Final Wodehouse stories for Vanity Fair (USA)

8/3/2019 Final Wodehouse stories for Vanity Fair (USA)

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Who Is William Shakespeare?Something About Broadways Newest PlaywrightBy P. G. WODEHOUSEVanity Fair (May 1920)

THERE have, of course, been other instances of men waking up to find themselvesfamous. Lord Byron had that experience after the publication of Childe Harold, a

nd I myself can still remember the sensation it caused in Great Neck when it gotabout that I had at last succeeded in getting round the eighteen holes in undera hundred.

But surely there was never so dramatic a case of an over-night rise from obscurity to what it would hardly be exaggeration to call fame, as that of William Shakespeare, the author of Arthur Hopkins new production at the Plymouth Theatre, Richard the Third.

Here was a young man literally unknown except to a few intimate friends who hadalways believed in him; just one of a million young fellows trying to get along. . . And look at him now! They tell me you simply cannot get a seat at the Plym

outh for weeks to come, and already I write two days after the production of hisgreat success Mr. Shakespeare has signed contracts to write the next Winter Garden piece, the 1921 Follies, and six farces for A. H. Woods. It is a signal instance of the truth of the adage that you cannot keep a good man down.

The dramatists early career differs little from that of a thousand other young writers. As a boy he was always scribbling, but none of the family ever thought anything of it. He went to school in the usual way, just missed making the football team, went on to college, joined the glee-club, learned to play the ukalele, and made a certain purely local reputation for his taste in waistcoats. As a member of the college dramatic society, he had the task of providing the annual showwished on him, and, good-naturedly, sat down and dashed off Hamlet, a skit on the Broadway murder-and-mystery play. It was well received, but not more so than

any other college piece played to a friendly audience. (We shall have the opportunity of judging of its merits for ourselves next season, when Charles B. Dillingham has announced his intention of producing it with music by Jerome Kern and astrong cast, including Joseph Cawthorne in the title rle, supported by Olin Howland, Hansford Wilson, Louise Groody, and Professor Spudds Nearly-Human PerformingSea-Lions.)

Shortly after this, young Shakespeare graduated and entered his fathers celluloidcollar and cuff business down near Trinity Church. His task was to polish up the collars with chamois leather in order to give them that shiny appearance. It was while engaged on these almost mechanical duties that he allowed his thoughtsto turn once more in the direction of the stage. It is an unimportant but intere

sting fact that the first rough draft of the scenario of Richard the Third was written on two cuffs and a collar.

Shakespeare Follows DrinkwaterTHERE was nothing of the amateur dramatist about young Shakespeare. He had the native shrewdness to perceive that in order to get a hearing he must study the taste of the Broadway public. He went out and bought an evening paper and looked down the list of productions advertised on its theatre page. John Drinkwater hadjust made his great success with Abraham Lincoln, and Walter Hampdens George Washington was announced as being in rehearsal. Moreover, in the Stage Jottings column, he saw a paragraph to the effect that Oliver Morosco had accepted plays on the subject of Whistler and Lord Byron. Obviously, the historical drama was the one best bet, and the only thing that remained for him to do was to think up some

fellow who had not yet been staked out as a claim. Somehow, nobody had thoughtof Richard the Third.


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So, that was that.

There remained the question of treatment. He kept his eyes open, and soon discovered that the two things in which the public were most interested just now werespiritualism and a good bedroom scene. It is because he was the first dramatistto combine the two that he now calls up the garage every morning after breakfasttelling them to send round the Rolls-Royce. The scene where Richard gets into b

ed might have been sufficient by itself: the ghosts by themselves might have been enough to put the play over: but the combination of the two on the same stageat the same time kept the first-night audience in their seats till nearly one oclock in the morning, cheering.

Mr. Shakespeare (who is entirely unspoiled by success) is the first to admit that he had a rare stroke of luck right at the beginning of the piece, that trickypoint at which so many plays have failed. He had, he says, written the opening line, Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent, without any deeper motive than to getthe darned thing started somehow. But the effect of those words on an audience which had struggled to the theatre through the eighth blizzard since Christmas can be imagined. It was electrical. There was a roar of applause from every part o

f the house, calls for Mayor Hylan, cheers for the Street Cleaning Department, and a generally expressed sentiment that the kid was there and had the stuff. From that point onwards the success of the play was never in doubt.

Casting the Title RleBUT, in Mr. Shakespeares opinion, the most fortunate thing of all was the quite accidental selection of John Barrymore for the part of Richard. Originally, so his secretary, Mr. Bacon, informed me, he had written the piece with Ernest Truexin mind, but Mr. Truex, having read several of his scripts, preferred one entitled Othello, containing a good blackface part, in which he is to appear next season, and which is reported to be broadly on the lines of the more serious of theplays popularized by Al Jolson.

Mr. Shakespeare owns that he never even considered the possibility of getting Barrymore, as he supposed The Jest would run for another nine years. Failing to interest Truex, he next approached A. H. Woods, who thought that with a little fixing the thing would do for Florence Moore. Mr. Woods suggested that Max Marcin should take the script and tune it up a bit, but with a courage unusual in a young and unknown author, Mr. Shakespeare declined to shade his royalties, which would also have involved money. He accepted the offer of a couple of cigars more orless gratefully and left the office.

William Collier liked the piece, but was already committed to The Hottentot. Frank Craven was rehearsing for The New Dictator, but gave young Shakespeare a letter of introduction to Ed. Wynn, who was out with a revue of his own. Wynn offered to buy the bedroom scene, but Shakespeare refused to detach it as it would kill the property. Sam Bernard said he would buy an option, if the character of Richard were changed to a pickle-manufacturer from Milwaukee. Finally, just as theauthor was beginning to despair, he saw the announcement that The Jest was aboutto close. A taxi-ride to Arthur Hopkins office, a rapid reading of the first twoacts, and a contract was signed. What followed is theatrical history.

An Interview with Mr. ShakespeareBY my halidome! said Mr. Shakespeare, when I succeeded in getting him alone for aminute at the Ritz, where he was lunching on venison pasty, In very sooth ye havegot to hand it to this same Barrymore! He hath ye goods! The elements are so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world: This is some actor! What I always say to actors is Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it

to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your playersdo, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too muchwith your hand, thus, but use all gently. For, between thee and me and yon lampp


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ost, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periweg-pated fellow tear apassion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who forthe most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable movie-shows and vaudeville. Am I right or wrong?

Thou hast vociferated a mouthful, we agreed.

Pardie! said young Shakespeare, pleased, I thought youd see my point. Well, this Barrymore, nephew, I understand, to old John of Drew who draws, through being John,if you know what I mean is All Right! Hes hot stuff! Not a note, not a nuance wrong from start to finish. Best thing hes ever done. Puts him right up in a classby himself, nor let any scurvy knave tell thee different! Beshrew me, but they may prate of Master Forbes-Robertson, his Hamlet; of Edmund Kean; of Booth, and ye rest of ye shooting-match; yet none of them take thou it from me! had anything, certes, on this same Barrymore, I will inform the world! And now, good friend,I must away, for already Phoebus car is high in the heavens, and I have a date to shoot a few games with ye boys at ye Lambs. Give you good den!

~~~ The End ~~~

Should Ocean Liners be AbolishedBy P. G. WodehouseVanity Fair (January 1923)

AS I read over this article for the second time which I bet you wouldnt care to have to do it strikes me that I have allowed a note of veiled peevishness to creep in here and there. I may be wrong, of course, but that it is how it seems tome. Somehow I appear to convey the impression that I am not altogether my sunnyself. If that is so, I attribute it to the fact that I wrote the thing in my stateroom on a table with five legs (four on the circumference and one in the center) which shook and slithered like a smitten jelly every time I tapped the typewriter. Why five legs, you ask? Because, I reply, it was a table designed for theuse of passengers on an ocean liner, and everything intended for the use of thatsection of humanity is in a class of its own. Sleeping accommodation, for instance. If you, gentle reader, were building a bed which was to be slept in by a different person each week, would you take into consideration the fact that some at least of those sleepers would be apt to measure more than four foot eleven inlength? You would. They would never think of a thing like that on a liner. Theycant think any higher than Ernest Truex.

But, there, one expects to rough it a bit when one sails the seas. The real trouble with any ocean liner is the passengers. In connection with which I have onlyone remark to make. That remark is, Where do they get these guys?

The Horrors of Deck LifeIT seems incredible that in this age of progress steps have not been taken to improve the standard of looks among ocean-travelers. Time after time I step on board, full of optimism and feeling that this trip at any rate my fellow-voyagers w

ill be I do not say human, but at least semi-human. And every time I stagger back with a hand over my eyes, moaning No, no! You may argue that it is not their fault that they look like that. I say it is. When you see a fat man in a yachting-c


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ap, horn-rimmed spectacles, and side-whiskers, I maintain that there is convincing evidence of premeditation and that the matter should be firmly dealt with bythe proper authorities. Either these people should not be allowed on board at all, or if it is really necessary to get them out of the country they should be hurried over the gang-plank with masks on and kept in irons below till the end ofthe voyage. It is no good calling a vessel The Worlds Wonder-Ship if you permit these excrescences to wander at large about the decks.

There is no beating the game. If the weather is rough, they stay in their cabins. But so do you. And anything approaching fine weather brings them out in shoals. You would hardly credit the ghastly spectacle presented by the A. deck of a fashionable liner on a sunny afternoon half-way through the voyage. And if you stagger down onto the B. deck, it is just as bad there. And the Boat Deck is, if anything, worse, because you find them up there playing shuffle-board. And, if youhide in your stateroom, you meet them at meals.

This question of meals on board ship is a very vital one. At the beginning of the trip you go to a steward on the D. deck, and he assigns you to a table. And atthat table you have to remain till the finish. Even if you have the good fortun

e to be herded in with a moderately attractive group, what charm they have is bound to wane after you have lunched and dined with them for six successive days.Take the case of the poor devils who have me at their table. What happens? On the first day of the voyage I imagine that they look over at me in a not unkindlyspirit and say to themselves Ah! Jolly old Wodehouse, eh? Capital! The second daythey feel that they have seen me before somewhere and that I am not nearly the thing of beauty they had imagined me. My fascination has begun to wane. Only a little, maybe, but still it has begun to wane. The third day a sort of nervous irritation floods over them as I sink into my seat and reach for the menu. Half unconsciously they begin to wish that my sister had not prayed for a baby-brother.

By dinner-time on the fourth day they feel that this has been going on for ever,

that there never was a time when they were not sitting at a table with too little room for their elbows and my beastly face goggling at them from over the way.They look at me and marvel at that weird parental affection which kept my father and mother from drowning me in a bucket as a child. My bald head gleams at them in the light of the electric bulbs, and they wish they could hurl something atit. More and more do they resent the vacant stare of my infernal eyes behind their spectacles. The way I eat seems to them proof of a diseased soul. And all the time I am glowering across at them, astounded that the vigilance committees oftheir home towns have not taken steps to eliminate them years ago. Then the fifth day arrives, and the relief at the prospect of release induces a sort of grisly geniality. Finally, we go ashore arm in arm, inviting each other to spend week-ends.

A Simple SolutionBUT to return to the matter of improving the standard of personal beauty in ocean travelers. I would not have it said of me that I am wholly a destructive critic and have nothing constructive to suggest, and so I put forward a scheme whichwould, I think, go far towards improving conditions on the modern liner. Alreadythe authorities seem to be groping in the right direction. Before you can sail,you have to get a passport. And before you can get a passport you have to forward a photograph to the Embassy. You would think that the authorities would havetaken the next step, so obvious is it, but no. The solution of a crying evil isstaring them in the face, but they do not see it. What they should do is simplyto take a firm line and refuse passports to all whose photographs fail to pass aBoard of Censors specially created for the purpose of dealing with this matter.

After all, we have censors for everything else nowadays. When I publish my thoughtful novel treating of sex-problems in the Middle West, Mr. Sumner takes a flying leap and lands on the back of my neck. When my movie, Scarlet Lips, is relea


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sed, there are properly constituted persons to step in and blow the whistle. Whynot, then, a censor for ocean travelers?

He would, of course, have to be carefully chosen. You could not select a man fora post like that haphazard. As regards the female passengers, it would be easy.Mr. Flo Ziegfeld is obviously the man to deal with them. But for male travelersit would be a good deal more intricate, this business of sifting. You would hav

e to have someone with intelligence enough to see that it is possible for the masculine face to possess a certain rugged charm which amply compensates for an absence of more conventional good looks. I myself, for instance, am strictly speaking no John Barrymore. At first glance you might say to yourself that I am justthe sort of man the censors would have to take a firm line about right away. Butdo not be too hasty. Wait a bit. Wait till you have seen me in my new Fall suit, the blue with invisible red stripe. Suspend your judgment till my last lot ofcollars come from the makers. Ah! you hesitate. Exactly. Mine is a style of beauty which grows on you. It has to have time to get its effect. And there are manymore like me. It would be fatal if the Board of Censors contained men of hastyand impulsive judgment. They would need to be cool, canny persons, with educatedeyes.

The Penalty of DelayBUT in the main, of course, their work would be fairly simple. Two chins or morewould automatically disqualify the intending traveler. Horn-rimmed spectacles would only be allowed if the face was thin. Ears that stuck out at right angles would get a black mark, and would have to be made up for by singular beauty in the nose and mouth. There would be a standard measurement for foreheads, and it would be easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a camel than for a goldtooth to win its way across the gang-plank of the Aquitania.

It may be that there are objections to such a scheme, of which I know nothing. Imerely throw out the suggestion and leave it to the authorities to adopt it orlet it go, as they please. But I do say this, that it is either a question of cr

eating this Board of Censors or of abolishing ocean-liners altogether. If thingsare allowed to go on as at present: if small men with thin legs are permitted to roam about the decks at will in plus-four golfing knickerbockers: if there isno bar to a man with a face like a Florida sheeps-head fish sitting opposite youin the smoking-room; then and I say it with all the impressiveness at my command something will snap. Human nature is like Cousin Egbert. You can push it just so far. One of these days, unless something is done, when the Berengaria ties upat its slip, those on shore will notice that the scuppers are red and dripping.Headless corpses will dot the settees in the lounge. Mangled remains will be among the features of interest in the saloon. And a few hundred gargoyles will havemade their last trip across the Atlantic. Let the authorities act while yet there is time.

~~~ The End ~~~

The Nations SongsRevealing, for the First Time, the Identity of Their Author

By P. G. WODEHOUSEVanity Fair (December 1919)YOU have never heard of Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun. (If you have, kindly preten


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d you havent, or I shall have to begin this article some other way.)

And who was Andrew?

Ill tell you. He was born in 1653 and died in 1716, and he is one of those pathetic people who get only one quotation into Bartletts famous book.

Along about 1690 Andrew was rather up against it. Among his contemporaries wereThomas Otway, Mathew Henry, Henry Carey, Matthew Prior, and Dean Swift; and every day he heard these fellows getting off one wise crack after another, all of which he could see were destined to land in Bartlett, while he was still jockeyingfor a start.

So he shut himself up in his study, ordered a few quarts of black coffee (the real thingnone of that Theres-A-Reason stuff), and tied a wet towel round his head: and after awhile he evolved this: I knew a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.

True, somebody later onGladstone, I thinkdid him out of a lot of the credit by putting the thing much better and more crisply: but anyway that is what Andrew said, and it brings me neatly to the subject of my article. As foreshadowed by the tit1e, it deals with The Nations Songs.

Who Writes Americas Songs?THE man who is permitted to write the songs of America employs a great number ofaliases, doubtless from motives of prudence. To the vapid and unreflective public it probably seems that Isadore Levinsky, the author of My Mother was a Colleen and my fathers name was Pat is a different person from Nathan Edelstein, who pleads guilty to My dusky Dixie Maid: but anyone with any ability at all in the way of marshalling internal evidence can see that it is one man writing under different names. And all the other names which we see on the title-pages of the new

songs are merely further pseudonyms of this single individual.

The proof is simple.

We will admit, for purposes of argument, that there might be two men who considered land a musical rhyme for Uncle Sam, and really believed that, if they ended oneline with childhood, all they had got to do was to shove wildwood at the end of thenext: but two is the outside number, and these rhymesand others of the same kindoccur in every popular American song.

Then again, we have the significant matter of construction. The verse of each these songs ends with the word said or cried or the phrase she to him did say as a hanmeans of bringing in the refrain. Thirdly, and lastly, we have the similarity of ideas, unavoidable by a man with such an enormous output.

Yes, one man makes, all the ballads. Let us try to construct him as a personality from what we can glean from his printed works. The ignorant publicwho, as Sherlock Holmes bitingly says, could hardly tell a compositor by his thumb, or a weaver by his tooth, and who have to think twice before deciding whether a man theymeet on the street is a retired corporal of marines with a mole on his left shoulder and a sister living in Canarsie, or a vers libre poet with a golf handicapof forty-sevenwill doubtless be baffled.

Not so the present writer.

What Is He Like?THIS human song-bird has the following well-marked traits of character. He loveshis mother but dislikes prohibition: he is a cheery soul, with a smile for ever


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yone he meets: he wants to live in Dixie: he hates to get up in he morning: he admires the shimmyand those who practise it: and he would prefer Ireland to be free.

Who can he be? It sounds rather like Senator LaFollette.

Yet, would Senator LaFollette have written so much about the War? Probably not.

Our hero was particularly strong on the War, while it lasted, and, if there is one criticism that might be made of him, it is that he perhaps failed a little toappreciate the magnitude and seriousness of the thing. His idea of a song breathing the spirit of the great holocaust was something on the lines of When the Kaiser Does a Shimmy from Berlin or Play Up That Croony Shell- Shock Melodee. Onefeels that Homer would have done better with the subject.

But that, no doubt, was the way the thing struck our author, and, presumably, hedid his best. At any rate, say what you will of him, he writes better than hisfather, the man who used to write the popular songs of England in the days whenwe were young. Here is the refrain of what Father always considered his best lyric, and its popularity shows that the public endorsed his view. This is how it r

uns. You start at the top and read straight down:

Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!

Father was one of those slow, careful workers who chisel and polish every line of a lyric before letting it Out of their hands. He wrote the last line first and

worked up to it. He always used a blunt pen, and could not write unless there were roses in the flower-bowl on his desk. His favorite author was Keats, to whom, he frankly admitted, he owed much.

The Four Main BranchesOUR heros output is divided into four main branchesSongs about Smiles; Songs aboutChina, India, Egypt, and other foreign localities; Songs about Mother; and Songs about the Shimmy. As a rule he keeps them separate, but, when pushed, is capable of writing about Mother Smiling as she does the Shimmy; or toying with the problem of whether Cleopatra would have done the Shimmy on the banks of the Nile if she had had a Mother. What used to be his stand-by, the Moon, he has unaccountably neglected of late, though a firm of publishers are now announcing a song entitled Moonlight on The Nile, which seems to suggest that the kid is about to come back in great shape.

The curious thing about him is that he seems to have inherited nothing of his fathers penchant for the straight patriotic song. If there was one thing that Father, despite the inherent modesty of a great artist, always claimed that he coulddo as well as the next man, it was the patriotic song. I dont mean things like Oh, boy! the dough-boy is going to can the Kaiser!, but lyrics that strike a deeper note. Deep note is right, because they were nearly always sung by basses. In the old days, when you went to an English music-hall, you could be certain of being confronted, at about ten oclock, by a stout man in baggy evening-dress with adiamond solitaire in his shirt-front, who walked on the stage in a resolute wayand stood glaring at you with one hand in the arm-hole of his waistcoat.

You knew he wasnt a juggler or a conjurer, because he had no props and no femaleassistant in pink tights. And you knew he wasnt a dramatic twenty-minute sketch,


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because he would have had a gang along with him. And presently your worst fearswere confirmed, when he began to sing one of Fathers patriotic songs. Specimen refrain:

For Englands England still!It is and always will!Though foreign foes may brag,

We love our dear old flag,And old England is En-ger-land still!

Son doesnt seem to go in for this sort of thing at all. It is hard to say why. Probably its a gift, and we all have our limitations. If our hero has tried the patriotic song and failed, he has no reason to be ashamed of himself. A writer as versatile as he can well afford to fall down on one branch of his many-sided industry. No poet, however gifted, has ever had a really full hand. Shakespeare never wrote a single lyric which a jazz-and-hokum comedy team could put across. Browning couldnt turn out a solitary Mother songat any rate he didnt.

And, as for Edgar Lee Masters, he found, after repeated efforts, that he could n

ot even rhyme line with sublime, so he had to give it up in despair and do stuff that doesnt rhyme at all.

~~~ The End ~~~

THE AGE, MELBOURNE. SATURDAY JANUARY 19, 1901

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ABSENT MINDED BRIDE GROOMS.MEN WHO MISSED THEIR OWN WEDDINGS.

At Ipswich recently, says a London contemporary, a marriage was about to take place when it was discovered that the bridegroom was not present. Nobody had seenor heard anything of him, and the greatest confusion reigned until, some twentyminutes after the hour appointed for the service, his brother appeared on a bicycle, with the news that the missing gentleman was too busy to come, but would present himself at church on the following clay.

When the wedding party reassembled at the tune mentioned the bridegroom was present, but this time the bride had absented herself. A search was instituted, andshe was found at her home, arrayed in wedding dress, but evidently determined to

pay her fiance back in his own coin. She yielded, however, at last, and this eccentric pair were successfully united.


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Most men are apt to be nervous on the last evening of their bachelor life, and aman living in a town near Bristol was no exception. So agitated, indeed, was lie that he had to take a powerful opiate before he could get to sleep.

The draught proved instantly successful, and he was soon asleep. But, unfortunately, in his nervousness he had mixed so strong a dose that, when the appointed hour arrived, he was still in a deep stupor. Nor did he awake until late in the f

ollowing afternoon, when he found everybody in the greatest consternation, thinking that he was in a cataleptic trance, from which he would never awake. Luckilyfor all concerned the drug left no bad effects, and the marriage was celebratedat the earliest possible moment.

A ludicrous ease occurred recently where both bride and bridegroom missed the wedding. On the wedding morning the bridegroom received a letter from the bride informing him that she had changed her mind and had married a more favored rival at a registry office that morning. Curiously enough, the bridegroom had himself sent a letter the night before begging her to release him from his engagement, ashe was certain that they could never be really happy together.

Cases of either the man or the woman saving No when the marriage service requiresthem to say Yes, though rare, have been known to happen. Several years ago a man lost his intended wife in this way owing to his irritable temper. On the marriageday he had been the victim of a number of small accidents, and, thinking himself alone, he had indulged in some strong language, which the lady happened to overhear, and thinking that life with a man of such bad temper would be most unpleasant, caused a unique sensation by saying No instead of Yes, and walking out of thechurch. Nor could all the arguments of the bridegroom induce her to relent.

THE LANGUAGE OFFLOWERS.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------TO the literature of the streets a small volume has recently been added, which at first sight induces the purchaser to think the charge of a penny an excessiveone. This feeling, however, disappears after a thoughtful perusal of the work inquestion.

It is a comprehensive dictionary of flowers, containing also a preface which isa prose poem, thirty lines of verse from the pen of an anonymous writer, and full information as to how neuralgia, tic, rheumatism, toothache, and gout may be cured simultaneously at the extremely moderate cost of one and threepence. Few will be found so grasping as to demand more for their penny.

Each blossom, says the writer of the preface, has its odour, its mission, its message. The violet will never cease to speak of humility, or the marigold of vulgarjealousy. (A little hard, this, on the marigold.) And their odours! Who can forget the delicacy of the violets breath, the sweet perfume of the rose, or the pleasant scented lavender. Oh! the measure of sweetness that comes from the silent children of the sod to the speaking and thinking ones of earth! Like the hero of one of Mr. Quiller-Couchs poems, the writer certainly has a neat poetic vein when

he is fairly started.

A few more preliminary remarks on the subject of the arrangement of flowers, and


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the reader is brought to the vocabulary itself. From this it is an easy task, especially if one is a member of the class referred to as the speaking and thinking ones of earth, to weave romantic situations. It is, for instance, the mauvaisquart dheure preceding dinner. Our hero has been told off to take down the heroine, with whom he has for many a long month been secretly in love. He, being of an intensely shy nature, feels himself unequal to the task of framing his opinions in words. She being the very soul of maidenly reserve, cannot bring herself to

lend him the helping hand he so sorely needs. He remarks that the weather is fine, especially for the time of year. She agrees. Then there is an awkward silence. This is where a knowledge of the language of flowers is of such vital importance. Assuming that the hero has brought with him a basketful of assorted blossoms, he commences by selecting an arbutusnot a whole tree, presumably, though our author says nothing on the subject, but a portion of one. This he presents to thelady, thereby indicating to her, if she is also a speaking and thinking one ofearth, Thee only do I love. Though naturally taken aback somewhat by this sudden declaration of passion, she follows suit according to her mood. She may select adouble China aster, I partake of your sentiments, or perhaps, if she wishes to keep him a little longer in suspense, she substitutes a single China aster, that flower expressing the cold but eminently proper words, I will think of it.

This urges the hero on to further efforts. He thinks for a while. Then he presents her with a Dianthus. Make haste is the exact meaning of the Dianthus. To such afloral remark a floral snub is the only reply. She withers him with a Dipladenia Crassinoda, You are too bold. His observations then become sharp and abrupt, after the fashion of Mr. Alfred Jingle. He produces in rapid succession a parti-coloured daisy, a damask rose, an eschscholtzia, and a jonquil. In effect he says :Beauty! Brilliant complexion! Do not refuse me! I desire a return of affection!

She wavers and exhibits a marjoram, to show that she is blushing. His eloquencenow gets the best of him in impassioned entreaties. He bends down, and begins topull flower after flower from the basket. Having obtained as many as he requires, he arranges them before her in the following order. Hortensia. (You are cold.)

Purple hyacinth. (I admit my imperfections.) Henbane. (And I am sorry for them.) Green locust tree. (My love will last beyond the grave.) Moving plant. (Observe my agitation.) Pine-apple. (You are perfect!) Pink. (And I know that I am taking a great liberty), but Christmas Rose. (Put me out of my misery.) White Rose.(I am on the whole quite worthy of you), for Wheat stalk, white mullen, and variegated tulip. (I am rich, good-natured, and have beautiful eyes.) Reversed vine.(No, I do not drink.) In a word stephanotis, and oxlip. (Will you accompany meto the East. Speak out!)

The effect of this speech is instantaneous. A red tulip, or in other words a declaration of love follows, and the two proceed to dinnerthe gong having just soundedan engaged couple.

Other uses for the language of flowers readily present themselves. Biting sarcasm may be employed by presenting an unwelcome guest with a reversed sweet pea, which signifies Dont go. Delicate satire could be effected by a judge presenting a criminal after sentence with a sweet-scented tussilago, which, being interpreted,means Justice shall be done you, a charming present for a gentleman shortly to embark on a ten years visit, sweetened by toil and simple fare, at Portland or Dartmoor.

Soon, too, the sight may be familiar in London of an army of rejected contributors blocking the streets opposite the various editorial offices, each wearing inhis button-hole a simple red primrose, the sign of unpatronised merit. Undoubtedly, the language of flowers has many uses.


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Mr. Halketts Romance

The Free Lance no. 69, week ending Sat. January 25, 1902, p. 418[Note: Im owe Arthur Robinson thanks for this rare item.]

Mr. G.R. Halkett, the present editor of the Pall Mall Magazine, is an artist-journalist. He has had a curiously romantic career. His story reads like the motif ofsome novel. All the materials of emotional fiction are therethe struggling youngartist, the millionaires beautiful daughter, the stern father. It was at Manchester that it happened. Mr. Halkett was at that time doing his best to get a footing on the ladder of success with his brush. The brush was mightier than the penin those days. Commissions were few and very far between, but one day Fortune sm

iled upon him. A very wealthy merchant prince of the town brought his daughter to the studio to have her portrait painted. The young couple fell violently in love with one another, and in spite of the vigorous opposition of the young ladys father, were married.

Stern FatherThe father thereupon acted as a fatherin a novelis expected to act. He refused tosee his daughter, and cut himself off altogether from her. This, however, did not discourage Mr. Halkett. He worked with redoubled energy at his profession, andslowly but surely made a name for himself. But the culminating point of the story is still to come. The interdict of the father did not extend to his grandchildren, and so it came about that they were sent on a visit to him. The experienced novel reader can guess the rest. The children came, were seen, and conquered.

A complete reconciliation took place, and the merchant prince makes no secret ofhis intention of leaving them at his death his fortune.

The Pugilist in Fiction.By P. G. WODEHOUSE.THERE are two novels in the library of pugilistic fiction which stand alone, Dr.Conan Doyles Rodney Stone and Bernard Shaws Cashel Byrons Profession. In most booke hero is a pugilist because he is a hero. In these two he is a hero because heis a pugilist. Probably everybody who takes an interest in sport has read RodneyStone, and has revelled in the fight between Berks and Boy Jim in the coachhouse,and the great battle on Crawley Downs between the smith and the West-countryman. He has waited in suspense with Sir Charles Tregellis when the last minutes areflying past, and still his man has not put in an appearance; and a thrill has run through him as the crowd swirls and eddies, and an old black hat flickers upfrom their midst, and falls in the centre of the ring. It is a great scene, that. However often one may have read the book, and however much one may be preparedfor the surprise, that magnificent climax comes as fresh as ever. Rodney Stone is

an epic of the ring.Cashel Byrons Profession is perhaps less well-known. Mr. Shaw has chosen for his hero the best type of professional pugilist, a gentleman born, clever at few thing


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s, but as straight as a die, and possessing a genius for fighting. In his preface the author makes a few remarks on the subject of pugilistic genius. By geniushe means something higher than mere skill. Many boxers are skillful, but not onein a thousand possesses that peculiar gift, amounting almost to divination, which enables him to foretell his opponents actions, and reduce the art of timing toa second nature. Jem Belcher is the best instance of genius in the history of the ring. Mace was a genius. So was Sayers. So perhaps were John Jackson and Mend

oza. But Belcher was the greatest of them all, and possibly it is Belcher who has been the authors model for Cashel Byron. And I should be inclined to say that Mr. Shaw had heard of the Tipton Slasher when he created William Paradise, his heros opponent.Cashel runs away from school, and goes to Melbourne, where he meets Ned Skene, the retired champion of the world. This is the beginning of his career in the ring. He retires in the end unbeaten. Cashel Byrons Profession differs from Rodney Stone in two important particulars. In the first place, there is far less actual description in Mr. Shaws book. Conan Doyle loves to follow a fight from start to finish, round by round, omitting details that might offend, and emphasizing only the finer features of the battle. Bernard Shaw treats the subject in a less partisan spirit, while of straightforward description there is only one passage, the g

love-fight between Cashel and William Paradise at the Agricultural Hall. In thesecond place, Cashel Byrons Profession is full of that quaint humour for which itsauthor is celebrated. In Rodney Stone the hero, Boy Jim, is evidently an object ofadmiration to his literary parent, but Mr. Shaw gives one the impression of laughing in his sleeve at Cashel Byron. This, however, may be purely a matter of style.Nobody can help liking Cashel Byron. His frank self-confidence would win over the keenest opponent of the manly art. His speech at the soiree in chapter six shows him at his best. He sees a picture of St. George alighting from his horse tofight an enemy on foot, and it offends his professional eye. Theres a posture fora man to fight in! he says. His weight isnt resting on his legs; one touch of a childs finger would upset him. You can all see hes as weak and nervous as a cat, andthat he doesnt know how to fight. And why does he give you that idea? Just becaus

e hes all strain and stretch; because he isnt at his ease; because he carries theweight of his body as awkwardly as one of the ladies here would carry a hod of bricks. If the painter of that picture had known his business, he would never have sent his man up to the scratch in such a figure and condition as that. As the artist himself was among the audience, this address naturally created something of a sensation. It is Cashel, too, who observes that a champion is a lonely man,and who was afraid of nothing except burglars, big dogs, doctors, dentists, and street-crossings. When an accident through any of these occurred, he would read the report of it very seriously to Lydia, and preserved the newspaper for quite two days as a document in favour of his favourite assertion that the only place aman was safe in was the prize-ring. On another occasion he rises at a dinner party, during dinner, in order to show one of the guests, an eminent bishop, how tobreak a burglars back in the act of grappling with him.And yet, in spite of the fact that in Cashel Byrons Profession he presents the best drawn pugilist in fiction, Mr. Shaw, in the preface to the book, expresses a hope that the effect of the story may be to eliminate from modern fiction the element of what he calls romantic fisticuffs. Perish the thought! Many novels are only worth reading for the scene where the hero, with a half smile on his handsome face, shows what he really can do, and to quote Mr. Shaws own words in their original blank verse:

Ducking to the left.Cross-counters like a hundredweight of bricks.That is an extract from The Admirable Bashville, a dramatic and shameless burlesque of his own novel by Mr. Shaw himself. The following passage testifies to his merits as a romantic bard:

No time was lostIn getting to the business of the day,The Dutchman led at once and seemed to land


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On Byrons dice-box; but the seamans reach.Too short for execution at long shots,Did not get fairly home upon the ivory.And Byron had the best of the exchange.These two books, as I have said, stand alone. But the name of the novels in which pugilism plays a part is legion. Charles Dickens himself drew a boxer in Dombeyand Son, but a poor, weak-kneed caricature of his class he was. The Chicken was

his name. The great Henry Pearce was also called the Chicken. But there the resemblance stops. Dickenss Chicken cannot by any stretch of imagination be taken torepresent his profession as a whole. Some few of the scum of the boxing world may have been like him, but not many, while the best, and even the average pugilist, was a different man altogether.Kenelm Chillingly represents the art in Bulwer Lyttons works, but his science isnot that of the present time, and it is doubtful if he could have stood up for long before a boxer of to-day. Personally, I would back the Public School middle-weight champion (to exclude professionals altogether) of this or any other yearagainst him to the fullest extent of my attenuated purse. There is a certain blow yclept the funny punch, which would, I fancy, upset Kenelm badly.With Rodney Stone must, of course, be classed the short story The Master of Croxley

, a fine specimen of Conan Doyles descriptive style in matters of the ring. In thenovel, strength and dogged endurance in the person of Jack Harrison triumph over science as exemplified by Crab Wilson; but in the short story, the Mastera tough, hard-hitting fighter of the old schoolfalls before the quickness of the youngdoctor, Montgomery, who brings off a dramatic knock-out blow in the nick of time.There is an excellent fight in The Witchs Head, by Rider Haggard, between one Jeremy Jones and a Boer giant called Van Zyl. Jeremys only hope is to avoid the Dutchmans blows, that gentleman being able to tap a large hole in the wooden panel of awagon with the utmost ease. He therefore confines himself to long-range fighting. But in the end the Dutchman closes with him, and attempts to strangle him. Jeremy, however, remembering an old wrestling trick, tries it, with the result that Van Zyl flies over his shoulder and cripples himself for life, and all is joy

and peace.Two of Mr. Jacobss best short stories, The Peacemaker and The Bully of the Cavendish, deal with fighting. In the latter mention is made of a certain Sinker Pitt, a professor of the art, who when in need of practice used to improve on the conventional ball-punching by going the round of the public-houses dressed as a Methodist clergyman and insulting hot-tempered sailor-men. A prizefighter also appearsin A Harbour of Refuge, no less a celebrity than the Battersea Bruiser, eulogistically described by his commanding officer as a man who could be champion of England, if he would only take the trouble to train. And yet the Bruiser, instead of being flattered, offers to put sich a ed on im that when he wants to blow his nose hell have to get a glass to see where to go to. Such is human gratitude.To conclude, Mr. Bernard Shaw observes sadly that the popular English novel is nothing less than a gospel of pugilism. And why not? All fights are good reading,and if the hero invariably wins, well, what does it matter? The villain is, asa rule, a most disreputable character, and fully deserves all he gets. And the hero, whatever his faults, is certainly entitled to an occasional treat. Let thegood work go forward!

The Idle King

By P G WODEHOUSE


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THERE was once a King of Aldebaran, and he was probably the very idlest man in the world. He would sit on his throne and do nothing from morning till night. Andthen he would go to bed, and the next day it would be just the same. He did nothing but sit still. And he was not even nice to look at. It was not quite his fault that he was so lazy.

His people would never let him do anything for himself. Sometimes he would say, I

t is a fine day. I will make a law. And then the Vizier would come bustling up, murmuring, Excuse me, your Majesty, one moment. And he would call Parliament together and take the law out of the Kings hands and make it for him. And sometimes theKing would say,

It is a fine day. I will go a-hunting. And then the Lord Chief Huntsman would jumpon his horse, shouting, Dont you trouble yourself, your Majesty. Allow me. And then he would blow his horn, and ride off and not come back for the whole day. Andthe King began to grow very tired of doing nothing. He could not enjoy his mealsor the sunshine, or his dogs, or cats, or anything. So one day when the Vizierwas busy making a law which he had specially wanted to make himself, and the Lord Chief Huntsman had gone off with his hawk and his hound to save his Majesty th

e trouble of hunting, he took off his crown and his beautiful clothes, dressed himself up in a very old suit and a very old cap, and started out by the back door of the Palace to see the world.

It was nearly his tea-time when he had started, and he soon began to grow hungry. It was about this time that the Lord Chief Butler always brought him a pot oftea (which, of course, he was never allowed to pour out for himself, though he wanted to dreadfully), and a plate of hot buttered toast, and little cakes with chocolate on them. So he went to the nearest cottage, and knocked at the door. Itwas quite a treat for him to knock at a door all by himself. Generally the LordChief Footman did it for him.

Come in, said a voice. And mind the step.

The King went in. Round the table were seated the cottager, his wife, and his children.

Please, I want some tea, said the King.

You will have to work for it, said the cottager.

What is work, please? Is it what everybody else does for me?

Its not what everybody else does for me, at any rate, said the cottager, with a jolly laugh, and thank goodness they dont. What I should do if everybody did my workfor me, I do not know. I should be so dull that I should have no appetite for tea. Whereas now, he added, taking a huge bite out of a piece of bread-and-jam, my appetite is exceedingly good, thanks very much, and so forth.

And swallowing his bread-and-jam, he sang the following verse, to which the whole family beat time with their teaspoons.

Oh, I think a mans crazy whos idle and lazy,

I pity the people who shirk.

Its a pound to a shilling, youll smile if youre willing

To work! work! work!


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If you dont see the beauty of doing your duty,

Your happiness stops with a jerk.

So I counsel you, dunce, to start learning at once,

And work! work! work!

It was rather a pretty song.

That sounds very sensible indeed, said the King, when he had finished. I should like to begin now, if I may. What shall I do?

In yonder yard, replied the cottager, is some wood. Chop it. Will somebody kindlybe good enough to oblige me by passing the jam?

So the King went out into the yard, and though he did not know very much about chopping wood (for the Lord Chief Woodman always did that for him), he somehow ma

naged to finish it in time. And then be went back, and settled down to a reallygood tea.

Well, he said thoughtfully, as be finished the jam, there is no denying it. This work is a wonderful thing. I have never enjoyed my tea so much in all my life. Thank you very much.

Not at all, said the polite cottager. I beg you will not mention it. He opened thedoor, and the King went out again upon his travels.

He wandered some miles, until night began to come on, and he began to think about finding somewhere to sleep. At last he came to a castle, and rang the visitorsbell.

Could you please tell me, he said, as the servant opened the door, if I might sleephere for the night? I have come a long way, and I am tired.

The servant said he would make inquiries within. He went through a door at the side of the hall, and soon came back with his masters compliments, and he could certainly sleep there if he was willing to do some work in return.

It certainly is a most wonderful thing, this work, thought the King. When I remember how little of it there was in my palace, and see what a great deal there is everywhere else, it surprises me. I will certainly do the work he wants me to, he added aloud.

Thats right, said the footman. Come to think of it, theres nothing like work.

And fixing his eyes dreamily on the ceiling, he sang the following verse:

Oh, work it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole.

It suits the fancy of a king

Ah, interrupted his Majesty, youre right there.

And, went on the footman, It satisfies his soul.

In idleness, though sweet at first,


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Dull care is apt to lurk.

But happier he, it seems to me,

Who spends his time in work.

It was rather a nice song.

Excellent! said the King. Now show me the work, and I will do it.

The footman led the way to a cellar, and there were two heaps of great stones,and beside them lay a hammer.

There, he said. If you could kindly make it convenient to break those stones up small, we should esteem it a personal favour, and in the meantime I will be gettingyour room ready. Ill make you a nice cup of bread-and-milk to eat in bed. Thats the hammer by the stones. You grasp it firmly in the two hands by the handle thatsthis end here and hit a stone with it. And by a curious process which it would

take too long to explain, the stone will break into smaller stones. You then hiteach of the smaller stones in the same manner, and in time you will find that the heap has become a lot of very small stones indeed. Then you come upstairs. Good-bye.

The King knew nothing whatever about breaking stones, for the Lord Chief Road mender always did the work of that kind in the palace, but he set to, and in quitea short time all the stones were broken up so small that he could hardly see them. Then he put his hammer down, and went upstairs. And there, as the footman had promised, was the bread-and-milk steaming at the side of the bed on a chair. He enjoyed it more than he would have believed it possible that any one could enjoy bread-and-milk.

Really, he said to himself, its a wonderful thing. Here am I, the King of Aldebaran,who usually find myself unable to eat anything more than a little wing of chicken, enjoying my bread-and-milk like a baby. It is really a fine invention, is work! When I get back to my palace, I must practise it more. Now Ill go to sleep. Hewent to sleep at once. He had never slept so well in his life before.

And when he got up in the morning. he felt so well that he danced twice round his room before coming down to breakfast.

To earn his breakfast he had to pump water from a well. It was quite a new experience. At the palace the Lord Chief Ostler had always done it for him. He quiteenjoyed it, and when he had finished he enjoyed his breakfast still more.

After breakfast he thanked his host kindly, and went away.

After stopping to wish the cottager, whom he found working in his garden, good morning, he made his way back to the palace.

The Vizier and the other courtiers welcomed him joyfully. They thought he had been lost.

Well said the Vizier, when he had heard the story of the Kings adventures, if your Majesty had thought of mentioning that your Majesty intended to take a walk, theLord Chief Tramp might have taken it instead, and saved your Majesty the trouble.

Then Im very glad I didnt mention the fact, said the King. In future I intend to do everything I possibly can for myself. You do your work, and Ill do mine.


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got the whole team to their destination, you must watch them like a hawk. Sharples, our fast bowler, will insist on sitting up to weird hours on the night before an important match, smoking strong tobacco and drinking whisky and soda; withthe natural result that his pace on the next day lasts for a couple of overs, and then fizzles out, and he continues with slow medium. I have to hound the man to bed regularly, and superintend his undressing in person. After which I go andargue with Geake, our slow man, to prevent him experimenting with his latest hea

d ball. He is always inventing a new ball, and it is a safe four to the batsmanevery time. Against Sidmouth, last year, they made 23 off him in two overs.

He explained that he was luring the batsmen on and making them over-confident, and that in another over or two they would get themselves out. My hair is turninggrey at the temples.

But the worst of them all is the man Sanderson.

He is one of the most beautiful bats in England. When he gets set, all you haveto do is to lie back and applaud. He has strokes through the slips which words cannot describe. And his off-drive has to be seen to be appreciated. And he spoil

s it all by his wretched nerves. I have met nervous batsmen in the course of mycareer, men who turned a pale green when they had to go to the wickets, but theywere recklessly confident compared with Sanderson. One would think that when aman had played for his county and made innumerable runs in club matches, he would begin to have the rudiments of a faith in himself; but not so Sanderson. If heplayed against a kindergarten he would palpitate.

He has brought the thing to a positive craze. He believes in omens. He has mascots and other futile aids to run-getting. He cannot begin to think of making a score, he says, unless he has his Zingari cap, his Rugby house-scarf, the bat withwhich he made fifty-seven for the county against the Australians, and some wretched mascot in his trouser-pocket. The mascots vary. At one time it was a midgetphotograph. But she married a stockbroker, and the photograph gave place to a b

ullet extracted from the shoulder of a man who got it at Spion Kop. When he joined us in the year of which I am writing he showed me a miniature Golliwog. It had been given to him, he explained, in romantic circumstances, and was morally certain to bring about a century on any wicket. In spite of this, however, I did not notice any increase of confidence in his batting. He had got out in his firstover against Sidmouth, clean bowled by a ball which was simply made to be put past cover in his inimitable way; and the thought that this might happen again inthe match with Seaton, which was to be played on the morrow, was taking years off my life.

I was awakened early on the morning of the match by a bang on my door and a fumbling at the handle. Enter the man Sanderson in pyjamas and a dressing-gown.

You awake, James?

I am now, I said.

Something awful has happened.

I sat up in bed.

That blackguard Sharples hasnt been smoking? But he couldnt, Ive got his pipe.

Sharples is all right as far as I know; in fact, I heard him snoring as I passedhis door.

Then whats the matter?


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My Golliwogs gone!

I made a long arm and possessed myself of a slipper. A man who can wake you up in the early morning simply because he cant find a Golliwog is not the sort of manat whom one should hesitate to throw slippers. It took him on the funny-bone. My second missile smashed the looking glass.

Sanderson gazed at the ruin, and blenched visibly.

That settles it, he said gloomily, Im safe for an egg now; there was just a chance before that I might scratch up a few, even without my Golliwog; but one cant standup against a lost mascot and a broken looking-glass on the morning of an important match. Youve done it, dear feller, this time. Done it completely. Its a round un for me to-day.

I pleaded with him, I appealed to his manhood, to his patriotism, I conjured himby everything which I imagined he held sacred to pull himself together. He onlysat there looking like some dishevelled bird, and refused to be comforted.

It was a lovely morningthe sort of morning on which to win the toss and stay at the wicket all day.

Unfortunately, I lost the toss. It was then that I congratulated myself on having looked after my bowlers. Here was Sharples, bright-eyed and rosy, looking fitto bowl through the whole innings. Here was Geake, subdued with much argument, wearing the peaceful air of one who has never so much as heard of a head-ball inhis life.

I looked round for Sanderson, and saw him staring in a sort of cold horror at one of the umpires, who was standing by the pavilion steps waiting for his colleague to join him.

I went up to him and hit him on the back.

Hurry up, Sanderson, I said. Whats the matter now?

Look!

I inspected the object of his scrutiny. The umpire was not a thing of aestheticbeauty, but there was nothing essentially repulsive in his appearance. He wore whiskers, and was wall-eyed; otherwise there was little to find fault with in him.

Dear feller, said Sanderson, clutching my arm, its all over now; do you see that man?

The umpire? Whats the matter with him?

Youll hardly believe me, but thats the very man who was umpiring in a match in Somersetshire last year, in which I took specs. Its an omen. Youd better put me in last to-day, dear feller, I shant make a run.

If anyone knows what is the proper treatment for a man of this kind, I should beglad if they would tell me.

Its probably not the same man, I said, and if it is, what does it matter, the umpirehas got nothing to do with your making runs?

Its awfully kind of you, dear feller, to try and console me, but its no use. That umpire on top of that looking-glass settles it.


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We spent the early part of the afternoon outing them for two hundred and fifty,then went in. I took Sanderson with me to the wickets. He had on his Zingari capand his Rugby house scarf, and carried the bat with which he had made 57 against the Australians. Also the Golliwog was in his pocket, that mascot presented tohim in romantic circumstances. The only thing that militated against a large score was the sinister umpire, who was standing by the wickets waiting to give the

batsman guard.

Sanderson gurgled something inarticulate. I conjectured rightly that he was asking me to take first ball. I did so, and made a single off it.

Sanderson trotted across the pitch with a wan expression on his face.

He took guard, and glanced round him with a parade of noting how the field was placed. As a matter of fact, I am prepared to give odds that he saw nothing.

What happened next I consider a direct intervention of Providence. The bowler, amedium pace man with a nice off-break, bowled, and Sanderson let go at it blind

ly. It was a purely speculative stroke. I am certain he did not see the ball. Hehit out with all his strength at random. The ball came humming back down the pitch, a foot from the ground. I sprang to one side to avoid it, and heard a sudden sharp howl from behind me. When I turned I saw the umpire in a heap on the ground. With one hand he held his ankle.

Fieldmen came up from all sides, and formed an interested group, while short-slip, who happened to be a doctor, felt the injured limb with professional gravity.Finally he delivered his verdict. The ankle was not broken, but very badly bruised, and ought to be rested. They must get a new umpire. I caught Sandersons eye.The rest of his face was a mask, on every line of which was written remorse. But his eyes gleamed with a new light.

Dont you see, dear feller, he whispered, this smashes up the omen. Turns it round completely. Its a century now, old man, and nothing less.

And when the new umpire arrived, he proceeded without delay or preamble to cut the next three balls like forked lightning past third man to the boundary.

It was seven oclock when we won, and Sanderson made his century off the last ballbowled. After taking off his pads, he went off to make inquiries after the injured umpire. As he went he fingered the Golliwog very tenderly.

* * * * * *

One of these days Sanderson will have to give up towing with the Weary Willies.They will not be able to spare him from the Colney Hatch team.

THE END

Final Wodehouse stories for Vanity Fair (USA)

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