Various

“ No, not without a struggle. I scampered downstairs again and, wresting Harriet's bicycle from its owner's hands (Harriet is the housemaid and it was her night out) , was soon pedalling furiously after Edward.
The jumble sale was being held in the schools and all St. Gwithian was there, fighting tooth and nail over the bargains. A jumble sale is to rus what remnant sales are to urbs. I battled my way round to each table in turn, but nowhere could I find my poor dear old Gregory. Then I saw Etta, the presiding genius, and butted my way towards her. ”

“ Every time one of these hens brings five-pence-halfpenny worth of egg into the world it makes a noise commensurate with this feat. But I contend that even if your cow laid an egg every time it moos (which it doesn't, so far as my survey reveals) its idiotic bellowing would still be out of all proportion to the achievement. Even milk at a shilling a quart scarcely justifies such assertiveness.
My friend Mr. Hobson may, of course, have offended the animal in question, but even so I cannot see why I should have to put up with its horrible revenge ”

“ But fiction it is not, though in some of its disclosures it may be considered sensational enough. In this history of the invention of the Paravane Mr. Cornford hurls a lot of well-directed bricks at Officialdom, and concludes his book by giving us his frank opinion of the way in which the Navy ought to be run. It is impossible, even if one does not subscribe to all his ideas, to refrain from commending the enthusiasm with which he writes of those who, in spite of great difficulties, set to work to invent and perfect the Paravane. ”

“ The proposal to revive the old "yellow back" cover for novels, partly in the interest of economy in production, partly to attract the purchaser by the lure of colour, has caused no little stir in the literary world. In order to clarify opinion on the subject Mr. Punch has been at pains to secure the following expressions of their views from some of the leading authors of both sexes:—
Mr. J.M. Keynes, C.B., the author of the most sensational book of the hour, contributed some interesting observations on the economics of the dye industry and their bearing on the question. ”

“ Perhaps he likes the sound of mooing, or, conceivably, the cow doesn't like Hobson, and moos to annoy him. But surely it cannot mistake me for him. We are not at all alike. He is short and dark; I am tall and fair. This has given rise to a question in my mind: Can cows distinguish between human beings?
Anyway the cow worries me with its continual fog-horn, and I thought I would write to the owner (a small local dairy-farmer) to see if he could manage to find another field in which to batten this cow, where it could moo till it broke its silly tonsils for all I should care ”

“ My dear Sir,—You have in your entourage a cow that is causing me some annoyance. It is one of those red-and-white cows (an Angora or Pomeranian perhaps; I don't know the names of the different breeds, being a town mouse) , and it has horns of which one is worn at an angle of fifteen or twenty degrees higher than the other. This may help you to identify it. It possesses, moreover, a moo which is a blend between a ship's siren and a taxicab's honk syringe. ”

“ THE SWEET INFLUENCES OF TRADE.
[The revival, in certain quarters, of commercial relations with Germany has already begun to blunt the memory of the War. And now the proposal to open up trade with the Co-operative Societies in Russia, to the obvious benefit of the Bolshevists, who practically control the whole country, looks like an attempt to bring about indirectly a peace which we cannot in decency negotiate through the ordinary channels of diplomacy.] ”

“ You could scarcely have given a novelist a harder case than to prove the likeableness of Cherry Mart, as her actions show her in September (Methuen) , and I wonder how a Victorian writer would have dealt with the terrible chit. But Frank Swinnerton, of course, is able to hold these astonishing briefs with ease. Here is a girl who first turns the head of Marian Forster's middle-aged husband in a pure fit of experimentalism, and then sets her cap with defiant malice at the young man who seems likely to bring real love into the elder woman's life. ”

“ A sad story reaches us from South-West London. It appears that a girl of twenty attempted suicide because she realised she was too old to write either a popular novel or a book of poems.
The Guards, it is stated, are to revert to the pre-war scarlet tunic and busby. Pre-war head-pieces, it may be added, are now worn exclusively at the War Office.
At the Independent Labour Party's Victory dance it was stipulated that "evening dress and shirt sleeves are barred." This challenge to the upper classes (with whom shirt-sleeves are of course de rigueur) is not without its significance. ”

“ It is only the moo part of the cow that is annoying me; I like the rest of it. I am engaged in writing a book on the Dynamic Force of Modern Art, and a solo on the Moo does not blend well with such labour as mine. ”

“ I am naturally disorderly, but I don't run round and untidy people's houses for them."
Edward nodded. "I know; I know it's all wrong, of course; we should make a stand. Still, if we can buy Angela off, I think ... you understand?..." And he ambled off to his muck-room.
If anybody in this neighbourhood has anything that is both an eyesore and an encumbrance they bestow it on Edward for his muck-room, where he stores it against an impossible contingency. ”

“ Why do so many people sing in the bathroom?... The note is struck for them by the running water. While the voice sounds resonantly in the bath-room it is not half so fine and inspiring when the song is continued in the dressing-room. ”

“ Yet the men whose happiness she played with believed in Susie's representation of herself as quite well-meaning, and other women who saw through her liked her in spite of their annoyance; and—after all the other things I have said—I am bound, in sincerity, to admit that I liked her too. ”

“ Certainly those who think of marriage as a high calling, for which the vocation is love, will be as much annoyed with her as was her cousin Lucy, the idealist, at once the most amusing and most pathetic figure in the book. ”

“ There is, for instance, a cow that bothers me more than a little. It has chosen, or there has been chosen, for its day nursery a field adjoining my (really Hobson's) garden. It has selected a spot by the hedge, almost under the study window, as a fit and proper place for its daily round of mooing. ”

“ The London University Correspondent of The Observer has been deploring the fact that a number of professors and lecturers have lately resigned their poorly-paid academic positions in order to take up commercial and industrial posts at much higher salaries. ”

“ Nine years ago, however, Gregory and I first met in the "Bon Ton Parisian Clothing Store," in the main (and only) street of Gopherville, and I secured him for ten dollars cash. He is a mauve satin waistcoat, embroidered with a chaste design of anchors and [pg 69] forget-me-nots, subtly suggesting perennial fidelity. The combination of Gregory and me proved irresistible at all Gopherville's social events.
Wishing to create a favourable atmosphere, I wore Gregory at my first party in England. I learn that Aunt Angela disclaimed all knowledge of me during that evening. ”

“ It is a faithful record of Edward's artistic activities during the last thirty years, being decorated all down the front with smears of red, white and green paint. Here and there it has been repaired with puncture patches and strips of surgical plaster, but more often it has not. As Edward is incapable of replacing a button and Aunt Angela refuses to touch the "Limit," he knots himself into it with odds and ends of string and has to be liberated by his ally, the cook, with a kitchen knife. ”

“ Alexander Macfarlan?—may and doubtless will produce more formidable works of fiction in due course; he will scarcely write anything smoother, more sparing of the superfluous word or that offers a more perfect blend of sympathy and analysis.
Susie (Duckworth) is the story of a minx or an exposition of the eternal feminine according to the reader's own convictions. I am not sure—and I suppose that places me among those who regard her heroine as the mere minx—that the Hon. Mrs. Dowdall has done well in expending so much cleverness in telling Susie's story. ”

“ Red is especially to be avoided owing to its unfortunate appropriation by Revolutionary propagandists. Blue, though affected by statisticians and Government publishers, has a traditional connection with the expression of sentiments of an antinomian and heterodox character. At all costs the sobriety and dignity of fiction should be maintained, and sparing use should be made of the brighter hues of the spectrum. ”

“ The public will be thrilled to hear that a match has now been arranged between the two lady aspirants for the World's Patience Championship, viz., Miss Tabitha Templeman, of Bath, and Miss Priscilla J. Jarndyce, of Washington. To meet the territorial prejudices of both ladies the contest will take place in mid-Atlantic, on a liner. There will be no seconds, but Miss Templeman will be accompanied by the pet Persian, which she always holds in her lap while playing, and Miss Jarndyce will bring with her the celebrated foot-warmer which is associated with her greatest triumphs. ”

“ She could buffet her way through weather that no destroyer dare face, and mines had no terrors for her, for even if she were to bump a tin-fish it only meant one old trawler the less, and the Navy could afford it.
It was during these days, too, that she became known, though not by name, to readers of Punch, for her adventures and those of her crew were often chronicled in his tales of the "Auxiliary Patrol." And when she had seen the War through she said Good-bye to his pages and made ready to return again to the ways of peace. She was quite satisfied ”

“ I freely admit your right to turn all manner of beasts into your demesne; equally do I concede to them the right to play upon such instruments as Nature has handed out to them; but I also claim the right to be allowed to carry on my work undisturbed. The consequences would be to me, not to the cow, unless laryngitis supervenes. I love cows, and I greatly admire this particular cow, but not its moo ”

“ Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
In the war-after-the-war, the bombardment of books that is now so violently raging upon all fronts, any contribution by a writer as eminent as Lord Haldane naturally commands the respect due to weapons of the heaviest calibre. Unfortunately "heavy" is here an epithet unkindly apt, since it has to be admitted that the noble lord wields a pen rather philosophic than popular, with the result that Before the War (Cassell) tells a story of the highest interest in a manner that can only be called ponderous. ”

“ Phillida arrived up to time with her suit-case, a riding-crop and a large copy of D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales. She was not very communicative as we drove out, and I sought to draw her. You never, by the way, talk down to Phillida. Personally, I don't believe in talking down to any child; but to employ this method with Phillida is to court disaster. ”

“ I have discovered that our daily supply of milk is supplied by your herd, and on inquiry I find that our cook is not at all confident that a quart of the same as delivered to us would satisfy the requirements of the Imperial standard of measurement. ”

“ They're 'ard-boiled and absolutely stone-cold."
THE MOO-COW.
I was getting so tired of the syncopated life of town (and it didn't fit in with my present literary work) that I bribed my old pal Hobson to exchange residences with me for six months, with option; so now he has my flat in town, complete with Underground Railway and street noises (to say nothing of jazz music wherever he goes) , and I have his country cottage, old-fashioned and clean, and a perfectly heavenly silence to listen to. Still, there are noises, and their comparative infrequency makes them the more noticeable. ”

“ Edward, I should explain, is a philosopher by trade, but he beguiles his hours of ease with works of fiction borrowed from the cook.
Aunt Angela was of a different opinion. "Oh, yes, it has: both of you are gradually filling the house up with accumulated rubbish. If you don't surrender most of it for Etta's sale there'll be a raid."
My eye met Edward's. We walked out into the hall.
"We'll have to give Angela something or she'll tidy us," he groaned.
"These orderly people are a curse," I protested. "They have no consideration for others. Look at me ”

“ A highly refined, well-to-do and extremely picturesque Irish revolutionary, whom the author not very happily christens Count Kettle, has a daughter who secretly abhors romance and the high-falutin sentimentality that he and his circle mistake for patriotism. ”

“ The Major was in fine fettle as the war-worn old veteran, and Gwennie and Dulcie spurred him on with open and undisguised admiration.
"Now I'm in France," gushed Gwennie, "I want to see everything—where the trenches were and where you fought your terrible battles."
"Delighted to show you," said Slingswivel, bursting with pride at being taken for a combatant officer. "How about to-morrow?"
"Just lovely," cooed Gwennie. "We're showing at Petiteville in the [pg 65] evening, but we shan't be starting before lunch."
"That gives us all morning," said the Major enthusiastically. ”