Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/570

"Francesca," I said, "would you mind———"

"You needn't say any more," she interrupted. "I know you're going to ask me to do something for you ought to do for yourself."

"Wonderful!" I said. "How do you guess these things?"

"There's no difficulty about it," she said. "You've only got to know your man."

"Is that," I said, "what is called intuition?"

"You can call it what you like," she said.

"When you guess right I shall call it intuition, but I can't do that this time."

"Well," she said, "I'm willing to bet a shilling about it."

"Francesca," I said, "when you condescend to use the language of the Turf, you may as well condescend correctly."

"I'm always a willing learner. What ought I to have said?"

"The market odds are at least two to one on. Your tremendous certainty makes them so. You will therefore offer to lay a bob to a tanner."

"And when," she said, "shall I get my bob?"

"You will not get your bob at all. I shall get your bob—that is, if you're honest."

"But where," she said, "does the tanner come in?"

"The tanner," I said, "doesn't come in at all. It remains in my pocket."

"Then I'm expected to pay you a bob and get nothing back for it. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes," I said, "that's what it amounts to. You've lost, you know."

"Then I don't wonder," she said, "that people get ruined on the Turf. But how do you know I've lost? Let's get back to the start."

"Right," I said, "let's."

"About turn!" she said. "On the left form platoon! Good gracious, where are you all?"

"We're forming two deep," I said. "Don't be angry with us. We're only volunteers, but we have our feelings, just like Kitchener's army."

"Very well then. What was it you wanted me to do?"

"When you interrupted me so roughly I was going to ask you whether you'd mind ordering some safety-razor blades for me from the hairdresser's."

"There," she said, "I knew it. Didn't I say you were going to ask me to do something for you which you ought to do for yourself."

"Remember," I said, "it's war-time."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"You mustn't be selfish in war-time," I said. "You must keep on doing things for other people, and the less you like doing the things the better it is for you. I'm really giving you a tremendous chance."

"I admit that," she said reflectively, "but I don't see how you're to get any good out of it."

"I shan't have any beard and whisker to worry me. My chin and cheeks will be as smooth as vellum."

"Yes," she said, "that'll be very jolly for you; but you won't be doing things you don't like doing for other people."

"Doesn't that sound a trifle mixed?" I said.

"Never mind the mixture," she said. "You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

"Yes," she said, "you do. You won't be getting any moral good out of it; and that is a thought I can't bear."

"Don't let it weigh on you," I said. I'm quite willing to sacrifice myself. And, anyhow, my moral good can wait till you've got yours."

"No," she said, "I can't see it in that way. I should be taking an unfair advantage of you."

46 Take it," I said; "I don't mind."

"Generous-hearted man! But try to imagine yourself after I've ordered your safety-blades. Won't there be a galling sense of inferiority?"

"What of that?" I said. "You'll step into your proper place, and that will be sufficient reward for me."

"No," she said, "if I'm to rise in the moral scale by ordering your safety-blades, I must invent something to raise you to the same height at the same time."

"That's very noble of you; but I think you'd better begin, and we can talk about my elevation afterwards."

"You shall be elevated simultaneously or not at all. I'll go to the telephone and order the blades, while you walk round to the linen-draper's and buy me a packet of assorted needles and half-a-dozen reels of cotton."

"But," I said, "I don't know the draper. He's a newcomer in the neighbourhood."

"He beats the hairdresser by a week or two."

"Besides, what good am I at needles and reels of cotton?"

"Am I," she said, "profoundly versed in the blades of safety-razors?"

"I shall buy you the wrong kind of needles and cotton."

"And I shall order you the wrong kind of blades. Won't it be fun?"

"You may think it fun at first," I said, "but what'll you say when I've got hair half an inch long on my face?"

"I shan't mind," she said. "I can pierce through the outer shell to the beauty within."

"It's a silly thing to ask a man to do," I said. "I haven't the vaguest idea what needles cost."

"The draper will tell you. He's a most obliging man."

"Mayn't I order them on the telephone?"

"No," she said, "I'm going to use that for the hairdresser. And the point of the whole thing is that we should both get our moral good at the same moment."

"I shall make a mess of it," I said.

"Not you. You'll have a glorious success, and you'll want to be buying needles for ever afterwards."

"All right," I said, "I resign myself. I'm off to the draper's."

"I'll give you three minutes' start," she said, "and then I'll call up the hairdresser."

Messrs. Longmans announce the publication of a theological work entitled Was Wycliffe a Negligent Pluralist? We understand that this will be shortly followed by a series of similar volumes, of which the following are already promised:—Was Confucius a Dissolute Supralapsarian? Was Socrates an Absent-minded Archimandrite? Was Marcus Aurelius a Petulant Anabaptist.

"June the Fifteenth is Waterloo Day and as in 1815 so also in 1915 will England be engaged in oue of the Great Battles of the World. The coming of War found us unready. Our Fathers had not sufficiently kept alive the lesson of Waterloo. We, of this generation, will not easily forget the lessons of Mons and Ypres. But we have already forgotten, if we let pass the unique occasion of June the Fifteenth without using it as a means to the education of those who are to follow us."—Advt. of the Medici Society, Ltd.

Medici, heal yourselves. We shall wait for the eighteenth, as usual.

"An English lady, whose husband is much away, wishes another as companion for walks."—Glasgow Citizen.

A good chance for a "walking gentleman."