66

MONNA LISA" AND THE

MAN WHO KNEW.

It is not often that anything happens in Europe or America without Harberry getting to know the why and how of it. The fall of a government, the crumbling of a monarchy, may be due to causes hidden from the common eye, but not from Harberry's. most impregnable mysteries keep open house to Harberry. Allow him time and he will give you three explanations of any one you name, each more impeccably authenticated than the last, and all mutually exclusive.

The

Harberry was, I believe, the first person in Europe-at all events the first innocent person-to know exactly what had become of the " Monna Lisa" after her disappearance from the Louvre. The thief, it appeared, waswell, there was no need to name himbut he was a very high official among the Louvre hierarchy, and his wife's extravagance in dress was a by-word in three capitals. In the meantime "it" had been bought by an English grocer.

It was next Spring that I met Harberry again. He was just back from New York.

"Most extraordinary thing about La Gioconda,'" he observed in the course of conversation.

64

"Oh?" I asked. "Anything new?" 'Well," he said, "I suppose you know where it is?"

"Not absolutely for certain," I replied, "but I understood from you

"Oh, that story last September? That was only a dealer's rumour. But do you mean to say they haven't heard the truth on this side of the Atlantic yet?"

I intimated that Europe sat in dark

ness.

ND

153

Mrs. Briggs. SO THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE A POSTAL STRIKE AFTER ALL, MRS.
JOHNSON."
Mrs. Johnson (remembering the Coal Strike). "WELL, YOU NEVER CAN TELL BUT WHAT
IT MAY COME AT ANY MOMENT; SO I SHALL LAY IN A GOOD STOCK OF STAMPS NOW.'

"Theft?" thundered Harberry. had been drugged, he had little to
communicate.

"What do you think about the Gioconda' now?" I was tempted to ask.

"Why, it was stolen by a downtown gang of New York cracksmen for X.-he mentioned a world-famed multi-millionaire-and now he's got the thing framed up in a little private "There never was a theft. I tell you gallery of his own, and spends hours a every official in the Louvre wants day cooped up with it, simply gazing hanging. That picture never left the at it. He has a whole staff of pri- galleries. They were trying on some vate detectives to watch it; and he's new way of cleaning which the Curator He came nearer blushing than I had sent nearly half-a-million hush-money thought he'd invented, and simply thought possible to him. to the Louvre people to keep them rotted the surface off the thing. And Think about it," he said. "I think quiescent." now the canvas is lying in the Depart- it's a devilish clever business-copied I bowed amazed credulity. The mental offices-along with the missing right down to the scratches. But if crime of X. held the field until the parts of the Milo'; and there it'll France is satisfied I suppose the rest of Summer of 1913. lie for evermore. It's nothing short of the world has no right to complain." an international scandal."

Meeting Harberry casually, I gleaned my usual harvest of first-hand international secrets.

"Anything new about La Gioconda'?" I asked, when his confidences drew to a close. "I suppose it's the

It was a few days after the recovery of the picture that I ran across Harberry once more.

66

"What can a woman do against a burly ruffian who without any ceremony proceeds to prise the jewels from her like carbuncles He seemed a trifle more subdued from a fishing smack?"-Globe. than usual, and, beyond the compara- Answer. Explain to him the difference

ORGANISED HOSPITALITY.

In view of the unqualified success of the recent banquets to M. ANATOLE FRANCE and Dr. GEORGE BRANDES, it is proposed to form a permanent committee of what might be called Entrepreneurs of Culture, whose duty it shall be from time to time to select foreigners of distinction worthy of being feasted in this country and to arrange for a fitting ceremonial, thus relieving Mr. EDMUND GOSSE of more hard work than ought to fall on any one man, however willing he may be.

know; but it was to be hoped so.
(General applause.)

Sir E. RAY LANKESTER rose to know
if Americans were to be included among
the guests.

Mr. JOHN LANE said that he was sorry that he had no guest to propose. M. FRANCE was the only superlatively great French author on his list.

Mr. DUCKWORTH stated that he could offer no suggestion as he had ascertained that DOSTOIEVSKY was dead.

The Chairman said that that question raised a delicate point. There was one writer who, if he were still an American, Mr. HEINEMANN said he did not see would naturally be the first to be asked; why retrospective enthusiasm should but as no one quite knew whether he not be indulged. After all, one could was or not, and his own reply to a eat as good a dinner to a great man's request for information left the matter memory as in a great man's presence. so much more vague than before-he He thought that a TOLSTOI or TOURreferred to Mr. HENRY JAMES (wild ex- GENIEFF dinner would be equally decitement)-it was thought that for the lightful. present America had better be excluded. Sir THOMAS LIPTON said that it was Sir E. RAY LANKESTER said he a crying shame that so many of the thought the decision was a pity as it greatest authors were dead. He would shut out Mr. SILAS K. HOCKING. enormously have liked to meet GOETHE; and might the best man win! (Cheers.) He could think of no name to suggest to the meeting.

Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL rose to point out that Mr. HOCKING was an

A preliminary meeting to this end was held last week at the Café Royal, at which the chair was taken by Sir SIDNEY LEE. After having outlined the objects of the gathering, the Chairman added that it was held that in the future every effort should be made to Englishman. avoid what he might, call an embarras de richesse, such as had distinguished some recent manifestations of cordiality. It might not be generally known that, while M. ANATOLE FRANCE was in London, the great Danish critic, Dr. GEORGE BRANDES, who had but just been put through the same ordeal, was still with us, but wholly in retirement; while no one could have helped noticing that M. GEORGES CARPENTIER

AVERY MERRYMASI

was also gathering THE OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS-CARD BUT THE MODERN KIND CAN HARDLY

laurels on one of the nights that should have

been the sole perquisite of M. FRANCE. | Sir E. RAY LANKESTER. "Then he
It was felt that such a deplorable state has no right to be-not with a name
of things must never occur again. One like that!" (Cries of Order.)
at a time must be the rule, and what-
ever arrangements were made as to
hospitality they must always be con-
ditioned by the programme of the
National Sporting Club. (Loud ap-
plause.)

The Chairman here interposed to point out that the purpose of the meeting was not to find suitable guests, but to form a permanent committee for hospitality. He would ask for names for that committee.

Omnes: "Sir THOMAS BARCLAY." (Cheers.)

In the course of a few stormy hours the committee was formed, consisting of the Chairman. himself, Sir THOMAS BARCLAY, Mr. Gosse and Sir JOSEPH LYONS. The meeting then dispersed.

Further Decline in the Aristocracy. "A large row of pink earls worth £5,000 and belonging to a well-known lady of the old

French nobility has been restored to her."

South Wales Echo.

"Sheriff Fyfe said that this was a case of garrotting, a form of crime with which he had no sympathy."- Scotsman. Sheriff FYFE gives us the impression of a narrow-minded man.

Mr. CLEMENT SHORTER (author of Giotto and his Circle) rose to ask if it were not possible to extend the word foreigner, which now meant chiefly a European, to include the Scotch. If so, he begged to propose the name of Sir THOMAS BARCLAY said that a Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL as a leader in The Times had suggested that fitting guest for the society. It was a dinner was not the best form of monstrous that so illustrious a man as entertainment to which to invite these Sir WILLIAM had had to wait so long honoured guests. Speaking from his for such an honour. own not trifling experience as a host of Mr. H. G. SELFRIDGE said that he Another promising young life cut short men of genius, he could say that it was. was for fair play and no favour. (Cheers.)-but what a romantic end! (Cheers.) Having recently honoured a Dane and a Frenchman, he thought we ought to look next to Italy. Wasn't there some one named CORELLI ?

Lieut. Col. NEWNHAM-DAVIS rose to know whether there was likely to be any reciprocity in these matters. Were corresponding societies being formed in, Sir CLAUDE PHILLIPS begged to sugsay, Paris, Rome, Berlin or Copenhagen, gest the name of VINCENZO PERUGIA. for the entertainment of distinguished He was worthy of the highest honour Englishmen? He asked only for in- for having shown himself better able formation. to take care of LEONARDO'S "Monna

"REECE . HARVERSON.

A kiss closed Harverson's career at 27."
The Sportsman.

Magisterial Lore.

"A poor mother summoned at North London yesterday for not sending children to thirteen, and that it was very difficult to get school pleaded that she had a family of them all ready at the proper time.

The Magistrate: Thirteen children. It is a case of Mother Hubbard."-Daily News. Thirteen children and a dog; poor

Son of the House (collaring joyous guest). "LOOK HERE, YOU MUS'N'T ENJOY YOURSELF AS MUCH AS THAT! THIS IS MY BIRTH

DISAPPOINTMENT. My young friend Bobby (now in the early thirteens) has been making his plans for the Christmas holidays. He communicated them to me in a letter from school :

"I am going to write an opera in the holidays with a boy called Short, a very great and confident friend of mine here. I am doing the words and Short is doing the music. We have already got the title; it is called 'Disappointment.'

Last week, on his return to town, he came to see me at my club, and when the waiter had brought in drinks, and Bobby had refused a cigar, I lighted up and prepared to talk shop. His recent discovery that I write too leads him to treat me with more respect than formerly.

44

Let's have it."

Bobby unfolded it rapidly.

"Well, you see, there's a chap called Tommy-he's the hero-and he's just come back from Oxford, and he's awfully good-looking and decent and all that, and he's in love with Felicia, you see, and there's another chap called Reynolds, and, you see, Felicia 's really the same as Phyllis, who's going to marry Samuel, and that's the disappointment, because Tommy wants to marry her, you see."

"I see. That ought to be all right. You could almost get two operas out of that."

"Oo, do you think so?" "Well, it depends how much Reynolds comes in. You didn't tell me what happened to him. Does he marry anybody?"

"Oo, no. He comes in because I want somebody to tell the audience about Tommy when Tommy isn't

there."

(How well Bobby has caught the

dramatic idea.) "I see.

(You see how Bobby has mastered the pleasure of meeting, but I believe the technique of the stage,) he is smaller than Bobby.

"And where 's Felicia all this time?"

Oo, she doesn't come on. She's
in the country with Samuel. You see,
the second Act is a grand country
wedding, and Samuel and Phyllis are
married, and Tommy is one of the
guests, and he's very unhappy, but he
tries not to show it, and he shoots
himself."

"Reynolds is there too, I suppose?"
"Oo, I don't know yet."
(He'll have to be, of course.

He'll
be wanted to tell the audience how
unhappy Tommy is.)

46

And how does it end?" I asked. Well, you see, when the wedding's over, Tommy sings a song about Felicia, and it ends up Felicia, Felicia, Felicia,' getting higher each time-Short has to do that part, of course, but I've told him about it-and then the curtain comes down."

Аст І.

SCENE-A grand restaurant. Enter Tommy, a very handsome man, just back from Oxford.

Tommy sings:

Felicia, I love you,

By all the stars above you I swear you shall be mine!And now I'm going to dine. [He sits down and orders a bottle of ginger-beer and some meringues. Waiter. Your dinner, Sir. Tommy. Thank you. And would you ask Mr. Reynolds to come in, if you see him? (To the audience) A week ago I was crossing the Channel-(enter Reynolds)-Oh, here you are, Reynolds! I was just saying that a week ago I was crossing the Channel when I saw the most beautiful girl I have ever seen who had lost her umbrella. I said, Excuse me, but is this your umbrella?" She said, "Yes." Reynolds, I sat He's got some of the notes. You down and fell in love with her. Her see, I've only just got the plot, and name was Felicia. And now I must I've written about two pages. I'm go and see about something. [Exit. writing it in an exercise-book." A shadow passed suddenly across the author's brow.

If there is one form of theft utterly
unforgivable it is the theft by a writer
of another writer's undeveloped ideas.
Borrow the plot of Sir J. M. BARRIE'S
last play, and you do him no harm; you
only write yourself down as a plagiarist.

But listen to the scenario of his next
play (if he is kind enough to read it to
you) and write it up before he has time
to develop it himself, and you do him
a grievous wrong; for you fix the
charge of plagiarism on him. Surely,

you say, no author could sink so low
as this.

He ought to be very useful.' You see, the first Act's in a very And yet, when I got home, the plot grand restaurant, and Tommy comes of "Disappointment" (with one "s") in to have dinner, and he explains to so took hold of me that I did the unforReynolds how he met Felicia on a givable thing; I went to my desk and boat, and she'd lost her umbrella, and wrote the opera. I make no excuses he said, 'Is this your umbrella?' and for myself. I only point out that it was, and they began to talk to each Bobby's opera, as performed at Covent other, and then he was in love with her. And then he goes out, and then Reynolds tells the audience what an awfully decent chap Tommy is." Why does he go out?" "Well, you see, Reynolds couldn't tell everybody what an awfully decent

66

She is engaged to Samuel. Poor Tommy,
He does not know she's fond of Samuel.
He will be disappointed when he knows.
CURTAIN.
ACT II.

SCENE-A beautiful country wedding.
Reynolds). Who's the bride?
Tommy (in pew nearest door, to

Samuel,
Reynolds. Phyllis. She's marrying
Enter Bride.

Tommy. Heavens, it's Felicia!

How disappointed he must be! (4 out)
Reynolds (to audience). Poor Tommy!
Yes, Felicia and Phyllis are really the
same girl. She's engaged to Samuel.
Tommy. Then I cannot marry her!
Reynolds. No.

Tommy sings:

Good-bye, Felicia, good-bye,
I'm awfully disappointed, I
Am now, in fact, about to die,
Felicia, Felicia, Felicia!
[Shoots himself.

CURTAIN

But no

Garden in Italian, with Short's music
conducted by RICHTER, is not likely to
be belittled by anything that I may That is how I see it.
write here. I have only written in doubt Bobby and Short, when they
order that I may get the scenario- really get to work, will make some-
which had begun to haunt me-off my thing better of it. It is an engaging
chest. Bobby, I know, will understand theme, but of course the title wants to

ONCE UPON A TIME.

BREATHING SPACE.

ONCE upon a time there was an old pheasant-a real veteran who had come victorious out of many battues. Not perhaps wholly unscathed, for his tail was no longer the streaming meteoric plume that it once had been, but sound in wind and limb.

No one knew his lordship's guests so well as he, so often had he seen them in the coverts: old Sir Mark, who had an arm-chair at the angle of the two best drives; Sir Humphry, with his eternal cigarette in the long gold tube; the red-faced Colonel, who always shot too late; the purple-faced Major, who always shot too soon; the smiling agent, who would so tactfully disown a bird whenever it seemed politic; and all the rest of them.

How the veteran rocketer had escaped he could not say, but shoot after shoot found him still robust and elusive, while his relations were falling all around, some, to their dying satisfaction, thudding into the features of their assassins.

One morning three young pheasants came flying up to their Nestor in a state of nervous excitement.

"Quick! quick!" they said, "the gentlemen are leaving the Hall. Tell us where to go to be safe."

"Go?" said the old bird. "Don't go anywhere. Stay where you are." "But they're coming this way," said the young pheasants. "They 've got the same clothes on."

"Let them come," said the old bird. "There's no danger. Why don't you use your ears?"

66

What do you mean?" they asked. "Listen," said the old bird. "What is that sound?"

66

66

It's too gentle for guns," said the young pheasants meditatively. Yes," said the old bird. "That's church bells. It means they're going to play golf."

L'Illustration on Paris:-

N'est il pas, ne sera-t-il pas encore longtemps, et toujours, espérons-le, comme centre scientifique et centre d'art the beast in the

world?"

"I SAY-ER-DO YOU KEEP ANY MEN'S TOYS?"

NATURE STUDIES.

THE AMATEUR ACTOR.

hand, the amateur, especially the female variety, is often both docile and engaging in manner, and may form a perfect pet for the household. It eats little, but usually drinks a lot. "Scratch meals" and champagne are its chief articles of nutriment.

THIS Common but entertaining little creature will well repay observation. The present is one of the best periods of the year for such a purpose, as it has been proved that the two seasons Should any reader be contemplating when it flourishes and propagates most amateur - keeping, the rules to be abundantly are the weeks about Christ- observed are very simple. A large mas and those immediately preceding empty room, in which they can play Lent. With the approach of warm about undisturbed, is the chief requisite. evenings it usually retires into com- At their period of full activity they parative obscurity. take very little sleep, and that mostly In its habits this biped presents in the early morning. They are perseveral strongly marked characteristics. fectly safe, except that anything like Its chief distinction is the employment unfavourable criticism irritates them of what is known to naturalists as Pro- to frenzy, and should on no account tective mimicry. Thus the same speci-be permitted. With this precaution a men may frequently be found to simu- few of these bright little creatures will late at one time Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER, more than compensate for the expense of M. Bunau-Varilla claims that with his and at another Mr. EDMUND PAYNE, upkeep, and provide a constant source torpedo-shaped hood the resistance of the air according to circumstances. This habit of entertainment for a Christmas party. is practically nullified. Those present noticed that a match, lighted just behind the machine is not only employed for protection, when in full course, burned as if in a vacuum." but may very often be used for purposes Daily Telegraph. of offence. We have seen an amateur This must mean that it went out. M. imitation of Sir HERBERT TREE that Some lady dancers consider even one

This shows the dangers of the entente cordiale. Fifteen years ago the writer would have said it quite comfortably in his own language.

Science for the Home.

"LADY DANCER'S SECOND SUIT." Daily Chronicle.