Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Reflecting upon how great a change has come upon the relation of employers and employed, and how much greater a change is in store, it seems to me that one of the good human kinds of book that does not at present exist, and ought to be made, would bring together between two covers some of the best servants in history, public and private, and possibly in literature too. Nurses first, because the nurse is so much more important a factor in family life, and because, to my mind, she has never had honour enough. I doubt if enough honour could be paid to her, but the attempt has not been sufficiently made. And to-day, of course, the very word as I am using it has only a secondary meaning. By "nurse" to-day we mean first a cool, smiling woman, with a white cap and possibly a red cross, ministering to the wounded and the sick. We have to think twice in order to evoke the guardian angel of our childhood, the mother's right hand, and often so much more real than the mother herself. I would lay special emphasis on the nurse who, beginning as a young retainer, develops into a friend and to the end of her days moves on parallel lines with the family, even if she is not still of it. These old nurses, the nurses of whom the older we grow the more tenderly and gratefully we think--will no one give them a book of praise? I should love to read it. And there should not be any lack of material--with Stevenson's Alison Cunningham by no means last on the list.

But if on examination the material proved too scanty, then the other devoted servants might come in too, such as Sir Walter Scott's Tom Purdie, who should have a proud place, and that wonderful gardener of the great Dumas, whose devotion extended to confederacy.

Without Dumas' gardener, indeed, no book in honour of the fidelity of man to man could be complete. For just think of it! The only approach to the house of the divine Alexandre being by way of a wooden bridge, this immortal tender of flowers and vegetables so arranged the planks that any undesired caller bearing a writ or long-overdue account would fall, all naturally and probably through his own confused carelessness, into the river; and, on being pulled out and restored to happy life, would not only abandon the horrid purpose of his visit, but, gratitude prompting, be generous enough to go at least part of the way towards paying the gardener's wages, which otherwise that resourceful benefactor might never obtain.

On a place in the volume for this exemplary character, I insist. But, as I say, nurses first.

No. 344260

Coming, the other day, after every kind of struggle, at last into possession of one of the new pound notes, I was interested in placing it quickly under the microscope, so to speak, in order that, in case I never saw another, I should be able to describe it to my grandchildren. How indigent I have been may be gathered from the circumstance that this note, being numbered 344260, had three hundred and forty-four thousand two hundred and fifty-nine predecessors which had eluded me.

As a work of art it is remarkable--almost, indeed, a gallery in itself, comprising as it does portraiture, design, topography, and the delineation of one of the most spirited episodes in religious history. After the magic words "One Pound," it is, of course, to St. George and the Dragon that the eye first turns. What Mr. Ruskin would say of the latest version of the encounter between England's tutelary genius and his fearsome foe, one can only guess; but I feel sure that he would be caustic about the Saint's grip on his spear. To get its head right through the dragon's chest--taking, as it has done, the longest possible route--and out so far on the other side, would require more vigour and tension than is suggested by the casual way in which the thumb rests on the handle. Dragons' necks and bosoms are, I take it, not only scaly without but of a sinewy consistency within that is by no means easy to penetrate, and in this particular case the difficulty must have been increased by the creature's struggles, which, the artist admits, bent the spear very noticeably. None the less, the Saint's hold is most delicate, and his features are marked by the utmost placidity.

As a matter of fact, the Saint is not sufficiently armed on our £1 notes; for in real life, and particularly when he rode out on the Libyan plain to do battle with the dragon, he had a sword as well as a spear. But he could not have had both if he were dressed as the Treasury artist dresses him, unless he carried the sword between his teeth; which he is not doing. There is no better authority than _The Golden Legend_, and _The Golden Legend_ (in the translation of Master William Caxton) testifieth thus: "Then as they [St. George and the King's daughter, whom the dragon desired,] spake together, the dragon appeared and came running to them, and St. George was upon his horse, and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear [spear, now, take notice], and hurt him sore and threw him to the ground." The absence of the sword is one error that never ought to have gained currency. Another is the grievousness of the wound which is depicted; for in real life the wound was so slight, although sufficient, that the King's daughter--but let Master Caxton continue, for he writeth better than I ever shall. Having conquered the foe, St. George, according to _The Golden Legend_, "said to the maid: 'Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon, and be not afeard.' When she had done so, the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair." It was later, and not until St. George had baptized the King and all his people (which was his reward), that he smote off the dragon's head.

To my mind _The Golden Legend_ is too gentle with this contest. I like a real fight, and here one is almost as much defrauded as in the story of David and Goliath. In treating the victory over the dragon with equal lightness, perhaps the Treasury artist, even though he has not followed the authority closely enough in other ways, is justified; but he should have read the text more carefully, for no one can pretend that a dragon so drastically perforated as this one could follow a princess into the city. Indeed, it is such a _coup de grâce_ as no self-respecting and determined dragon, furnished with wings, inflammable breath, and all the usual fittings, would have submitted itself to. Because, given wings, neither of which is broken, how would it have allowed itself to come into that posture at all?

Saints, however, must be saints; and their adversaries know this.

It was only, as I have said, with incredible difficulties that I could get this pound note to study; imagine, then, what pains and subterfuges were, in 1917, necessary in order to obtain the loan of a sovereign with which to compare the golden rendering of the same conflict. Eventually, however, I was successful, and one of the precious discs passed temporarily into my keeping. It lies beside No. 344260 on the table as I write. In this treatment--Mr. Ruskin's strictures upon which are familiar--one is first struck by the absurdity of the Saint's weapon: a short dagger with which he could never do any damage at all, unless either he fell off his horse or the dragon obligingly rose up to meet the blow. Fortunately, however, the horse has powerful hoofs, and one of these is inflicting infinite mischief. Other noticeable peculiarities of the sovereign's rendering are the smallness of the horse's head and the length of St. George's leg. The total effect, in spite of blemishes, is more spirited than that of No. 344260, but both would equally fill a Renaissance Florentine medallist with gloom.

So much for the St. Georges and the Dragons of Treasury artists. But when it comes to No. 344260's portrait of Mr. John Bradbury, Secretary to the Treasury, over his facsimile autograph, in green ink, I have no fault to find. This is a strong profile treatment, not a little like the King, and I am glad to have seen it. One likes to think of regal features and tonsorial habits setting a fashion. Mr. John Bradbury does well and loyally to resemble as closely as he can his royal master.

Having reached this point, I turned No. 344260 over and examined the back, which represents the Houses of Parliament as seen from Lambeth. There are three peculiarities about this picture. One is that all the emphasis is laid--where of late we have not been in the habit of looking for it--on the House of Lords; another is that Parliament is not sitting, for the Victoria Tower is without its flag; and the third is that Broad Sanctuary has been completely eliminated, so that the Abbey and the Victoria Tower form one building. No doubt to the fortunate persons through whose hands one pound notes pass, such awful symbolism conveys a sense of England's greatness and power; but I think it would be far more amusing if the back had been left blank, in case some later Robbie Burns (could this decadent world ever know so fine a thing again) wished to write another lament on it:

For lack o' thee I've lost my lass,
For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass.

Or, if not blank, thirty (say) spaces might be ruled on it, in which the names of its first thirty owners could be written. By the time the spaces were filled it would be a document historically valuable now and then to autograph collectors. It would also be dirty enough to call in.

The Two Perkinses

Walking in the garden in the cool of the July evening, I was struck afresh by the beauty of that climbing rose we call Dorothy Perkins, and by her absolute inability to make a mistake. There are in this garden several of these ramblers, all heritages from an earlier tenant and all very skilfully placed: one over an arch, one around a window, and three or four clambering up fir posts on which the stumps of boughs remain; and in every case the rose is flowering more freely than ever before, and has arranged its blossoms, leaves, and branches with an exquisite and impeccable taste. Always lovely, Dorothy Perkins is never so lovely as in the evening, just after the sun has gone, when the green takes on a new sobriety against which her gay and tender pink is gayer and more tender. "Pretty little Dolly Perkins!" I said to myself involuntarily, and instantly, by the law of association--which, I sometimes fondly suppose, is more powerful with me than with many people--I began to think of another evening, twenty and more years ago, when for the first time I heard the most dainty of English comic songs sung as it should be, with the first words of the chorus accentuated like hammer blows in unison:

For--she--was--as--

and then tripping merrily into the rest of it:

--beautiful as a butterfly,
As fair as a queen,
Was pretty little Polly Perkins
Of Paddington Green.

It is given to most of us--not always without a certain wistful regret--to recall the circumstances under which we first heard our favourite songs; and on the evening when I met "Pretty Polly Perkins" I was on a tramp steamer in the Mediterranean, when at last the heat had gone and work was over and we were free to be melodious. My own position on this boat was nominally purser, at a shilling a month, but in reality passenger, or super-cargo, spending most of the day either in reading or sleeping. The second engineer, a huge Sussex man, whose favourite theme of conversation with me was the cricket of his county, was, it seemed, famous for this song; and that evening, as we sat on a skylight, he was suddenly withdrawn from a eulogy of the odd ways and deadly left-handers of poor one-eyed "Jumper" Juniper (whom I had known personally, when I was a small school-boy, in a reverential way) to give the company "Pretty Polly Perkins." In vain to say that he was busy, talking to me; that he was dry; that he had no voice. "Pretty Polly Perkins" had to be sung, and he struck up without more ado:

I'm a broken-hearted milkman,
In woe I'm arrayed,
Through keeping the company of
A young servant maid--

and so forth. And then came the chorus, which has this advantage over all other choruses ever written, that the most tuneless singer on earth (such as myself) and the most shamefaced (I am autobiographical again) can help to swell, at any rate, the notable opening of it, and thus ensure the success of the rest.

That evening, as I say, was more than twenty years ago, and I had thought in the interval little enough of the song until the other pretty Perkins suggested it; but I need hardly say that the next day came a further reminder of it (since that is one of the queer rules of life) in the shape of a Chicago weekly paper with the information that America knows "Pretty Polly Perkins" too.

The ballads of a nation for the most part respect their nationality, but now and then there is free trade in them. It has been so with "Pretty Polly Perkins"; for it seems that, recognizing its excellence, an American singer prepared, in 1864, a version to suit his own country, choosing, as it happens, not New York or Washington as the background of the milkman's love drama, but the home of Transatlantic culture itself, Boston. Paddington Green would, of course, mean nothing to American ears, but Boston is happy in the possession of a Pemberton Square, which may, for all I know, be as important to the Hub of the Universe as Merrion Square is to Dublin, and Polly was, therefore, made comfortable there, and, as Pretty Polly Perkins of Pemberton Square, became as famous as, in our effete hemisphere, Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green. The adaptor deserves great credit for altering as little as possible. Beyond Polly's abode, and the necessary rhymes to mate with Square, he did nothing, so that the song, while transplanted to America, remained racy of the English capital. It was still the broken-hearted milkman who sang it, and the _dénouement_, which is so very English--and, more than English, Cockney--was unaltered:

In six months she married,
That hard-hearted girl;
It was not a squire,
And it was not a nearl.
It was not a baronet,
But a shade or two wuss--
'Twas the wulgar old driver
Of a twopenny 'bus.

But the story of Polly is nothing. The merit of the song is its air, the novelty and ingenuity of its chorus, and the praises of Polly which the chorus embodies. The celebration of charming women is never out of date. Some are sung about in the Mediterranean, some in Boston, and some all the world over; others give their names to roses.

So far had I written--and published--in a weekly paper, leaving open a loophole or two for kind and well-instructed readers to come to my aid; and as usual (for I am very fortunate in these matters) they did so. Before I was a month older I knew all. I knew that the author, composer, and singer of "Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green" were one and the same: the famous Harry Clifton; and that Polly married "not the wulgar old driver" of a twopenny 'bus, as was my mistaken belief, but quite the reverse--that is to say, the "bandy-legged conductor" of the same vehicle. A gentleman in Ireland was even so obliging as to send me another ballad by Harry Clifton, on the front of which is his portrait and on the back a list of his triumphs--and they make very startling reading, at any rate to me, who have never been versatile. The number of songs alone is appalling: no fewer than thirty to which he had also put the music and over fifty to which the music was composed by others, but which with acceptance he sang. Judging by the titles and the first lines, which in the advertisement are always given, these songs of the sixties were very much better things than most of the songs of our enlightened day. They seem to have had character, a humorous sententiousness, and a genial view of life. And judging by his portrait on the cover, Harry Clifton was a kindly, honest type of man, to whom such accessories of the modern comic singer's success as the well-advertised membership of a night club, or choice of an expensive restaurant, were a superfluity.

Having read these letters and the list of songs, I called on a friend who was at that moment lying on a bed of sickness, from which, alas! he never rose--the late George Bull, the drollest raconteur in London and one of the best of men, who, so far as I am concerned, carried away with him an irreplaceable portion of the good humour of life; and I found that the name of Harry Clifton touched more than one chord. He had heard Harry Clifton sing. As a child, music-halls were barred to him, but Harry Clifton, it seems, was so humane and well-grounded--his fundamentals, as Dr. Johnson would say, were so sound--that he sang also at Assembly Rooms, and there my friend was taken, in his tender years, by his father, to hear him. There he heard the good fellow, who was conspicuously jolly and most cordially Irish, sing several of his great hits, and in particular "A Motto for Every Man," "Paddle Your Own Canoe," and "Lannigan's Ball" (set to a most admirable jig tune which has become a classic), one phrase from which was adopted into the Irish vernacular as a saying: "Just in time for Lannigan's ball." Clifton might indeed be called the Tom Moore of his day, with as large a public, although not quite so illigant a one. For where Moore warbled to the ladies, Clifton sang to the people. Such a ballad as that extolling the mare of Pat of Mullingar must have gone straight to the hearts of the countrymen of Mr. Flurry Knox:

They may talk of Flying Childers,
And the speed of Harkaway,
Till the fancy it bewilders
As you list to what they say.
But for rale blood and beauty,
You may travel near and far--
The fastest mare you'll find belongs
To Pat of Mullingar.

An old lady in Dublin who remembers Clifton singing this song tells me that the chorus, "So we'll trot along O," was so descriptive, both in words and music, that one had from it all the sensations of a "joult."

Harry Clifton seems to have had three distinct lines--the comic song, of which "Pretty Polly Perkins" may be considered the best example; the Irish song; and the Motto song, inculcating a sweet reasonableness and content amid life's many trials and tribulations. Although, no doubt, such optimism was somewhat facile, it cannot be denied that a little dose of silver-lining advice, artfully concealed in the jam of a good tune and a humorous twist of words, does no harm and may have a beneficial effect. The chorus of "A Motto for Every Man," for example, runs thus:

We cannot all fight in this battle of life,
The weak must go to the wall.
So do to each other the thing that is right,
For there's room in this world for us all.

An easy sentiment; but sufficient people in the sixties were attracted by it to flock to hear Harry Clifton all over England and Ireland, and it is probable that most came away with momentarily expanded bosoms, and a few were stimulated to follow its precepts.

Looking down this remarkable list of titles and first lines--which may be only a small portion of Harry Clifton's output--I am struck by his cleanliness and sanity. His record was one of which he might well be proud, and I think that old Fletcher of Saltoun, who had views on the makers of a nation's ballads, would probably have clapped him on the back.

Another thing. If many of the tunes to these songs are as good as that to "Polly Perkins," Harry Clifton's golden treasury should be worth mining. The songs of yesterday, when revived, strike one as being very antiquated, and the songs of the day before yesterday also rarely bear the test; but what of the songs of the sixties? Might their melodies not strike freshly and alluringly on the ear to-day? Another, and to-day a better known, Harry--Harry Lauder--whose tunes are always good, has confided to an interviewer that he finds them for the most part in old traditional collections, and gives them new life. He is wise. John Stuart Mill's fear that the combinations of the notes of the piano might be used up was probably fantastic, but the arrival of the luckless day would at any rate be delayed if we revived tunes that were old enough for that process; and why should not the works of Harry Clifton be examined for the purpose? But perhaps they have been....

And then we come back to the marvel, to me, of the man's variousness. I can plead guilty to having written the words of a dozen songs or so in as many years, but to put two notes of music together is beyond me, and to sing anything in tune would be an impossibility, even if I had the assurance to stand up in public for that purpose. Yet Harry Clifton, who, in the picture on the cover of the song which the gentleman in Ireland sent me, does not look at all like some brazen lion comiques, not only could sing acceptably but write good words and good music. I hope he grew prosperous, although there is some evidence that his native geniality was also a stumbling-block. Your jolly good fellows so often are the victims of their jolly goodness. Nor had the palmy days of comic singing then begun. There were then no £300 a week bribes to lure a comic singer into _revue_; but the performers, I guess, were none the worse for receiving a wage more in accordance with true proportion. I say true proportion, because I shall never feel it right that music-hall comedians should receive a bigger salary than a Prime Minister; at least, not until they sing better songs and take a finer view of life in their "patter" than most of them now do.

Arts of Invasion

All people living in the country are liable to be asked if they do not know of "some nice little place that would just suit us." "For week-ends, chiefly"--the inquirer usually adds. "A kind of _pied-à-terre_, you know"--the inquirer always adds.

Cautious, self-protective people answer no. Foolish, gregarious people actually try to help.

Addressing that large and growing class, the _pied-à-terre_ hunters, not as a potential neighbour, but as a mere counsellor and very platonic friend, I would say that I have recently discovered two ways of acquiring country places, both of which, although no doubt neither is infallible, have from time to time succeeded.

It was at the end of a fruitless day on the same quest that I hit upon the first. After tramping many miles in vain, I was fortunate in getting a fly at the village inn to drive me to the nearest station. I don't say I had seen nothing I liked, but nothing that was empty. As a matter of fact, I had seen one very charming place, but every window had a curtain in it and the chimneys were sending up their confounded smoke. In other words, it was, to use one of the most offensive words in the language, occupied. Hence I was in a bad temper. None the less, when a little man in black suddenly appeared before me and begged to be allowed to share my cab (and its fare), I agreed. He began to talk at once, and having disposed of the weather and other topics on which one can be strictly and politely neutral, he said that his business took him a good deal into unfamiliar places.

Being aware that he wished it, I asked him what his business was.

"I'm an unsettler," he said.

"An unsettler?"

"Yes. It's not a profession that we talk much about, because the very essence of it is secrecy, but it's genuine enough, and there are not a few of us. Of course, we do other things as well, such as insurance agency, but unsettling pays best."

"Tell me about it," I said.

"Well," he explained, "it's like this. Say you are thinking of moving and you want another house. You can't find an empty one that you like, of course. No one can. But you differ from other persons in being unwilling to make a compromise. You will either wait till you find one that you do like, or you will go without. Meanwhile you see plenty of occupied houses that you like, just as every one else does. But you differ from other persons in being unwilling to believe that you can't have what you want. Do you follow me?"

Naturally I followed him minutely, because he was describing my own case.

"Very well, then," he continued. "This makes the unsettler's opportunity. You return to the agent and tell him that the only house you liked is (say) a white one at East Windles.

"'It was not one on your list,' you say; 'in fact, it was occupied. It is the house on the left, in its own grounds, just as you enter the village. There is a good lawn, and a wonderful clipped yew hedge.'

"'Oh yes,' says the agent, 'I know it: it used to be the Rectory.'

"'Who lives there?' you ask.

"'An old lady named Burgess,' says the agent--'Miss Burgess.'

"'Would she leave?' you ask.

"'I should very much doubt it,' says the agent, 'but I could, of course, sound her.'

"'I'll give you twenty-five pounds,' you say, 'if you can induce her to quit.' And off you go.

"It is then that the unsettler comes in. The agent sends for me and tells me the story; and I get to work. The old lady has got to be dislodged. Now what is it that old ladies most dislike? I ask myself. It depends, of course; but on general principles a scare about the water is safe, and a rumour of ghosts is safe. The water-scare upsets the mistress, the ghost-scare upsets the maids; and when one can't get maids, the country becomes a bore. As it is, she had the greatest difficulty in keeping them, because there's no cinema near.

"Very well, then. Having decided on my line of action, I begin to spread reports--very cautiously, of course, but with careful calculation, and naturally never appearing myself; and gradually, bit by bit, Miss Burgess takes a dislike to the place. Not always, of course. Some tenants are most unreasonable. But sooner or later most of them fall to the bait, and you get the house. That's my profession."

"Well," I said, "I think it's a blackguard one."

"Oh, sir!" he replied. "Live and let live."

"It's funny, all the same," I added, "that I should have run across you, because I've been looking for a house for some time, and the only one I liked was occupied."

He pulled out a pocket-book. "Yes?" he said, moistening his pencil.

But that is enough of him.

So much for my first way, which, as I happen to know, has succeeded, at any rate once. Now for the other, which is less material. In fact, some people might call it supernatural.

I was telling a lady about my friend the unsettler and his methods; but she did not seem to be in the least impressed.

"All very well," she said; "but there's a more efficient and more respectable way than that. And," she added, with a significant glance at her husband and not without triumph, "I happen to know."

She sat at the dinner-table in the old farm-house--"modernized," as the agents have it, "yet redolent of old-world charm." By modernized they mean that the rightful occupiers--the simple agriculturists--had gone for ever, and well-to-do artistic Londoners had made certain changes to fit it for a week-end retreat. In other words, it had become a _pied-à-terre_. Where the country folk for whom all these and smaller cottages were built now live, who shall say? Probably in mean streets; anyway, not here. The exterior remains often the same, but inside, instead of the plain furniture of the peasantry, one finds wicker arm-chairs and sofa-chairs, all the right books and weekly papers, and cigarettes.

This particular farm-house was charming. An ingle-nook, Heal furniture, old-pattern cretonnes and chintzes, an etching or two, a Japanese print or two, a reproduction of a John, the poems of Mr. Masefield and Rupert Brooke, a French novel, the _New Statesman_, and where once had been a gun-rack a Della Robbia Madonna.

"It's delightful," I said; adding, as one always does: "How _did_ you get to hear of it?"

"Hearing of it wasn't difficult," she said, "because we'd known about it for years. The trouble was to get it."

"It wasn't empty, then?" I replied.

"No. There was a Mr. Broom here. We asked him if he wanted to go, and he said No. We made him an offer, and he refused. He was most unreasonable." (It was the same word that the unsettler had used.)

I agreed: "Most."

"So there was nothing for it but to will his departure."

"Will?"

"Yes. Concentrate our thoughts on his giving notice, and invite our friends to do the same. I wrote scores of letters all round, impressing this necessity, this absolute, sacred duty, on them. I asked them to make a special effort on the night of March 18th, at eleven o'clock, when we should all be free. It sounds rather dreadful, but I always hold that the people who want a house most are best fitted to have it. One can't be too nice in such matters."

"Well?" I asked.

"Well, you'll hardly believe it--and I shan't be a bit vexed if you don't--but on the morning of the 20th of March I had a letter from Mr. Broom saying that he had decided to leave, and we could have the first call on his house. It was too wonderful. I don't mind confessing that I felt a little ashamed. I felt it had been too easy."

"It is certainly a dangerous power," I said.

"Well," she continued, "I hurried round to see him before he could change his mind. 'Do you really want to leave?' I asked him. 'Yes,' he said. 'Why?' I asked. 'Well,' he said, 'I can't tell you why. I don't know. All I know is that all of a sudden I have got tired and feel vaguely that I want a change. I am quite sure I am making a mistake and I'll never find so good a place; but there it is: I'm going.' I assure you I felt for a moment inclined to back out altogether and advise him to stay on. I was even half disposed to tell him the truth; but I pulled myself together. And--well, here we are!"

"It's amazing," I said. "You must either have very strong-minded friends, or the stars have played very oddly into your hands, or both."

"Yes," she said; "but there's a little difficulty. One has to be so careful in this life."

"One has," I fervently agreed. "But what is it?"

"Some of my friends," she explained, "didn't quite play the game. Instead of willing, as I explicitly indicated, that our Mr. Broom should leave the Manor Farm, they willed merely that Mr. Broom should leave his house, and the result is that all kinds of Mr. Brooms all over the country have been giving notice. I heard of another only this morning. In fact, our Mr. Broom's brother was one of them. It's a very perilous as well as a useful gift, you see. But we've got the farm, and that's the main thing."

She smiled the smile of a conqueror.

"But," remarked another of the guests, who had told us that she was looking for a _pied-à-terre_, "there's a catch somewhere, isn't there? Don't you see any weak point?"

Our hostess smiled less confidently. "How?" she asked uneasily.

"Well," the guest continued, "suppose.... It couldn't, I mean, be in better hands. For the moment. But suppose some one else wanted it? Take care. Willing is a game that two can play at."

"You don't mean----?" our hostess faltered.

"I do, most certainly," the guest replied. "Directly I go away from here I shall make a list of my most really obstinate, pushful friends to help me."

"But that would be most unfair," said our hostess.

"No one is fair when hunting the _pied-à-terre_," I reminded her.

The Marble Arch and Peter Magnus

Finding myself (not often in London on the day that comes so mercifully between the Saturday and Monday) beside the enisled Marble Arch, I spent half an hour in listening to the astonishing oratory that was going on there. Although I had not done this for many, many years, there was so little change in the proceedings that I gained a new impression of perpetual motion. The same--or to all intents and purposes the same--leather lungs were still at it, either arraigning the Deity or commending His blessed benefactions. As invariably of old, a Hindu was present; but whether he was the Hindu of the Middle Ages or a new Hindu, I cannot say. One proselytizing Hindu is strangely like another. His matter was familiar also. The only novelty that I noticed was a little band of American evangelists (America being so little in need of spiritual assistance that these have settled in London) in the attire more or less of the constabulary of New York, the spokesman among whom, at the moment I joined his audience, was getting into rather deep water in an effort to fit the kind of halo acceptable to modern evangelicals on the head of Martin Luther.

As I passed from group to group, with each step a certain inevitable question grew more insistent upon a reply; and so, coming to one of London's founts of wisdom and knowledge, I put it to him. "I suppose," I said, indicating the various speakers with a semicircular gesture, "they don't do all this for nothing?" The policeman closed one eye. "Not they," he answered; "they've all got sympathizers somewhere."

Well, live and let live is a good maxim, thought I, and there surely never was such a wonderful world as this, and so I came away; and it was then that something occurred which (for everything so far has been sheer prologue) led to these remarks. I was passing the crowd about one of the gentlemen--the more brazenly confident one--who deny the existence of a beneficent Creator, when the words, "Looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm," clanged out, followed by a roar of delighted laughter; and in a flash I remembered precisely where I was when, forty and more years ago, I first heard from a nursemaid that ancient simile and was so struck by its humour that I added it to my childish repertory. And from this recollection I passed on to ponder upon the melancholy truth that originality will ever be an unpopular quality. For here were two or three hundred people absolutely and hilariously satisfied with such a battered and moth-eaten phrase, even to-day, and perfectly content that the orator should have so little respect either for himself or for them that he saw no disgrace in thus evading his duty and inventing something new.

But was that his duty? That was my next thought; and a speech by that eternally veracious type whom Mr. Pickwick met at Ipswich, and who, for all his brief passage across the stage of literature, is more real than many a prominent hero of many chapters, came to mind to answer it. I refer to Mr. Peter Magnus, who, when Mr. Pickwick described Sam Weller as not only his servant and almost friend, but an "original," replied in these deathless words: "I am not fond of anything original; I don't like it; don't see any necessity for it." And that's just it. The tribe of Magnus is very large; it doesn't like originality, and doesn't see any necessity for it--which, translated into the modern idiom, would run "has no use for it." Hence the freethinker was right, and the longer he continues to repose his faith in ancient comic _clichés_ the greater will be his success.

And then I thought for the millionth time what an awful mistake it is to be fastidious. Truly wise people--and by wisdom I mean an aggregation of those qualities and acceptances and compromises that make for a fairly unruffled progress through this difficult life--truly wise people are not fastidious. They are easily pleased, they are not critical, and--and this is very important--they allow of no exceptions among human beings. Originals bore them as much as they did Mr. Magnus. One of the astutest men that I know has achieved a large measure of his prosperity and general contentment by behaving always as though all men were alike. Because, although of course they are not alike, the differences are too trifling to matter. He flatters each with the same assiduity and grossness, with the result that they all become his useful allies. Those that do not swallow the mixture, and resent it, he merely accuses of insincerity or false modesty; yet they are his allies too, because, although they cannot accept his methods, being a little uncertain as to whether his intentions may not have been genuinely kind, or his judgment honestly at fault, they give him the benefit of the doubt.

The Oldest Joke

Many investigators have speculated as to the character of the first joke; and as speculation must our efforts remain. But I personally have no doubt whatever as to the subject-matter of that distant pleasantry: it was the face of the other person involved. I don't say that Adam was caustic about Eve's face or Eve about Adam's: that is improbable. Nor does matrimonial invective even now ordinarily take this form. But after a while, after cousins had come into the world, the facial jest began; and by the time of Noah and his sons the riot was in full swing. In every rough and tumble among the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, I feel certain that crude and candid personalities fell to the lot, at any rate, of the little Shems.

So was it then; so is it still to-day. No jests are so rich as those that bear upon the unloveliness of features not our own. The tiniest street urchins in dispute always--sooner or later--devote their retorts to the distressing physiognomy of the foe. Not only are they conforming to the ancient convention, but they show sagacity too, for to sum up an opponent as "Face," "Facey," or "Funny Face," is to spike his gun. There is no reply but the cowardly _tu quoque_. He cannot say, "My face is not comic, it is handsome"; because that does not touch the root of the matter. The root of the matter is your opinion of his face as deplorable.

Not only is the recognition of what is odd in an opponent's countenance of this priceless value in ordinary quarrels among the young and the ill-mannered (just as abuse of the opposing counsel is the best way of covering the poverty of one's own case at law), but the music-hall humorist has no easier or surer road to the risibilities of most of his audience. Jokes about faces never fail and are never threadbare. Sometimes I find myself listening to one who has been called--possibly the label was self-imposed--the Prime Minister of Mirth, and he invariably enlarges upon the quaintness of somebody's features, often, for he is the soul of impartiality, his own; and the first time, now thirty years ago, that I ever entered a music-hall (the tiny stuffy old Oxford at Brighton, where the chairman with the dyed hair--it was more purple than black--used to sit amid a little company of bloods whose proud privilege it was to pay for his refreshment), another George, whose surname was Beauchamp, was singing about a siren into whose clutches he had or had not fallen, who had

an indiarubber lip
Like the rudder of a ship.

--So you see there is complete continuity.

But the best example of this branch of humour is beyond all question that of the Two Macs, whose influence, long though it is since they eclipsed the gaiety of the nation by vanishing, is still potent. Though gone they still jest; or, at any rate, their jests did not all vanish with them. The incorrigible veneration for what is antique displayed by low comedians takes care of that. "I saw your wife at the masked ball last night," the first Mac would say, in his rich brogue. "My wife was at the ball last night," the other would reply in a brogue of deeper richness, "but it wasn't a masked ball." The first Mac would then express an overwhelming surprise, as he countered with the devastating question, "Was _that_ her face?"

"You're not two-faced, anyway. I'll say that for you," was the apparently magnanimous concession made by one comedian to another in a recent farcical play. The other was beginning to express his gratification when the speaker continued: "If you were, you wouldn't have come out with that one." Again, you observe, there is no answer to this kind of attack. Hence, I suppose, its popularity. And yet perhaps to take refuge in a smug sententiousness, and remark crisply, "Handsome is as handsome does," should now and then be useful. But it requires some self-esteem.

There is no absolute need, however, for the face joke to be applied to others to be successful. Since, in spite of the complexion creams, "plumpers," and nose-machines advertised in the papers, faces will continue to be here and there somewhat Gothic, the wise thing for their owners is to accept them and think of other things, or console themselves before the unflattering mirror with the memory of those mortals who have been both quaint-looking and gifted. Wiser still perhaps to make a little capital out of the affliction. Public men who are able to make a jest of the homeliness of their features never lose by it. President Wilson's public recital of the famous lines on his countenance (which I personally find by no means unprepossessing) did much to increase his popularity.

As a beauty I am not a star,
There are others more handsome by far.
But my face, I don't mind it,
For I keep behind it;
It's the people in front get the jar.

And an English bishop, or possibly dean, came, at last, very near earth when in a secular address he repeated his retort to the lady who had commented upon his extraordinary plainness: "Ah, but you should see my brother." There is also the excellent story of the ugly man before the camera, who was promised by the photographer that he should have justice done to him. "Justice!" he exclaimed. "I don't want justice; I want mercy."

The great face joke, as I say, obviously came first. Because there were in the early days none of the materials for the other staple quips--such as alcohol, and sausages, and wives' mothers. Faces, however, were always there. And not even yet have the later substitutes ousted it. Just as Shakespeare's orator, "when he is out," spits, so does the funny man, in similar difficulties, if he is wise, say, "Do you call that a face?" and thus collect his thoughts for fresh sallies. If all "dials" were identical, Mr. George Graves, for example, would be a stage bankrupt; for, resourceful as he is in the humour of quizzical disapproval, the vagaries of facial oddity are his foundation stone.

Remarkable as are the heights of grotesque simile to which all the Georges have risen in this direction, it is, oddly enough, to the other and gentler sex that the classic examples (in my experience) belong. At a dinner-party given by a certain hospitable lady who remained something of an _enfante terrible_ to the end of her long life, she drew the attention of one of her guests, by no means too cautiously, to the features of another guest, a bishop of great renown. "Isn't his face," she asked, in a deathless sentence, "like the inside of an elephant's foot?" I have not personally the honour of this divine's acquaintance, but all my friends who have met or seen him assure me that the similitude is exact. Another lady, happily still living, said of the face of an acquaintance, that it was "not so much a face, as a part of her person which she happened to leave uncovered, by which her friends were able to recognize her." A third, famous for her swift analyses, said that a certain would-be beauty might have a title to good looks but for "a rush of teeth to the head." I do not quote these admirable remarks merely as a proof of woman's natural kindliness, but to show how even among the elect--for all three speakers are of more than common culture--the face joke holds sway.

The Puttenhams

I

From _The Mustershire Herald and Oldcaster Advertiser_

"The new volume of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_ is, as usual, full of varied fare.... But for good Oldcastrians the most interesting article is a minute account of the Puttenham family, so well known in the town for many generations, from its earliest traceable date in the seventeenth century. It is remarkable for how long the Puttenhams were content to be merely small traders and so forth, until quite recently the latent genius of the blood declared itself simultaneously in the constructive ability of our own millionaire ex-townsman, Sir Jonathan Puttenham (who married a daughter of Lord Hammerton), and in the world-famous skill of the great chemist, Sir Victor Puttenham, the discoverer of the Y-rays, who still has his country home on our borders. The simile of the oak and the acorn at once springs to mind."

II

Miss Enid Daubeney, who is staying at Sir Jonathan Puttenham's, to her Sister

MY DEAR FLUFFETY,--There are wigs on the green here, I can tell you. Aunt Virginia is furious about a genealogy of the Puttenham family which has appeared in the county's archæological records. It goes back ever so far, and derives our revered if somewhat stodgy and not-too-generous uncle-by-marriage from one of the poorest bunches of ancestors a knight of industry ever had. Aunt Virginia won't see that, from such loins, the farther the spring the greater the honour, and the poor man has had no peace and the article is to be suppressed. But since these things are published only for subscribers and the volume is now out, of course nothing can be done. Please telegraph that you can't spare me any longer, for the meals here are getting impossible. Not even the peaches compensate.--Your devoted ENID

III

Sir Jonathan Puttenham to the Rev. Stacey Morris, Editor of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_

DEAR SIR,--I wish to utter a protest against what I consider a serious breach of etiquette. In the new volume of your _Records_, you print an article dealing with the history from remote times of the family of which I am a member, and possibly the best-known member at the present day. The fact that that family is of humble origin is nothing to me. What I object to is the circumstance that you should publish this material, most of which is of very little interest to the outside world, without first ascertaining my views on the subject. I may now tell you that I object so strongly to the publication that I count on you to secure its withdrawal.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

JONATHAN PUTTENHAM

IV

Horace Vicary, M.D., of Southbridge, to his old friend the Rev. Stacey Morris

MORRIS,--It's a good volume, take it all round. But what has given me, in my unregeneracy, the greatest pleasure is the article on the Puttenhams. For years the Puttenhams here have been putting on airs and holding their noses higher than the highest, and it is not only (as they say doubly of nibs) grateful and comforting, but a boon and a blessing, to find that one of their not too remote ancestors kept a public-house, and another was a tinsmith. And I fancy I am not alone in my satisfaction.

Yours, H. V.

V

Sir Victor Puttenham, F.R.S., to the Editor of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_

DEAR SIR,--As probably the most widely-known member of the Puttenham family at the present moment, may I thank you for the generous space which you have accorded to our history. To what extent it will be readable by strangers I cannot say, but to me it is intensely interesting, and if you can arrange for a few dozen reprints in paper wrappers I shall be glad to have them. I had, of course, some knowledge of my ancestors, but I had no idea that we were quite such an undistinguished rabble of groundlings for so long. That drunken whipper-in to Lord Dashingham in the seventeen-seventies particularly delights me.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

VICTOR PUTTENHAM

VI

From Sir Jonathan Puttenham to the Editor of _The Mustershire Herald and Oldcaster Advertiser_

DEAR SIR,--I shall be obliged if you will make no more references in _The Herald_ to the new _Mustershire Archæological Records'_ article on the Puttenhams. It is not that it lays emphasis on the humble origin of that family. That is nothing to me. But I am at the moment engaged in a correspondence with the Editor on the propriety of publishing private or semi-private records of this character without first asking permission, and as he will possibly see the advisability of withdrawing the article in question there should be as little reference to it in the Press as possible.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

JONATHAN PUTTENHAM

VII

The Rev. Stacey Morris to Sir Jonathan Puttenham

The Editor of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_ begs to acknowledge Sir Jonathan Puttenham's letter of the 15th inst. He regrets that the publication of the Puttenham genealogy should have so offended Sir Jonathan, but would point out, firstly, that it has for years been a custom of these Records to include such articles; secondly, that the volume has now been delivered to all the Society's members; thirdly, that there are members of the Puttenham family who do not at all share Sir Jonathan's views; and, fourthly, that if such views obtained generally the valuable and interesting pursuit of genealogy, of which our President, Lord Hammerton, to name no others, is so ardent a patron, would cease to be practised.

VIII

Miss Lydia Puttenham, of "Weald View," Rusper Common, Tunbridge Wells, to Lady Puttenham

DEAR COUSIN MILDRED,--I wonder if Sir Victor has seen the article on our family in _The Archæological Records_. I am so vexed about it, not only for myself and all of us, but particularly for him and you. It is not right that a busy man working for humanity, as he is doing, should be worried like that. Indeed I feel so strongly about it that I have sent in my resignation as a member of the Society. Why such things should be printed at all I cannot see. It is most unfair and unnecessary to go into such details, nor can there be the slightest reason for doing so, for the result is the dullest reading. Perhaps Sir Victor could get it stopped. Again expressing my sympathy, I am,

Yours affectionately,

LYDIA PUTTENHAM

IX

The Rev. Stacey Morris to Ernest Burroughs, the compiler of the Puttenham genealogy

MY DEAR BURROUGHS,--We are threatened with all kinds of penalties by Sir Jonathan Puttenham, the great contractor, over your seamy revelations. It is odd how differently these things are taken, for the other great Puttenham, the chemist, Sir Victor, is delighted and is distributing copies broadcast. Equal forms of snobbishness, a Thackeray would perhaps say. But my purpose in writing is to say that I hope you will continue the series undismayed.

Yours sincerely,

STACEY MORRIS

Poetry made Easy