Transcriber's Note: typo "thundebrolt" changed to thunderbolt on page 267. Underlining was used to indicate where text appeared upside down in the original.
PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 158.
April 14, 1920.
CHARIVARIA.
"Hat-pins to match the colour of the eyes are to be very fashionable this year," according to a Trade journal. This should be good news to those Tube-travellers who object to having green hat-pins stuck in their blue eyes.
Enterprise cannot be dead if it is really true that a well-known publisher has at last managed to persuade Mr. Winston Churchill to write a few words concerning the Labour Question.
"I have never been knocked down by a motor omnibus," says Mr. Justice Darling. The famous judge should not complain. He must take his turn like the rest of us.
"Never pull the doorbell too hard" is the advice of a writer on etiquette in a ladies' journal. When calling at a new wooden house the safest plan is not to pull the bell at all.
"American bacon opened stronger yesterday," says a market report. If it opened any stronger than the last lot we bought it must have "gone some."
Five golf balls were discovered inside a cow which was found dead last week on a Hertfordshire golf course. We understand that a certain member of the Club who lost half-a-dozen balls at Easter-time has demanded a recount.
"An Englishman's place is by his own fireside," declares a writer in the Sunday Press. This is the first intimation we have received that Spring-cleaning is over.
A serious quarrel between two prominent Sinn Feiners is reported. It appears that one accused the other of being "no murderer."
The Commercial Bribery and Tipping Review, a new American publication, offers a prize of four pounds for the best article on "Why I believe barbers should not be tipped." The barbers claim that what they receive is not a tip, but the Price of Silence.
According to an evening paper, crowds can be seen in London every day waiting to go into the pit. Oh, if only they were miners!
"It is the last whisky at night which always overcomes me," said a defendant at the Guildhall. "A good plan," says a correspondent, "is to finish with the last whisky but one."
The British Admiralty are offering two hundred and fifty war vessels for sale. This is just the chance for people who contemplate setting up in business as a new country.
"A good tailor," says a fashion writer, "can always give his customer a good fit if he tries." All he has to do, of course, is to send the bill in.
Mr. Allday, a resident in Lundy Island for twenty years, who has just arrived in London, states that he has never seen a tax-collector. There is some talk of starting a fund with the object of presenting him with one.
Dunmow workhouse is offered for sale. A great many people are anxious to buy it with the object of putting it aside for a rainy day.
A Houndsditch firm has just had a telephone installed which was ordered six years ago. This, however, is not a record. Quite a number of instruments have been fitted up in less time than this.
We understand that the thunderbolt which fell at Chester is not the one that the Premier intended to drop this month.
Signor Caproni, lecturing in New York, says that aeroplanes capable of carrying five hundred passengers will shortly be constructed. We can only say that anybody can have our seat.
Since The Daily Express tirade against the officials of the Zoo visitors are requested not to go too near the Fellows.
"The French army," says the Berliner Tageblatt, "will soon be all over." It does not say what; but if our late enemy continues the violation of the Peace Treaty the missing word should be "Germany."
Birds, says The Times, are nesting in the plane-trees of Printing House Square. Some of the fledglings, we are informed, are already learning to whistle the familiar Northcliffe air, "Lloyd George Must Go," quite distinctly.
The National Portrait Gallery, occupied by the War Office since 1914, has just been reopened. The rumour that a Brigadier-General who had eluded all attempts to evacuate him was still hanging about disguised as a portrait of Mrs. Siddons attracted a large attendance.
The Corporation of Waterford has refused to recognise "Summer" time. One gathers that it is still the winter of their discontent down there.
Sinn Feiners are now asking for the abolition of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and it is feared that, unless their request is granted, they may resort to violence.
"Though the material, Sir, is somewhat more expensive, the leather brace has the great advantage that it lasts for ever; and, moreover, when it wears out it makes an excellent razor-strop."
"Mrs. —— Requires useful Ladies' Maid, for Bath and country; only ex-soldier or sailor need apply."—Provincial Paper.
A job that will obviously need a man of proved courage.
WISDOM UP TO DATE—12TH EDITION.
[The Times has announced, in two consecutive issues, that Mr. Hugh Chisholm has retired from the control of its financial columns in order to resume his editorship of the Encyclopædia Britannica. One seems here to catch a faint echo of the proprietary booming of the 10th Edition by The Times and Mr. Hooper. The present publishers are the Cambridge University Press.]
It is a common object of remark
How many things in life are periodic,
Some punctual (like the nesting of the lark,
Or Derby-day), and others more spasmodic,
Recurring loosely when the hour is ripe;
And here I sing a sample of the latter type.
Nine years have coursed with their accustomed speed
Since England hailed its previous apparition,
Since every man and woman who could read,
Wanting the nearest way to erudition,
Bought as an ornament of her (or his) home
The monumental masterpiece of Mr. Chisholm.
Much has occurred meanwhile of new and strange;
E.g., in matters purely scientific
Great Thinkers, eager to enlarge our range,
Have (on the lethal side) been most prolific;
Ten tomes would scarce contain what might be said on
Their contributions to the recent Armageddon.
What wonder if the Editor forsakes
The conduct of The Times' financial pages?
An even weightier task he undertakes
Than to report on bullion; he engages
To let us know, by 1922,
All things (or more) that anybody ever knew.
Why should he care if Oil-cakes fall or jump?
He has the Total Universe for oyster;
Yankees may yield a point or Rubbers slump,
Yet not for such things shall his eye grow moister,
Save when, by force of habit, he admits
"A heavy tendency to-day in Ency. Brits."
Could but The Times revive its ancient part,
Repeat its famous turn of dollar-scooping!
O memories of the urgent boomster's art,
And that persistent noise of Hooper whooping,
Down to the Last Chance and the Closing Door,
And then the Absolutely Last, and then some more!
Those shrill appeals to get the Work TO-DAY
(With the superb revolving fumed-oak garage)—
How well they followed up their fearful prey
Till the massed thunders of the final barrage
Such pressure on your tympanum would bring
That you could bear no more, and had to buy the thing.
O. S.
The Giant's Robe—Cheap.
"For Sale.—Superior Dress Suit, 37 chest, City made, silk facings and lining, worn twice, no further use, suitable for individual 7 ft. 8 in. Price 4 guineas."—Local Paper.
"Paying Guests Wanted—From 1st June, married couple with no children; also at once, single married lady or gentleman for three single rooms or one single married couple."—Indian Paper.
To be in keeping with the inhabitants the house, no doubt, is "semi-detached."
"250 WORDS. TWO GUINEAS.
THE YOUNG WIFE'S ALLOWANCE."
Daily Paper.
The young husband who tries to get off for two guineas will find that the young wife regards two hundred and fifty words as entirely inadequate.
OUR SUPER-PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
The meagre and tantalizing report of Lord Northsquith's great journey through Spain and North Africa which has been issued through Reuter's agency has stimulated but not allayed curiosity. It is therefore with unfeigned pleasure that we are able to supplement this jejune summary with some absolutely authentic details supplied us by a Levantine detective of unimpeachable veracity who shadowed the party.
Of the journey through Spain he has little to say. Lord Northsquith attended a bull-fight at Seville, at which an extraordinary incident occurred. At the moment when the distinguished visitor entered the ring and was taking his seat in the Royal Box, the bull, a huge and remarkably ferocious animal, suddenly threw up its hind legs and, after pawing the air convulsively for a few seconds, fell dead on the spot. No reason could be assigned for this rash act, which caused a very painful impression, but it is a curious fact that it synchronized exactly with the issue of the special edition of the Seville evening Tarántula, with the placard "Strange behaviour (extravagancia) of the British Prime Minister."
At a subsequent interview with Count Romanones, Lord Northsquith was reluctantly obliged to confirm the statement that Mr. Lloyd George was still under the impression that the Spanish Alhambra was a late replica of a theatre in London, but begged him not to attach undue importance to the misapprehension.
The tour in Morocco was not attended by any specially untoward incidents, but at Marrakesh a group of Berbers evinced some hostility, which was promptly converted into effusive enthusiasm on their learning that Lord Northsquith was not of Welsh origin. Similar assurances were conveyed to the sardine-fishers of the coast, with beneficial results. The Pasha of Marrakesh expressed the hope that Lord Northsquith was not disappointed with the Morocco Atlas, and the illustrious stranger wittily rejoined, "No, but you should see my new morocco-bound Times Atlas." When the remark was translated to the Pasha he laughed very courteously.
Always interested in the relics of the mighty past Lord Northsquith made a special trip to the East Algerian Highlands to visit Timgad, and spent several minutes in the tepidarium of the Roman baths. It was understood from the expression of his features that he was profoundly impressed by the superiority of the arrangements over those contemplated by the Coalition Minister of Health in the new bath-houses to be erected in Limehouse.
Lastly the tour included a flying visit to Carthage. The French archæologists in charge of the excavations had recently dug up a colossal statue of Hannibal, and the resemblance to Lord Northsquith was so extraordinary that many of them were moved to transports of delight. They were however unanimous in their conviction that the deplorable state of the ruins was largely, if not entirely, due to Mr. Lloyd George's ignorance of Phœnician geography.
A Startling Disclosure.
From "Answers to Correspondents" in a Canadian Paper:
"Q.—Is it not a fact, that all of Lipton's challengers were built stronger and heavier than the American cup defenders, to enable them to cross the Atlantic?—A. D. B., Montreal.
A.—Yes, they were built stronger as they had to cross the ocean under their own steam."
"Serious injuries were sustained by ——, aged 54, while assisting in discharging cargo. Shortly before one o'clock, it is stated, a cheese struck him and knocked him down."—Provincial Paper.
We have always maintained that these dangerous creatures should not be allowed to run loose.
THE "WITHDRAWAL" FROM MOSCOW.
Chorus of Half-Revolutionists support Messrs. Snowden and Ramsay Macdonald by singing "The Red (but not too Red) Flag."
[The Independent Labour Party by a large majority has voted in favour of withdrawing from the Moscow Internationale.]
TENNIS PROSPECTS.
LITTLE BITS OF LONDON.
The Houses of Parliament.
The guide-books have a good deal to say about the Houses of Parliament, but the people who write guide-books never go to the really amusing places and never know the really interesting things. For instance they have never yet explained what it is that the House of Commons smells of. I do not refer to the actual Chamber, which merely smells like the Tube, but the lofty passages and lobbies where the statues are. The smell, I think, is a mixture of cathedrals and soap. It is a baffling but rather seductive smell, and they tell me that the policemen miss it when they are transferred to point-duty. Possibly it is this smell which makes ex-Premiers want to go back there.
But let us have no cheap mockery of the Houses of Parliament, because there is a lot to be said for them. They are much the best houses for hide-and-seek I know. The parts which are dear to the public, the cathedral parts, are no good for that, but behind them and under them and all round them there are miles and miles of superb secret passages and back staircases, the very place for a wet afternoon. They are decorated like second-class waiting-rooms and lead to a lot of rooms like third-class waiting-rooms; and at every corner there is a policeman; but this only adds to the excitement. Besides, at any moment you may blunder into some very secret waiting-room labelled "Serjeant-at-Arms."
If you are seen by the Serjeant-at-Arms you have lost the game, and if you are seen by a Lord of the Treasury I gather from the policemen that you would be put in the Tower. Or you may start light-heartedly from the Refreshment Department of the House of Commons and find yourself suddenly in the bowels of the House of Lords, probably in the very passage to the Lord Chancellor's Secretary's Room.
Still, there is no other way for Private Secretaries to take exercise and at the same time avoid their Members without actually leaving the building, so risks of that sort have to be faced.
While the Private Secretary is playing hide-and-seek in the passages and purlieus his Member waits for him in the Secretaries' Room. The Secretaries' Room is the real seat of legislation in this country, and it is surprising that Mr. Bagehot gave it no place in his account of the Constitution. It is also surprising, in view of its importance, that it should be such a dismal, ill-furnished and thoroughly mouldy room. It is a rotten room. Mr. Asquith, when a Private Secretary, is reported to have said of it, "In the whole course of my political career I can recall no case of administrative myopia at all parallel to the folly or ineptitude which has condemned the authors of legislation in His Majesty's Parliament to discharge their functions in this grotesque travesty of a legislative chamber, this sombre and obscure repository of mouldering archives and forgotten records, where the constructive statesmen of to-morrow are expected to shape their Utopias in an atmosphere of disillusion and decay, in surroundings appointed to be the shameful sepulchre of the nostrums of the past." If that is what Mr. Asquith said, I agree with him; if he didn't say it, I wish he had.
The room is pitch-dark always, and it is full of tables and tomes. The tables are waiting-room tables and the tomes are as Mr. Asquith has described them. It is divided into two by a swing-door. One part is the female Private Secretary part, the other is the male Private Secretary part, and it is lamentable to record that no romance has ever occurred between a male Private Secretary and a female one.
The room is plentifully supplied with House of Commons' stationery, which disappears at an astonishing rate. This is because the Members come in and remove it by the gross, knowing full well that the Serjeant-at-Arms will suspect the Private Secretaries. It is a hard world.
However, this is where the Members come to their Private Secretaries for instructions. They come there nominally to dictate letters to their constituents, but really they come to be told what amendments to move and what questions to ask and what the Drainage Bill is about, and whether they ought to support the Dentist Qualification (Ireland) (No. 2) Bill, or not. It is awful to think that if the Private Secretaries downed tools the whole machinery of Parliament would stop. No questions would be asked and no amendments moved and no speeches made. The Government would have things all their own way. Unless, of course, the Government's Private Secretaries struck too. But of course the Government's Private Secretaries never would, the dirty blacklegs!
After the Secretaries' Room perhaps the most interesting thing in the two Houses is the House of Lords sitting as the Supreme Court. Everybody ought to see that. There is a nice old man sitting in the middle in plain clothes and several other nice old men in plain clothes sitting about on the benches, with little card-tables in front of them. Two or three of them have beards, which is against the best traditions of the Law. But they are very jolly old men, and now and then one of them sits up and moves his lips. You can see then that he is putting a sly question to the barrister who is talking at the counter, though you can't hear anything because they all whisper. While the barrister is answering, another old man wakes up and puts a sly question, so as to confuse the barrister. That is the game. The barrister who gets thoroughly annoyed first loses the case.
They have quite enough to annoy them already. They are all cooped up in a minute pen about eight feet square. There are eight of them, four K.C.'s and four underlings. They have nowhere to put their papers and nowhere to stretch their legs. They sit there getting cramp, or they stand at the counter talking to the old men. In either position they grow more and more annoyed. Four of them are famous men, earning thousands and thousands. Why do they endure it? Because lawyers, contrary to the common belief, are the most long-suffering profession in the world. That is why they are the only Trade Union whose members have only half-an-hour for lunch. Well, it is their funeral; but if I were a K.C. sitting in that pen, with the whole of the House of Lords empty in front of me, I should get over the counter and walk about. Then the Lord Chancellor might have a fit; and that alone would make it worth while.
The only other interesting place in the Houses of Parliament is the Strangers' Dining Room. This is interesting because the Members there are all terrified lest you should hear what they are going to say. They never know who may be at the next table—a journalist or a Bolshevist or a landowner—and they talk with one eye permanently over their shoulder. It must be very painful.
But of course the best time to visit the House is when it is not sitting, because then, if you are lucky, you may sit with impunity on the Front Bench and put your feet up on the table. If you are unlucky you will be shot at dawn.
A. P. H.
Excitable Tenor (during dispute about the bill). "But, my friend, you not know me who I am—no? I am Spofferino. To-night I sing at ze opera—'Butterfly.'"
Waiter (unimpressed). "Um—you look like a butterfly!"
"——'S BOOTS
HAVE BEEN
In Everybody's Mouth."
Advt. in Local Paper.
We fear the advertiser has put his foot in it.
LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN BALLET.
I wasn't present at the station when Madame Pavlova arrived in London, bringing with her, as I have been assured by six different newspapers, no fewer than three hundred and eighty-five pieces of luggage. But I have seen, thanks to Sir J. M. Barrie, the transformation which a Russian prima ballerina makes in an English country home, so I happen to know exactly what occurred. I think it deserves to be recorded. Very well then.
Scene—A Metropolitan railway terminus, though you wouldn't perhaps recognise it, because it looks a little like the interior of a Greek cathedral and a little like the fair at Nijni Novgorod, and the posters have obviously been painted by Mr. Wyndham Lewis or somebody like that. One porter is discovered leaning against an automatic sweet machine designed by an Expressionist sculptor. He is wearing a long mole-coloured smock, and looking with extreme disfavour at his luggage-truck, which has somehow got itself painted bright blue and green, with red wheels. Music by J. H. Thomaski.
[Enter L., puffing slowly, the boat-train. The engine and carriages resemble Early-Victorian prints. Madame Pavlova descends, and in a very expressive dance conveys to the Porter that she has one or two trunks in the guard's van which she wants him to convey to a taxicab.
Porter. 'Ow many is there, lady?
[Pavlova pirouettes a little more and points three hundred and eighty-five times at the station-roof with her right toe.
Porter. Can't be done nohow.
[Pavlova dances a dance indicative of absolute and heartrending despair, terminating in an appeal to the heavens to come to her aid. Enter R. an important-looking personage with a long white beard, wearing a costume which might be, called a commissionaire's if it wasn't so like a harlequin's.
Porter (impressively and with evident relief). The Stazione Maestro!
The Stazione Maestro. What's all this?
[Pavlova dances an explanation of the impasse. The S.-M. and the Porter remove their caps and scratch their heads solemnly, to slow music.
The S.-M. (after deep cogitation). This must be referred to the N.U.R.
[Enter suddenly, R. and L., dancing, the Central Executive Committee of the N.U.R. There is thunder and lightning. Pavlova repeats her appeal. The C.E.C. confabulate. The Chairman finally announces that the thing is entirely contrary to the principles of their Union, and if the Station-master permits it he must take the consequences. The C.E.C. disappear.
The S.-M. What about it, Bill?
Porter. We'll do it. (He dances.) Here goes, Mum.
[Enter, suddenly, chorus of porters with multi-coloured trucks. (They are the same as the C.E.C. really, but they have changed their clothes.) Aided by the S.-M. and Bill they remove the three hundred and eighty-five packages, and wheel them, walking on their toes, to the station exit, R. Here is seen a taxicab whose driver is wrapped in profound meditation and smoking a hookah, the bowl of which rests on the pavement. It is represented to him that a lady with some luggage desires to charter his conveyance and proceed to Hampstead. He comes forward to the centre and explains:
1. That it is near the dinner-hour.
2. That he has no petrol.
3. That he wouldn't do it for Lloyd George hisself.
He retires to his vehicle and resumes his hookah. Pavlova dances some dances expressive of Spring, of Butterflies, of Flowers, of Unlimited Gold. In the midst of the final passage the driver leaps from his seat, rushes on to the platform, jumps three hundred and eighty-five times into the air, whirls Pavlova off her toes and dashes from side to side, carrying her in one hand. He finally flings her into the taxicab and returns to his seat. The luggage is piled upon the roof by dancing porters and tied with many-coloured ribbons. The taxi departs in a cloud of petrol, the driver steering with his toes and manipulating the clutches with his hands. Farewells are waved and finally, surrounded by the rest of the porters, the Station Master and Bill dance a dance of Glad Sacrifice, stab themselves with their hands, and die.
Curtain of Smoke.
Mind you, as I said at the beginning, I wasn't there myself, but I helped to steer three boxes to the seaside during the Easter holiday without the blandishments of Art. So I know something.
Evoe.
LABUNTUR ANNI.
To a Chital Head on the Wall of a London Club.
Light in the East, the dawn wind singing,
Solemn and grey and chill,
Rose in the sky, with Orion swinging
Down to the distant hill;
The grass dew-pearled and the mohwa shaking
Her scented petals across the track,
And the herd astir to the new day breaking—
Gods! how it all comes back.
So it was, and on such a morning
Somebody's bullet sped,
And you, as you called to the herd a warning,
Dropped in the grasses dead;
And some stout hunter's heart was brimming
For joy that the gods of sport were good—
With a lump in his throat and his eyes a-dimming,
As the eyes of sportsmen should;—
As mine have done in the springtime running,
As mine in the halcyon days
Ere trigger-finger had lapsed from cunning
Or foot from the forest ways,
When I'd wake with the stars and the sunrise meeting
In the dewy fragrance of myrrh and musk,
Peacock and spurfowl sounding a greeting
And the jungle mine till dusk.
You take me back to the valleys of laughter,
The hills that hunters love,
The sudden rain and the sunshine after,
The cloud and the blue above,
The morning mist and creatures crying,
The beat in the drowsy afternoon,
Clear-washed eve with the sunset dying,
Night and the hunter's moon.
Not till all trees and jungles perish
Shall we go back that way
To those dear hills that the hunters cherish,
Where the hearts of the hunters stay;
So you dream on of the ancient glories,
Of water-meadows and hinds and stags,
While I and my like tell old, old stories ...
Ah! but it drags—it drags.
H. B.
"Matrimony.
Accountant would write up Books, also Tax Returns; moderate charges."
Liverpool Paper.
This is much more delicate than the usual crude stipulation that the lady must have means.
MANNERS AND MODES.
A NEO-GEORGIAN TRIES TO MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND.
Art Patron (who has heard something about a Modern Movement). "Now you're not going to tell me that's a valuable bit of work? Why, hang it all, I can recognise the place."
PEACE WITH HONOUR.
This is the story of Mr. Holmes, the Curate, and of how he brought peace to our troubled house. The principal characters are John, my brother-in-law, and Margery, my unmarried sister, and, at the bottom of the programme, in large letters, Mr. Holmes, the Curate. I have a small walking-on part. The story will now commence.
John and Margery went out for a walk in the beautiful Spring sunshine as friendly as friendly. They came back three hours later—well, Cecilia (his wife) and I heard them at least two villages away.
They both rushed into the room covered with mud and shouting at the tops of their voices.
"Cecilia," roared John, "order this girl out of my house. She shan't stay under my roof another hour."
"Cecilia," shrieked Margery, "he's an obstinate ignorant wretch, and thank Heaven he isn't my husband."
I put a cushion over my head.
Cecilia kept hers.
"If you will both go out of the room," she said, "take off your filthy boots and come back in your right minds and decent clothing I'll try to understand what you are both talking about."
They crawled out of the room abjectly and I came out into the open once more.
"Good Lord! What a family to be in!" I said.
"Cecilia," said John at tea, "harking back to the question of Hairy Bittercress——"
"Hazel Catkin," said Margery.
"What on earth——?" began Cecilia.
"I'll tell her," said Margery quickly. "Cecilia, we had a competition this afternoon, seeing who could find most signs of Spring. Well, I found a bit of Hazel Catkin——"
"Hairy Bittercress," said John.
"I tell you——" went on Margery.
"If you will calm yourself," interrupted John with dignity, "we will discuss the point."
"There's nothing to discuss. What do you know about botany, I'd like to know?"
"My dear child," said John, "when you were an infant-in-arms, nay, before you existed at all, it was my custom to ramble o'er the dewy meads, plucking the nimble Nipplewort and the shy Speedwell. I breakfasted on botany."
"Talking of botany," I broke in "there was a chap in my platoon——"
John groaned loudly.
"Do you suggest," I asked, "that he was not in my platoon?"
"I suggest nothing," he answered; "I only know that they can't all have been in your platoon."
"All who, John?" asked Cecilia.
"All the chaps he tells us about. Haven't you noticed, since he came home, it's impossible to mention any type or freak or extraordinary individual that wasn't like somebody in his platoon? It must have been about five thousand per cent. over strength."
"I treat your insults with contempt," I said, "and proceed with my story. This chap had the same affliction that has taken Margery and yourself. He spent his life searching for specimens of the Bingle-weed and the five-leaved Funglebid. At bayonet-drill he would stop in the middle of a 'long-point, short-point, jab' to pluck a sudden Oojah-berry that caught his eye. In the end his passion got him to Blighty."
"How?" asked Margery.
"Well," I continued, "it was the morning of the great German attack. My friend—er—I will call him X—and myself were retiring on the village of—er—Y, followed by about six million Germans. Shots were falling all round us, when suddenly X saw a small wild flower at his feet. He bent down to pick it up and—er——"
"That is quite enough, Alan," said Cecilia.
"That is all, Cecilia," I said; "that is how he got to Blighty."
"We will now proceed with the subject in hand," said John after a moment's silence. He produced a small crushed piece of green-stuff from his pocket.
"The question before the house is, as we used to say in the Great War, 'Qu'est-ce-que c'est que ceci?' Any suggestions that it is of the Lemon species will be returned unanswered. For my part I say it is Hairy Bittercress."
"And I say it's Hazel Catkin," said Margery.
"And what says Hubert the herbalist?" asked John, handing the weed to me.
I examined it carefully through the ring of my napkin.
"Well," I said, "speaking largely, I should say it is either Mustard or Cress, or both as the case may be."
I was howled down and retired.
We heard lots of the weed during the next few days. Each morning at breakfast it sprouted forth as it were.
"And how is the Great Unknown?" I would ask.
"The Hairy Bittercress is thriving, we thank you," John would answer.
"Hazel Catkin," Margery would throw out.
"Catkin yourself," from John, and so on ad lib.
They kept it carefully in a small pot in the window, and if one looked at it the other watched jealously for foul play.
"On Saturday," said John, "the Curate is coming to tea. He is a man of wisdom and a botanist to boot—or do I mean withal? On Saturday the Hairy Bittercress shall be publicly proclaimed by its rightful name."
"Which is Hazel Catkin," said Margery.
Saturday came and Saturday afternoon, and, about three o'clock, the Curate. I saw him coming and met him at the door.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Holmes," I said. "You come to a house of bitterness and strife. Walk right in."
"Indeed I trust not," he said.
"Come with me," I replied; "I will tell you all about it." And I led him on tip-toe to a quiet spot.
"Mr. Holmes," I said, "you know the family well. We have always been a happy loving crowd, have we not?"
"Indeed you have," he said politely.
"Well," I continued, "a weed has split us asunder. My brother-in-law and my younger sister are on the point of committing mutual murder."
I explained the whole situation and drew a harrowing picture of its effect on our family life. "Unless you help us," I said, "this Hazel Catkin or Hairy Bittercress will ruin at least four promising young lives."