Ashley Sterne

“ I say unhesitatingly that the man who tries to get through life on a mere dozen handkerchiefs is simply begging for disaster, as, however methodical in their use he may be, a carelessly-caught cold may any day upset his reckoning and leave him at a loose end; sometimes scarcely that. Hence I am doing this part of my trousseau in princely fashion. I am having half a gross of them.
Then there is my slumber-wear. For years I have hungered for silk ones, but have had no conscientious excuse for appeasing my appetite. ”

“ By-the-by, what tobacco was it?"
"Well, Sir," the man replied, "I hardly like to admit it in these times, but it was a tobacco grown in German East Africa. It really isn't fit to smoke, and is only good for destroying wasps' nests or fumigating greenhouses, which I thought your lady wanted it for, seeing as how she picked it out for herself. Some ladies nowadays know as much about tobacco as what we do."
I left the shop hurriedly. The problem of the disposal of Joan's well-meaning gift was now solved. ”

“ The honorary secretary of Germany entered, preceded by three cripples and a Mother-Superior.
"I am ready," declared Bertram, calm but pale, "and resigned to my fate."
"I am happy to say," said the secretary, "that I am unable to accept your resignation. We recognise the fact that you are only a spy, and therefore cannot strictly be said to be bearing arms against us. We have therefore to apologise for having arrested you; but at the same time I would ask you kindly to bear in mind that at these times we have much to think about, and mistakes will happen. You are free." ”

“ We are not on the telephone at home, so it is my part of the arrangement to ring up Moggridge's when I arrive at my office, and order what we want; that is, whenever I remember. But unfortunately I own the most impossible of head-pieces. It's all right to look at from the outside, but inside the valves leak, or else the taps run. Consequently it generally ends in Joan's writing a note when I return home in the evening. Thus I was not altogether surprised when, one morning after breakfast, Joan asked me to repeat her orders. I did so. "That’s not what I said!" cried Joan. ”

“ I still cherish a blotting-book she gave me a few years ago, the cover of which is of wood decorated in pokerwork with a pelican swallowing a soused mackerel. I keep handkerchiefs in it, as the blotting-paper with which it is supplied must, I fancy, have come out of a post-office. It blots beautifully. ”

“ The previous day I had bought forty-five miniature Belgian flags at one time and another during the day. Each charming but inexperienced vendor had insisted on pinning my purchase wherever there happened to be an unoccupied space on my manly (thanks to my tailor) bosom. I remembered being conscious of a prickly sensation on each occasion, but I attributed it to rapturous thrills running about the region of my heart.
To make sure that my explanation was correct I went once again to the mirror and hastily counted my rash. ”

“ Round this catastrophe has been hatched a fiendish plot to hasten on my wedding with Gladys Paggs. Now, if there’s one thing a man ought not to be hurried over it is his wedding. It’s a very serious step he’s taking, and once taken he can’t undo it just as if it were a safety-pin or a home-made sock. ”

“ To buy silk pyjamas in cold blood has hitherto seemed to me to be sheer cynical extravagance; but now I feel that circumstances justify me in my action, for it would be a very sorry thing for me to encounter a burglar or cope with a fire clad in apparel that would not be up to the standard of the rest of my wardrobe. ”

“ Lastly, I am anxiously seeking some method whereby a listener can hand up a bouquet or heave a brick at the artiste who has specially delighted or annoyed him. At present, we have no means of expressing our emotions at head-quarters, and I am strongly of opinion that some device for laying our tributes at the artiste's, feet or for smacking them across his face is urgently needed. ”

“ But what, I ask, does the average man know of our more modern history? I’ll willingly stake your last half-crown that if I were to stop the first man I met in the street and ask him to tell me the cause of the Chartist Riots, he would unhesitatingly reply, “Lloyd George.” We take it for granted that so long as we can give within two places of decimals the dates of England’s stop-press news, we are at liberty to let the rest of the fruit go bad. ”

“ The Colonel continued—"I can say at once that what I am going to tell you is authentic, for the events actually happened to the man who told me—I daresay some of you know Bickerton?—or rather to an old friend of his, which, under the circumstances, is practically the same thing. Well, this friend of Bickerton's, whose name was—"
"Ings, Mullens, Doddridge, Finlayson," we all, except young Pitts, murmured sotto voce.
"... Petherby, lived at—"
"Ponders End, Woking, Cleckheaton, Norwich," we added in a similar manner.
"... Maidstone, and for some time had had in his employ a German governess." ”

“ Do you mean to tell me that I the should be expected to arrest a man of infinitely superior physique to my own with no other weapons than one armlet, one whistle, one truncheon and one notebook? Surely I should be allowed to run for the Mayor and get him to read the Riot Act? ”

“ For reasons of economy we get all our household requisites from Moggridge's Stores in the Tottenham Court Road, where we have a deposit account. Joan once worked out that by shopping in this manner we saved ninepence-halfpenny every time we spent one pound four and fivepence (her arithmetic cannot cope with percentages) , besides having our goods delivered at the door by a motor van. This is a distinct score off our neighbours, who have to be content with theirs being brought round by a boy on a kind of three-wheeled Black-Maria. ”

“ My crystal is a beautiful thing, best 24-carat referendum, and when not in use for listening purposes I wear it as a tie-pin or a centre-stud, and try to imagine I'm Jolly Soel. My cat's whisker is so true to nature that the mice won't go near it, while my tuning-in coil is capable of such delicate adjustment that it will even enable me to pick up a Marcel permanent wave. ”

“ If my work succeeds in its object of teaching men to think imperially from the time their early doors open, I shall feel that the time spent upon its production has not been uselessly filched from Greenwich Observatory. Or if it so influences Mr. Someone of Surbiton, or Mr. Nobody of Norbury as to cause him to take but a passing interest in Imperial affairs, I feel that I shall not do down to posterity unhonoured, though it is possible I may go unhung. ”

“ I've done nothing else but read notices ever since I got on this wretched reading-room. I know where I may smoke and where I may not. I know that I must beware of pick-pockets, and I know that I mustn't waggle my arms over the side-rails. ”

“ An aide-de-camp galloped into the tent, flung himself from his exhausted mule and saluted.
"In the name of our noble and august Kaiser," he began, "I have the honour to inform you that we have to-day captured 47 charwomen, 16 bedridden octogenerarians and 21 babies in arms."
"Zwanzigkeit!" exclaimed the General excitedly. "Place them in the forefront of our brave Bogey Head Hussars, and order the advance for ten o'clock to-morrow morning." ”

“ I answered, "I may not have occasion to draw my handkerchief from its usual place, whereas I always have to take my hat off."
"How will you remember the quantity?"
"Well, fourteen pounds make one stone, don't they? Before I remember the hard thing is a piece of sugar I shall think it's a stone."
Joan sniffed contemptuously.
"Then there's my ring," she continued, "the diamond and sapphire one that I left for resetting. The estimate they promised has not come, and besides there's the———"
"Hold on a minute!" I cried. "Just tie a piece of cotton round my married finger." ”

“ Gladys’s nose went red, then blue, then heliotrope. I sneezed seventeen times straight off the reel, and the man in front of me put up his umbrella.
“I think,” I said at last, “it will be quicker to go home and wait for the Park Lane mansion. Here we are catching quinsies and pneumonia, and malaria and calceolaria, when we might be sitting by the fire holding one another’s thumbs and masticating crumpets.”
“Never mind,” said Gladys. “Fancy, if we can one secure number five Acacia Gardens for our own! Won’t it be worth the waiting? ”

“ Owing to lack of education a famous novelist had confused his left hand with his right, with the result that when we were right-turned he had dealt me a terrific blow on the ear with the barrel of his rifle. ”

“ I thought you said 'quadrille.’ But I know the turns. Right turn, I turn to the right; left turn, I turn to the left; about turn, I just just about, but not quite; form fours, I form—excuse me, but how does one man form fours? ”

“ As I was really ill I knew that I had to get hot and cold alternately ever so many times. I did my best to live up to all the symptoms I had ever heard of. I tried to get delirious and talk nonsense, but I failed ignominiously. ”

“ This Saturday is Empire Day, the day when some of England’s youth may attempt to paint the town red in celebration of the even more noteworthy endeavours of our Empire-builders to dye the map a similar hue. ”

“ Amongst the presents I received at Christmas was a most acceptable one in the shape of a hot-water bottle from my Aunt Louisa. Not only was it in the shape of a hot-water bottle, but it actually was a hot-water bottle.
Aunt Louisa always gives useful presents ”

“ However, the bona fides of the facts is absolutely unimpeachable. It appears that—"
And here followed another version of the governess episode, identical in all respects with those of Bolsover and Uncle Jasper, save only that the police found a loaded revolver and a plan of Chatham Dockyard, and that the woman had been deported.
That same evening I dined at old Colonel Jevers’, and when the ladies had withdrawn to the drawing-room our host began—
"Talking about the war reminds me of a most extraordinary spy story I heard today about a German governess." ”

“ My aerial is solid wire, throughout, and very popular with the robins, three of which, as I write, are examining with keen interest two pairs of socks and my other shirt, which a myopic menial has just hung up to dry thereon in mistake for the clothes-line. ”

“ I explained, "is because I've never had a suit which would set it off as it deserves to be set off. However, if I can't help I won't hinder you. I only came in to say that I had done the second hole in two. ”

“ Pinkerton's personal assurance that his Pills are the Best. If I'd had more time I daresay I should have worked my passage to the notice you refer to. I haven't reached it yet."
"Look 'ere," said the conductor, thrusting me into the vacant smoker's seat and pointing with what I at first took to be a saveloy, but which upon closer inspection proved to be his forefinger, "what does that say?—
TO AVOID ACCIDENTS PASSENGERS
SHOULD REMAIN SEATED WHILE
THE BUS IS PASSING UNDER RAIL-
WAY BRIDGES.
There nar. Some of you blokes never look any farther than the end of your noses." ”

“ What we require is a broadening of the mind, even though it should necessitate a consequent readjustment in the latitude of our hats. And this can only be brought about by a thorough spring-cleaning of our old systems. ”

“ In the first place I am going to indulge in the hitherto undreamt-of luxury of a surfeit of dress-shirts. No one who has not experienced life on two dress-shirts—one in wear, the other in the wash—can quite understand what this will mean to me. Men like Sir Joseph Beecham, Mr. ”

“ It appears that the police called at the house one night recently and insisted on searching her room and her trunks. Mr. Ings protested; said they'd made a mistake, his word on her honour pledged and integrity, but all with no avail. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 84 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”

“ On one side I read that "... knocked out Submarine Snooks in the ninth round after a hotly-contested..." while on the other side I saw that "...condition offers the gravest anxiety to his numerous friends and..." ”