Chapter V

"That's torn it," I said to Celia.

"I suppose it has," she said sadly.

"The world will never hear the Joke now. It's had it wrong, but still it's had it, and I can't repeat it."

Celia began to smile.

"It's sickening," she said; "but it's really rather funny, you know."

And then she had another brilliant inspiration.

"In fact you might write an article about it."

And, as you see, I have.

EPILOGUE

Having read thus far, Celia says, "But you still haven't got the Joke in."

Oh, well, here goes.

Extract from letter: "We came back to the line to-day to find that the cat had kittened. However, as all the rats seem to have rottened we are much as we were."

"Rottened" was misprinted "rattened," which seems to me to spoil the Joke….

Yet I must confess that there are times now when I feel that perhaps after all I may have overrated it….

But it was a pleasant joke in its day.

THE LAST POT

Let others hymn the weariness and pain (Or, if they will, the glory and the glamour) Of holding fast, from Flanders to Lorraine, The thin brown line at which the Germans hammer; My Muse, a more domesticated maid, Aspires to sing a song of Marmalade.

O Marmalade!—I do not mean the sort, Sweet marrow-pulp, for babes and maidens fitter, But that wherein the golden fishes sport On oranges seas (with just a dash of bitter), Not falsely coy, but eager to parade Their Southern birth—in short, O Marmalade!

Much have I sacrificed: my happy home, My faith in experts' figures, half my money, The fortnight that I meant to spend in Rome, My weekly effort to be fairly funny; But these are trifles, light as air when weighed Against this other—Breakfast Marmalade.

Fair was the porridge in the days of peace, And still more fair the cream and sugar taken; Plump were the twin poached eggs, yet not obese, Upon their thrones of toast, and crisp the bacon— I face their loss undaunted, unafraid, If only I may keep my Marmalade.

An evening press without Callisthenes; A tables Staff; an immobile spaghetti; A Shaw with whom the Common Man agrees; A Zambra searching vainly for Negretti; When spades are trumps, a hand without a spade— So is my breakfast lacking Marmalade.

O Northcliffe (Lord)! O Keiller! O Dundee! O Crosse and Blackwell, Limited! O Seville! O orange groves along the Middle Sea! (O Jaffa, for example) O the devil— Let Beef and Butter, Rolls and Rabbits fade, But give me back my love, my Marmalade.

THE STORY THAT WENT WEST

"Why don't you write a war story?" said Celia one autumn day when that sort of story was popular.

"Because everybody else does," I said. "I forget how many bayonets we have on the Western Front, but there must be at least twice as many fountain-pens."

"It needn't be about the Western Front."

"Unfortunately that's the only front I know anything about."

"I thought writers used their imagination sometimes," said Celia to anybody who might happen to be listening.

"Oh, well, if you put it like that," I said, "I suppose I must."

So I settled down to a story about the Salonica Front.

The scene of my story was laid in an old clay hut amid the wattles.

"What are wattles?" asked Celia, when I told her the good news.

"Local colour," I explained. "They grow in Bulgaria."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure that these ones did; I don't know about any others."

Of course more local colour was wanted than a mere wattle or two. It was necessary therefore for my Bulgarians always to go about in comitadjis. Celia thought that these were a kind of native trouser laced at the knee. She may be right. My own impression is that they are a species of platoon. Anyhow the Bulgars always went about in them.

There was a fierce fight which raged round the old clay hut in the wattles. The Greeks shouted "[Greek: Tuptô tuptomai]" The Serbs, for reasons into which I need not enter, were inarticulate with rage. With the French and British I had, of course, no difficulty, and the Bulgars (fortunately) were content with hoarse guttural noises. It was a fierce fight while it lasted, and I was sorry when it was over, because for the first time I began to feel at home with my story. I need not say that many a Bulgar had licked the wattles before I had finished.

Unfortunately something else happened before I had finished.

"What do you think?" cried Celia, bursting into my room one evening, just when I was wondering whether my readers would expect to know more of the heroine's native costume than that it was "simple yet becoming."

"Wait a moment," I said.

"It's too good to wait," said Celia excitedly. "Bulgaria has surrendered."

Celia may be a good patriot, but she lacks the artistic temperament.

"Oh, has she?" I said bitterly. "Then she's jolly well spoilt my story."

"The one about the wattles?"

"Yes."

"Tut-tuttles," said Celia frivolously.

Well, I wasn't going to waste my wattles. With great presence of mind I decided to transfer my story to the Palestine Front.

Under a hard blue sky of intense brilliance the old clay hut stood among the wattles. A wadi ran by the side of it; not a small Turkish dog, as Celia thought, but—well, everybody knows what a wadi is. The battle went on much as before, except that the Turks were naturally more outspoken than the Bulgars, calling freely upon Allah at the beginning of the fight, and reconciling themselves to the end of it with "Kismet." I also turned some of the horses into camels, and (for the sake of the Indian troops) several pairs of puttees into chupaties. It was a good story while it lasted.

However, nobody seems to care about art nowadays.

"What do you think?" cried Celia, bursting into my room.

I held up a delaying hand. I had suddenly thought of the word "adobe." My story seemed to need it somewhere. If possible, among the wattles.

"But listen!" She read out the headline: "'Turkey Surrenders at Discretion.'"

"Discretion!" I said indignantly. "I have never heard of anything so tactless. And it isn't as though I could even move on to Mesopotamia."

"Couldn't there be a little local rising in Persia?" suggested Celia.

"I doubt it, I doubt it," I said thoughtfully. "You can't do much with just wattles and a little sherbet—I mean you can't expect the public to be interested in Persia at such a moment as this. No, we shall have to step westward. We must see what we can do with the Italian Front."

But I had very little hope. A curious foreboding of evil came over me as I placed those wattles tenderly along the west bank of the Piave. The old clay hut still stood proudly amid them; the Bersaglieri advanced impetuously with cries of "En avant!"—no, that's wrong—with cries of—well, anyhow they advanced.

They advanced….

And as I shut my eyes I seemed to see—no, not that old clay hut amid the wattles, nor yet the adobe edifice on the heights of Asiago, but Celia coming into the library with another paper announcing that yet another country was deaf to the call of art.

* * * * *

If anybody wants a really good story about the Peninsular War and will drop me a line, I shall be glad to enter into negotiations with him. The scene is laid in the neighbourhood of Badajoz, and the chief interest centres round an old—yes, you have guessed it—an old clay hut in the wattles.

THE TWO VISITS,

1888, 1919

("Dispersal Areas, 10a, 10b, 10c—Crystal Palace.")

It was, I think, in '88 That Luck or Providence or Fate Assumed the more material state Of Aunt (or Great-Aunt) Alice, And took (the weather being fine, And Bill, the eldest, only nine) Three of us by the Brighton line To see the Crystal Palace.

Observe us, then, an eager four Advancing on the Western Door, Or possibly the Northern, or— Well, anyhow, advancing; Aunt Alice bending from the hips, And Bill in little runs and trips, And John with frequent hops and skips, While I was fairly dancing.

Aunt Alice pays; the turnstile clicks, And with the happy crowds we mix To gaze upon—well, I was six, Say, getting on for seven; And, looking back on it to-day, The memories have passed away— I find that I can only say (Roughly) to gaze on heaven.

Heaven it was which came to pass Within those magic walls of glass (Though William, like a silly ass, Had lost my bag of bull's-eyes). The wonders of that wonder-hall! The—all the things I can't recall, And, dominating over all, The statues, more than full-size.

Adam and Niobe were there, Disraeli much the worse for wear, Samson before he'd cut his hair, Lord Byron and Apollo; A female group surrounded by A camel (though I don't know why)— And all of them were ten feet high And all, I think, were hollow.

These gods looked down on us and smiled To see how utterly a child By simple things may be beguiled To happiness and laughter; It warmed their kindly hearts to see The joy of Bill and John and me From ten to lunch, from lunch to tea, From tea to six or after.

That evening, when the day was dead, They tucked a babe of six in bed, Arranged the pillows for his head, And saw the lights were shaded; Too sleepy for the Good-night kiss His only conscious thought was this: "No man shall ever taste the bliss That I this blessed day did."

When one is six one cannot tell; And John, who at the Palace fell A victim to the Blondin Belle, Is wedded to another; And I, my intimates allow, Have lost the taste for bull's-eyes now, And baldness decorates the brow Of Bill, our elder brother.

Well, more than thirty years have passed… But all the same on Thursday last My heart was beating just as fast Within that Hall of Wonder; My bliss was every bit as great As what it was in '88— Impossible to look sedate Or keep my feelings under.

The gods of old still gazed upon The scene where, thirty years agone, The lines of Bill and me and John Were cast in pleasant places; And "Friends," I murmured, "what's the odds If you are rather battered gods? This is no time for Ichabods And eheu—er—fugaces."

Ah, no; I did not mourn the years' Fell work upon those poor old dears, Nor Pitt nor Venus drew my tears And set me slowly sobbing; I hailed them with a happy laugh And slapped old Samson on the calf, And asked a member of the staff For "Officers Demobbing."

That evening, being then dispersed I swore (as I had sworn it first When three of us went on the burst With Aunt, or Great-Aunt, Alice), "Although one finds, as man or boy, A thousand pleasures to enjoy, For happiness without alloy Give me the Crystal Palace!"