CHIEFTAIN C.-B. "GUID SEND THE RAIN DOESNA COME ON AN' PIT IT OOT!" [The Liberal campaign in Scotland against the House of Lords is announced to begin on October 5th, on which date the Prime Minister is to address a meeting in Edinburgh.] Ethel (to suffering kinsman). "YoU SHALL HAVE THIS TO-NIGHT, UNCLE-FRIED IN BUTTER!" directly." NINA didn't get angry. She said, "Mrs. to, and she escaped. But she hadn't gone once round AUSTIN, you don't want to spoil our innocent amuse- the room before NINA was on to her. "Villain!" said ment, do you?" Mrs. AUSTIN said, "How you do run NINA, "thou wouldst fain conspire against the state. on, Miss NINA. You got that from your father, I'll How didst thou get here? Say." Mrs. AUSTIN said, warrant. At last NINA persuaded her. She told Mrs."LIZZIE helped me." "What?" shrieked NINA, "my AUSTIN that the said MESSUAGE was really a French daughter, my innocent prattler, my little LESSEE? Marquis, who was flying in disguise from the guillotine." The same," said Mrs. AUSTIN. "Make haste now, or The said LESSOR was the jailer and executioner, and the your father and mother won't get any soup for dinner." said LESSEE was the jailer's daughter. All Mrs. AUSTIN had got to do was to make love to me, and then force herself through the prison-bars, and go down a rope made of sheets tied together. I was to watch her through the window, and then NINA would catch her and cut her head off. Mrs. AUSTIN said she was always getting her head cut off or something. Couldn't she get off free this time? NINA said she would have liked to let Mrs. AUSTIN off, but she had to do what was in the Counterpart, and she was sorry to say Mrs. AUSTIN had got to be killed. NINA gave her a look, and then she ordered Mrs. AUSTIN to kneel up on one of the chairs. "Thy crimes," she said, "have brought thee to the guillotine." Then she chopped her head off with the rolling-pin, which she 'd fetched in from the kitchen, and pretended to hold it up to the people. She said, "So perish all enemies of the Republic. I forgot to say she 'd told me to faint on the floor. I tried to, but she didn't like it. She said people who fainted didn't gurgle and roll about. They just lay still till somebody came and dashed water in their faces. I told her there wasn't anybody to do that At last Mrs. AUSTIN said she 'd do it, and then we for me. She said, "Child, I should have restored thee began. I took one of Mum's feathery hats, and myself, for after all thou art my only daughter." I hung a tablecloth over my back. NINA Wound a hadn't thought of that. bit of red flannel round her neck, and tied Roy's chain round Mrs. AUSTIN, and told her to say in a sad voice, "Twenty years have I been an inmate of this dreadful dungeon. Shall I never see the light of day again?" Mrs. AUSTIN laughed and said a bit of it, and then I came in bringing her bread and water. I said (I got it from NINA), "Despair not, my beloved MESSUAGE. Together we will break a bar of your window." We broke the bar like winking, and then I gave Mrs. AUSTIN my handkerchief to hold on Our Inglorious Game. WE can all appreciate the sportsman who sacrifices his private interests for the common good. Such a man appears to be MORLEY, of Notts County, and it is the Nottingham Football News which records his simple heroism. "Morley increased the displeasure of the crowd by tripping Bridgett, but as the Sunderland flier was going through like a man possessed, it was the only thing the Notts back could do. He played the game for his side.' BLANCHE'S LETTERS. a verse: As I gaze at the horse plodding on, plodding on, stream, gone, And, barging, I dream. 1 high colours and yellow teeth coming idea of marriage, and never will be. round to stare at the vans, and The TRESYLLYANS go caravanning toON GOING SLOW. making remarks on her whenever gether, and they 're married." DEAREST DAPHNE, -The inevitable they caught sight of her. DOTTY 's "Yes," I said; "but Bosи and reaction against going everywhere at one of those timid, fearful little WEE-WEE are a couple in a thousand. top speed arrived some little time women that one meets sometimes They're regular pals in spite of being ago, and nothing 's been more chic even to-day, and she got frightened, married! than a caravan or a barge. Instead and thought perhaps they 'd put her I've got a new pet. I hope darof boasting about how quickly we can into the pound or the stocks or some-ling Pompom won't get ill with. get to places, we 've gone to the other thing; and when VivVY came back jealousy. It's an enormous tropical extreme. BABS, who has a lovely she clung to him and cried, and said spider-the sweetest creature!-with barge, and has been taking parties he must never, never leave her like a dozen eyes and equally full measure on it, is quite proud of the fact that, that again. He hadn't found the as to legs. It's simply most awfully when she was asked to the MIDDLE- horses or heard anything of them; clever and affectionate, and I'm sure SHIRES' place last month, it took her and a beadle, or whatever they call knows my whistle already. I've a week's barging to get there. If it, came out of the village, with all had the daintiest tiny gold-wire haryou've any poetry in you, or any the yokels following him, and told ness made for it, studded with jewels, of those ideas that are so profound them they'd got to clear off-the and a slender gold chain attaches it that you can't even make anything of Lord of the Manor didn't allow cara- to a bracelet or a ring. Its diet is them yourself, barging will bring it vans there for more than one night, chiefly fly; I'm always catching them all out. Little RAY RYMINGTON has or some nonsense of that kind. "But for it, and everyone who loves me followed up his Caravan Chansons how can we clear off without our goes and does likewise. The darling with a volume of Barge Ballads. | horses? said VIVVY. "I don't has one supreme merit Aunt Everyone's reading them. Here's know anything about that," said the GOLDIE is so frightened of it that she fellow. "You've got to clear off." never comes near us now. She says (Aren't those yokels maddening crea- that if it bit her she 'd have to keep tures? Talk of Back to the Land, on dancing the tarantella till she indeed! If it makes pcople so stupid died! She needn't be afraid. The and aggravating, better not go back biggest and most awful spider in the to it, I should say.) "Speak more world, putting in its very best work, civilly," said VIVVY. "D'you know couldn't make her dance! I don't like the metre, and I told that I'm So-and-so?' Oh, I I call it Jack, but NORTY says him so; but he says it's all right, daresay! said the creature, while I've just as much reason for calling that it's written in anesthetics. all the other yokels set up a guffaw. it Jill. He docs say such absurd I'd a lovely time caravanning with "All you show-people give your- things! Ever thine, BLANCHE. Bosи and WEE-WEE last month. selves fine names. Why not say you Their living vans are things of sheer was the PRINCE OF WALES at once? joy. She and I got ourselves up for 'Ere comes a gentleman riding along gipsies, and called ourselves FAA as 'll soon make you clear off-this IT's too bad cf Mr. GALSWORTHY. (that's the proper name to have if is the Lord of the Manor, this is.' Why won't he let me play the beau you 're a gipsy- I don't know And so it was; and it was also JACK rôle ? It often happens that when whether I've put enough a's into it). MAINWARING, and there was a great an author has made a distinct success It used to be simply delicious arriv- meeting, and the yokels abased the critics all condemn his next work ing in the evening at one of those themselves in the dust. by comparison, and then it is so sleepy, out-of-the-world villages in Both caravanning and barging have pleasant and distinguished to stand the Hundred of Something, where one great advantage,-they're very out and reassure him. But in the there are Roman remains and you becoming, they give a restful, con- case of Joy there is no chance at all; can't get anything fit to eat, and tented expression, and stamp out one can only, as an honest critic, lighting our fire, after we 'd drawn that look of horror and expectation boo with the rest, with a sob in one's up our vans on the village green or of instant death that high-speed voice, and hoping he will not notice somewhere, and cooking and all motoring gives some people. JOSIAH one. The Silver Box was a fine play, that. Bosи refused to make him- says he'll have some lovely vans a play with an idea in it, freshly self look picturesque, and rather built, and we'll go caravanning to-" observed," and marching grimly spoilt things. We'd only one un-gether next summer; but I tell him along to a conclusion. Joy, too, has pleasant happening, and that was that 's not the idea of caravanning, an idea, but it is dully stated, workwhen we fell in with (and fell out and that he really must get rid of ing among uninteresting people, and with) some real gipsies-most shock- that notion that we 're always to be reaching no conclusion at all. ing creatures, my dear, who slanged together, and do everything in a married woman is placed between us in a horrid jargon that Bosп said duet. We shall get on much her love for her child, a girl of sixwas Romany. better," I said, "if we don't see too teen, and her passion for a man who But the VIVVY FLUMMERYS had an much of each other. Look at the is not her husband-the man and the even horrider adventure when they CROPPY VAVASSORS! What a com- situation being intensely repulsive to were caravanning. It was at a re-fortable couple they are! And not the child. There is your conflict mote little place, and while they long ago they passed each other as of wills," to be sure, but nothing were drawn up for the night their strangers at Waterloo station, be- comes of it. The girl implores her horses were stolen. So there they cause, since they last met, he'd mother to give the man up, the were, plantés là! VIVVY and their grown a beard, and she'd got dif- woman states her case-her neglect men went off to look for the horses, ferent coloured hair and the new by her husband and her desire to and poor DOTTY was left all alone by expression." live her own life." And that is all. herself, lots of village creatures with Well," he said, "that 's not my The girl's attention is simply dis 46 66 BOO! A tracted by a fatuous youth who makes love to her, and the curtain falls. The rest of the play is irrelevant talk and irrelevant people. I am far from objecting to them on that account, not being a purist in these things; but the talk and the people are alike commonplace, and that will not do. It seemed almost impossible that the play was the work of the same man who wrote The Man of Property and The Country House, to say nothing of The Silver Box. Joy, indeed! It was a bitter disappointment, and I am very angry indeed with Mr. GALSWORTHY. Boo! 66 There was not much more chance for the players than for the benevolent critic. Miss DOROTHY MINTO, as the girl, had the best, and used it admirably. It was the most difficult. part she has had. Her militant young suffragette" in Votes for Women was more effective, but there she had the advantage of a direct model, which makes a vast difference, as any actor knows; in Joy she had to express her idea of a high-spirited, affectionate young thing, and she did it very well indeed. I was sorry for the actress who played a parlourmaid, and had to do a little dance with a champagne bottle alone on the stage; she must have known it would not amuse us, and I nearly wept. Boo, Mr. GALSWORTHY, boo! RUE. A SHORT CUT TO JOURNALISTIC SUCCESS. 1907. L A TRAGEDY OF THE GUTTER. To judge from several recent magazine articles and volumes the question how to succeed in journalism is as popular as ever. A new suggestion is now ventured for the use of rising young paper-men. If the manufacturer of patent medicines advertises, why should not the manufacturer of 19,000-Nineteen thousand-words literary articles? The former is not by ENDYMION SMITH appeared in the satisfied with the mention of his London Press alone. article in a chemist's price-list-why should the author be contented with the mention of his article in the Editor's contents list? Here are a few samples: ENDYMION SMITH. Column furnisher and page decorator. Every description of literary article ready made or to measure. Write for dainty sample paragraph containing five of my choice paradoxes free. Special note.-Any strength of humour, mild, medium or rib-splitting, furnished to order. ENDYMION SMITH. ENDYMION SMITH does NOT rely on quotations from the poets in order to fill his columns. All matter is guaranteed homegrown. Send at once for patterns of articles, enclosing self-measurement form, which will assist you in showing the exact space to be filled. When ordering verse please state ENDYMION SMITH. topicality, will be found excellent in every respect. Colonial and provincial newspaper editors should write for catalogue. Special Lines. Five smart snappy articles on the South African tour, usual price £2 2s., reduced to 10s. 6d. Twenty-three MSS. dealing with Ping-Pong, usual price £1 5s., now offered at 7s. 6d., or three for one guinea. Seven articles on the Soap Trust, usual price £2 10s., reduced to 12s. Fifteen choice illustrated articles on the Channel Tunnel, originally offered at Three Guineas, now offered at 12s. 11d., &c., &c. Write at once for Catalogue. ENDYMION SMITH! ENDYMION SMITH!!! |