. No, that was a little a. This is a big letter. Don’t you remember the dear little hut with the window upstairs? What letter was that?

Maggie. B.

You. No, no, that was a house, not a hut, and it had two windows. Don’t be so inaccurate. This is a big A. Now, what’s next?

Maggie. A little house with a nanny inside. And there’s a goose in the garden. And a baby.

You (patiently). No, this is another P. He is like a man with a pack on his back. P-A-P pap—there you are. That’s very good.

Maggie. May I go into the garden now?

You. Yes.

After that we learn sentences, and we raise in the child’s mind a few more simple pictures of Nature by repeating several times such statements as:

A pig had a fig.

The author introduces us to Ben, who can sup sop. Ben, however, has a fat pup, and this pup cannot sip sop. My daughter, as I said, has a logical mind, and she immediately asked if Ben’s pup could sup sop. She had perceived at once that if he could neither sip nor sup the unfortunate animal was cut off from sop altogether. I said I didn’t know. I don’t. But I see that Ben fed Poll on bun, so I expect he gave the pup some too.

It is a pity that the author could not provide pictures for some of the more striking incidents she records. Some of these would do:

I met a cat in a bog

I sat in a bog

A hog is in a bog

A wig is in a bog

A pen is in a bog

I had a red bed

Ten men had a pen

I had a wet hen

I fed ten men in a den

I should have thought that by appropriate illustrations the child might have been helped to a greater knowledge, not only of letters, but of life.

But perhaps the most vivid of all these pages is page 99, which I produce verbatim:

A bun is in a tun

A gun is in a tun

A dog is in a tun

A hog is in a tun

A pig is in a tun

A wig is in a tun

A hen is in a tun

A pen is in a tun

Note.—Let the child begin the book again, if it likes.

What is a tun? Until I started out to educate my daughter I did not know. But then, I am not a sinful child. For hush! it seems to be a sort of barrel. I have drawn rather a jolly tun myself.

If we could only look back into our childish minds and really recapture the impressions of life (if any) which inhabitated us at the end of a day when we had triumphantly mastered page 99 and similar pages, and if one could set those impressions down in print, what rich romances might be born into the world!

But is there no Society for the Protection of Children from This Sort of Book?

A pen is in a tun.”

On With the Dance

I HAVE been to a dance; or rather I have been to a fashionable restaurant where dancing is done. I was not invited to a dance—there are very good reasons for that; I was invited to dinner. But many of my fellow-guests have invested a lot of money in dancing. That is to say, they keep on paying dancing-instructors to teach them new tricks; and the dancing-instructors, who know their business, keep on inventing new tricks. As soon as they have taught everybody a new step they say it is unfashionable and invent a new one. This is all very well, but it means that, in order to keep up with them and get your money’s worth out of the last trick you learned, it is necessary during its brief life of respectability to dance at every available opportunity. You dance as many nights a week as is physically possible; you dance on week-days and you dance on Sundays; you begin dancing in the afternoon and you dance during tea in the coffee-rooms of expensive restaurants, whirling your precarious way through littered and abandoned tea-tables; and at dinner-time you leap up madly before the fish and dance like variety artistes in a highly polished arena before a crowd of complete strangers eating their food; or, as if seized with an uncontrollable craving for the dance, you fling out after the joint for one wild gallop in an outer room, from which you return, perspiring and dyspeptic, to the consumption of an ice-pudding, before dashing forth to the final orgy at a picture-gallery, where the walls are appropriately covered with pictures of barbaric women dressed for the hot weather.

That is what happened at this dinner. As soon as you had started a nice conversation with a lady a sort of roaring was heard without; her eyes gleamed, her nostrils quivered like a horse planning a gallop, and in the middle of one of your best sentences she simply faded away with some horrible man at the other end of the table who was probably “the only man in London who can do the Double Straddle properly.” This went on the whole of the meal, and it made connected conversation quite difficult. For my own part I went on eating, and when I had properly digested I went out and looked at the little victims getting their money’s worth.

From the door of the room where the dancing was done a confused uproar overflowed, as if several men of powerful physique were banging a number of pokers against a number of saucepans, and blowing whistles, and occasional catcalls, and now and then beating a drum and several sets of huge cymbals, and ceaselessly twanging at innumerable banjos, and at the same time singing in a foreign language, and shouting curses or exhortations or street cries, or imitating hunting-calls and the cry of the hyena, or uniting suddenly in the war-whoop of some pitiless Sudan tribe.

It was a really terrible noise. It hit you like the back-blast of an explosion as you entered the room. There was no distinguishable tune. It was simply an enormous noise. But there was a kind of savage rhythm about it which made one think immediately of Indians and fierce men and the native camps one used to visit at the Earl’s Court Exhibition. And this was not surprising. For the musicians included one genuine negro and three men with their faces blacked; and the noise and the rhythm were the authentic music of a negro village in South Africa, and the words which some genius had once set to the noise were an exhortation to go to the place where the negroes dwelt.

To judge by their movements, many of the dancers had, in fact, been there, and had carefully studied the best indigenous models. They were doing some quite extraordinary things. No two couples were doing quite the same thing for more than a few seconds so that there was endless variety of extraordinary postures. Some of them shuffled secretly along the edges of the room, their faces tense, their shoulders swaying like reeds in a light wind, their progress almost imperceptible; they did not rotate, they did not speak, but sometimes the tremor of a skirt or the slight stirring of a patent-leather shoe showed that they were indeed alive and in motion, though that motion was as the motion of a glacier, not to be measured in minutes or yards.

And some in a kind of fever rushed hither and thither among the thick crowd, avoiding disaster with marvellous dexterity; and sometimes they revolved slowly and sometimes quickly and sometimes spun giddily round for a moment like gyroscopic tops. Then they too would be seized with a kind of trance, or it may be with sheer shortness of breath, and hung motionless for a little in the centre of the room, while the mad throng jostled and flowed about them like the leaves in autumn round a dead bird.

And some did not revolve at all, but charged straightly up and down; and some of these thrust their loves forever before them, as the Prussians thrust the villagers in the face of the enemy, and some forever navigated themselves backwards like moving breakwaters to protect their darlings from the rude, precipitate seas.

Some of them kept themselves as upright as possible, swaying slightly like willows from the hips, and some of them contorted themselves into strange and angular shapes, now leaning perilously forward till they were practically lying upon their terrified partners, and now bending sideways as a man bends who has water in one ear after bathing. All of them clutched each other in a close and intimate manner, but some, as if by separation to intensify the joy of their union, or perhaps to secure greater freedom for some particular spacious manœuvre, would part suddenly in the middle of the room and, clinging distantly with their hands, execute a number of complicated side-steps in opposite directions, or aim a series of vicious kicks at each other, after which they would reunite in a passionate embrace and gallop in a frenzy round the room, or fall into a trance, or simply fall down. If they fell down they lay still for a moment in the fearful expectation of death, as men lie who fall under a horse; and then they would creep on hands and knees to the wall through the whirling and indifferent crowd.

Watching them, you could not tell what any one couple would do next. The most placid and dignified among them might at any moment fling a leg out behind them and almost kneel in mutual adoration, and then, as if nothing unusual had happened, shuffle onward through the press; or, as though some electric mechanism had been set in motion, they would suddenly lift a foot sideways and stand on one leg. Poised pathetically, as if waiting for the happy signal when they might put the other leg down, these men looked very sad, and I wished that the Medusa’s head might be smuggled somehow into the room for their attitudes to be imperishably recorded in cold stone; it would have been a valuable addition to modern sculpture.

Upon this whirlpool I embarked with the greatest misgiving and a strange young woman clinging to my person. The noise was deafening. The four black men were now all shouting at once and playing all their instruments at once, working up to the inconceivable uproar of the finale; and all the dancers began to dance with a last desperate fury. Bodies buffeted one from behind, and while one was yet looking round in apology or anger more bodies buffeted one from the flank. It was like swimming in a choppy sea, where there is no time to get the last wave out of your mouth before the next one hits you.

Close beside us a couple fell down with a great crash. I looked at them with concern, but no one else took any notice. On with the dance! Faster and faster the black men played. I was dimly aware now that they were standing on their chairs, bellowing, and fancied the end must be near. Then we were washed into a quiet backwater, in a corner, and from here I determined never to issue until the Last Banjo should indeed sound. Here I sidled vaguely about for a long time, hoping that I looked like a man preparing for some culminating feat, a side-step or a buzz or a double Jazz-spin or an ordinary fall down.

The noise suddenly ceased; the four black men had exploded.

“Very good exercise,” my partner said.

“Quite,” said I.

The Autobiography

JOHN ANTONY GRUNCH was one of the mildest, most innocent men I ever knew. He had a wife to whom he was devoted with a dog-like devotion; he went to church; he was shy and reserved, and he held a mediocre position in a firm of envelope-makers in the City. But he had a romantic soul, and whenever the public craving for envelopes fell off—and that is seldom—he used to allay his secret passion for danger, devilry and excitement by writing sensational novels. One of these was recently published, and John Antony is now dead. The novel did it.

Yet it was a very mild sort of “shocker,” about a very ordinary murder. The villian simply slew one of his typists in the counting-house with a sword-umbrella and concealed his guilt by putting her in a pillar-box. But it had “power,” and it was very favourably reviewed. One critic said that “the author, who was obviously a woman, had treated with singular delicacy and feeling the ever-urgent problem of female employment in our great industrial centres.” Another said that the book was “a brilliant burlesque of the fashionable type of detective fiction.” Another wrote that “it was a conscientious analysis of a perplexing phase of agricultural life.” John thought that must refer to the page where he had described the allotments at Shepherd’s Bush. But he was pleased and surprised by what they said.

What he did not like was the interpretation offered by his family and his friends, who at once decided that the work was the autobiography of John Antony. You see, the scene was laid in London, and John lived in London; the murdered girl was a typist, and there were two typists in John’s office; and, to crown all, the villian in the book had a boar-hound, and John himself had a Skye terrier. The thing was as plain as could be. Men he met in the City said, “How’s that boar-hound of yours?” or “I like that bit where you hit the policeman. When did you do that?” “You,” mark you. Old friends took him aside and whispered, “Very sorry to hear you don’t hit it off with Mrs. Grunch; I always thought you were such a happy couple.” His wife’s family said, “Poor Gladys! what a life she must have had!” His own family said, “Poor John! what a life she must have led him to make him go off with that adventuress!” Several people identified the adventuress as Miss Crook, the Secretary of the local Mother’s Welfare League, of which John was a vice-president.

The fog of suspicion swelled and spread and penetrated into every cranny and level of society. No servants would come near the house, of if they did they soon stumbled on a copy of the shocker while doing the drawing-room, read it voraciously and rushed screaming out of the front door. When he took a parcel of washing to the post-office the officials refused to accept it until he had opened it and shown that there were no bodies in it.

The animal kingdom is very sensitive to the suspicion of guilt. John noticed that dogs avoided him, horses neighed at him, earwigs fled from him in horror, caterpillars madly spun themselves into cocoons as he approached, owls hooted, snakes hissed. Only Mrs. Grunch remained faithful.

But one morning at breakfast Mrs. Grunch said, “Pass the salt, please, John.” John didn’t hear. He was reading a letter. Mrs. Grunch said again, “Pass the salt, please, John.” John was still engrossed. Mrs. Grunch wanted the salt pretty badly, so she got up and fetched it. As she did so she noticed that the handwriting of the letter was the handwriting of A Woman. Worse, it was written on the embossed paper of the Mother’s Welfare League. It must be from Miss Crook. And it was. It was about the annual outing. “Ah, ha!” said Mrs. Grunch. (I am afraid that “Ah, ha!” doesn’t really convey to you the sort of sound she made, but you must just imagine.) “Ah, ha! So that’s why you couldn’t pass the salt!”

Mad with rage, hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, jealousy and indigestion, John rushed out of the house and went to the office. At the door of the office he met one of the typists. He held the door open for her. She simpered and refused to go in front of him. Being still mad with rage, hatred, chagrin and all those other things, John made a cross gesture with his umbrella. With a shrill, shuddering shriek of “Murder!” the girl cantered violently down Ludgate Hill and was never seen again. Entering the office, John found two detectives waiting to ask him a few questions in connection with the Newcastle Pig-sty Murder, which had been done with some pointed instrument, probably an umbrella.

After that The Daily Horror rang up and asked if he would contribute an article to their series on “Is Bigamy Worth While?”

Having had enough rushing for one day John walked slowly out into the street, trying to remember the various ways in which his characters had committed suicide. He threw himself over the Embankment wall into the river, but fell in a dinghy which he had not noticed; he bought some poison, but the chemist recognised his face from a photograph in the Literary Column of The Druggist and gave him ipecacuanha (none of you can spell that); he thought of cutting his throat, but broke his thumb-nail trying to open the big blade, and gave it up. Desperate, he decided to go home. At Victoria he was hustled along the platform on the pretence that there is more room in the rear of trains. Finally he was hustled on to the line and electrocuted.

And everybody said, “So it was true.”

The White Spat

WHEN it is remembered how large a part has been played in history by revolutionary and political songs it is both lamentable and strange that at the present time only one of the numerous political faiths has a hymn of its own—“The Red Flag.” The author of the words owes a good deal, I should say, to the author of “Rule Britannia,” though I am inclined to think he has gone one better. The tune is that gentle old tune which we used to know as “Maryland,” and by itself it rather suggests a number of tired sheep waiting to go through a gate than a lot of people thinking very redly. I fancy the author realised this, and he has got over it by putting in some good powerful words like “scarlet,” “traitors,” “flinch” and “dungeon,” whenever the tune is particularly sheepish. The effect is effective. Just imagine if the Middle Classes Union could march down the middle of the Strand singing that fine chorus:—

“Then raise the scarlet standard high

Beneath its shade we’ll live and die;

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer

We’ll keep the Red Flag flying here.”

Well, I have set myself to supply some other parties with songs, and I have begun with “The White Spat,” which is to be the party-hymn of the High Tories (if any). I have written it to the same tune as “The Red Flag,” because, when the lion finally does lie down with the lamb, it will be much more convenient if they can bleat and roar in the same metre, and I shall hope to hear Mr. Robert Williams and Lord Robert Cecil singing these two songs at once one day. I am not wholly satisfied with “The White Spat,” but I think I have caught the true spirit, or, at any rate, the proper inconsequence of these things:—

The White Spat.

Air—Maryland.

The spats we wear are pure as snow—

We are so careful where we go;

We don’t go near the vulgar bus

Because it always splashes us.

Chorus. We take the road with trustful hearts,

Avoiding all the messy parts;

However dirty you may get

We’ll keep the White Spat spotless yet.

At night there shines a special star

To show us where the puddles are;

The crossing-sweeper sweeps the floor—

That’s what the crossing-sweeper’s for.

Chorus. Then take the road, etc., etc.

I know it doesn’t look much, just written down on paper; but you try singing it and you’ll find you’re carried away.

Of course there ought to be an international verse, but I’m afraid I can’t compete with the one in my model:—

“Look round: the Frenchman loves its blaze,

The sturdy German chants its praise;

In Moscow’s vaults its hymns are sung;

Chicago swells the surging throng.”

“From Russia’s snows to Afric’s sun

The race of spatriots is one;

One faith unites their alien blood—

There’s nothing to be said for mud.”

Now we have the song of the Wee Frees. I wanted this to be rather pathetic, but I’m not sure that I haven’t overdone it. The symbolism, though, is well-nigh perfect, and, after all, the symbolism is the chief thing. This goes to the tune of “Annie Laurie”:—

The Old Black Brolly.

Air—Annie Laurie

Under the Old Umbrella,

Beneath the leaking gamp,

Wrapped up in woolly phrases

We battle with the damp.

Come, gather round the gamp!

Observe, it is pre-war;

And beneath the old Black Brolly

There’s room for several more.

Shameless calumniators

Calumniate like mad;

Detractors keep detracting;

It really is too bad;

It really is too bad.

To show we’re not quite dead,

We wave the old Black Brolly

And hit them on the head.

Then we have the Nationalist Party. I am rather vague about the National Party, but I know they are frightfully military, and they keep on having Mass Rallies in Kensington—complete with drums, I expect. Where all the masses come from I don’t quite know, as a prolonged search has failed to reveal anyone who knows anyone who is actually a member of the party. Everybody tells me, though, that there is at least one Brigadier-General (Tempy.) mixed up with it, if not two, and at least one Lord, though possibly one of the Brigadiers is the same as the Lord; but after all they represent the Nation, so they ought to have a song. They have nothing but “Rule Britannia” now, I suppose.

Their song goes to the tune of “The British Grenadiers.” I have written it as a duet, but no doubt other parts could be added if the occasion should ever arise.[2]

[2] I understand that it has not arisen. On the contrary....

The National.

Air—The British Grenadiers.

Some talk of Coalitions,

Of Tories and all that;

They are but cheap editions

Of the one and only Nat.;

Our Party has no equals,

Though of course it has its peers,

With a tow, row, row, row, row, row

For the British Brigadiers.

You have no idea how difficult it is to write down the right number of rows first time; however I daresay the General wouldn’t mind a few extra ones.

We represent the Nation

As no one else can do;

Without exaggeration

Our membership is two,

We rally in our masses

And give three hearty cheers,

With a tow, row, row, row, row, row

For the National Brigadiers.

There could be a great deal more of that, but perhaps you have had enough.

Of course, if you don’t think the poetry of my songs is good enough, I shall just have to quote some of “The International” words to show you that it’s the tune that matters.

Here you are:—

“Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers,

Arise! ye criminals of want,

For reason in revolt now thunders,

And at last ends the age of cant.”

If people can grow excited singing that, my songs would send them crazy.

Then there is the Coalition. I have had a good deal of difficulty about this, but I think that at last I have hit the right note; all my first efforts were too dignified. This goes to a darkie tune:—

The Piebald Mare.

Air—Camptown Ladies.

Down-town darkies all declare,

Doo-dah, doo-dah,

There never was a hoss like the piebald mare

Doo-dah, doo-dah day!

One half dark and the other half pale,