Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/358

Dearest Daphne,—I've been putting in a most strenuous Easter here! When I invited a houseful of people I added as a P.S., "N.B.—Recruiting." And we've worked like niggers. My own success has been colossal. In the nickiest of khaki-coloured tailor-mades, with a darling little semi-military cap with a bunch of ribbons, just like a real recruiting officer's, I've made the round of all the neighbouring villages—Puddlebury Parva, Much Gapington, and ever so many more, and have pulled in recruits grandly! "Now," I said to the young natives standing about the village streets, "you boys have got to leave your hedging or your digging, or whatever it is you do, and offer yourselves to your country. I'm quite quite sure big, strong, brave fellows like you aren't going to stand by while other men do your fighting for you! So come along with me at once to the recruiting-office!" And they shuffled about and gurgled in their throats and nudged each other and grinned—but they came along!

If you've done nothing of this kind, my Daphne, you can't imagine what a comfy little thrill it gives one to feel one's been the means of turning a slouch and a cloth-cap and a gurgle into a brisk soldier-laddie! The fly in the ointment has been that Beryl and Babs would persist in claiming some of my recruits as theirs. Things might have got a bit difficult, only I was very forbearing with them. "What's it matter who pulls them in so long as they are pulled in?" I said. "Though at the same time you must both know in your hearts that I've got quite three times as many as either of you."

In the evenings we've been giving little recruiting concerts in the various villages; charming little affairs, with a recruiting-office at the side of the platform, and the best seats given to those who went and offered themselves before the concert began. I sang patriotic songs, draped in a flag. Beryl and Babs gave a fencing turn. Clarges gave his "Farmyard Imitations." I don't say that I should have known what animals he was imitating, but he told us each time, so that was all right. The Rector of Much Gapington, a dear man with quite a little reputation as an amateur conjurer, did some of his most wonderful tricks, and, though his hand certainly seemed a little out once or twice and he dropped several things that weren't meant to be dropped, everybody was delighted. Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, in a soft muslin frock with a red-white-and-blue sash and her hair in ringlets, read a long interesting letter from her grandson, Pegwell, at the Front.

But the plat de résistance was Norty's "Adventures of a Flying Man in War Time."

He's a flight-commander now, and was my guest of honour while his Easter leave lasted; but oh! my dear friend, what do you, do you think? When I first saw him I shrieked and had to have bromide and veronal. He's grown a (I feel as if I couldn't write it!)—a beard, Daphne!! "I knew you'd jib at it, Blanche," he said, "but going up so high we have to grow 'em. Knitting's not good enough. Flying men must grow their own mufflers. I promise you, however, that I'll shave it off again when the War's over." "When the War's over!" I screamed. "By that time the horrible thing will be down to your waist, and I'll be dead of a broken heart!" And then Beryl weighed in with one of her very own speeches: "I thought you liked beards, dear Blanche. Your husband wears one." I kept calm. It happens to suit Josiah," was all I said.

By the way, Josiah is really beginning to come home at last now that the seas are clear down there. His adventures, my dear, since he went away last July to look after rubber concessions at the other end of the world! A little trading vessel on which he made one of his efforts to come back caught fire, and they all took to the boats, and Josiah was in a small one by himself, and he drifted on till he came to an island that's not on any map, and there he's been living among palms and cocoa-nuts and natives and fearful things of that kind, and he never knew from one day to another whether they would end by eating him or making him their king (he's not sure which would have been the worse fate!). As far as I can make out his writing, he calls them the Boldoreens. They are about the only real, old-fashioned natives left anywhere now! Their hair is long and stiff and stands straight up from their heads; their dress consists of a little sea-weed (which sounds distinctly charming for a summer toilette), and their money is the leaves of a particular sort of bush. They're quite nice and kind till you offend them, and then they eat you! The fact that Josiah is able to come back proves that he has more tact than I gave him credit for. Daily Thrills and Daily Tidings have both cabled him asking for exclusive rights in the Boldoreens and bee his adventures, They've even been to see me, and when I let out that Josiah has secured a photo of the Head Boldereen the Daily Thrills' man became almost rabid! I've already arranged a series of "Social Lecture-Chats"—Thursdays in May—Harmonic Hall—a song or two—tea and coffee—and Josiah to tell about the Boldoreens to a soft, running piano accompaniment. Tickets, five shillings each, the money to go to the War funds. I feel sure it will be a big thing, and will fetch ces autres in crowds.

D'you know, my dearest, I don't consider that women's wits are being sufficiently used in this War. I don't claim that we ought to have a hand in strategy and large things of that kind, or that we're able to make great big inventions (like Lord Newton, you know, who first thought of locomotives through seeing an apple fall off a tree), but I do claim that some of us are very sharp and think of quite a number of things. You guess what's coming? Yes, your Blanche has thought of something—something that would end this wretched blockade in a few days! Let some ships go out trailing things that would act as magnets to submarines, so that they would fly to them and stick to them in spite of themselves. Then let the ships come back to port with a lot of U-boats stuck fast to the magnets—et voilà! Of course the point is to find out just what would act as a magnet to submarines (Norty suggested a lump of copper or a bag of iron crosses, but that was only par plaisanterie). Anyhow, I shall lay my idea before the Admiralty, and leave them to find out the right kind of magnet.

Ever thine, Blanche.

P.S.—The new skirt has revived a lost art. Before I left town Fallalerie's was crowded every afternoon with people learning to walk again. I got hold of it quicker than any of them. Imaginez-vous, m'amie! After a course of only twelve lessons I could actually take a step several inches long.

[The value of the stinging nettle as a vegetable is being emphasised in German War cookery notes.]

"Several Ladies Required to assist in organising very smart, new Ladies' Club." Advt. in "The Times."