On Something | Page 3

what you think! (Groans.) Oh, dear! I'm nearly off my head!
Enter MISS COBLEY. (She bobs.)
Good evening, m'm.
MRS. HAVERTON (_by way of reply_): Now, then! What's all this fuss about the washing?
MISS COBLEY: Please, m'm, the seven collars, what you sent-- I mean the seven what was marked--was wrong, And mother says as you'd have had the washing Only there weren't but five, and would you mind....
MRS. HAVERTON (_sharply_): I cannot understand a word you say. Go back and tell your mother there were seven. And if she sends home five she pays for two. So there! (Snorts.)
MISS COBLEY (_sobbing_): I'm sure I....
MRS. HAVERTON (_savagely_): Don't stand snuffling there! Go back and tell your mother what I say.... Impudent hussy!...
(Exit MISS COBLEY _sobbing. A pause._)
REV. A. HAVERTON (_with assumed authority_): To return to Helen. Tell me concisely and without complaints, Why did she give you notice?
(_A hand-bell rings in the passage_.)
FIDO: Bow-wow-wow!
REV. A. HAVERTON (_giving him a smart kick_): Shurrup!
FIDO (_howling_). Pen-an'-ink! Pen-an'-ink Pen-an'-ink! Pen-an'-ink!
REV. A. HAVERTON (_controlling himself, as well as he can, goes to the door and calls into the passage_): Miss Grosvenor! (_Louder_) ... Miss Grosvenor!... Was that the bell for prayers? Was that the bell for prayers?... (_Louder_) Miss Grosvenor. (_Louder_) Miss Gros-ve-nor! (Tapping with his foot.) Oh!...
MISS GROSVENOR (_sweetly and, far off_): Is that Mr. Haverton?
REV. A. HAVERTON: Yes! yes! yes! yes!... Was that the bell for prayers?
MISS GROSVENOR (_again_): Yes? Is that Mr. Haverton? Oh! Yes! I think it is.... I'll see--I'll ask Matilda.
(_A pause, during which the_ REV. A. HAVERTON is in a qualm.)
MISS GROSVENOR (_rustling back_): Matilda says it is the bell for prayers.
(_They all come filing into the study and arranging the chairs. As they enter_ MISS HARVEY, _the guest, treads heavily on MATILDA'S foot._)
MISS HARVEY: Matilda? Was that you? I beg your pardon.
MATILDA (_limping_): Granted, I'm sure, miss!
MRS. HAVERTON (whispering to the REV. A. HAVERTON): Do not read the Creed! Miss Harvey is a Unitarian. I should suggest some simple form of prayer, Some heartfelt word of charity and peace Common to every Christian.
REV. A. HAVERTON (_in a deep voice_): Let us pray.
_Curtain._

ON A NOTEBOOK
A dear friend of mine (John Abdullah Capricorn, to give him his full name) was commandeered by a publisher last year to write a book for ￡10. The work was far advanced when an editor offered him ￡15 and his expenses to visit the more desperate parts of the Sahara Desert, to which spots he at once proceeded upon a roving commission. Whether he will return or no is now doubtful, though in March we had the best hopes. With the month of May life becomes hard for Europeans south of the Atlas, and when my poor dear friend was last heard of he was chancing his popularity with a tribe of Touaregs about two hundred miles south of Touggourt.
Under these circumstances I was asked to look through his notebook and see what could be done; and I confess to a pleased surprise.... It would have been a very entertaining book had it been published. It will be a very entertaining book if it is published.
Capricorn seems to have prepared a hotchpotch of information of human follies, of contrasts, and of blunt stupidities of which he intended to make a very entertaining series of pages. I have not his talent for bringing such things together, but it may amuse the reader if I merely put in their order one or two of the notes which most struck me.
I find first, cut out of a newspaper and pasted into the book (many of his notes are in this form), the following really jovial paragraph:
"Archdeacon Blunderbuss (Blunderbuss is not the real name; I suppress that lest Capricorn's widow should lose her two or three pounds, in case the poor fellow has really been eaten). Archdeacon Blunderbuss was more distinguished as a scholar than as a Divine. He was a very poor preacher and never managed to identify himself with any party. Nevertheless, in 1895 the Prime Minister appointed him to a stall in Shoreham Cathedral as a recognition of his great learning and good work at Durham. Two years later the rectory of St. Vacuums becoming vacant and it being within the gift of Archdeacon Blunderbuss, he excited general amazement and much scandal by presenting himself to the living."
There the paragraph ends. It came in an ordinary society paper. It bore no marks of ill-will. It came in the midst of a column of the usual silly adulation of everybody and everything; how it got there is of no importance. There it stood and the keen eye of Capricorn noted it and treasured it for years.
I will make no comment upon this paragraph. It may be read slowly or quickly, according to the taste of the reader; it is