Various

“ Bolaire Hillock thought that a great deal too much fuss was being made about ink. The Board of Trade was, of course, an ass; that goes without saying (ça va sans dire) ; but it is childish of literary men to come there and pretend to be nonplussed. Let them rather show themselves superior to such trumpery legislation. As an old campaigner he could tell them what to do. When he was an artilleryman in France, and writing a series of articles on the Reformation at the same time, he mixed an excellent substitute for ink out of the ashes of his pipe and claret. ”

“ Frey indeed looked so very wooden that in my foolish ignorance I was tempted to protest. But the astonishing fact is that Frey was not only wooden in appearance, but in actuality. How then could he have for wife a slip of a sixteen-year-old maid that you may have met before in Mr Hewlett's romances? This however is the real story, which (pardon me) I do not mean to tell. If it is no tremendous matter, it will at least please an idle hour, which will be almost time enough for you to enjoy every word of it. ”

“ They had mistaken my laughter for that bitter disappointed kind you get in the theatres.
"I know," said Lillah; "we'll play Germans, and Uncle James can pretend he's a sergeant."
Yes, they were sorry for me. The table was pushed into the window and became a waterworks of importance.
The invidious part of the alien enemy fell to Lillah. It was admitted that she could glare best. "Besides," said Phyllis, "Lillah can make growly noises come up from her tummy." ”

“ Where another man might do Swedish exercises, ride, walk, eat or play golf, he, Mr. Pennit, wrote. (Hear, hear.) It might be an attack on British stupidity; it might be a eulogy of Mr. Asquith; it might be a description of the arrival of a ton of coal at an auctioneer's private residence in Handley and its transference to the cellar and the discovery that there was one hundredweight one stone short. Whatever the theme, there were ten thousand words in any case, and unless he could write them daily he was lost. The tragic thing was that he could write only in ink and with his own hand. ”

“ This is Phyllistian for men of middle age.
"Not allowed," I said. "At the Bar you are either a junior or a reminiscer."
"What's that?"
"It's an illness that attacks people who aren't really famous."
Phyllis stared. "Like measles?"
I nodded.
"Oh," cried Lillah eagerly, "do the reminiscers go all pink?"
"They ought to," said I.
There was a silence. The round eyes of Phyllis were full of suspicion.
"Daddy said," she remarked slowly, "that he did law."
"So he does," I answered.
"Well, what's that, then?"
Small girls ask questions in two words which wise men must write books to answer. ”

“ I said as I sat down.
"The special ones," nodded Phyllis with profound pride.
"Magnificent," I murmured. "He has at last justified his choice of the law as a profession."
"Tell us," said Lillah, with the air with which one speaks of a self-made man who has just appeared in the Honours List—"tell us how Daddy started."
"He went to the Bar," I said.
"Bar?" echoed Lillah.
"Why, yes," I said; "it's a place where people wait."
"Like a station?"
"Only the trains don't always come in. ”

“ The tribunals, he declared, were disregarding the appeal of the widow's only son; the Yellow Form, of which the late Home Secretary takes the same jaundiced view as he did of the Yellow Press, was being sent out indiscriminately to all whom it did not concern: the War Office had issued a misleading poster; and everywhere men were being "bluffed" into the Army. He himself would have been inundated with correspondence if he had not had the happy inspiration of diverting the flood into Mr. Tennant's letter-box. Passionately he called upon the Government not to imitate Germany's brutality. ”

“ Lord Penge said that one of the purest pleasures of life was writing to The Times, and how could that be done if there was no ink? Some people doubtless could use pencil; but he personally could not. Others had typewriters or dictated to typists, but that was beyond him. ”

“ To him ink was more precious than radium, for it enabled him to express his thoughts and thus come into intimate relationship with his fellow-beings. It might be within the knowledge of the meeting that he was in the habit of contributing every week an article on the War to the Sunday papers. It was not on tactics, but on some subject of spiritual interest connected with the War, and he had reason to believe that thousands, he might say millions, of his fellow-countrymen and fellow-countrywomen found it helpful. ”

“ The women of France seem to have accomplished to admiration what we in England are only beginning to understand. Quietly, almost automatically, Frenchwomen have slipped into the men's vacant places and carried on the work of the country. ”

“ The Chairman, having first read a number of letters apologising for absence, one of which was, of course, from Lord Southbluff, who specialises in this epistolary form, proceeded to pour scorn on the Board of Trade's decision. How can the Board of Trade, he asked pointedly, know its business as well as we do? If it hopes, by curtailing the supplies of ink that come to England, to make room for the more important necessaries of life, it is mistaken. There is nothing more important than ink. (Cheers.) Without ink what are we? (A voice: "Not much.") Without ink, how can advertisements be written? ”

“ The industry and resourcefulness of the average Frenchwoman are proverbial, but the author ascribes the peculiar readiness they have displayed at the present time largely to compulsory military service, as well as to the Frenchman's habit of discussing his work with his wife and daughters and awakening their interest in it. ”

“ Among all forms of human endeavour none was nobler than putting one word after another. (Applause.) That is what Shakspeare did. (Hear, hear.) Always with the assistance of ink. (Cheers.) And what would England be like without Shakspeare? (Renewed cheers.) Had Mr. Runciman thought of that? He (the speaker) would venture to say he had not. In any case ink must be saved. (Loud applause.)
Mr. Harry Austinson, Editor of The English Revue, rose to protest against the Board of Trade action. To put an embargo upon ink was, he held, nothing less than an outrage. ”

“ A milk deliverer 31 years of ago, who applied for exemption, said his father was an Atheist, his mother was 'all the other way about,' and his brother was a Socialist, and if he went away there would be war at home. ”

“ Mr. Acland, who proposed it, did not help his case by remarking that personally he regarded racing as a low form of sport. The fact that some of the horses have been leased by the War Department to Lord Lonsdale for racing purposes "on sharing terms" [Pg 172] caused Mr. McNeill to inquire whether Mr. Tennant would act as the Ministerial tipster; and Mr. Hogge, who displayed a knowledge of racing which will, I fear, shock the unco' guid of East Edinburgh, thought it ridiculous that Ministers should preach economy in the City and start a racing stud at Westminster. ”

“ Tennant said, "If there was a large force of troops in Egypt, as to which it is undesirable that I should make any statement, it is quite conceivable that the presence of a hundred and seventeen Generals might be necessary." After all, if every one of them were just a Brigadier-General, they wouldn't require more than half-a-million men to keep them occupied. ”

“ Lillah turned, her eyes ablaze with worship. Phyllis trembled with excitement. As I sat down I couldn't help thinking that we grown-ups are just a little absurd. There is more than one thinks in the relativity of things.
Adoration? George was never going to get anything like it again in this world. My mind mused on ambition. Why, the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself——
The door-handle turned and I heard the small voice of Phyllis in my ear.
"Mummie says," she whispered, "we can't all be great."
Nice little maid!
Then we all lined up to receive the Sergeant. [Pg 165]
Mother. ”

“ It seems a clear case for exemption.
Applicant hastened to explain that he did not ask for exemption as he felt that his first duty was to his country. He would like, however, a week in which to say good-bye to his relations by marriage. The request was granted, the Chairman stating that the attitude of Small, who was sacrificing everything for duty, did him the greatest credit.
HAVEN.
On the famous site of The Star and Garter Hotel at Richmond Hill, a Home is to be built for Soldiers and Sailors totally disabled by the War. ”

“ Journalist of the name of Criddle—Jabez Wilberforce Criddle. He used to run the Gardening section of The Sunday Helio. Then the chap that was responsible for the 'Legal Advice' was called up, and Criddle got his column as well as his own. Next, the 'Poultry Gossip' man went, and they gave Criddle that, and when a week later the 'Cookery Notes' woman took up V.A.D. work he got her share too. He struggled along gamely enough until 'Auntie Gladys,' who ran 'Our Baby' column, became a tram-conductress; but, when they passed him that, his mind went, and the proprietors sent him here. ”

“ Geoffrey Pyke has such a fine yarn to spin of his foolhardy proceed [Pg 176] ing in walking right into the eagle's beak as correspondent for an English newspaper, at the end of September, 1914, and (after some months' solitary confinement in Berlin and his transfer to the civilian prisoners' miserable internment camp at Ruhleben) walking right out of it again, that one can forgive him for spreading his elbows for a piece of expansive writing when he was safe home. To tell the truth he writes extraordinarily well ”

“ Kaiser (reading English news of wood-pulp restrictions) . "Himmel! They'll think more than ever of their precious 'scraps of paper'!"
Kipling Revised.
"Men of all castes had rallied to the Flag, and truly we had witnessed the truth of what the poet told us. 'The East is West and the West is East.'" Surrey Mirror. ”

“ I never expected to live to hear the Bank of England described in the House of Commons as a useless institution. In Mr. Healy's opinion, "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," like the other who lived in a shoe, has too many children, and her attempt to get 190 of them exempted from military service moved him in a moment of "vituperative irrelevance," as Mr. ”

“ It was essential to go over every road at various times in opposite directions. That confused him, and though I disliked the deception I had to resort to it, with the result that Frank finally accepted me at my own fictitious valuation as a person who did not properly know his own mind.
But it took him some time to get into my ways. Once we spent twenty minutes on a small stretch of road leading from the parade ground to a railway bridge. I wanted to cross the bridge and Frank did not. I took him towards the bridge and he took me back towards the camp. This happened thirteen times. ”

“ Country Doctor. "Oh, never mind. We're only going home, and I've got the constable safe in bed with lumbago."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Mr. Maurice Hewlett's latest volume, Frey and His Wife (Ward, Lock) , suffers from the defect of being in reality a long short story puffed out to the dimensions of a short novel; and in consequence, even with large type—most grateful to the reviewing eye ”

“ From a description of a new enemy aeroplane:—
"The whole machine is armoured, and the supper part is shaped like a reversed roof." Provincial Paper.
Trust the Germans for looking after the commissariat. [Pg 166]
AN EMBARGO ON INK.
Great Public Meeting.
Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, having stated that the Government was following up its restrictions on the importation of paper by drastic new rules concerning our supplies of ink, a public meeting of protest was immediately called. Mr. ”