Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/214

Dearest Daphne,—The prospect of a raid is the great attraction just now at week-end parties. Dick and Dottie Flummery sent round invitations, a little while ago, when Dick was home from the Front for a few days' leave: "Come from Friday to Monday. Raid expected." As they're lucky enough to have a place on the East coast, people were simply slaying each other to get there, and Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, wrote to say she didn't mind where they put her up, in the garage or even with the dogs, she said, if only she might come! Pompom and I were invited, and went off at once to get raid-wraps. "Olga" is making quite a feature of these big, cosy, fur-lined satin wraps with hoods lined with the Union Jack, great enamelled buttons with one of our Allies' flags on each, a design of bombs, guns, aeroplanes and submarines in steel embroidery down the fronts and round the skirts, and a little precious pistol pocket on the hip. For dogsies she makes them all sizes, down to the weeniest, and my angel looks too darling for words in his.

Dick and Dottie, whose place is not far from Herrinport and so in the thick of the fun, were all ready for anything. But nothing happened for three days, and on Monday evening we were feeling very cheap at the thought of going away the next day raidless. We stayed up, hoping against hope, till some of us gave up in despair and went to bed. Dick and the rest of the men went out to make observations and report if anything was coming. Suddenly, at past midnight, we heard the sound of firing close to the coast.

"They're here!" I screamed, and, with wonderful self-possession, I at once put on my own and darling Pompom's raid-wraps.

"They're landing!" shrieked all the others in chorus. "Oh! why don't Dick and the others come back and defend us?"

One of the gardeners came rushing in. "There's a lot of they Germans landing close by, ladies!" he shouted. "Herrinport's all in a buzz and they be goin' to fire off the old cannon. But they chaps be comin' straight for this house!"

"Keep your heads!" I said (wasn't I wonderful, my Daphne?). "Let's all stand in a row, with our raid-wraps on and our revolvers pointed!"

However, they wouldn't stand in a row and they wouldn't do anything but rush about and make a noise, and, when I had the lights switched off, someone else had them switched on again, and then in another moment the invaders were upon us and had burst into the house, a crowd of them, all muffled up in cloaks and caps.

"Ach Himmel!" one of them cried. "You are prisoners, mein littel ladies. We take you back to de Vaterland!"

"You don't take me or Pompon back to your immensely odious Vaterland!" I said, putting my little petty-pet_behind me in his basket. "You'll have to step over my dead body before you touch my own darling!" and I pointed my revolver.

At that moment Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, who was one of those that had given up in despair and gone to bed, came rushing down without her raid-wrap and without several other things that would have improved her appearance. Brandishing an umbrella, the only kind of weapon she had managed to snatch up, she charged the invaders with a shrill cry of, "You dreadful wretches! Go back to your horrid country!" And then there was a great shout of laughter, and the cloaks and caps were pulled off—and there were Dick and the rest of them and the Delamonts from Delamont Hall three miles away! It was a put-up thing. They had used the Delamonts' yacht and let off squibs before landing, and Herrinport replied by firing off its one little old cannon, which burst in the process!

So there's our raid, m'amie! Dick and the others got a small wigging from the powers that be, but as they were going back to the Front it was all kept quiet and allowed to blow over.

I've Mélanie de Vieuxchateau with me on a long visit. The Comte is with the army. Vieuxchateau, their lovely old place in the North of France has been spoiled by those creatures. Mélanie only just got away in time, but the dear thing, though in such a tearing hurry, actually went and saw that the bolts of the concealed trap-doors in the old part of the chateau were drawn back, so that anybody treading on one of them would fall down into an oubliette.

In the delicious romantic old times, people who weren't wanted quite often fell down into these lovely old underground donjons and were never heard of again; and a former Comte, who was Hereditary-Chief-Great-Wig-Comber to Louis XIV., kept his nephew for two years in the worst of all the donjons for sneezing in the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles when the Roi Soleil was passing through. What darling old days those were!

Well, soon after dear Mélanie had escaped, those creatures occupied the chateau, led by a certain Prince, who loaded himself with valuables, and, when his hands and arms and pockets were quite full, filled his mouth with small jewellery, and then trod on one of the unbolted trap-doors and fell down into the worst of all the oubliettes (the one where the sneezing nephew was kept), and when he was got out had to be operated on, as he was being suffocated with brooches and ear-rings going down his throat in the fall. It has been given out that he was wounded in battle, but Mélanie says the truth is that he still has a small lace-brooch sticking in his throat, and there's a diamond ear-ring in one of his lungs, and he'll never be the same man again! However, he's got a whole row of iron crosses and eagles and things for the "Great Victory of Vieuxchateau!"

My dearest, I've such an adorable secret for your own, own ear. I believe your Blanche is going to influence this dreadful war and have a little, little niche in history. You remember how popular the King of Rowdydaria was when, as Prince Blorin, he was over here some time ago. He and I were great pals—he gave me that little sapphire lucky-pig that I wear as a mascot. So the idea came to me to write to him and get him, for my sake, to leave off being so wretchedly neutral and join us and our allies with his army, which is considered one of the ——— in ——— (I'm censoring this myself, as one can't be too reticent about these things). I wrote him a perfectly sweet letter, reminding him of the happy times at Jinkshigh Manor, when he distinguished himself so gloriously in a pillow fight in the corridors one evening. I said I still wore his mascot, and then I asked him to leave off being so neutral, as it was utterly unworthy of him, and, for my sake, to come into the war on the right side at once.

I got his answer the other day—a most sweet one! He says he remembers his fair and charming friend only too well for his peace of mind; that he's honoured that I still wear his little gift, that he only lives to please me, and that he kisses my hands and is my "devoted Blorin." So, of course, he means to come into the War, and I shall have been the means of ending it sooner, and I shall be in history, and I shall be—but I'm still

Ever thine, Blanche.

P.S.—I've just read in the morning papers that "the King of Rowdydaria has made a formal proclamation of strict neutrality"! That Blorin is a pig of the first magnitude!