Reginald | Page 5

an apricot tie would have gone better
with the lilac waistcoat."

REGINALD ON CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

I wish it to be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I don't want a
"George, Prince of Wales" Prayer-book as a Christmas present. The
fact cannot be too widely known.
There ought (he continued) to be technical education classes on the
science of present-giving. No one seems to have the faintest notion of
what anyone else wants, and the prevalent ideas on the subject are not

creditable to a civilised community.
There is, for instance, the female relative in the country who "knows a
tie is always useful," and sends you some spotted horror that you could
only wear in secret or in Tottenham Court Road. It MIGHT have been
useful had she kept it to tie up currant bushes with, when it would have
served the double purpose of supporting the branches and frightening
away the birds--for it is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of
commerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relative
in the country.
Then there are aunts. They are always a difficult class to deal with in
the matter of presents. The trouble is that one never catches them really
young enough. By the time one has educated them to an appreciation of
the fact that one does not wear red woollen mittens in the West End,
they die, or quarrel with the family, or do something equally
inconsiderate. That is why the supply of trained aunts is always so
precarious.
There is my Aunt Agatha, par exemple, who sent me a pair of gloves
last Christmas, and even got so far as to choose a kind that was being
worn and had the correct number of buttons. But--THEY WERE
NINES! I sent them to a boy whom I hated intimately: he didn't wear
them, of course, but he could have--that was where the bitterness of
death came in. It was nearly as consoling as sending white flowers to
his funeral. Of course I wrote and told my aunt that they were the one
thing that had been wanting to make existence blossom like a rose; I
am afraid she thought me frivolous--she comes from the North, where
they live in the fear of Heaven and the Earl of Durham. (Reginald
affects an exhaustive knowledge of things political, which furnishes an
excellent excuse for not discussing them.) Aunts with a dash of foreign
extraction in them are the most satisfactory in the way of understanding
these things; but if you can't choose your aunt, it is wisest in the
long-run to choose the present and send her the bill.
Even friends of one's own set, who might be expected to know better,
have curious delusions on the subject. I am NOT collecting copies of
the cheaper editions of Omar Khayyam. I gave the last four that I

received to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with
FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother. Lift-boys always have aged
mothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think.
Personally, I can't see where the difficulty in choosing suitable presents
lies. No boy who had brought himself up properly could fail to
appreciate one of those decorative bottles of liqueurs that are so
reverently staged in Morel's window--and it wouldn't in the least matter
if one did get duplicates. And there would always be the supreme
moment of dreadful uncertainty whether it was creme de menthe or
Chartreuse--like the expectant thrill on seeing your partner's hand
turned up at bridge. People may say what they like about the decay of
Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can
never really die.
And then, of course, there are liqueur glasses, and crystallised fruits,
and tapestry curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life that make
really sensible presents- -not to speak of luxuries, such as having one's
bills paid, or getting something quite sweet in the way of jewellery.
Unlike the alleged Good Woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies.
When found, by the way, she must have been rather a problem at
Christmas-time; nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the
situation. Perhaps it's as well that she's died out.
The great charm about me (concluded Reginald) is that I am so easily
pleased.
But I draw the line at a "Prince of Wales" Prayer-book.

REGINALD ON THE ACADEMY

"One goes to the Academy in self-defence," said Reginald. "It is the
one topic one has in common with the Country Cousins."
"It is almost a religious observance with them," said the Other. "A kind

of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die they go" -
"To the Chantrey Bequest. The mystery is what they find to talk about