Various

“ The architect will choose a builder and between them they will build your house during the next six years, which you will spend in lodgings. It is a long time to wait, certainly, but you will find plenty of amusement in occasionally counting the number of bricks that have been laid since last time. And then in 1926, as you smoke your pipe in your study and gaze out of your hexagonal window, you will not covet the Paradise of Adam, the first gardener. ”

“ We had the room to ourselves.
"Dull part of the world this," he remarked. "By the way, what about that malaria of yours?"
"What about it?" I observed shortly.
"Comes and goes rather suddenly, doesn't it?"
"Very," I agreed. "It's one of the suddenest diseases ever invented."
"'Invented' is a good word," said Toby. "You're a bit of an inventor, aren't you?"
"What do you mean? Are you venturing to imply—"
"I imply nothing. I merely state that this morning Suzanne came down to breakfast in her travelling-clothes. ”

“ But it was raining hard, and I abominate week-ends; and Suzanne's relatives are well-meaning folk who always want to arrange your day for you.
"No, Suzanne," I said, "emphatically, no. I can't think of a convincing excuse at the moment, so you'd better say I'll be delighted to come. But tomorrow morning you'll get a wire from me announcing that I'm sick of the palsy—no, malaria, which they know I sometimes get—and that'll give you a good ground for returning yourself tomorrow. Your three minutes is up. Good-bye." ”

“ Well, I have read the novel carefully, even I trust generously, with the unhappy result that (knowing how elusive and individual a thing is laughter) I can hardly bring myself to say how dull I found it. But the fact remains. It is all about nothing—a preposterous little plot for the identification, at a wildly inhuman reception, of an anonymous dramatist, revealed finally as the journalist hero who was nearly sacked for writing the play's only bad notice. In my day I have met both editors and critics; even dramatists. ”

“ The odd thing is that if the ordinary person were to be asked what Mr. Sadrock was famous for, he would probably reply, For his devotion to Homer and the Established Church. But the joke is that when I was with him in 1902 he was frivolous on both these subjects. It was, I remember, in the private room at the House of Commons set apart for Prime Ministers, to which, being notoriously so socially couth, I always had a private key—the only one ever given to a woman—and he was more than usually delightful. ”

“ We fear our contemporary has, after all, been caught triptyching.
[pg 176]
HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE.
The only way to build a house properly is to employ an architect to build it for you. All the best houses are built by architects—any architect will tell you that. But of course you will always be allowed to say that you built it, so it will come to the same thing.
The walls of an architect's office are covered with drawings of enormous public buildings which the architect has erected in every capital of Europe. ”

“ There is now no excuse for any workman being late at a strike.
A centenarian in the Shetlands, says a news agency, has never heard of Mr. Lloyd George. We have no wish to brag, but we have often seen his name mentioned.
Professor Petrie's statement that the world will only last another two hundred thousand years is a sorry blow to those who thought that Chu Chin Chow was in for a long run. Otherwise the news has been received quietly.
"Nothing useful is ever done in the House of Commons," says a Labour speaker. He forgets that the cleaners are at work in the building just now. ”

“ Poor Percival's got one of his sudden attacks of malaria and can't come. So, if you don't mind, Aunt Lucy, I'll catch the eleven-fifteen back.' Aunt Lucy was very sympathetic and went up to help her with her packing, which was accomplished in a surprisingly short time; as a matter of fact she had practically done it all before breakfast. Just as she was going to drive off to the station up came another telegraph-boy. That was your second wire, and Suzanne didn't seem any too pleased to receive it. I'm not at all convinced," concluded Toby, "that your wife would make her fortune on the stage." ”

“ So, having wired to Suzanne: "Malaria false alarm only passing effects of overwork coming by the one-thirty Percival," I found myself at tea-time being nursed back to health on mulberries-and-cream administered by the solicitous hands of Aunt-by-acquisition Lucy.
"Well," I said to Suzanne a little later as we strolled in the direction of the fig-trees, "how did it go off—my first wire, I mean?" ”

“ Competitors to leave starting post in ordinary attire, enter tent, emerge in bathing costume, strike tents, sprint over shingle to the sea, swim to a given point, return, pitch tents, dress and run to winning-post. ”

“ The duel between fathers and sons is as old as the everlasting hills, and the rebels of one generation become the fogeys of the next. I have no doubt that in moments of expansion the young Marcellus alluded to his august parent as "faba antiqua." ”

“ Sadrock was alive when we had our talk, and I am sorry if I have misdated it. The talk remains. May I add that it is very astonishing to me to find people with the effrontery to suggest that they knew their illustrious relatives better than strangers could. Everyone is aware that the last place to go to for evidence as to a man is to his kith and kin. ”

“ Bates is a kind of absentee landlord so far as we are concerned, for he is the butcher at Framford, four miles away, and only brings the proceeds of his butchery to us on Tuesdays and Fridays, which is the reason why on Mondays and Thursdays one usually has eggs and bacon for dinner. ”

“ I inquired weakly. "Tell me the worst."
"All through breakfast," continued Toby with relish, "she was restless and off her feed, and appeared to be listening for something. Afterwards nothing could induce her to leave the house, and I myself caught her surreptitiously studying the time-table. Every time a step was heard coming up the drive she started to her feet. At last a telegraph-boy arrived. Before anybody could discover whom the wire was addressed to, Suzanne snatched it from the boy, tore it open, placed her hand in the region of her heart and exclaimed, 'Oh, how provoking! ”

“ In the interval you can compose a letter at your leisure, informing him that in view of the high cost of materials, etc., etc., you have decided to postpone the building of your house, but you desire to build at once a gardener's cottage (so that the gardener can be getting the grounds into order) containing one dining-room, one drawing-room, one study (with one round window) , three bedrooms, one circular bathroom (with one circular bath) and one tool-shed to hold one tool. ”

“ For really, when you come to analyse the lecture, what thin and bodyless stuff it is. Let me at once pay tribute to my colleague's scholarship and learning, to the variety of his citations. But, after all, anyone can buy a Quotation Dictionary and quote bits out of Swinburne. That surely— (see Freidrich's Crime and Quotation, pp. 246-9) —is not the whole task of a Professor of Poetry.
Such a man, if he is to earn his pay, must be able—
(a) to show how poetry is written ”

“ Altogether The Man with the Rubber Soles is a most excellent story of its kind, a real novel because plot and treatment are alike new, and one can safely prophesy that when Sir Alexander Bannerman produces his nextling he will find a large and appreciative circle of readers waiting to welcome it. ”

“ It is no good teaching a man to slope arms if you are unable to slope arms yourself, because a moment will come when he says, "Well, how the dickens do you slope them?" It is no good professing lawn-tennis and saying, "Top-spin is imparted by drawing the racquet up and over," and so on, if, when you try to impart top-spin yourself, the ball disappears on to the District Railway. ”

“ But, I ask myself, are people really like that? Or rather are there enough of these unnaturals, extremists, moral Bolshevists or whatever you like to call them, to justify their presentation as a modern type? Always an optimist, I think not; and I notice that the author gives a no less clever and a much more convincing impression of the normal, settled and pleasant characters who are incidental to the plot. ”

“ Not many people buy stamps at the post-office, but, as you get bacon and spades and buckets and jam there, it is a pretty popular emporium, and I think my list of events should prove an attractive one. ”

“ The police and various civilians between them—there is no super-sleuth to weary us with his machine-like prowess—run the thing to earth, partly by skill and partly by good luck, and the civilians in particular have a stirring time doing it. Bombs, automatic pistols, even soldiers and a submarine, assist quite naturally in sustaining the interest. And a pleasant little romance is really woven into the plot, not just pushed in anyhow. ”

“ Two or three hundred yards behind the sandhills, which seem to be deserted but are really full of sudden hollows, with embarrassing little bathing tents in them, the village sports have just been held. ”

“ Those students who have attended my lectures more regularly than others—and I am sorry there are not more of them—will do me the justice to remember that I have put forward no theory of writing which I was not prepared to illustrate in practice from my own work. ”

“ The dear old thing has the heart of a child."
Maybe, but I have my doubts. Suzanne's aunt insisted on my staying a week as a preventive against a nervous breakdown, and the tonic with which she herself dosed me several times a day was the most repulsive beverage I had ever tasted, effectually ruining the savour of figs and mulberries. ”

“ Since however an inaccuracy always has a day's start and is never completely overtaken, while in course of time the pursuit ceases altogether, the greatest danger is not immediate but for the future. Let us imagine a case. ”

“ But I warn them that, unless the just claims of youth to economic and intellectual independence are speedily [pg 169] acknowledged, the children of England will enforce them by direct action of the most ruthless kind. The brain that rules the cradle rocks the world. ”

“ Materials must be collected from the village shops, brought down to beach and spread out at winning flag. For the purpose of this competition the sports must take place on a Thursday, when the weekly visit of the greengrocer coincides with one of the bi-weekly visits of the baker from Framford. Eggs and butter must be obtained at the Mill Farm, and you can do the rest at the post-office.
6. Fifty Yards Hat Race.—Under five. Fathers to be seated in a row on beach. Competitors to remove fathers' hats, run twenty-five yards, fill hats with sand, return and replace hats. ”

“ It is to be hoped that, now that their unhappy country is in the throes of the most ghastly terror of her history, the irreconcilable elements in the Irish nation will see an all-compelling reason for exercising the demon of strife.—Indian Paper. ”

“ Tallest competitor to have deepest station. Open to all ages and sexes. Feet to be lifted clear of the water at every stride. Properly raced this is a fine frothy event, productive of the greatest enthusiasm, especially if the trousers come unrolled. ”

“ Owing to the lack of proper accommodation in my nursery my literary labours are carried on under the greatest difficulties and hampered by constant interruptions from my nurse, a vulgar woman with a limited vocabulary and no aspirates. ”

“ Competitors to start barefooted in rock-pools and race at the sound of a dinner-bell to nurses, have feet dried, put on shoes and stockings and run to row of buns at top of beach. First bun down wins. ”

“ That lecture was prepared on May 27th; my colleague's lecture was delivered on June 5th. It is clear to me that in the interval—by what discreditable means I know not—he obtained access to my manuscript and borrowed the idea, thinking to cloak his guilt by specious talk about the Italian Canzone. The device of offering stolen goods under a new name is an old one, and will help him little; the jury will know what to think. ”

“ Pamela, aged nineteen, is an ultra-modern young woman. She hates politics of all shades, but adores Scriabine, Stravinsky and Benedetto Croce. She smokes cigars, wears male attire and has a perfect command of the art of ornamental objurgation.
(2) Gerald, aged twenty-three, is war-weary; resentful of all authority; "bored stiff" by any music save of the syncopated brand, and he divides his time between Jazz-dancing with the dismal fervour of a gloomy dean and attending meetings of pro-Bolshevist extremists.
(3) Anthony, aged twenty-six, is a soldier, a "regular" ”