Various

“ Wherever he sees one of the new citizens, or whenever he hears fresh stories of their address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. "It's almost worth having a war," he will say, "to prove what stuff our women are made of." ”

“ With a thin wallet of notes and no weapon but a fountain-pen he travels a couple of thousand miles or so and back, faring on his own feet, steaming down stretches of navigable river, taking the rail for a space, begging a lift in some prehistoric conveyance, right from the Caspian, by magical many-hued Bokhara and storied Samarkand that holds the bones of Tamerlane, on through the flower-starred highlands of the Seven Rivers Land to the Irtish river and Siberian plains, sleeping under the stars or in a Khirgiz tent of felt, or a riverside cave—surely a happy careless man. ”

“ He holds you in his grip from the moment he starts, and there is no relaxation from then to the finish. Each little story is an admirable piece of literary architecture. If I had to class them I should place "Drill" and "The Signallers" by themselves in the first division of the first class. I will hint only one fault: it is too great a tax on one's credulity to be asked to believe that a French officer could have addressed an English private as mon beau Anglaise. Otherwise I have nothing but praise for Action Front, though I am still as far as ever from knowing who wrote it. ”

“ And it was a cruel stroke of bad luck that into this quiet fold, teeming with woolly lambs of all ages in their crisp fleeces of fivers and tenners, there should have intruded (1) a vulgar blackmailer who knew all about her lurid past, and (2) a K.C. with a deadly memory for the details of causes célèbres. And (3) it was a heart-breaking coincidence that the youngest lamb of all should have borne such a striking resemblance to the lady-wolf's dead lover that she wanted to embrace him instead of fleecing him ”

“ The Lords, less fettered by formality, were able at once to pay their tribute to the great dead and to hear his praises sounded by a Statesman, a Soldier and a Friend.
The Speaker is no Alexander seeking fresh worlds to conquer. Invited to rebuke an Irish Member for wearing a Sinn Fein badge he flatly declined, with the remark that he had nothing to do with the clothes Members chose to wear. In refusing to set up as an arbiter elegantiarum I think Mr. Lowther is wise, for the post in these days would be no sinecure. Time was when the House was the best-dressed assembly in the world. ”

“ As for the myriad nurses in the hospitals here and abroad, who guard the precarious flame of life and dress wounds and cheer the sick—they do nothing new. That has always, been woman's mission. But of course there are countless more nurses than there were two years ago, before the cataclysm. ”

“ But he had an exceptional chance as an actor and grasped it firmly.
The part of Mr. Rigg, blackmailer, the mystery of whose personality, aggravated by a penchant for "hovering" with intent, constituted a darker "Riddle" than that of "Mrs. Lytton," was played by Mr. Oswald Marshall with admirable ease and reserve; and Mr. Stanley Drewitt's Professor Beveridge, an antique lamb who confided to the wolf his views on "discontinuous variations," and by way of reprisal was touched by her for a couple of ten-pound notes, had a pleasant air of naïve sincerity. ”

“ Ain't 'e a little patriarch?"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks)
I am a little puzzled as to the authorship of Action Front (Smith, Elder) , which is stated to be written by Boyd Cable, author of Between the Lines. First of all there was a Mr. Boyd Cable, but he didn't last, for he soon turned into "Boyd Cable" without the Mr., the inverted commas indicating, I suppose, that this was a mere nom de guerre. At or about the same time there was an author known as "Action Front," whose writings were hardly to be distinguished from those of "Boyd Cable." ”

“ Even after you have begun to suspect that the bearing of her own and other people's burdens had grown to be a hobby with her, you never lose faith in her delightfully vivid and radiant personality. The danger of drawing so fascinating a character is that when she is off the stage one's attention is apt to wander to the wings ”

“ G. Faber that the world was upside down, and that the sooner they realised it the better. But even he thought the Government were using up these dollar securities rather fast. They ought to treat them as "pearls of great price" and not cast them away for American bacon.
Mr. McKenna was not at all in a conciliatory mood, and startled some of his opponents by reminding them that under the Defence of the Realm Act the Government could take any kind of property at prices far below the market value. ”

“ At Colmar a merchant has been sentenced to a fine of £5 by a German court-martial for repeating in a public restaurant the well-known joke about ordering a sandwich at a Prussian railway buffet, and being served with a neat ticket between two bread tickets. ”

“ On another I found a mere boy. His job, I gathered, was to help the cook and wash up. "The War," he considered, "'adn't made no sort o' difference to 'im. His job went on much the same."
Well, I took off my hat to him—I couldn't resist it. Never have I been more thrilled at the thought of the indomitable spirit of our race. No difference! ”

“ In the group round the fire that night Grimes was again working on his piece of metal.
"'Eard from 'is girl at last," said Private Brant to the others, indicating Grimes by a jerk of the head. "'Dear 'Arold, when are you goin' to send me the bewtiful ring you're makin'?' she says."
"Ring, is it?" said Parker. "Looks as if it would be more like a kid's 'oop, when it's finished. She must 'ave a finger like two thumbs. Grimes, old son, you can take it from me she won't give you a blanky thank-you for it. ”

“ The very heart of British sea power, the epitome of modern naval war, is to be found in a little port somewhere on the —— Coast. Here cluster just ordinary little one-funnelled trawlers, grimy little every-day vessels. These are the real thing. They come and go, these trawlers, in and out, back and forth, up and down, round and round ”

“ Punch has been struck by the sight of a new and capable type of citizen, always in some responsible position and always alert and efficient.
He has found her, in various incarnations, everywhere. If he goes by the railway she sells him his ticket. When he passes through the gate she clips his ticket. When he leaves the station she collects his ticket. ”

“ But this was before he knew as much about cocoa as he does to-day. At sixpence a pound, it seems, the imbiber of cocoa would pay a fraction more to the Exchequer for every cup that he consumed than would the drinker of tea. Such a dreadful anomaly in our otherwise equitable fiscal system could not, of course, be tolerated. So the tax has now been fixed at 4-1/2d., and Messrs. Cadbury and Rowntree are grateful and comforted.
Finding the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this yielding mood, Mr. [pg 427] Lough thought he would try to get rid of the tax on sugar. But here Mr. McKenna was obdurate. ”

“ We used far more sugar than any other European nation, and must be forced to reduce our consumption. Someone, remembering, perhaps, how a month ago Mr. McKenna had smiled approval while his colleague, Mr. Chamberlain, defended Prohibition against Tariffs as a means of lessening consumption, suggested that sugar-consumers should be rationed instead of being taxed. But Mr. McKenna, without turning a hair, maintained that in war-time to raise the price by taxation was the only way. Political economy, once relegated by Mr. ”

“ The scheme offers an opportunity to every woman to prove her gratitude to the men who have defended our honour and our liberty, and to assist in raising a fund which will not compete with, but be supplementary to, the recognised agencies for the care of our sailors and soldiers, particularly those who have been wholly or partially disabled on active service ”

“ I shall not venture to predict the length of The Riddle's run; but I suspect that the public may rise superior to the judgment of the critics. Plays that are purely actors' plays have a habit, however familiar their formulas, of coming home to the British bosom ”

“ His [pg 423] object, more moral than humane, and more histrionic than either, was to confound the wretched woman, to expose her identity and so, by a sudden disillusionment, to restore her lamb to the fold. The end, as it turned out for the general good, did actually seem to justify the means; but at the time it was not a very edifying exhibition.
"One likes to show the truth for the truth ”