Various

“ Dear Sirs,—My fire was not what you would call an outbreak. It was essentially a quiet affair, attended by neither Fire Brigade nor Salvage Corps, but just the family (like being married at a registry-office, don't you think?) . My khaki slacks were the only articles injured. As I am now going about without them, you will realise that no time should be lost in settling the claim. ”

“ Practical soldiers and engineers were enthusiastic about them, and the Bosch quaked in his trenches or ran; but even so late as the autumn of 1917, after General Foch (as he was then) had said, "You must make quantities and quantities; we must fight mechanically," one stout little company of obscurantists bravely defied the creed of Juggernaut until the irresistible logic of its successes in the field crushed them remorselessly under the "creeping grip." And that company, of course, according to Sir Albert Stern, was the British War Office. ”

“ A chap like that makes suffering a pleasure and is a great comfort in a home like mine, where a sick bed is the only sort you are allowed to lie in after 10 a.m. Without the fellow's ready sympathy I doubt if I should secure any sleep at all. One gets no assistance of that kind from dentists, although they give you more pain in ten seconds than a doctor does in ten years.
No dentist ever sees me home after the slaughter, orders me a diet of chicken breast, pêche Melba and champagne, or warns my family that I am on no account to be disturbed until lunch. ”

“ Whether it is due to war-weariness or not the fact remains that the British public view with apparent apathy the new crises which arise day by day to threaten their happiness and maybe to change the whole course of their life. ”

“ Another thing: dentists should not be allowed out loose about the streets. They exercise a blighting influence. You are strolling along in the sunshine, head high, chest expanded, telling some wide-eyed young thing what you and Haig did to Ludendorff, when suddenly you meet the dentist. You look at him, he looks at you, and his eyes seem to say, "What ho, my hero! ”

“ Arterial sclerosis, glycosuria, follicular tonsillitis and, above all, sleeping sickness I can bear with fortitude—that is, I feel sure I could—but toothache, no! I am not ashamed of it. Every brave man has at least one weakness. Lord Roberts's was cats. Achilles' was tendons. Mine is toothache (Biographers, please note) . When my jaw annoys me I try to propitiate it with libations of whisky, brandy, iodine, horse-blister and patent panaceas I buy from sombreroed magicians in the Strand. If these fail I totter round to the dentist, ring the bell and run away. ”

“ Mrs Marden. Miss Irene Vanbrugh.
At this juncture Mr. Pim drifts in again to correct an error of memory. The name of the gentleman who succumbed to the herring-bone was not Tellworthy (he must have got that name into his head through hearing it mentioned as that of Mrs. Marden's first husband) . It was really Polwhistle—either Henry or Ernest Polwhistle; he was not quite sure which. Everything is thus restored to the status quo ante, except that Marden, in a spasm of generous reaction, feels himself morally bound to abide by the new conditions that his wife had laid down. ”

“ It will be just the same with you. You will go down into the basement and pretend to mistake the flour for the salt, and the cook will love you for ever. It's all done by kindness and incompetence."
"I suppose it is," she said doubtfully.
"And then there's amusements," I went on. "We will have Charles in once or twice a week. No servant who has ever heard Charles trying to sing would prefer a night out at the cinema or the skating-rink. ”

“ As in his unacted play, The Lucky One, he gives evidence of a desire, not unfrequent in humourists, to be taken seriously. But he knows by now that brilliant dialogue is what is expected of him, and he thinks, too modestly, that he cannot afford to dispense with it for long at a time. The result is that, after stringing us up to face a tragic situation, he is tempted to let us down with light-hearted cynicisms. ”

“ A man who spends his life climbing into people's mouths and playing "The Anvil Chorus" on their molars with a monkey-wrench, who says, "Now this won't hurt you in the least," and then deals one a smart rap on a nerve with a pickaxe—such a man cannot expect to be popular. He must console himself with his fees.
I do not love dentists, I repeat, but I am also not infatuated with toothache. ”

“ I answered as casually as I could. "Er—by the way, do you know we're insured?"
"Considering that I've paid the premiums regularly while you were away, I should think I ought to know."
"Of course I shall put in a claim for the slacks," I murmured.
"But how can you?" she asked, and wondering looked at me. "I read the policy once, and as far as I remember there's nothing whatever about khaki slacks in it."
"Do you know what this policy is?" I exclaimed, brandishing the document impressively. "It's a Comprehensive Householder's policy. ”

“ But however diligently the chroniclers may search amongst the accumulated records at Whitehall there will still remain one outstanding performance, one shining example of courage and endurance of which no trace can there be found; for it was never officially known how Reginald McTaggart upheld the honour of the White Ensign in the Gulf of Lyons.
Reginald does not in the ordinary way suffer from excess of modesty; indeed he has been known to hint that on more than one occasion it was primarily due to his efforts that the world was eventually made safe for democracy ”

“ He now reports—what he had vaguely imagined himself to have mentioned in the first instance—that Tellworthy had met his death at Marseilles through swallowing a herring-bone. The Second Act closes with a burst of jubilant hysterics on the part of Mrs. Marden.
But the situation is only partially relieved. True, the old husband is dead all right, but the Mardens' marriage is still bigamous; they have been living all this time in what would be regarded in the eyes of Heaven (and, still worse, the county of Bucks) as sin. ”

“ Marden, highly conscientious, takes the orthodox view that his lawless marriage must be nullified. His wife, though horrified at the resurrection of her impossible first husband, permits herself to recognise the humorously ironic side of things. Mr. Pim, fortunately located in the immediate neighbourhood, is sent for that he may throw further light on the painful subject of Tellworthy's revival. ”

“ There was no escaping the fact that they were, as Suzanne reminded me, my sole surviving pair of khaki slacks, and that I should certainly have to get a new pair before returning to the Depôt; for these were obviously beyond wear or repair.
"Well, anyhow I've three weeks to get them in," I said as lightly as I could. "My leave isn't up till the end of the month."
"Men's clothes are terribly dear just now," remarked Suzanne pensively. ”

“ A fine discretion has given a noble dignity to a record through which shines the unquenchable human spirit. One passage, full of affectionate discernment about London, will cause a flicker of just pride in everyone who is authentic Cockney, whether by birth or adoption. ”

“ The result was an urgent wireless message to Athens recalling Reginald at once. There was to be no delay.
"Are you prepared to start immediately?" asked the Vice-Admiral, when he had briefly outlined the situation.
Reginald saluted briskly.
"I don't quite know how you'll go," continued the Vice-Admiral. "We haven't an armed ship sailing West for a week. There's a little Greek trading steamer leaving for Marseilles to-morrow morning, but I'm afraid you would find her very incommodious. Would you care to risk it?" [pg 25]
"I start in the morning, Sir," said Reginald tersely. ”

“ It is no uncommon sight to see men laughing merrily as they drag along their heavy merchandise, or singing as they swing their anvils in a manner almost reminiscent of the historic village blacksmith."—Provincial Paper. ”

“ If the problem is one that can be solved by dollars no doubt they will come well-equipped for enforcing American opinion on the British public. We can only hope that international relationships will not be strained by their deliberations ”

“ Morgan is correct both in his facts and surmises it is satisfactory to think that the War must have obliterated the boredom which provoked such excesses, and one need not be a fanatical opponent of physical punishment to hope that such forms of tyranny will never again be tolerated as a matter of custom. ”

“ Another element in the industrial activity of Japan, which is brought forcibly home to the Westerner, is the obvious pleasure that the Japanese people take in doing the work which is allotted to them. ”

“ But his wife (if that is the word for her) , being of a more subtle nature, determines to make profit out of the situation. She points out to him that she is at present the widow Tellworthy and that she must be wooed all over again, and can only be won on her own terms. These include a recognition of the niece's engagement (has not the young artist an equal right with Marden to a speedy marriage with the woman of his choice?) and a concession to her taste in futuristic curtains.
A DROPPER OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES.
Mr. ”

“ We learn that the sub-committee investigating this matter of the thirty-one pennyweight ball have consulted both the manufacturers and the professionals. A ray of hope is given by the statement, made on good authority, that "the manufacturers have adopted a very reasonable attitude." The country should be grateful for this. But, on the other hand, "the professionals want full freedom in the selection of balls." ”

“ One never sees photographs of family dentists standing on mantelpieces heavily framed in silver; and, though The Forceps presents a coloured supplement depicting a prominent ivory-hunter with every Christmas number, there is, I am told, no violent demand for it outside the Profession. ”

“ From the official who is interested in officialdom to the Infantry officer who is interested in tactics, from the mechanical expert who can appreciate the technical details of diagrams to the child who revels in faultless photographs of hair-raising monsters ("I may read it, mother, mayn't I, when I've unstickied my fingers?" was the way I heard it put) , everybody, I think, will find plenty to attract him in Sir Albert Stern's finely illustrated Tanks 1914-1918 (Hodder and Stoughton) . ”

“ In accordance with the terms of your policy you are only entitled to recover such proportion of the value of the loss or damage as the total insured bears towards the total value of the contents—i.e., one-half.
Myself. Two guineas is exactly one-half of four guineas, the present cost of slacks. ”

“ They only let you talk at all in order to get your face open, and then into it they plunge their powerful antiseptic-tasting hands and you lose something. I never go near a dentist without paying the extreme penalty. ”

“ Equally grave, the organising secretary of the professionals was even less communicative, for he spoke in his native tongue, and the Scotsman among the reporters who undertook to translate his remarks was unfortunately unable to make himself understood.
The Prime Minister's Private Secretary has issued to the Press a statement that Mr. Lloyd George is keeping in close touch with Walton Heath and the progress of events, but that at present no useful purpose would be served by Government interference. ”

“ Offers are invited in a contemporary for a large quantity of tiger skins. People should first make sure that the rest of the tiger has been properly removed before purchasing.
The composer of an American ragtime song is to have a statue erected to him in New York. ”

“ The kilt department, I shall not
Be found competing. She can have the lot.
O.S.
THE DOMESTIC PROBLEM.
"Well, I've been to see three of them now," she said. "The first is at Shepherd's Bush—"
"What pipes!" I ejaculated. "What music! What wild ecstasy!"
"—four hundred yards from the Central Tube, to be exact; and there's a large roller skating-rink next door. You never rolled, did you? Three sessions daily, the advertisement says." ”

“ Tanks were born at Lincoln, and rightly so, for did not Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides mostly come from this region?—and the main theme of this book is to show how much more formidable an obstacle they found in the files and registries of Whitehall than in the trenches and wire-entanglements of Flanders and France. Parents they had and sponsors innumerable. ”

“ Tellworthy) , except that they did not see eye to eye on the small question of his niece's early engagement to a young artist and on the still smaller question of futuristic curtains. Then came Mr. Garraway Pim, a doddering old gentleman, with a thin falsetto voice and a loosish memory, but otherwise harmless. He arrives with an introduction from Australia and casually lets fall a tale of a fellow-passenger with the unusual name of Tellworthy, from which—and other incidental evidence—Mrs. Marden gathers that her first husband (an ex-convict) is still alive. ”