Various

“ Rage overtook me. I disinterred Aunt Emily's own gramophone and records. I packed the horn anyhow. Such of the records as seemed difficult to get in I broke into small pieces and shoved in corners. I nailed the packing-case up with the same nails and addressed it in the boldest and fiercest of characters to Aunt Emily and caught the railway-van on the rebound. The deed was done.
I laughed "Ha, ha!" I laughed "Ho, ho!" I would teach Aunt Emily to return me my own vase.
Next morning came a letter. As I read it perspiration burst out on my forehead. Language the most awful burst from my lips. ”

“ In "The Frigate Bird" the rapscallions who seize a schooner and, without any knowledge of navigation, sail the high seas, are full-blooded adventurers; but there is all the difference in the world between the character of the educated Carlyon and that of the simple-minded and ignorant Finn. This yarn occupies nearly half of the book, and the other stories should give food for thought to those who allege that no Englishman can write a short story. Apart from one charming little tale of a haunted French château Mr. STACPOOLE allows us to bask here in the eternal summer of Pacific skies. ”

“ I am nothing like a soldier. I cannot click my heels as other men do. I try, Heaven knows how I try, but all the C.O. hears is a sound as of two cabbages being slapped together. And my word of command! The critics say it is like a cry for help in a London fog.
My haversack contains no trace of any Field-Marshal's baton. You are aware that every private soldier's haversack is issued complete with "Batons, one, Field-Marshal (potential) , for the use of." ”

“ Boydon-Spoute got up—you know how that woman loves to hear herself talk—and said that such demands were outrageous. (It's easy for her to raise objections. She has somehow paralysed her two servants into staying with her for over ten years.) She pointed out that under such conditions the servant would have more freedom than the mistress; and to allow the working classes to thus get the upper hand was nothing short of encouraging Bolshevism in the home. ”

“ I spoke so well that a cook-general offered herself to me as soon as the conference was over. She comes in on Monday.
Yours in transports, DODO.
Puddleford.
DEAR MOIRA,—Emma, the new maid, has arrived. Harry is as relieved as I am and was quite cheerful while I was dressing the gash he had inflicted on his hand while chopping wood. Isn't it strange that men can never give the slightest assistance in the house without getting themselves hurt in some way?
Emma promises to be a treasure. If mistresses would only show a little humanity there never would be any servant trouble at all. ”

“ People who protest that a stork doesn't bark like a dog are told that that part is put in to make it harder. I find that the greater part of the mystery kept by The Mystery Keepers is put in to make it harder. The Abbey at Clynch St. Mary has a "coise" put on it by the last Abbess, and every direct male heir expires punctually on his twenty-first birthday. The actual agency is a poisoned ring concealed in the frame of a portrait of the malevolent Abbess and is in the custody of the Otway family, who enjoy a prescriptive if nebulous right to be stewards of the property. ”

“ If a man is brought before me for summary jurisdiction a lump rises in my throat and I want to cry. I am always sure he didn't mean to do it. As for military law, I am shaky on the fines for drunkenness, and I don't feel at all sure whether death at dawn or two extra fatigues is the maximum punishment for having one string of the hold-all longer than the other when on active service. ”

“ It has been suggested to me that the time has come for a comprehensive investigation of the interesting language known as Bablingo. Materials for this are ready for use in every home that still possesses a nursery with an inmate not more than two years of age. I must premise that it is the inmate's mother and the inmate's nurse, not the actual inmate, who use the language. Some day, no doubt, there will arise an investigator who will reduce to order and catalogue the inchoate efforts of an infant to make itself understood by talking. ”

“ Just how or why the Otways—noble fellows, we are given to understand—carry out the deceased Abbess's nefarious wishes with such precision and despatch is not explained. Anyway the mother of the last victim, who has found out the secret, steals the ring, murders the Otway of the period, and retires to a lunatic asylum after her son has himself stolen the ring from her workbox and poisoned himself into the next world. That finishes it. The ring retires to a museum and the proper people marry each other. ”

“ Thenceforward he held the sympathy of the House, whether he was describing the difficulties of the Peace Conference, or reconciling the apparent inconsistencies of its Russian policy, or inveighing against the attempts of certain newspapers to sow dissension among the Allies. "I would rather have a good Peace than a good Press" was one of his most telling phrases, and it was followed by a character-sketch of his principal newspaper-critic which in pungency left nothing to be desired. ”

“ The red-haired girl, in spite of a curiously detached and supercilious air, as who should say, "Take it or leave it; it concerns me not in the least," which at first rather alarmed me, was really quite kind and helpful.
"Something in jade-green that Moddom admired? A hat perhaps?"
No, I knew it was not a hat. I murmured something about twelve guineas. This seemed to be enlightening.
Ah, yes, a jumper probably. They had had a jade-green jumper at that price, she believed. If I would sit down for a moment she would send someone to see if it were still unsold. ”

“ And yet it was a simple letter—from my little cousin Dolly.
"DEAR BOB," it said,—"I sent you a yellow-and-red vase for Christmas. Your Aunt Emily gave it me as a wedding present. It is not my style and must be yours, because I have seen one like it in your house. Perhaps you collect them. Don't tell your Aunt, but I really couldn't bear it. I forgot to put any note in the box. Happy Christmas. ”

“ I said. "It gives you more of the atmosphere of the South Seas than any other work. And Louis BECKE—you must have read him?" I continued.
No, she had not. She read very little. The last book she had read was on spiritualism.
"Not even CONRAD?" I pursued. "No one has so described the calms and storms of the Pacific." ”

“ The War Office, the Board of Trade and the Zoo have formed a Triple Alliance for a campaign against rats. As a result of this it is said that quite a number of the more timid rodents are afraid to go out alone after dark.
The Society of Public Analysts has been asked by the Food Ministry to define a sausage. ”

“ On Christmas Day I received a letter from her which I opened with cold and clammy fingers.
She thanked me for sending back the gramophone. She was sorry I did not care for it. She was now sending it to a hospital for shell-shocked officers. And she wished me a Blithe Yuletide on a penny card. And she was very sincerely mine.
Anyone can have her for aught I care.
Unsuccessful House-huntress. "REALLY ONE SEES SO FEW OF THE SORT OF MEN WHO USED TO BUILD HOUSES. WHY DOESN'T THE GOVERNMENT RELEASE MORE CORDUROY TROUSERS AND ENTICE THE LABOURERS BACK?" ”

“ Which is to say that What Not wanders out of the key. But what on earth does that matter if one is made to laugh quite often and to smile almost continuously at a very shrewd piece of observation, whimsicality and tempered malice? ”

“ You see, when Emma has had her two hours free daily, her hour-and-a-half off for dinner, with half-an-hour for other meals, every evening out as well as two afternoons a week, you would be surprised what little leisure is left to her for the housework. ”

“ She is charming. All through the War she has been with her husband in the South Seas. London is a new place to her."
Mrs. Blank did not look too promising. She was pretty in her way—"elegant" an American would have called her—but she lacked animation. However, the South Seas...! Anyone fresh from the Pacific must have enough to tell to see soup, fish and entrée safely through. ”

“ The Metropolitan police are trying to establish the identity of a man who can give no account of himself and who knows nothing about the War. The fact that he was not wearing red tabs only adds to the mystery.
"Some men dance the Jazz dance," says a contemporary, "because it is stimulating." ”

“ You don't go about the house at eleven o'clock on a cold Spring morning fancifully arrayed in a pale blue hat with white feathery things sticking out all round it, unless there is a particular reason for so doing.
"I think it's a delightful hat," I said, "and suits you splendidly. But I thought you never wore blue?"
"I don't," said Nancy; "that's what makes me rather doubtful. I didn't really mean to buy it at all. I went in to Marguerite's—you know, that heavenly shop at the corner of the square"—I nodded ”

“ In Graduation (CHATTO AND WINDUS) there is an essential femininity about Miss IRENE RUTHERFORD McLEOD'S style and general attitude that imposes limitations; it is a quality that shows itself not only in her plot, but in her characters, the three reputed males who figure therein being as fine examples of true womanliness as you need wish to meet. Frieda was the heroine (a name somehow significant) ; and of the trouser-wearers, the first, Geoffrey, was a cat-like deceiver, who fascinated poor Frieda for ends unspecified, pretended (the minx!) ”

“ Every home, for instance, has its own rules for pronunciation. Of these I do not for my immediate purpose propose to take cognisance.
Here, then, is a short Bablingo examination paper for the use of mothers and nurses. I do not at present see my way to including fathers.
(1) On what principles is the language which you use in your nursery formed? Did you (a) acquire it, or (b) find yourself unconsciously in possession of it?
(2) Give a list of the characteristic features which distinguish Bablingo from the dialects employed by Prehistoric Man. ”

“ I suppose there are people who do not mind kicking a total stranger round the room to the strain of cymbals, a motor siren and a frying-pan. I fancy the lady expressed a desire to stop, but as her words were lost in the orchestral pandemonium I realised that as long as the dulcet chords continued conversation was impossible ”

“ A correspondent who has a latchkey would like to hear from a gentleman who could fit a house to it.
A food inspector at Chatham admitted that he could not tell the difference between No. 1 grade tinned beef and No. 2 grade. The old plan of calling one grade Rover and the other Fido seems to have been abolished since the War. ”

“ In moving the second reading of the Aliens Restriction Bill the HOME SECRETARY said that, while national safety must be the first consideration, no unnecessary hardship should be inflicted on our foreign immigrants. But his proposal that the Government should rest contented with its present powers for another two years met with little favour from Members whose knowledge of history seems to date from 1914. In the opinion of Mr. BOTTOMLEY, who led the Opposition, every alien was prima facie undesirable ”

“ It couldn't possibly happen as here told, but that matters little, since, so far as I am concerned, a "Birmingham" tale can always well afford to dispense with credibility.
I am distinctly grateful to ROSE MACAULAY for What Not (CONSTABLE) . It brought me the pleasantest end to anything but a perfect English Spring day. She has wit, not so common a gift that you can afford just to take it for granted; she knows when to stop, selecting not exhausting ”

“ Wednesday, April 16th.—A crowded House, the Peers' Gallery full to overflowing, the HEIR-APPARENT over the Clock, and the new Editor of The Times among the representatives of the Press—the PRIME MINISTER could have desired no better setting for his speech upon the labours of the Peace Conference. His original intention was to hold his forces in reserve and invite his critics to "fire first," but, as none of these gentlemen seemed to be particularly anxious to go "over the top," Mr. ”

“ LLOYD GEORGE is engaged (if the image is permitted) in fighting beasts at Ephesus it is pleasant to think of his colleagues deciding upon the relative merits of crackers and Catherine-wheels, flares and bonfires, church-bells and steam-sirens, as means for the expression of the national joy. ”

“ We trust our contemporaries are not in a conspiracy to represent the gallant aviator as a hot-air man.
"Presently, when aviation becomes a commonplace, the fares will come down."—Daily Dispatch.
That's just what makes us so nervous.
[pg 320]
PEACE TERMS. BEING SOME LETTERS OF MRS. PARTINGTON TO HER SISTER.
[Conferences between mistresses and servants are being held in various parts of the country to discuss terms of peace in the domestic world.] ”