THE TAX THAT PAYS YOUR DEBTS. "ARE you," she asked with a faint apprehension in her voice, "fit to speak to to-day? Because Tom isn't." "I trust," I said with dignity, "I am always fit to speak to. Why, only yesterday I was bunkered three times in succession, each time from a really superb shot, and yet, when Tom came up to look, all I said was, 'Hullo, that you, old man?' Ask him." "He told me," she said gently. "He said, 'Never talk of rage till you have seen a strong man so exhausted with all the things he's felt and said that he's reduced to "Hullo, old man, that you?" He said it was the most pathetic thing he has ever known. He said that even the caddie blenched. Just like me at breakfast this morning." 'What was it this morning? quired. "Petrol." I in "In the coffee?" I asked with interest, or the bacon? " Gracious, no! Cook would never do that, she is ever so much too careful to do anything more than use the same knife for slicing onions and cutting the cake for tea, and even then only when some one special's coming. No, it's the fourpence extra every one's going to have to pay on petrol. Tom says at least he would have, only of course I wouldn't let him. Aren't you furious about it too?" "I was," I admitted, "I was. But I went out and borrowed some money and bought some oil shares with it, so now I feel better, because there's much virtue in a farthing, as the draper may have forgotten but oil kings remember ! well." I've noticed it before," she observed thoughtfully, "that almost any new tax always makes Tom awfully cross. 66 I expect," I decided, "he doesn't like them.' "I daresay," she agreed. "This morning he was really angry, and he even said that now he simply wouldn't pay one penny income-tax until he was absolutely forced to." "You know," I said, impressed, "that's rather a good idea." "Yes, but he was still ever so cross; and it's not my fault." "Of course it isn't," I said warmly. "And I'm willing to do my best to help," she went on with a certain pathos. "Tom said even bus fares would most likely go up now, so I promised at once I would never take a bus again but always a taxi instead." "That must have pleased him." "He only grunted-the way men do when you don't quite know what they mean, only you can guess. And Splendid!" she insisted stoutly. "Of course I know it's awful to think motoring is going to cost more when it's so expensive already; but I don't think we ought to mind paying this new tax one bit if it means all our debts are going to be paid off by it." I "But does it mean that? I asked. "Didn't you know? It was in the paper in ever such big letters all across the top of the page: All debts to be paid off. And if paying fourpence more on petrol is going to mean we shan't have any more horrid old billsalways try to be frightfully brave about it, but really I don't like it a bit, having bills almost every morning. It's one reason why sometimes I have breakfast in bed. And when Tom saw what I meant he rather agreed that it would be nice, only he wanted to make out it didn't really mean that. But I showed him the paper, and of course the papers always know." "Of course they do," I agreed. "What did Tom say then?" "He said you could never trust a Government, not even the best of them, and most likely we should have to pay our fourpence and get our bills in just the same." "I shouldn't be a bit surprised.' "Well, that would be cheating," she protested indignantly. "You see," I explained, "the Government is really only thinking about its own debts, not about anyone else's." "Then all I can say, she cried hotly, "is that it's most horribly selfish of them." E. R. P. A Budget Proposal. Churchill would consider the motter very "Mr. Lloyd George said he ... hoped Mr. carefully before he wedded himself to the present scheme."-Manchester Paper. The motto to which Mr. LLOYD GEORGE refers is, we suppose, marry in haste and repent at leisure.' 66 Stipendous is the only word which describes the motor traffic to the various Peak beauty spots."-Yorkshire Paper. Unfortunately just too late for inclusion in the New English Dictionary, which only gives Stipendious. THE GOLDEN THREAD. He dropped the golden thread, An idle dog and gay, A shepherd boy he found it But now go criers cunning A-crying up and down, "The Crown, the Crown, the Crown! Before the King they stand And say (th ir bard discovers), With hand tight joined in hand, "Sire, to your will pursuant " (They'd practised this for hours) "We've got the thing as you want, 'Tis tied about our flowers." But when they would unwind it, Nut-brown or white as swan, Their fingers failed to find it— The golden thread was gone; But blue-eyed SHEBA bended With all her lovely arts And whispered, "Nay, Most Splendid, 'Tis tied about their hearts." Then, "Keep it, babes, and live it," For sake of SHEBA's eyes That, when the world is young, The song that's lived is better Than any song that's sung, Than all the songs we've sung." P. R. C. A Well-founded Report. "The spectacle of a fire engine going off in several directions this morning naturally produced rumours of several outbreaks of fire." West Country Paper. THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY POLITELY BUT FIRMLY REFUSING THE GIFT OF A PHOENIX ON THE GROUND OF ITS POSSIBLE THE WAR DIARY OF AMYAS PERKINS. EFFECT ON THEIR FIRE INSURANCE POLICIES. all else being put asyde-as to wit saying at one time the Admiral NELSON, when saylors must be seized by force and soldiers by bribes, Business as usual," insomuch as a guinea was given to a manne that he should fight in the leste all men, leaving their offices, should Low Countries and a guinea to the rush instantly to fighte, andman who should procure him to be en"All now goes well. The enemy is out of listed, or in the time of the great Duke countenance. The army lacks nothing; of MARLBOROUGH, when it was yet worse, or of the FIRST KYNGE CHARLES, and yet again at a later timewho, travelling about the business of "The army is without shells and ordhis campaign, found one shooting part-nance. It is like to be destroyed. Alle either written long after the event or else ridges and asked whether it were well must now give way to the making of altered in the light of later knowledge. that a man should shoote partridges munitions of warre; ". They fall most conveniently under the when his Kynge was in perill by the so that the minds of the people might headings of subject-matter rather than of machinations of rebells, and he said, be swayed this waye and that, but hiding, weeks, months or years, and it must be very Nay, hee thoughte not, but would goe for the most part, quarrells between His clearly understood that Mr. Perkins alone with him, and did so; nor in those dayes Majesty's ministers and generalls, so is responsible for the views expressed, just did it seem that the most parte of Eng-that they should seem to resign office as he is responsible for the obsolete phrase- land felt ardour and fierceness against from sickness and weariness and not ology and the claims he makes as to his the enemy unless they themselves from errour, and rather to rectify the own share in moulding the course of events. dwelt in the sea-ports or on the border line of battell than to retreat from it. It may be-indeed it must be that in of Scotland, and so the danger was near And this counsell of mine was taken, many cases he states things which are open to them; but now because of the great and it was resolved that nothing should to question; and yet there are times when armies of the Allmands, and the French be putt about by my lords NORTHCLIFFE it seems to me that he hittes, as he would being drawn from all partes and we and BEAVERBROKE nor others save that put it, the nayle upon the hedde.] joined with the latter, and because every which was agreed, and if it was necesman was able to read news printe, and sary to change the Government it should also by reason of the great power of the new engines of warre casting shot for many miles and dropping it from the air, there was none to whom this war would not be a particular concern, greater even than footeballe; I counselled that the Presse should be made one of the greate instruments of battell, that only being sayde which was favourable to the purpose of His Majesty's Ministers, and Ir being present to my mind that this great quarrell with Germanye would be different from other troubles, inasmuch as all men, even the lesser sort of folk, would know verily that it was on, whereas formerly but few had knowledge of our warres and many who knew took but little accounte of them, nor in what way they might be conducted, so only that it were not by them, as in the time of NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE and seeme to be done by the consente of all good men wo king in unisone, and not because one man desired to overthrow another, as being envious towards him, or believing that he suffered from petrifaction of the wittes and mildew coming over his braines. But afterwardes, writing in their diaryes, they should say these thinges openly and many more. Thus on divers occasions I became a go-between, allaying the stryfe of those who were hot-headed, and would have FRENCH goe, or KITCHENER overset, or CHERCHYLL smitten with a sandbagge, or LLOYD GEORGE cast into the sea; so that this laste, whom I now for the first time met, and perceived to bee a man of quick and ready witte, with much hair, but overlong, and smiling countenance, seizing that which would be said even before it was uttered, short in stature but abounding in energy, eloquent, and not caste down even at the time of breaking the morning faste, came to be the first of all Ministers in men's esteeme and Lord Protector of England. Who nevertheless formerly had been a great rebell and mistrusted by many for harangues which he made concerning pheasants and the like so that witty pasquils were written against him, but now had the control of many factories for the making of prodigious mortarpieces, grenados and other devices of warre. Yet afterwards was accounted a rebell againe. So too with Mr. CHERCHYLL, a man of nolesse considerable parts and ingenuitie, stubborn in counseil and not despairing of any Governmente if hee himself might be an officer therein, being also much remarked by the curious for the extravagant modishness of his hattes. And about this tyme I was made a member of the Great Council of Camoflage, and was elected also to be an Elder Brother of Dora, so that I was much about Whytehalle, driving thither from "The Eyrie" in my new chariot automaton, having as great power as thirty horses or more. And I telling my father, as we sat at wyne, of certayne disputes as to who should be Chancellor, and who should mayke munitions of war, and how the Fleet should be governed, he said "Politicians in the mayne bee of two sortes, the vaine and the ambitious: of whome the one kinde hold to their purpose so that to move them from it they must seeme not to be moved by another but of their own thinkinge and design; but for the second sorte, if it bee shown to them by numbers and figures that to change the coate will profitt them, they leape to it. But the vaine kind are called by their friends honest, and the ambitious unscrupulous: notwithstanding those who cling to the part of the ambitious call them clear of sight, and the vaine sorte piggeheaded or (as they say of cannon balls which explode not, having struck the barricados) duds. And so must you deal with them." Whereat he called for more wyne, and we felle to playing "Farmer's Glory far into the nighte. EVOE. "WHAT IS THE PLAY ABOUT, LEONARD? CRIME?" BEAUCHAMP The young man had stolen, I think, seven-and-sixpence. The evidence was that he was in the habit of playing darts for glasses of beer or "moneyprizes." The magistrate thought the case called for one of those explosive dicta which do so much to keep the nation straight. He said, "It is high time that the game of darts was put a stop to in our public-houses," and went on to suggest that it had been the ruin not of one young man but many. What is this new canker in our midst? The game does not look dangerous, though to me it looks dull. Each player is armed with three feathered darts, which he flings on to a circular target divided into numerous segments by radial lines. The scoring seems complicated, and I have never understood it. But clearly the game is skilful and asks for accuracy and patience, for the darters do not throw at random and hope for the best, but are set particular tasks according to the run of the game. You will see a man struggling for a long time to score two 2's in succession or two. 4's, and so on. fashionable, and jaded Society women women who have played this game have It would be absurd to ask a magis- Flustered Female (as oculist tries different test-lenses in massive frame). 'DON'T YOU THINK I MIGHT HAVE A LIGHTER PAIR OF GLASSES THAN THESE?" IN THE TRAFFIC BLOCK. CAN'T you cut through? Oh, I suppose not. But a good driver could back out and go round somewhere. Just let me drive. Oh, I remember perfectly. what happened when I drove through town last. But I got to my hairdressing appointment dead on time. The Oh, well, we'll wait. best people never blow into a theatre before the curtain goes. I do hope the murder isn't committed in the first minute. Such an amusing play, everybody says. I should hate to miss any of it. The game, I suppose, is а sort of descendant of archery. Perhaps in the long winter evenings the bowmen of England, training for Agincourt, kept their eye in with darts. At any rate it is now much more deeply embedded in the national | as a pound a hole? or that golf-clubs are up. life than was ever the practice of arch- licensed to supply liquor for consump. ery. There is a vast darts organisation; tion on the premises? Does he know there are dart clubs and central leagues that some City men default, embezzle, embracing those clubs. This year, I swindle and cheat? And does not the believe, there were over a thousand same grim logic assist him here? Shall entries for the London Amateur Darts we be told, as he commits the next emChampionship (Singles). And now, says bezzler to the Old Bailey, thatthe magistrate, it is high time that this demoralising sport was put a stop to. Darts will never be my game, but I must put in a word for darts; for this is the sort of thing that spreads. The next thing will be a "Save the Darters" ormovement. There will be a Society for the Suppression of Darts. There will be ora Private Bill giving powers to Town Councils to prohibit darts. Bishops will preach against darts. Darts will become "The time is ripe for the abolition of "Lawn-tennis must cease"; "I will not have hockey"; "Bowls is poisoning the lives of our old men." What about halma? Many men and For the love of Mike, give me a gasper! Thanks. So good for the nerves, you know. Here we are, helpless, while somebody in the stalls, probably in the very next seat to those we've paid for, fires point-blank at the hero. Never mind, we shall see how it all ends. You know, I'm ageing already. I'm positive my permanent wave ceased to be permanent long ago. I wonder if it was wise to start the evening with a school-girl complexion? Don't blame me. How was I to know we should grow middle-aged in London's worst traffic block? |