Various

“ Peter was very good about it. He bore this chilly reception stoically, deprecating any desire to wake the sleeping beauty—deprecating, in fact, any interest in her or her cot whatsoever. Ignoring the efforts of the Big People to fix his attention by pointing him directly at the main object of the tea-party (they should have known that babies like looking the other way always) he remained passively interested in a fascinating brass knob, the while getting his gloves into a satisfactory state of succulence before the Big People should take it on themselves to remove them. ”

“ And yet, when the great moment arrived and the strong silent man was borne into the room, round-eyed and expectant, he found his hostess already tired out with her first tea-party and fast asleep. He could scarcely believe his eyes; nor could Judy's scandalised father. ”

“ Revolution begins, but a woman prophet steps in and switches it off in an unusual direction. The Ethurians perfect among themselves that fellowship which is the nice ideal behind many nasty manifestations in the real world, and, when next they are invaded by neighbouring nations anxious to use them as an excuse for belligerency, they resolutely stick to their guns (only the metaphor is most unsuitable) , refuse to find any cause of quarrel with their "foreign brothers," and finally persuade them to abandon the ideals of war, so that peace on earth becomes a reality at last. ”

“ I have long held the belief that Saturn is inhabited by a type of being possessing a cylinder-like body composed of an unresisting pulp, a high dome-shaped head filled with gas, and long tentacles, bristling with electricity, through which all sensations are emitted and received. These tentacles would act as an ideal telephonic apparatus, so that there is every likelihood of Mr. Dottle's having actually received a message from Saturn. ”

“ At our own stations we have frequently noticed mysterious ringings, which we have hitherto ascribed to carelessness on the part of operators; but Mr. Dottle's letter opens up a new world of possibilities. The Daily Mandate is to be congratulated on the prominence it has given to the subject, which has already had the effect of sending Tromboni shares up several points."
Mr. G. Shawburn: "It is an insult to Creation to assume that ours is the only populated planet. Of course Saturn is inhabited, but, unlike our own world, by people of intelligence. ”

“ When he wants to inform you of certain episodes in the hero's past career, or let you know what he is doing when he is out of sight, he throws the main stage into darkness and lights up a smaller one on which he gives you as many as six little tabloid plays within the play. ”

“ Though I quite agree with Miss Evelyn Sharp and the Ethurians that it is love that makes the world go round, I am not so sure that either hers or theirs is the best way of advocating their common cause.
You may remember an original and striking book of papers about the theatre under the title of Buzz-Buzz. Its author, James E. Agate, has now followed it with another, called, rather grimly, Responsibility (Richards) . ”

“ Fred Kerr, who pronounced the scheme to be "all Tommy rot." With the exception of one character—the devoted slave—the lightness of the dialogue, mildly cynical, was due not so much to its wit as to the absence of ponderable stuff. The easy trick, so popular with the modern playwright, of letting the audience down in the middle of a serious situation was illustrated by the hero when, being in deadly earnest, he tells every woman in turn that she is the only woman he has ever loved. ”

“ Only a burning passion and stealthy bars of chocolate could have sustained Frederick through the next few days. To sit down to breakfast with a healthy appetite and refuse his egg and rasher put the biggest possible strain on his constancy. His task was made doubly difficult by the scheming of Percival, who was constantly inciting Binnie to procure fresh delicacies. ”

“ Most generous are the praises which the Admiral bestows upon his subordinates; his venom he reserves for just the chosen few who, no doubt, can bear it. Apart from personal recriminations, of which some of us must be more than tired, these two portly volumes are of real historical value. ”

“ Playwright Mr. Roi Cooper-Megrue, and principal players Miss Fay Compton, the wife; Mr. Stanley Logan, the friend, and Mr. A.E. Matthews, the husband, made a first-rate thing of two-thirds of Tea for Three.
The wife is without blemish physically or morally. The husband is faithful with a single-minded fidelity in thought, word and deed that looks (and, I am assured by equally innocent victims, is) positively deadly. The friend "frits and flutters" about in a distinctly casual, not to say polygamous, mood, but has one sacred place in his untidy heart in which the wife is enshrined. ”

“ Binnie puffed his pipe severely, being of the tough fibre which enables Mess Presidents to endure. Frederick, who had been silent, rose from his seat, heaved a distressing sigh and left the room.
"There's the moral that adorns the tale, you—you public danger!" continued Percival, indicating Frederick's retreating figure. "Look to what a condition that once bright youth has been brought by your endless stews and curries." ”

“ Dottle's remarkable letter, published in our issue of yesterday, suggesting that inhabitants of Saturn have been endeavouring to communicate with the earth by means of wireless telephony, has created profound excitement in scientific and other circles. To a representative of The Daily Mandate a number of well-known men expressed their views on the matter, which will undoubtedly stimulate further investigation into the momentous possibilities of this epoch-making revelation. ”

“ In these circumstances the proprietors of The Daily Mandate have much pleasure in announcing that they will pay the sum of ten thousand pounds to the first man, woman or child in the British Empire who can produce evidence of having received an intelligible telephonic message from Saturn, and a further sum of one hundred thousand pounds to the first person to send a message to that planet and receive a clear reply. ”

“ Godley and Noyes was a mere waste of time and energy. They might just as well protest against the existence of an extinct volcano or the skeleton of the brontosaurus. The real danger to be faced was the intrinsic subjectivity of the early and mid-Georgian poets, of whom the Chairman had been so powerful and consistent a supporter. ”

“ A Tralee man charged with shooting a neighbour said he had no desire to break the law. It seems that he mistook the man for a policeman.
A French physician declares that a gift for yawning is one of the most valuable health-assets. This should be good news for revue-producers.
"Honesty," says Dr. Ingram, "is the best policy after all." All the same some of our profiteers seem to get along pretty well, thank you.
The egg-laying competition promoted by The Daily Mail has proved a great success. ”

“ The need of such an institution has long been clamant, and the visit of the Ukrainian choir has brought matters to a crisis. At their concert last week several strong women wept like men at their inability to pronounce the title of one of the most beautiful items on the programme—"Shtchedryk." ”

“ In the matter of mental advancement Saturn can make rings round the earth. All the same I don't for one moment suppose that Mr. Dottle knows what he's talking about."
The Postmaster-General: "Nothing is known in the Department under my control of telephone calls having been received from Saturn or the neighbourhood. I do not propose for the present to take any steps in the matter."
The Lord Mayor: "Saturn is a long way off." ”

“ The old plan of offering a burglar a cigarette and asking him to take a chair while you telephone to the police is not now so successful as in the past. The best plan is to tackle the fellow right away. ”

“ The American people should not be called upon to finance the requirements of Europe in so far as they result from failure to take these necessary steps."— Mr. Carter Glass, Secretary of the United States Treasury. ”

“ Owen Nares could hardly hope to satisfy the exigent demands of adoration in the part of young Carrington. Who, indeed, could sustain his reputation as a figure of romance when addressed as "Arthur-John"? Mr. Fred Kerr, who played Martin Carrington, the cantankerous uncle, cannot help being workmanlike; but he was asked to repeat himself too much. The best performance was that of Miss Marion Lorne, in the part of the hero's one devout lover, Fancy Phipps; her quiet sense of humour, salted with a slight American tang, kept the whole play together.
O.S.
"Tea for Three." ”

“ Suitable premises for the College have been secured in the heart of Mayfair and a competent staff of instructors has already been appointed, who, with the aid of gramophones, will be able to train the students to perfection in the requisite command of the most explosive gutturals, labials and sibilants. ”

“ You will find in them not only a record of actual achievements, often carried out under desperately difficult conditions, but also of projects which for one reason or another were never fulfilled. "Why don't we try to land on the Belgian coast?" ”

“ She must be an awfully unselfish girl to go without bacon. I don't see how we are going to spare two rooms, though, unless she's willing to count the kitchen as one. Forty-five pounds a week must be a printer's error. ”

“ Signor Tromboni, the pioneer of wireless telephony: "We are making [pg 105] arrangements to test Mr. Dottle's interesting theory, and for this purpose are erecting a special installation on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is several thousand feet higher than Lavender Hill. ”

“ Gool-gur!" All is peace and chuckles. Hand-in-hand they survey their mothers. "Our mothers, yours—mine. Ha, ha—he, he—goo!"
The inner thoughts of the two babies may be hidden from me (I accept the punishment) , but I know—I know what the two mothers are thinking of. Twenty years hence, a paragraph in The Times: "Peter—Judy—" Oh, you fatuous mothers!
L.
"Public interest remains unabated in the remarkable occurrences at the poultry-house farm at Brickendon, where spirit rappings in the morse code have been heard for weeks past.... ”

“ The third part is a series of hospital vignettes. They do not attempt to be too cheery, but they have the stamp of realised truth. "Nostalgia," the second part, is in another mood—recalled memories of the beauties of a loved land and of dear common things affectionately seen. To those who dare look at war with open eyes and who take pleasure in sincere and beautifully-phrased writing I commend Mrs. ”