Various

“ A special constable is allowed to bore his beat-partner in moderation. I have no doubt that I bore mine. In return I expect to be moderately bored. In fact a partner who flashed through all the four hours might attract Zeppelins. But Granby! In human endurance there is a point known as the limit. That is Granby.
Years back some Government person in a moment of fatuity made Granby a magistrate. Magistrates should learn to condense their wisdom into sentences. Granby beats out his limited store into orations. ”

“ When I walk through the city and see, as I pass the houses of my humbler brethren, the neat respectable little altars and the good old well-used wine-presses (which I never do without breathing a little prayer, uncantingly, straight from the heart) , I say, "It's a foul calumny to pretend that the people are not all right. They are, Zeus bless 'em! All they are waiting for is a lead. ”

“ And so the happy future that surely no authoress and most certainly no male reader could have the heart to refuse to so delightful a Susannah is available to complete a picture touched throughout with singular grace and charm. In particular the little snap-shots of two ideal family households, the one that includes the heroine, and another, much humbler, which she enters as an honoured guest, go to make this volume, all too short though it is, one that I can recommend with quite unusual pleasure and confidence. ”

“ There was his servant on the far side of the road, and there was his breakfast in the servant's hand, all standing to attention, as they should do when a column of troops was passing....
The remainder of that Brigade suggested no agreeable thoughts to Captain Jones. He saw nothing magnificent in the whole and nothing attractive in any detail of it. It was in fact just a long and tiresome sequence of monotonous and sheeplike individuals who really might have chosen some other [pg 5] time and place for their silly walks abroad. ”

“ Five hours is a great space out of a man's life, but that was precisely the time taken by Mr. ARTHUR COLLINS to present his Puss in New Boots, so that I had leisure to study the book of the words, sold shamelessly to the unsuspecting (of whom I was not one) , and compare the rough sketches of our three standard authors of the Lane, Messrs. COLLINS, SIMS and DIX with the version, by no manner of means final, of the comedians. A pantomime book is on the whole rather a mournfully unsubtle document. The thing is frankly not meant to be read when the blood is cool. ”

“ A wonderful servant is that servant of Captain Jones; but then they all are. Valet, cook, porter, boots, chambermaid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coal-heaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made) , clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most human kind. Jones came across him in the earlier stages of the War, not in England and not in France. ”

“ I always find the Lane big scenes and ballets more full of competing colour and restless movement than of controlled design. But the Hall of Fantasy, with its spiral staircases reaching to the flies, was an ambitious effort crowned with success. ”

“ The announcement that the Queen of HUNGARY's coronation robe is to cost over £2,000 has had a distinctly unpleasant effect upon the German people, who are wondering indignantly how Belgium is to be indemnified if such extravagance is permitted to continue.
It is stated that as the result of the drastic changes in our railway service the publication of Bradshaw's Guide may be delayed. At a time when it is of vital importance to keep up the spirits of the nation the absence of one of our best known humorous publications will be sorely felt. ”

“ German Song and German Art will in future find a home in German sport." This new patriotic programme has been greatly applauded in the Press, the Berliner Tageblatt observing that the culture of soul and body must proceed pari passu, with the result that "not only will the German sportsman become a beautiful body, but a beautiful soul as well. Every club must have its library, not filled with sensational novels, but with works of art. ”

“ I was meditating with sympathy upon the many victims of Sergeant Wally's borrowed sarcasm when he spoke again.
"When I first came up to London from the depôt," he said, "I'd a brother, a corporal in the same battalion. You know as well as I do, Sir, that as a matter o' discipline a corporal doesn't have any truck with a private soldier, excepting in the way of duties, and my brother didn't speak to me for the first week. Then one day he called me up and said, 'It ain't the thing for me to be going about with you, but as you're my brother I'll go out with you to-night. ”

“ Hatchways (SIDGWICK AND JACKSON) is one of those happily comfortable, just right houses with a hostess, Ernestine, whom everybody loves and nobody (save her husband, and he not in this book) makes love to. Holmer, on the other hand, is the adjoining ducal mansion with a distinctly uncomfortable dowager still in command who can't even arrange her dinner-parties and fails to marry her sons to the right people. Perpetually Hatchways is wiping the eye of Holmer, and this touches the nerve of the great lady. ”

“ How do they make a living if the flag never comes down? Are they always on their way to lunch, even late at night? Are they always out of petrol? I can understand and admire the independence that follows upon overwork; but when was their overwork done? The only tenable theory that I have evolved is that Lord NORTHCLIFFE (whose concurrent rise [pg 7] to absolutism is another phenomenon of my absence) has engaged them all to patrol the streets in his service.
Sometimes, however, a taxi-driver, breaking free from this bondage, answers a hail ”

“ Austria has forbidden the importation of champagne, caviare and oysters, and now that the horrors of war have thus been thoroughly brought home to the populace it is expected that public opinion in the Dual Monarchy will shortly force the EMPEROR to make overtures to the Allies for a separate peace. ”

“ The County Council has after mature deliberation decided to set aside ten acres of waste land for cultivation by allotment holders. It is this ability to think in huge figures that distinguishes the municipal from the purely individual patriot.
In anticipation of a Peace Conference German agents at the Hague have been making discreet inquiries after lodgings for German delegates. The latter have expressed a strong preference for getting in on the ground floor. ”

“ He has one upstairs room for office, bedroom, sitting, reception and dining room. His meals are brought over to him by his servant from an estaminet across the road over which his window looks. The other morning he was standing at this window waiting for his breakfast to arrive. It was a fine frosty day, made all the brighter by the sound of approaching bagpipes. Troops were about to march past, suggesting great national thoughts to Jones and reminding him of the familiar details of his own more active days. Jones prepared to enjoy himself. ”

“ Well, after immense difficulty, Mark and I, bound for the West, induced a driver to accept us as his fare, and took our places inside.
"He looks a decent capable fellow," said Mark, who prides himself on his skill in physiognomy. ”

“ Granby knocked at the door and it opened.
"I have brought your wife home in a state—" he began.
"Ain't I 'ad a nice young man to take me for a walk while you've been sitting guzzling by the fire?"
"You been taking my missis for a walk," said the indignant husband.
"I am a magistrate and a special constable—" began Granby.
"More shame to you. It's the likes of you 'oo disgraces the upper clarses."
"Shut the door, Bill," said the lady. "Don't lower yourself by talking to 'im. I never could abide a man as smelt o' gin meself."
The door slammed and Granby strode towards me. ”

“ Sergeants, Corporals, Lance-corporals and men have not altered. The Sergeants relax on the march into something almost bordering on friendliness towards their victims; the Corporals thank Heaven that for the moment they are but men; the Lance-corporals thank Heaven that always they are something more than men, and the men have the look of having decided that this is the last kilometre they'll ever footslog for anybody, but while they are doing it they might as well be cheerful about it. ”

“ He proposed to have his breakfast at the window, when it came as come it soon must, thus refreshing his hungry body and his contemplative mind at the same time. The second battalion, as the first, were fine fellows all, suggesting the might of the Allies and the futility of the enemy's protracted resistance. Again the comic relief was provided by the travelling cuisine, reminding Jones of the oddity of human affairs and the need of his own meal, now sufficiently deferred. ”

“ If Granby delivers to prisoners in the dock the speeches he recites to me the Government ought to intervene. No man however guilty ought to have a sentence and one of Granby's orations. He might be given the option. ”

“ GEORGE HANKIN's moving picture of The Lady of the Black Horse (a name always to be honoured among our Allies) , catches the spirit of the heroic tale and prepares you for what the Lady herself has to tell. Mrs. STOBART is no sentimentalist; fighting and the overcoming of obstacles are, one would say, congenial to her mettle ”

“ The Duke of BUCCLEUCH has given permission to his tenants to trap rabbits on the ducal estates. It is hoped that a taste of real sport will cause many of the local residents, though above military age, to volunteer for similar work on the West Front. ”

“ At any moment he may come down on us and devastate our quiet picturesque little demes which we all love so well and get disgustingly drunk on our wine. So give us the word, ÆSCHINES AND Co.—not many words, please, but just one word—and we'll tackle him as he ought to be tackled and put a pinch of Attic salt on his tail. We don't want this PHILIP, but we do want a fillip of our own. Meanwhile, are we downhearted? I don't think.
(Another powerful philippic by Mr. Demosthenes next week.)
What to do with our Prisoners.
"Private Jones, V.C., single handed captured 102 Germans ”