Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/119

July 29, 1914.]



Oriental calm derides
 * Our Occidental stress

And Ninety-seven E. collides
 * With Five-and-twenty S.,

You'll find a product of the West,
 * A Bachelor of Arts,

Who blends a mind of youthful zest
 * With patriarchal parts.

Each morning mid his rubber trees
 * He rides an ancient hack,

A cassock girt above his knees,
 * A topee tilted back.

Now reining in his steed to preach
 * A parable on sap,

Now vaulting from his seat to teach
 * The proper way to tap.

His swart disciples knit their brows
 * O'er algebraic signs;

They build their byres, they milk their cows
 * On scientific lines.

They use his microscope and gaze
 * On strange bacterial risks;

They tune their daily hymns of praise
 * To gramophonic discs.

And every evening after grace,
 * When converts clear the cloth,

He pins an orchid to its place
 * Or camphorates a moth.

Out of the world his path may run,
 * Yet still in worldly wise

He'll talk of feats with rod or gun,
 * A twinkle in his eyes,

And tell of tiger-stalking nights,
 * Of mornings with the snipe,

With never a pause save when he lights
 * An antiquated pipe.

We others earn our pensioned ease,
 * The furlough of our kind;

We book our berths, we cross the seas,
 * But he shall stay behind,

Plodding his round of feast and fast,
 * Dreaming the dreams of yore,

Of England as he saw her last
 * In 1884.

J. M. S.



""

"'At the hour of six the Rev. S. F. Collier gave out the only possible hymn— 'And are we get alive And see each other's face! Yorkshire Post"



supper-room was so full that I quite expected to find that, since I was so late, the harassed head-waiter had taken the liberty of presuming my death and letting someone else have my table; but there it was, empty and ready for me. I sank into a chair with a feeling of relief and, having ordered something to eat, began to examine the room. There was not a spare place; everyone was eating and talking and unusual excitement was in the air. From my remote corner I could not catch any words, but the odd thing was that at every table one at least of the men, who were all in evening-dress, was waving his arms. Now and then a man would stand up to do this better. It was as though they were all deaf and dumb, or cinema actors.

The next day at lunch I had a similar experience. I patronized another restaurant, which seemed to be equally popular, and again every man was gesticulating in a style totally foreign to the staid apathetic Londoner. What could it mean? What was the reason?

I asked the waiter. He laughed. "Ah," he said, "I have notice it too. It is funny, is it not? Zey all show each other how Georges Carpentier won on ze foul." 