Various

“ Men who had been a moment before estimating the price of a diamond-ring turn their thoughts to two-stroke motor-bicycles, and girls decide that love in a cottage is an overrated pastime—especially when you can't get the cottage—and decide to wait a few years till a house or two has been built.
That is the chief function of the trombone—to pursue those who are wandering in the clouds and bring them to earth with a crash. ”

“ The plot (which I must not betray) is excellent. From the moment when Julius, the narrator, making his leisurely way to the wedding of Lucinda, is passed by her alone in a taxicab going in an opposite direction, the interest of the intrigue never slackens. Into an epoch of rather "over-ripe" and messy fiction this essentially clean and well-ordered tale comes with an effect very refreshing and tonic. Anthony Hope's characters as ever are vigorously alive; in Lucinda herself he has drawn a heroine as charming as any in that long gallery that now stretches between her and the immortal Dolly. ”

“ A kind of panic seized me, for on Friday evenings I make the Academy of Music as it were a half-way house on my way home. Under the cleaner's kind and beaming glance there was nothing to do but put them into the attaché case in which I carry my music and try to believe that, wonderful man as he is, even my Professor wouldn't be able to see inside it when it was shut, in fact that it only rested with me to be quite sure that in his presence I only took out Chopin and not the gentleman who was interested in farming. ”

“ But how would that moderate opinion be able to overcome the terrorism of the secret societies, which, as Lord Bryce told the Peers, have dogged every Irish patriotic movement since the eighteenth century and which will admit no compromise with the hated invader? ”

“ The ridiculous tradition of government by K. C.'s has for some time past been broken down, and quite a number of our present Ministers have never taken silk in their lives, except from cocoons in a match-box. There is at least one business man in the Cabinet, and even the Lord Chancellor, great lawyer though he is, is almost equally renowned as a horseman. ”

“ They would honestly rather be at work than just playing round. All the same, no one guessed before the War what they, and many other kinds of dogs, were able and willing to do for their country in emergency on guard and sentry duty, and, most of all, as battle-field messengers. Moreover it took the genius of the man who of all the world knows most of their mind to discover it. ”

“ For a time little encouragement came from the Irish Peers. Lord Dunraven moved the rejection of the Bill, on the ground that there could never be permanent peace in Ireland until moderate opinion was behind the law, and that moderate opinion would not be satisfied without full financial control. Lord Willoughby de Broke spoke as an unrepentant Unionist, and Lord Clanwilliam bluntly declared that the Irish were one of those peoples who were unfit to govern themselves and who had got to be governed. ”

“ RACING AS A BUSINESS. [The kind of article which one may confidently look for in the sporting columns of a penny newspaper at this time of the year.]
From the very beginning of the season I have insisted that our objective should be "the winter's keep." Those who have stuck to me all along and played my system are on velvet. ”

“ She is an awfully pretty girl and quite athletic as well—in fact, his arm is not nearly so small as Johnny's isn't, and his carriage is perfect. Their eyes are lovely, while a poet would rave about his sweet nose, her rosebud mouth and their longs blacks hairs. ”

“ I informed her. "You forget that the French are particularly logical with their genders."
"M'sieu'!" murmured the guest, rather puzzled.
"I asked," I went on for M. du Val's edification, "because if you stay long enough you may have the pleasure of meeting the parents of Mistress my wife. They are coming to the house of us next month. His father is extremely anxious to see her daughter, whom he has not seen since his wedding—"
"Whom in the world are you talking about?" muttered my wife.
"Monsieur will readily understand," I said wickedly, "that I allude to my wife and their parents. ”

“ For the rest he minimised the temporary partition of Ireland and laid stress on the ultimate union to be effected by the Council of Ireland; magnified the financial advantages—seven millions is the sum he reckons Southern Ireland will ultimately have to play with—and hinted that they might be further stretched "if peace were offered to us by any body which was qualified to speak for Irish opinion." ”

“ His monotonous grunt is used to remind the audience of marriage as it is lived in real life, of the girl at breakfast in unmarcelled hair, of the man dropping cigarette-ash on the best carpet, of double income-tax, of her family, of his, of her bills for frocks, of his wandering off to golf or the club, and a host of other incidentals. ”

“ Up to the very last the issue was in doubt, for Lord Midleton's motion that the debate should be adjourned for a fortnight, in order that a more generous financial scheme might be produced, attracted two classes of Peers—those who are resigned to Home Rule, but want a better brand, and those who won't have it at any price or in any shape. ”

“ He can manage the first moves all right, but never achieves a winning position.
Wednesday, November 24th.—Those who were fortunate enough to hear Viscount Grey's speech on the Government of Ireland Bill speak of it as on a par with that which he delivered as the spokesman of the nation on August 3rd, 1914. To me it did not appear quite so plain and coherent; but who can be plain and coherent about the Irish Question? Lord Grey thinks, for example, that if the Government made a more liberal offer to Nationalist Ireland the pressure of moderate opinion would put an end to murders and outrages. ”

“ All I can say is that people who bet increasing stakes are increasing, while people who bet flat stakes are—— Well, that disposes of "Disgusted" and "O. T." My readers know that my system is to have the minimum stake on the losers and the maximum stake on the winners. We shall never attain that abstract perfection, but we should keep this ideal before us. I believe in idealism; it pays.
Take yesterday's selections, for instance. Here they are, with results tabulated:—
That I consider a highly successful day's racing, provided your stakes were proportionally placed ”

“ All the Scandinavian countries have in the last twenty-five years produced novel-writers of power and distinction, but with the single exception of the Swedish authoress, Selma Lagerlöf, whose great novel, Gosta Berling, was awarded the Nobel Prize, and the Norwegian, Knut Hamsun, whose extremely unpleasant book, Hunger, was published in this country a score of years ago, few if any of them have been made accessible to the average English reader. ”

“ But I'm afraid I can't cash a cheque for you without an identification. I'll send it for collection if you like."
"But that means waiting for days, and I haven't a shilling left. I came here for a week to look at the country about your town—a beautiful little town." I added this diplomatically.
"Do you think so? I consider it a hole. But I don't know much about it as I'm only here for a week. However, I'm sorry I can't help you except in the way I mentioned."
"But look here—do I look like the kind of man who plays tricks? Here is my card and my club address. ”

“ Joan and Pauline ("Porgie" libentius audit) are exceptional authorities on the animal world in general; exceptional, at any rate, for their years, which respectively total four-spot-six and two-spot-five. They confound their parents daily with questions relating to the habits of marmots or the language of kiwis. But they never talk about "lions," tout court. A lion is, ex-officio and ipso facto, a Great-Big-Roarin'-Lion—always has been: in short, a G.B.R.L.
It reminds me of a man I know who was made a G.B.E. ”

“ I live at Croydon, which doesn't sound as countrified but is really so much nicer that no Croydon people who knew Cambridge Heathers could help asking them to tea at least once a year, when the garden was at its best. My cleaner's visit is always very delightful, because she makes the garden seem at least four times its usual size by sheer admiration ”

“ Sir R. Baden-Powell recently declared that men contemplating matrimony would do well to notice whether their prospective brides gave an inside or an outside tread. We still maintain that the safest course is to remain single and not be trodden on either way.
The report that a British soldier has recently discovered a genuine specimen of a small war, in which Mr. Winston Churchill had no hand whatever, is now regarded as untrustworthy. ”

“ Further, he states at some length some rather attractive views on dog metaphysics, of which one need say no more than that, if you wish to believe that your four-footed pal has a soul to be saved as well as a body to be patted, here is high authority to support you. I think what one misses all through these pages is the dog's own story. Without it one never seems to get quite to grips with the subject. ”

“ The surprising statement by a Labour Member, that the farmers had subsidised the nation to the extent of forty millions a year by selling at less than world-prices, may have helped to placate their champions, who had not quite realised what generous fellows they were, for only a dozen stalwarts carried their protest into the Division Lobby. ”

“ None but the robustest of officials is allowed to direct the affairs of the new Ministry of Health. The patron saint of its Chief is St. Pancreas and his eupepsia is reflected in his subordinates. His junior clerks whistle continuously, his liftmen yodel, his typists sing. Of his own official methods I have been privileged to obtain the report of an eye-witness. ”

“ Guest the One-Eyed is not a noteworthy novel in the sense that Gosta Berling was. Yet one would not have missed reading it.
It is interesting to watch heredity at play. Given the inclination to write, what kind of a first book should we get from the son of one of the most cultured and sensitive classical scholars and translators of this or any day and from the grandson of the painter of the Legend of the Briar Rose? The question is answered by Mr. Denis Mackail's What Next? (John Murray) , which on examination turns out to be a farcical novel. ”

“ Being a shrewd man he would place £1 on Breathing Time to win. (I daresay even "O. T." and "Disgusted" did me the honour of following me so far.) On Taddenham, true to my principles, our backer would raise his stake to £1 10s. Aminta I. would carry £2, or £2 10s. if he were punting. But I cannot too strongly discourage this habit of making violent increases in stake; it is almost gambling. Much better put on only £2 with a safe bookmaker, such as Mr. Bob Mowbray, of Conduit Street, whose advertisement appears elsewhere in our columns. ”

“ According to The Daily Mail a panic was recently caused in a Manchester tea-room by a rat which took refuge in the leg of a gentleman's trousers. This may not mean that the need of a new style of rat-proof trouser has attracted the interest of Carmelite House publicity agents, but we have our apprehensions.
"Hard work will kill no one," declares a literary editor. Most people, of course, prefer an occupation with a spice of danger about it. ”

“ With regard, to the clou of his plot, however, I can hardly say so much. Melodramatic young lovers have (in fiction) gone to prison and worse rather than employ a defence involving distress to the ladies of their choice, from ages untold. Dyck Calhoon did it when he was [pg 440] wrongly indicted for the killing of Erris Boyne, who was a traitor in the pay of France and incidentally the father of the heroine Sheila; though she knew nothing of this and would have been badly worried if the hazards of a defended murder case had brought it to light. Do you call the motive sufficient? ”

“ They were still more surprised to learn that without further legislation it is impossible for British parents, when purchasing toys for their children, to be sure that they are not the productions of our late enemies. ”

“ The advertiser seems to fight shy of her own medicine.
IMPROVING "HANSARD."
If Hansard would only introduce a little brightness into its bald and unconvincing narrative of Parliamentary procedure it would provide reading-matter which would grip the heart and stir the emotions, winning many new readers from the students of fiction and other light literature. Hansard will otherwise never find it worth while to organise sand-castle competitions for the little ones about its certified net sales. ”

“ Learn to be independent of domestics. In four months I undertake to train any young girl of good family, and willing to learn, as a thoroughly competent and economical Plain Cook. Live in as one of family. ”

“ Thus one sportsman by careful observance of my principle has stacked up a goodly array of chips towards his winter's keep. All this goes to show that if a man will bet sanely and avoid "going for the gloves" he can make a modest competence on the Turf. ”

“ But I put it to you, what use would a little stick be against a man like the big drum? A meat-axe would have some point, but the difficulties of conducting with a meat-axe will be obvious to even the least musical. ”