Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/183

First Patriot. "Ah! I see you haven't yet changed the name of your Eau-de-Cologne."

Second Patriot. "Pardon me, Madam. I have taken the liberty of labelling my new supply 'Cologne Water.'"

[Even the more obscure of the American papers often contain important news of the doings of the British army many days before the Censor allows the information to be published in England.]

O authors, remember to join your flats!

The novel was going splendidly. I had heen revelling in it. I was sitting in one chair, with my feet in another, not far from the fire, plunged in the story, when all of a sudden my pleasure went.

It was in Chapter xvii., where the young doctor takes a taxi and rushes up to the actress's flat so as to be there first, before Lord Burlington. You must understand that the young doctor is newly in practice and has the greatest difficulty in making both ends meet. Well, it says that he sprang from the cab and was half-way up the stairs in a moment. That was all right, but the point is that he stayed two hours hunting for the missing letter. Now this is a very exciting passage, because we know that the detective may be here any minute, and Lord Burlington is coming too, and if either of them—well, the point is that, owing to the author forgetting to make the young doctor pay the taxi-man, all my pleasure went.

I am not unduly economical, but I hate downright waste, and here was the taximeter ticking all through the rest of that chapter and the next, and further still. Had it been Lord Burlington's cab I should have cared less, for he was rich; had it been the detective's I should not have cared at all, because the driver might have gone to Scotland Yard for his money. But the young doctor was so poor, and sooner or later he would have to come out of the flat again, and then he would be caught and faced with an impossible bill; and this got on my nerves.

As I say, the story was frightfully exciting just there, but I found myself, instead of participating in the excitement, saying, "Another twopence"; "Twopence more"; It must be four shillings by now," "Five shillings," and so on. Not even when the face of the Chinaman appeared at the window—he had climbed up the water-pipe and had a dagger in his teeth—could I really concentrate. "Seven-and-six by now," was all I said.

The result was that the effect of the book was lost on me and I cared nothing for what happened to any one. The taximeter ticked through every subsequent page. Long after we got away from London altogether and the young doctor was on his way to Hong Kong, racing the detective, I still heard the taximeter ticking; just because the man had never been paid. It ticked through the wedding bells; and it ticked through the strangling of Lord Burlington in one of the Adelphi arches, with which the story closes.

And that is why I say, O authors, remember to join your flats.