morning in early May at her desk (so often photographed), had written, as she fancied, a fine strong opening sentence for her dour book, Dimmity, and had then for a moment paused to look out at the tulips in the Park? Dropping her eyes again to her writing-pad, she found upon it the insufferable words, "The thought that suddenly -out of the heavens-suddenly romance would come, beat through the brain of Abimelech Evans like the roll of a throbbing drum." Was it any wonder, I say, that Begonia Perkins shrieked aloud, or that her publisher, giving her a ring, as he called it, half-an-hour later, was told by Regent, Sor-r-r-r-y, but there is no reply"? 66 Or shall we rather describe that awful scene in the Central Criminal Court, where Humphrey Jarvis, the playwright, was on trial for having waylaid a hostile critic, tied him up in a floursack and thrown him, at midnight, from the Victoria Embankment into the Thames? was liable to be brought into ridicule. "Lords, ladies and gentlemen," he and contempt. Paroxysm would occur cried in his usual ringing tones, "I am in the malady, where all semblance of happy to be here to-night-in this common sense and reason deserted the mansion reared by WREN-on a great invalid. Nor was it ever certain at historic site. I am told it affords relief what point the milder symptoms might to an audience when a speaker-pernot degenerate into the more acute. mits himself to be brief (Loud laughter), When at the end of the Second Lesson-and if my words are weaker-in point Canon Butterley (of St. Leofric's, Pim- of rhetorical skill-than those which lico) read out the banns of marriage and have gone before-I hope that some of you will-appreciate them" the more. (Tremendous applause.) A Scotchman and an Irishman once were debating which of the two was really a greater dunce, when they happened to meet a Jew. (Coughing.) He asked them if they had any money, in order to make a testand the story's frightfully funny, but I'md-difI'll tell you the rest. Rum-tum. No, I'm d-d if I'll tell you the rest." (Constrained silence, during which Sir Alfred Blurby resumed his seat.) The banqueters filed slowly out. . . And on Buttercombe sands that very summer appeared the notice, duly passed by The judge had summed up. The jury | concluded them with the words, "If any | the Town Council:- VISITORS WHO WISH TO BATHE ARE THAT THEY MUST OCCUPY TENTS. THE FORESHORE AND THE BENTS. * In July the Cabinet succumbed. It was a painful consultation which took place between the Chancellor of the CONSTERNATION AMONG THE GUILD OF BUTTONWRIGHTS. Exchequer and the Prime Minister when the immense and far-reaching consequences of the calamity which had overtaken Great Britain were now thoroughly realised. Speeches in the House, important utterances on political platforms, begun with bright hopes and all the certitude of practised oratorical skill, had dwindled time after time to twaddle scarcely fit for a kindergarten. Had not an ex-Cabinet Mr. Justice Motley's handsome face. | most horribly vexed (tra-la), his curate | Minister, in the debate on UnemployUshers cleared the court; reporters took the responsibility on himself of risstaggered aghast to the Rainbow Tavern ing to say that the service was now conand Anderton's Hotel. cluded, and that the offertory (for church ment, actually risen and said that "the measure before the House betrayed in many of its clauses not only the mind of a mouse with its timid nibbles and pauses, but an utter failure on the part of the Government to realise the meaning of the popular discontent and its true economic causes"? And had not the stern rejoinder of the Minister of Labour been marred irrevo cably by the peroration in which he stated that everything had been done which could be done, in consultation with the Board of Trade, to remedy a state of affairs which none could avert unless strife were allayed? Worse things than that had happened. A shadow had fallen over our relations with foreign Powers, those of them, at least, with whom diplomatic relations were maintained in the English tongue. At the moment of meeting the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Prime Minister was only too conscious of the trouble that might arise on the Indian frontier after the hasty and ill-chosen wording of Mr. Birtle's last cablegram: "His Majesty's Government is desirous of reminding the Akhund of Swat that he may think he's the Emperor Cyrus, but in point of fact he is not." Nor could the Chancellor himself be unaware of the resentment aroused in the bosoms of taxpayers when they read under the heading "Notes in Regard to the Statement of Income of the Year ended 5th April," the flippant and ridiculous remark "EXCEPTION. A person who proves he is resident in the Irish Free State can claim exemption from liabilitee under Paragraph 1 of Section B because he is ruled by the Irish President and pays his tax to that same." Only after an hour's earnest consultation did Sir John Bloom and his colleague, both, fortunately for England, men of the greatest courage and unselfishness, permit themselves to face the inevitable. Both of them were cracking badly under the strain. Their lips moved feverishly, their faces were haggard and worn. It is here that Mr. Montmorency Smythe comes into the tale. "There seems to be only one hope," murmured the Chancellor, dropping his voice to a whisper. "In default of a better plan for saving us from the perilous slope I have just discovered a man, and if you are not too busy I should like you to let him appear "Of course I can see him," stammered the Prime Minister nervously. "Where is he?" ings, was ushered into the councilchamber. "Tell me the qualification," droned the Prime Minister wearily, reseating himself and placing his hand upon his brow, "you think you have for the job of trying to rescue the nation from this awful thingumbob." A CABLEGRAM FOR THE AKHUND OF SWAT. of rhyme wild horses could never induce me to commit any verbal assonance to break into metre. MUCK! I stamp upon language and grind the powder of words -old snails under foot." "Kindly repeat that, Mr Smythe," said the two statesmen eagerly, taking up rulers from the writing-table and holding them poised in the airlike the batons of an orchestra conductor. Mr. Montmorency Smythe accepted his encore. The batons remained unmoved. "Could anything be sweeter? cried the Prime Minister, his voice choked with emotion. "Somehow he never fails!" "He says he can cut out metre," shouted Mr. Golightly, "and stamp upon words like snails!" "My dear Mr. Smythe," they said, rising together like members of a gleeparty and chanting in unison, "we have not felt so blithe for a very long time as we feel to-day on hearing you say that you cannot drop into a rhyme. And although we shall leave our stations not without pangs of sorrow, we shall make our recommendations to His Majesty to-morrow. And always remember in all that you do that the honour of England rests with you." "Tu whit," went on the Prime Min Montmorency Smythe gave a scorn- |ister earnestly after a moment's pause. ful laugh. Then and there, standing "Tu whoo," responded Mr. Golightly upon the hearth-rug, he made before the in a strained voice. "With you," he rerulers of England his now historic pro-peated-"with you.' nouncements. "I am a poet," he said"I am utterly free from the fetters of scansion the mildew MR. MONTMORENCY SMYTHE'S ENCORE. The last few moments of anxiety and excitement had been too much for both of them. It was in this way that Mr. Smythe and the Bayswater coterie of younger poets took over the reins of power and began to govera England. Their shining immunity from contagion restored the commonweal. Social and political life resumed under their sway a normal and practical development. Isolation hospitals were established. Disinfectants were invented. Panic was stayed. A general convalescence set in. And in course of time the hectic days of the terror began to seem clouded and lost in haze, like an old unhappy dream. But never was it forgotten how Mr. Smythe arose to rescue the State, when rotten, by dint of his peerless prose. EvoE. Auntie. "I SHOULD THINK A SHILLING OR EIGHTEENPENCE WILL BE AMPLE. I'M TOLD THE LIFE OF THESE RICKSHAW BOYS IS VERY SHORT." First Visitor. "YOU COULDN'T FIND THE MAN AT HOME WHO'D WORK SO HARD AND CHEERFULLY UNDER A BURNING SUN." Second Visitor. "YOU COULDN'T FIND THE BURNING SUN AT HOME FOR HIM TO WORK UNDER." Visitor (at fashionable foreign watering-place). "DARLING, WHAT A RAVISHING SURPRISE TO SEE YOU HERE! POOR LITTLE MARGATE DONE THAT YOU'VE FORSAKEN IT THIS YEAR?" BUT WHAT HAS First Artist. "WHAT'S THE GOOD OF TRYING TO WORK WITH ALL THIS DARNED SAND STICKING TO THE PICTURE?" |