Chapter III: Introduction (3)

There looms a Day (I can feel it looming;
Yes, it will be in a month or less),
When all the flowers in the world are blooming
And Nature flutters her fairest dress--
Then I, my friends, I too shall wear
A blazer that will make them stare,
And brush--this is official: I shall also brush my hair.

It is the day that I watch for yearly,
Never before has it come so late;
But now I've only a month--no, merely
A couple of fortnights left to wait;
And then (to make the matter plain)
I hold--at last!--a bat again:
Dear Hobbs! the weeks this summer--think! the _weeks_
I've lived in vain!

I see already the first ball twisting
Over the green as I take my stand,
I hear already long-on insisting
It wasn't a chance that came to hand--
Or no; I see it miss the bat
And strike me on the knee, whereat
Some fool, some silly fool at point, says blandly,
"How was that?"

Then, scouting later, I hold a hot-un
At deep square-leg from the local Fry,
And at short mid-on to the village Scotton
I snap a skimmer some six foot high--
Or else, perhaps, I get the ball,
Upon the thumb, or not at all,
Or right into the hands, and then, lorblessme, let it fall.

But what care I? It's the game that calls me--
Simply to be on the field of play;
How can it matter what fate befalls me,
With ten good fellows and one good day?
... But still,
I rather hope spectators will,
Observing any lack or skill,
Remark, "This is his first appearance." Yes, I _hope_ they will.

THE COMPETITION SPIRIT

About six weeks ago a Canadian gentleman named Smith arrived in the Old Country (England). He knew a man who knew a man who knew a man ... and so on for a bit ... who knew a man who knew a man who knew me. Letters passed; negotiations ensued; and about a week after he had first set foot in the Mother City (London) Smith and I met at my Club for lunch.

I may confess now that I was nervous. I think I expected a man in a brown shirt and leggings, who would ask me to put it "right there," and tell me I was "some Englishman." However, he turned out to be exactly like anybody else in London. Whether he found me exactly like anybody else in Canada I don't know. Anyway, we had a very pleasant lunch, and arranged to play golf together on the next day.

Whatever else is true of Canada there can be no doubt that it turns out delightful golfers. Smith proved to be just the best golfer I had ever met, being, when at the top of his form, almost exactly as good as I was. Hole after hole we halved in a mechanical eight. If by means of a raking drive and four perfect brassies at the sixth he managed to get one up for a moment, then at the short seventh a screaming iron and three consummate approaches would make me square again. Occasionally he would, by superhuman play, do a hole in bogey; but only to crack at the next, and leave me, at the edge of the green, to play "one off eleven." It was, in fact, a ding-dong struggle all the way; and for his one-hole victory in the morning I had my revenge with a one-hole victory in the afternoon.

By the end of a month we must have played a dozen rounds of this nature. I always had a feeling that I was really a better golfer than he, and this made me friendly towards his game. I would concede him short putts which I should have had no difficulty in missing myself; if he lost his ball I would beg him to drop another and go on with the hole; if he got into a bad place in a bunker I would assure him it was ground under repair. He was just as friendly in refusing to take these advantages, just as pleasant in offering similar indulgences to me. I thought at first it was part of his sporting way, but it turned out that (absurdly enough) he also was convinced that he was really the better golfer of the two, and could afford these amenities.

One day he announced that he was going back to Canada.

"We must have a last game," he said, "and this one must be decisive."

"For the championship of the Empire," I agreed. "Let's buy a little cup and play for it. I've never won anything at golf yet, and I should love to see a little cup on the dinner-table every night."

"You can't come to dinner in Canada _every_ night," he pointed out. "It would be so expensive for you."

Well, the cup was bought, engraved "The Empire Challenge Cup," and played for last Monday.

"This," said Smith, "is a serious game, and we must play all out. No giving away anything, no waiving the rules. The Empire is at stake. The effeteness of the Mother Country is about to be put to the proof. Proceed."

It wasn't the most pleasant of our games. The spirit of the cup hung over it and depressed us. At the third hole I had an eighteen-inch putt for a half. "That's all right," said Smith forgetfully; and then added, "Perhaps you'd better put it in, though." Of course I missed. On the fifth green he was about to brush away a leaf. "That's illegal," I said sharply, "you must pick it up; you mayn't brush it away," and after a fierce argument on the point he putted hastily--and badly. At the eighteenth tee we were all square and hardly on speaking terms. The fate of the Mother Country depended upon the result of this hole.

I drove a long one, the longest of the day, slightly hooked.

"Good shot," said Smith with an effort. He pressed and foozled badly. I tried not to look pleased.

We found his ball in a thick clump of heather. With a grim look on his face, he took out his niblick....

I stayed by him and helped him count up to eight.

"Where's your ball?" he growled.

"A long way on," I said reproachfully. "I wish you'd hurry up. The poor thing will be getting cold."

He got to work again. We had another count together up to fifteen. Sometimes there would be a gleam of white at the top of the heather for a moment and then it would fade away.

"How many?" I asked some minutes later.

"About thirty. But I don't care, I'm going to get the little beast into the hole if it takes me all night." He went on hacking.

I had lost interest in the performance, for the cup was mine, but I did admire his Colonial grit.

"Got it," he cried suddenly, and the ball sailed out on to the pretty. Another shot put him level with me.

"Thirty-two?" I asked.

"About," he said coldly.

I began to look for my ball. It had got tired of waiting and had hidden itself. Smith joined gloomily in the search.

"This is absurd," I said, after three or four minutes.

"By jove!" said Smith, suddenly brightening up. "If your ball's lost I win after all."

"Nonsense; you've given the hole up," I protested. "You don't know how many you've played. According to the rules, if I ask you how many, and you give wrong information--"

"It's thirty-five," he said promptly.

"I don't believe you counted."

"Call it forty-five then. There's nothing to prevent my calling it more than it really is. If it was really only forty, then I'm counting five occasions when the ball rolled over as I was addressing it. That's very generous of me. Actually I'm doubtful if the ball did roll over five times, but I say it did in order to be on the safe side." He looked at his watch. "And if you don't find your ball in thirty seconds, you lose the hole."

It was ingenious, but the Mother Country can be ingenious too.

"How many have you played exactly?" I asked. "Be careful."

"Forty-five," he said. "Exactly."

"Right." I took my niblick and swung at the heather. "Bother," I said. "Missed it. Two."

"Hallo! Have you found it?"

"I have. It's somewhere in this field. There's no rule which insists that you shall hit the ball, or even that you shall hit near the ball, or even that you shall see the ball when you hit at it. Lots of old gentlemen shut their eyes and miss the sphere. I've missed. In five minutes I shall miss again."

"But what's the point?"

"The point, dear friend," I smiled, "is that after each stroke one is allowed five minutes in which to find the ball. I have forty-three strokes in hand; that gives me three hours and thirty-five minutes in which to look for it. At regular intervals of five minutes I shall swing my club and probably miss. It's four-thirty now; at eight o'clock, unless I find my ball before, I shall be playing the like. And if you are a sportsman," I added, "you will bring me out some tea in half an hour."

* * * * *

At six-thirty I was still looking--and swinging. Smith then came to terms and agreed to share the cup with me for the first year. He goes back to Canada to-morrow, and will spread the good news there that the Old Country can still hold its own in resource, determination and staying power. But next year we are going to play friendly golf again.

THE FIRST TEE

(MULLION)

It is the place, it is the place, my soul!
(Blow, bugle, blow; sing, triangle; toot, fife!)
Down to the sea the close-cropped pastures roll,
Couches behind yon sandy hill the goal
Whereat, it may be, after ceaseless strife
The "Colonel" shall find peace, and Henry say,
"Your hole" ...

Caddie, give me my driver, caddie,
The sun shines hot, but there's half a breeze,
Enough to rustle the tree-tops, laddie,
Only supposing there were some trees;
The year's at the full and the morn's at eleven,
It's a wonderful day just straight from Heaven,
And this is a hole I can do in seven--
Caddie, my driver, please.

Three times a day from now till Monday week (Ten peerless days in all) I take my stand Vested in some _dégagé_ mode of breek (The chess-board touch, with squares that almost speak), And lightly sketch my Slice into the Sand, As based on bigger men, but much of it unique....

Caddie, give me my driver, caddie,
Note my style on the first few tees;
Duncan fashioned my wrist-work, laddie,
Taylor taught me to twist my knees;
I've a beautiful swing that I learnt from Vardon
(I practise it sometimes down the garden--
"My fault! Sorry! I _beg_ your pardon!")--
Caddie, my driver, please.

Only ten little days, in which to do
So much! e.g., the twelfth: ah, it was there
The Secretary met his Waterloo,
But perished gamely, playing twenty-two;
His clubs _(ten little days_!) lie bleaching where
Sea-poppies blow _(ten days_) and wheeling sea-birds mew....

Caddie, give me my driver, caddie,
Let us away with thoughts like these;
A week and a half is a lifetime, laddie,
The day that's here is the day to seize;
_Carpe diem_--yes, that's the motto,
"Work be jiggered!" and likewise "What ho!"
I'M NOT GOING BACK TILL I'VE JOLLY WELL GOT TO!
Caddie, my driver, please.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

There are warm days in London when even a window-box fails to charm, and one longs for the more open spaces of the country. Besides, one wants to see how the other flowers are getting on. It is on these days that we travel to our Castle of Stopes; as the crow flies, fifteen miles away. Indeed, that is the way we get to it, for it is a castle in the air. And when we are come to it, Celia is always in a pink sunbonnet gathering roses lovingly, and I, not very far off, am speaking strongly to somebody or other about something I want done. By-and-by I shall go into the library and work ... with an occasional glance through the open window at Celia.

To think that a month ago we were quite happy with a few pink geraniums!

Sunday, a month ago, was hot. "Let's take train somewhere," said Celia, "and have lunch under a hedge."

"I know a lovely place for hedges," I said.

"I know a lovely tin of potted grouse," said Celia, and she went off to cut some sandwiches. By twelve o'clock we were getting out of the train.

The first thing we came to was a golf course, and Celia had to drag me past it. Then we came to a wood, and I had to drag her through it. Another mile along a lane, and then we both stopped together.

"Oh!" we said.

It was a cottage, the cottage of a dream. And by a cottage I mean, not four plain rooms and a kitchen, but one surprising room opening into another; rooms all on different levels and of different shapes, with delightful places to bump your head on; open fireplaces; a large square hall, oak-beamed, where your guests can hang about after breakfast, while deciding whether to play golf or sit in the garden. Yet all so cunningly disposed that from outside it looks only a cottage or, at most, two cottages persuaded into one.

And, of course, we only saw it from outside. The little drive, determined to get there as soon as possible, pushed its way straight through an old barn, and arrived at the door simultaneously with the flagged lavender walk for the humble who came on foot. The rhododendrons were ablaze beneath the south windows; a little orchard was running wild on the west; there was a hint at the back of a clean-cut lawn. Also, you remember, there was a golf course, less than two miles away.

"Oh," said Celia with a deep sigh, "but we must live here."

An Irish terrier ran out to inspect us. I bent down and patted it. "With a dog," I added.

"Isn't it all lovely? I wonder who it belongs to, and if--"

"If he'd like to give it to us."

"Perhaps he would if he saw us and admired us very much," said Celia hopefully.

"I don't think Mr. Barlow is that sort of man," I said. "An excellent fellow, but not one to take these sudden fancies."

"Mr. Barlow? How do you know his name?"

"I have these surprising intuitions," I said modestly. "The way the chimneys stand up--"

"I know," cried Celia. "The dog's collar."

"Right, Watson. And the name of the house is Stopes."

She repeated it to herself with a frown.

"What a disappointing name," she said. "Just Stopes."

"Stopes," I said. "Stopes, Stopes. If you keep on saying it, a certain old-world charm seems to gather round it. Stopes."

"Stopes," said Celia. "It _is_ rather jolly."

We said it ten more times each, and it seemed the only possible name for it. Stopes--of course.

"Well!" I asked.

"We must write to Mr. Barlow," said Celia decisively. "'Dear Mr. Barlow, er--Dear Mr. Barlow--we--' Yes, it will be rather difficult. What do we want to say exactly?"

"'Dear Mr. Barlow--May we have your house?'"

"Yes," smiled Celia, "but I'm afraid we can hardly ask for it. But we might rent it when--when he doesn't want it any more."

"'Dear Mr. Barlow,'" I amended, "'have you any idea when you're going to die?' No, that wouldn't do either. And there's another thing--we don't know his initials, or even if he's a 'Mr.' Perhaps he's a knight or a--a duke. Think how offended Duke Barlow would be if we put '---- Barlow, Esq.' on the envelope."

"We could telegraph. 'Barlow. After you with Stopes.'"

"Perhaps there's a young Barlow, a Barlowette or two with expectations. It may have been in the family for years."

"Then we--Oh, let's have lunch." She sat down and began to undo the sandwiches. "Dear o' Stopes," she said with her mouth full.

We lunched outside Stopes. Surely if Earl Barlow had seen us he would have asked us in. But no doubt his dining-room looked the other way; towards the east and north, as I pointed out to Celia, thus being pleasantly cool at lunch-time.

"Ha, Barlow," I said dramatically, "a time will come when _we_ shall be lunching in there, and _you_--bah!" And I tossed a potted-grouse sandwich to his dog.

However, that didn't get us any nearer.

"Will you _promise,"_ said Celia, "that we shall have lunch in there one day?"

"I promise," I said readily. That gave me about sixty years to do something in.

"I'm like--who was it who saw something of another man's and wouldn't be happy till he got it?"

"The baby in the soap advertisement."

"No, no, some king in history."

"I believe you are thinking of Ahab, but you aren't a bit like him, really. Besides, we're not coveting Stopes. All we want to know is, does Barlow ever let it in the summer?"

"That's it," said Celia eagerly.

"And, if so," I went on, "will he lend us the money to pay the rent with?"

"Er--yes," said Celia. "That's it."

* * * * *

So for a month we have lived in our Castle of Stopes. I see Celia there in her pink sun-bonnet, gathering the flowers lovingly, bringing an armful of them into the hall, disturbing me sometimes in the library with "_Aren't_ they beauties? No, I only just looked in--good luck to you." And she sees me ordering a man about importantly, or waving my hand to her as I ride through the old barn on my road to the golf course.

But this morning she had an idea.

"Suppose," she said timidly, "you _wrote_ about Stopes, and Mr. Barlow happened to see it, and knew how much we wanted it, and--"

"Well!"

"Then," said Celia firmly, "if he were a gentleman he would give it to us."

Very well. Now we shall see if Mr. Barlow is a gentleman.

THE SANDS OF PLEASURE

Ladies first, so we will start with Jenny. Jenny is only nine, but she has been to the seaside before and knows all about it. She wears the fashionable _costume de plage_, which consists of a white linen hat, a jersey and an overcrowded pair of bathing-drawers, into which not only Jenny, but the rest of her wardrobe, has had to fit itself. Two slim brown legs emerge to bear the burden, and one feels that if she fell over she would have to stay there until somebody picked her up.

She is holding Richard Henry by the hand. Richard Henry is four, and this is the first time he has seen the sea. Jenny is showing it to him. Privately he thinks that it has been over-rated. There was a good deal of talk about it in his suburb (particularly from Jenny, who had been there before) and naturally one expected something rather--well, rather more like what they had been saying it was like. However, perhaps it would be as well to keep in with Jenny and not to let her see that he is disappointed, so every time she says, "Isn't the sea lovely?" he echoes, "Lovely," and now and then he adds (just to humour her), "Is 'at the sea?" and then she has the chance to say again, "Yes, that's the sea, darling. Isn't it lovely?" It is obvious that she is proud of it. Apparently she put it there. Anyway, it seems to be hers now.

Jenny has brought Father and Mother as well as Richard Henry. There they are, over there. When she came before she had to leave them behind, much to their disappointment. Father was saying, "Form fours, left," before going off to France again, and Mother was buying wool to make him some more socks. It was a great relief to them to know that they were being taken this time, and that they would have Jenny to tell them all about it.

Father is lying in a deck-chair, smoking his pipe. There has been an interesting discussion this afternoon as to whether he is a coward or not. Father thought he wasn't, but Mother wasn't quite so sure. Jenny said that of course he couldn't really be, because the King gave him a medal for not being one, but Mother explained that it was only a medal he had over, and Father happened to be passing by the window.

"I don't see what this has to do with it," said Father. "I simply prefer bathing in the morning."

"Oo, you said this morning you preferred bathing in the afternoon," says Jenny like a flash.

"I know; but since then I've had time to think it over, and I see that I was hasty. The morning is the best time."

"I'm afraid he _is_ a coward," said Mother sadly, wondering why she had married him.

"The whole point is, why did Jenny bring me here?"

"To enjoy yourself," said Jenny promptly.

"Well, I am," said Father, closing his eyes.

But we do not feel so sure that Mother is enjoying herself. She has just read in the paper about a mine that floated ashore and exploded. Nobody was near at the time, but supposing one of the children had been playing with it.

"Which one?" said Father lazily.

"Jenny."

"Then we should have lost Jenny."

This being so, Jenny promises solemnly not to play with any mine that comes ashore, nor to let Richard Henry play with it, nor to allow it to play with Richard Henry, nor--

"I suppose I may just point it out to him and say, 'Look, that's a mine'?" says Jenny wistfully. If she can't do this, it doesn't seem to be much use coming to the seaside at all.

"I don't think there would be any harm in that," says Father. "But don't engage it in conversation."

"Thank you very much," says Jenny, and she and Richard Henry go off together.

Mother watches them anxiously. Father closes his eyes.

"Now," says Jenny eagerly, "I'm going to show you a darling little crab. Won't that be lovely?"

Richard Henry, having been deceived, as he feels, about the sea, is not too hopeful about that crab. However, he asks politely, "What's a crab?"

"You'll see directly, darling," says Jenny; and he has to be content with that.

"Crab," he murmurs to himself.

Suddenly an idea occurs to him. He lets go of Jenny's hand and trots up to an old gentleman with white whiskers.

"Going to see a crab," he announces.

"Going to see a crab, are you, my little man?" says the old gentleman kindly.

"Going to see a crab," says Richard Henry, determined to keep up his end of the conversation.

"Well, I never! So you're going to see a crab!" says the old gentleman, doing his best with it.

Richard Henry nods two or three times. "Going to see a crab," he says firmly.

Luckily Jenny comes up and rescues him, otherwise they would still be at it. "Come along, darling, and see the crab," she says, picking up his hand; and Richard Henry looks triumphantly at the old gentleman. There you are. Perhaps he will believe a fellow another time.

Jenny has evidently made an arrangement with a particular crab for this afternoon. It is to be hoped that the appointment will be kept, for she has hurried Richard Henry past all sorts of wonderful things which he wanted to stop with for a little. But the thought of this lovely crab, which Jenny thinks so much of, forbids protest. Quite right not to keep it waiting. What will it be like? Will it be bigger than the sea?

We have reached the rendezvous. We see now that we need not have been in such a hurry.

"There!" says Jenny excitedly. "Isn't he a darling little crab? He's asleep." (That's why we need not have hurried.)

Richard Henry says nothing. He can't think of the words for what he is feeling. What he wants to say is that Jenny has let him down again. They passed a lot of these funny little things on their way here, but Jenny wouldn't stop because she was going to show him a Crab, a great, big, enormous darling little Crab--which might have been anything--and now it's only just this. No wonder the old gentleman didn't believe him.

Swindled--that's the word he wants. However, he can't think of it for the moment, so he tries something else.

"Darling little crab," he says.

They leave the dead crab there and hurry back.

"What shall I show you _now_?" says Jenny.

GOLDEN MEMORIES

When Memory with its scorn of ages,
Its predilection for the past,
Turns back about a billion pages
And lands us by the Cam at last;
Is it the thought of "Granta" (once our daughter),
The Freshers' Match, the Second in our Mays
That makes our mouth, our very soul to water?
Ah no! Ah no! It is the Salmon Mayonnaise!

The work we did was rarely reckoned
Worthy a tutor's kindly word--
(For when I said we got a Second
I really meant we got a Third)--
The games we played were often tinged with bitter,
Amidst the damns no faintest hint of praise
Greeted us when we missed the authentic "sitter"--
But thou wert always kind, O Salmon Mayonnaise!

Even our nights with "Granta," even
The style that, week by blessed week,
Mixed Calverley and J.K. Stephen
With much that was (I hold) unique,
Even our parodies of the Rubáiyát
Were disappointing--yes, in certain ways:
What genius loves (I mean) the people shy at--
Yet no one ever shied at Salmon Mayonnaise!

Alas! no restaurant in London
Can make us feel that thrill again;
Though what they do or what leave undone
I often ask, and ask in vain.
Is it the sauce which puts the brand of Cam on
Each maddening dish? The egg? The yellow
glaze?
The cucumber? The special breed of salmon?--
I only know we loved, we _loved_ that Mayonnaise!

* * * * *

"Did Beauty," some may ask severely,
"Visit him in no other guise?
It cannot be that salmon merely
Should bring the mist before his eyes!
What of the river there where Byron's Pool lay,
The warm blue morning shimmering in the
haze?"
Not this (I say) ... Yet something else ...
_Creme Brûlée_!
Ye gods! to think of that _and_ Salmon Mayonnaise!

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE

The noise of the retreating sea came pleasantly to us from a distance. Celia was lying on her--I never know how to put this nicely--well, she was lying face downwards on a rock and gazing into a little pool which the tide had forgotten about and left behind. I sat beside her and annoyed a limpet. Three minutes ago I had taken it suddenly by surprise and with an Herculean effort moved it an eighteenth of a millimetre westwards. My silence since then was lulling it into a false security, and in another two minutes I hoped to get a move on it again.

"Do you know," said Celia with a puzzled look on her face, "sometimes I think I'm quite an ordinary person after all."

"You aren't a little bit," I said lazily; "you're just like nobody else in the world."

"Well, of course, you had to say that."

"No, I hadn't. Lots of husbands would merely have yawned." I felt one coming and stopped it just in time. Waiting for limpets to go to sleep is drowsy work. "But why are you so morbid about yourself suddenly?"

"I don't know," she said. "Only every now and then I find myself thinking the most _obvious_ thoughts."

"We all do," I answered, as I stroked my limpet gently. The noise of our conversation had roused it, but a gentle stroking motion (I am told by those to whom it has confided) will frequently cause its muscles to relax. "The great thing is not to speak them. Still, you'd better tell me now. What is it?"

"Well," she said, her cheeks perhaps a little pinker than usual, "I was just thinking that life was very wonderful. But it's a _silly_ thing to say."

"It's holiday time," I reminded her. "The need for sprinkling our remarks with thoughtful words like 'economic' and 'sporadic' is over for a bit. Let us be silly." I scratched in the rock the goal to which I was urging my limpet and took out my watch. "Three thirty-five. I shall get him there by four."

Celia was gazing at two baby fishes who played in and out a bunch of sea-weed. Above the seaweed an anemone sat fatly.

"I suppose they're all just as much alive as we are," she said thoughtfully. "They marry"--I looked at my limpet with a new interest--"and bring up families and go about their business, and it all means just as much to them as it does to us."

"My limpet's business affairs mean nothing to me," I said firmly. "I am only wrapped up in him as a sprinter."

"Aren't you going to try to move him again?"

"He's not quite ready yet. He still has his suspicions."

Celia dropped into silence. Her next question showed that she had left the pool for a moment.

"Are there any people in Mars?" she asked.

"People down here say that there aren't. A man told me the other day that he knew this for a fact. On the other hand, people in Mars know for a fact that there isn't anybody on the Earth. Probably they are both wrong."

"I should like to know a lot about things," sighed Celia. "Do you know anything about limpets?"

"Only that they stick like billy-o."

"I suppose more about them _is_ known than that?"

"I suppose so. By people who have made a specialty of them. For one who has preferred to amass general knowledge rather than to specialize, it is considered enough to know that they stick like billy-o."

"You haven't specialized in anything, have you?"

"Only in wives."

Celia smiled and went on. "How do you make a specialty of limpets?"

"Well, I suppose you--er--study them. You sit down and--and watch them. Probably after dark they get up and do something. And of course, in any case, you can always dissect one and see what he's had for breakfast. One way and another you get to know things about them."

"They must have a lot of time for thinking," said Celia, regarding my limpet with her head on one side. "Tell me, how do they know that there are no men in Mars?"

I sat up with a sigh.

"Celia, you do dodge about so. I have barely brought together and classified my array of facts about things in this world, when you've dashed up to another one. What is the connexion between Mars and limpets? If there are any limpets in Mars they are freshwater ones. In the canals."

"Oh, I just wondered," she said. "I mean"--she wrinkled her forehead in the effort to find words for her thoughts--"I'm wondering what everything means, and why we're all here, and what limpets are for, and, supposing there are people in Mars, if we're the real people whom the world was made for, or if _they_ are." She stopped and added, "One evening after dinner, when we get home, you must tell me all about _everything_"

Celia has a beautiful idea that I can explain everything to her. I suppose I must have explained a stymie or a no-ball very cleverly once.

"Well," I said, "I can tell you what limpets are for now. They're like sheep and cows and horses and pheasants and--and any other animal. They're just for _us_. At least so the wise people say."

"But we don't eat limpets."

"No, but they can amuse us. This one"--and with a sudden leap I was behind him as he dozed, and I had dashed him forward another eighteenth of a millimetre--"this one has amused _me_."

"Perhaps," said Celia thoughtfully, and I don't think it was quite a nice thing for a young woman to say, "perhaps we're only meant to amuse the people in Mars."

"Then," I said lazily, "let's hope that they _are_ amused."

* * * * *

Ten days later the Great War began. Celia said no more on the subject, but she used to look at me curiously sometimes, and I fear that the problem of life left her more puzzled than ever. At the risk of betraying myself to her as "quite an ordinary person after all" I confess that there are times when it leaves me puzzled too.

IV. WAR-TIME

O.B.E.

I know a Captain of Industry, Who made big bombs for the R.F.C., And collared a lot of £ s. d.-- And he--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I know a Lady of Pedigree, Who asked some soldiers out to tea, And said "Dear me!" and "Yes, I see"-- And she--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I know a fellow of twenty-three, Who got a job with a fat M.P.-- (Not caring much for the Infantry.) And he--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I had a friend; a friend, and he Just held the line for you and me, And kept the Germans from the sea, And died--without the O.B.E. Thank God! He died without the O.B.E.

ARMAGEDDON

The conversation had turned, as it always does in the smoking-rooms of golf clubs, to the state of poor old England, and Porkins had summed the matter up. He had marched round in ninety-seven that morning, followed by a small child with an umbrella and an arsenal of weapons, and he felt in form with himself.

"What England wants," he said, leaning back and puffing at his cigar,--"what England wants is a war. (Another whisky and soda, waiter.) We're getting flabby. All this pampering of the poor is playing the very deuce with the country. A bit of a scrap with a foreign power would do us all the good in the world." He disposed of his whisky at a draught. "We're flabby," he repeated. "The lower classes seem to have no sense of discipline nowadays. We want a war to brace us up."

* * * * *

It is well understood in Olympus that Porkins must not be disappointed. What will happen to him in the next world I do not know, but it will be something extremely humorous; in this world, however, he is to have all that he wants. Accordingly the gods got to work.

In the little village of Ospovat, which is in the southeastern corner of Ruritania, there lived a maiden called Maria Strultz, who was engaged to marry Captain Tomsk.

"I fancy," said one of the gods, "that it might be rather funny if Maria jilted the Captain. I have an idea that it would please Porkins."

"Whatever has Maria--" began a very young god, but he was immediately suppressed.

"Really," said the other, "I should have thought it was sufficiently obvious. You know what these mortals are." He looked round to them all. "Is it agreed then?"

It was agreed.

So Maria Strultz jilted the Captain.

Now this, as you may imagine, annoyed Captain Tomsk. He commanded a frontier fort on the boundary between Ruritania and Essenland, and his chief amusement in a dull life was to play cards with the Essenland captain, who commanded the fort on the other side of the river. When Maria's letter came, he felt that the only thing to do was to drown himself; on second thoughts he decided to drown his sorrows first. He did this so successfully that at the end of the evening he was convinced that it was not Maria who had jilted him, but the Essenland captain who had jilted Maria; whereupon he rowed across the river and poured his revolver into the Essenland flag which was flying over the fort. Maria thus revenged, he went home to bed, and woke next morning with a bad headache.

("_Now we're off," said the gods in Olympus_.)

In Diedeldorf, the capital of Essenland, the leader-writers proceeded to remove their coats.

"The blood of every true Essenlander," said the leader-writer of the "Diedeldorf Patriot", after sending out for another pot of beer, "will boil when it hears of this fresh insult to our beloved flag, an insult which can only be wiped out with blood." Then seeing that he had two "bloods" in one sentence, he crossed the second One out, substituted "the sword," and lit a fresh cigarette. "For years Essenland has writhed under the provocations of Ruritania, but has preserved a dignified silence; this last insult is more than flesh and blood can stand." Another "blood" had got in, but it was a new sentence and he thought it might be allowed to remain. "We shall not be accused of exaggeration if we say that Essenland would lose, and rightly lose, her prestige in the eyes of Europe if she let this affront pass unnoticed. In a day she would sink from a first-rate to a fifth-rate power." But he didn't say how.

The Chancellor of Essenland, in a speech gravely applauded by both sides of the House, announced the steps he had taken. An ultimatum had been sent to Ruritania demanding an apology, an indemnity of a hundred thousand marks, and the public degradation of Captain Tomsk, whose epaulettes were to be torn off by the Commander-in-Chief of the Essenland Army in the presence of a full corps of cinematograph artists. Failing this, war would be declared.

Ruritania offered the apology, the indemnity, and the public degradation of Captain Tomsk, but urged that this last ceremony would be better performed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ruritanian Army; otherwise Ruritania might as well cease to be a sovereign state, for she would lose her prestige in the eyes of Europe, and sink to the level of a fifth-rate power.

There was only one possible reply to this, and Essenland made it. She invaded Ruritania.

_("Aren't they wonderful?" said the gods in Olympus to each other_.

"_But haven't you made a mistake?" asked the very young god. "Porkins lives in England, not Essenland_."

"_Wait a moment," said the others.)_

* * * * *

In the capital of Borovia the leader-writer of the "Borovian Patriot" got to work. "How does Borovia stand?" he asked. "If Essenland occupies Ruritania, can any thinking man in Borovia feel safe with the enemy at his gates?" (The Borovian peasant, earning five marks a week, would have felt no less safe than usual, but then he could hardly be described as a thinking man.) "It is vital to the prestige of Borovia that the integrity of Ruritania should be preserved. Otherwise we may resign ourselves at once to the prospect of becoming a fifth-rate power in the eyes of Europe." And in a speech, gravely applauded by all parties, the Borovian Chancellor said the same thing. So the Imperial Army was mobilized and, amidst a wonderful display of patriotic enthusiasm by those who were remaining behind, the Borovian troops marched to the front....

_("And there you are," said the gods in Olympus.

"But even now--" began the very young god doubtfully.

"Silly, isn't Felicia the ally of Essenland; isn't Marksland the ally of Borovia; isn't England the ally of the ally of the ally of the Country which holds the balance of power between Marksland and Felicia?"

"But if any of them thought the whole thing stupid or unjust or--"

"Their prestige," said the gods gravely, trying not to laugh.

"Oh, I see," said the very young god.)_

* * * * *

And when a year later the hundred-thousandth English mother woke up to read that her boy had been shot, I am afraid she shed foolish tears and thought that the world had come to an end.

Poor short-sighted creature! She didn't realize that Porkins, who had marched round in ninety-six the day before, was now thoroughly braced up.

_("What babies they all are," said the very young god.)_

GOLD BRAID

Same old crossing, same old boat, Same old dust round Rouen way, Same old narsty one-franc note, Same old "Mercy, sivvoo play"; Same old scramble up the line, Same old 'orse-box, same old stror, Same old weather, wet or fine, Same old blooming War.

_Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,
It's just as it used to be, every bit;
Same old whistle and same old bang,
And me out again to be 'it._

'Twas up by Loos I got me first;
I just dropped gently, crawled a yard
And rested sickish, with a thirst--
The 'eat, I thought, and smoking 'ard....
Then someone 'ands me out a drink,
What poets call "the cooling draft,"
And seeing 'im I done a think:
"_Blighty,"_ I thinks--and laughed.

I'm not a soldier nacheral,
No more than most of us to-day;
I runs a business with a pal
(Meaning the Missis) Fulham way;
Greengrocery--the cabbages
And fruit and things I take meself,
And she has dafts and crocuses
A-smiling on a shelf.

"Blighty," I thinks. The doctor knows;
'E talks of punctured damn-the-things.
It's me for Blighty. Down I goes;
I ain't a singer, but I sings.
"Oh, 'oo goes 'ome?" I sort of 'ums;
"Oh, 'oo's for dear old England's shores?"
And by-and-by Southampton comes--
"Blighty!" I says, and roars.

I s'pose I thort I done my bit; I s'pose I thort the War would stop; I saw meself a-getting fit With Missis at the little shop; The same like as it used to be, The same old markets, same old crowd, The same old marrers, same old me, But 'er as proud as proud....

* * * * *

The regiment is where it was,
I'm in the same old ninth platoon;
New faces most, and keen becos
They thinks the thing is ending soon;
I ain't complaining, mind, but still,
When later on some newish bloke
Stops one and laughs, "A blighty, Bill,"
I'll wonder, "Where's the joke?"

Same old trenches, same old view,
Same old rats as blooming tame,
Same old dug-outs, nothing new,
Same old smell, the very same,
Same old bodies out in front,
Same old _strafe_ from 2 till 4,
Same old scratching, same old 'unt.
Same old bloody War.

_Ho Lor, it isn't a dream,
It's just as it used to be, every bit;
Same old whistle and same old bang.
And me to stay 'ere till I'm 'it._

TOBY

It will save trouble if I say at once that I know nothing about horses. This will be quite apparent to you, of course, before I have finished, but I don't want you to suppose that it is not also quite apparent to me. I have no illusions on the subject; neither, I imagine, has Toby.

To me there are only two kinds of horse. Chestnuts, roans, bay rums--I know nothing of all these; I can only describe a horse simply as a nice horse or a nasty horse. Toby is a nice horse.

Toby, of course, knows much more about men than I do about horses, and no doubt he describes me professionally to his colleagues as a "flea-bitten fellow standing about eighteen hoofs"; but when he is not being technical I like to think that he sums me up to himself as a nice man. At any rate I am not allowed to wear spurs, and that must weigh with a horse a good deal.

I have no real right to Toby. The Signalling Officer's official mount is a bicycle, but a bicycle in this weather--! And there _is_ Toby, and somebody must ride him, and, as I point out to the other subalterns, it would only cause jealousy if one of _them_ rode him, and--"

"Why would it create more jealousy than if _you_ do?" asked one of them.

"Well," I said, "you're the officer commanding platoon number--"

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen. Now, why should the officer commanding the fifteenth platoon ride a horse when the officer commanding the nineteenth--"

He reminded me that there were only sixteen platoons in a battalion. It's such a long time since I had anything to do with platoons that I forget.

"All right, we'll say the sixteenth. Why shouldn't _he_ have a horse? Of all the unjust--Well, you see what recriminations it would lead to. Now I don't say I'm more valuable than a platoon-commander or more effective on a horse, but, at any rate, there aren't sixteen of me. There's only one Signalling Officer, and if there _is_ a spare horse over--"

"What about the Bombing Officer?" said O.C. Platoon 15 carelessly.

I had quite forgotten the Bombing Officer. Of course he is a specialist too.

"Yes, quite so, but if you would only think a little," I said, thinking hard all the time, "you would--well, put it this way. The range of a Mills bomb is about fifty yards; the range of a field telephone is several miles. Which of us is more likely to require a horse?"

"_And_ the Sniping officer?" he went on dreamily.

This annoyed me.

"You don't shoot snipe from horseback," I said sharply. "You're mixing up shooting and hunting, my lad. And in any case there are reasons, special reasons, why I ride Toby--reasons of which you know nothing."

Here are the reasons:--

1. I think I have more claim to a horse called Toby than has a contributor to "Our Feathered Friends" or whatever paper the Sniping Officer writes for.

2. When I joined the Army, Celia was inconsolable. I begged her to keep a stiff upper lip, to which she replied that she could do it better if I promised not to keep a bristly one. I pointed out that the country wanted bristles; and though, between ourselves, we might regard it as a promising face spoilt for a tradition, still discipline was discipline. And so the bristles came, and remained until the happy day when the War Office, at the risk of losing the war, made them optional. Immediately they were uprooted.

Now the Colonel has only one fault (I have been definitely promised my second star in 1927, so he won't think I am flattering him with a purpose): he likes moustaches. His own is admirable, and I have no wish for him to remove it, but I think he should be equally broad-minded about mine.

"You aren't really more beautiful without it," he said. "A moustache suits you."

"My wife doesn't think so," I said firmly. I had the War Office on my side, so I could afford to be firm.

The Colonel looked at me, and then he looked out of the window, and made the following remarkable statement.

"Toby," he said gently to himself, "doesn't like clean-shaven officers."

This hadn't occurred to me; I let it sink in.

"Of course," I said at last, "one must consider one's horse. I quite see that."

"With a bicycle," he said, "it's different."

And so there you have the second reason. If the Bombing Officer rode Toby, I should shave again to-morrow, and then where would the Battalion be? Ruined.

So Toby and I go off together. Up till now he has been good to me. He has bitten one Company Commander, removed another, and led the Colonel a three-mile chase across country after him, so if any misunderstanding occurs between us there will be good precedent for it. So far my only real trouble has been once when billeting.

Billeting is delightful fun. You start three hours in advance of the battalion, which means that if the battalion leaves at eight in the morning, you are up in the fresh of the day, when the birds are singing. You arrive at the village and get from the Mayor or the Town Major a list of possible hostesses. Entering the first house (labeled "Officers 5") you say, "_Vous avez un lit pour un Officier ici, n'est-ce pas? Vive la France_!" She answers, "_Pas un lit_," and you go to the next house. "_Vous avez place pour cent hommes--oui?" "Non_," says she--and so on. By-and-by the battalion arrives, and everybody surrounds you. "Where are _my_ men going?" "Where is _my_ billet?" "Where's 'C' Company's mess?" "Have you found anything for the Pioneers?" And so one knows what it is to be popular.

Well, the other day the Major thought he'd come with me, just to give me an idea how it ought to be done. I say nothing of the result; but for reasons connected with Toby I hope he won't come again. For in the middle of a narrow street crowded with lorries, he jumped off his horse, flung (I think that's the expression)--flung me the reins and said, "Just wait here while I see the Mayor a moment."

The Major's horse I can describe quite shortly--a nasty big black horse.

Toby I have already described as a nice horse, but he had been knee-deep in mud, inspecting huts, for nearly half an hour, and was sick of billeting.

I need not describe two-hundred-lorries-on-a-dark-evening to you.

And so, seeing that you know the constituents, I must let you imagine how they all mixed....

* * * * *

This is a beastly war. But it has its times; and when our own particular bit of the battle is over, and what is left of the battalion is marching back to rest, I doubt if, even in England (which seems very far off), you will find two people more contented with the morning than Toby and I, as we jog along together.

COMMON

Seated in your comfortable club, my very dear sir, or in your delightful drawing-room, madam, you may smile pityingly at the idea of a mascot saving anybody's life. "What will be, will be," you say to yourself (or in Italian to your friends), "and to suppose that a charm round the neck of a soldier will divert a German shell is ridiculous." But out there, through the crumps, things look otherwise.

Common had sat on the mantelpiece at home. An ugly little ginger dog, with a bit of red tape for his tongue and two black beads for his eyes, he viewed his limited world with an air of innocent impertinence very attractive to visitors. Common he looked and Common he was called, with a Christian name of Howard for registration. For six months he sat there, and no doubt he thought that he had seen all that there was to see of the world when the summons came which was to give him so different an outlook on life.

For that summons meant the breaking up of his home. Master was going wandering from trench to trench, Mistress from one person's house to another person's house. She no doubt would take Common with her; or perhaps she couldn't be bothered with an ugly little ginger dog, and he would be stored in some repository, boarded out in some Olympic kennel. "Or do you _possibly_ think Master might--"

He looked very wistful that last morning, so wistful that Mistress couldn't bear it, and she slipped him in hastily between the revolver and the boracic powder, "Just to look after you," she said. So Common came with me to France.

His first view of the country was at Rouen, when he sat at the entrance to my tent and hooshed the early morning flies away. His next at a village behind the lines, where he met stout fellows of "D" Company and took the centre of the table at mess in the apple orchard; and moreover was introduced to a French maiden of two, with whom, at the instigation of the seconds in the business--her mother and myself--a prolonged but monotonous conversation in the French tongue ensued, Common, under suitable pressure, barking idiomatically, and the maiden, carefully prompted, replying with the native for "Bow-wow." A pretty greenwood scene beneath the apple-trees, and in any decent civilization the great adventure would have ended there. But Common knew that it was not only for this that he had been brought out, and that there was more arduous work to come.

Once more he retired to the valise, for we were making now for a vill--for a heap of bricks near the river; you may guess the river. It was about this time that I made a little rhyme for him:

There was a young puppy called Howard, Who at fighting was rather a coward; He never quite ran When the battle began, But he started at once to bow-wow hard.

A good poet is supposed to be superior to the exigencies of rhyme, but I am afraid that in any case Common's reputation had to be sacrificed to them. To be lyrical over anybody called Howard Common without hinting that he--well, try for yourself. Anyhow it was a lie, as so much good poetry is.