Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/377

October 21, 1914.] 

looked up. "I think I hear that boy again selling evening papers," she said. "I suppose they must come off the 9.5 train. But it's a strange thing to happen on a Sunday—here."

The Reverend Henry was already at the window. He threw it up and leaned out.

"One can't approve of it, but I suppose in war time—" Mrs. Henry was beginning when her husband cut her short. "Hush—I'm trying to hear what he is saying. I wish boys could be taught to speak distinctly." There was a pause.

"I can't make him out." The Reverend Henry's head reappeared between the curtains. "It's really most exasperating; I'd give a lot to know if the Belgian army got out of Antwerp before it fell."

"Couldn't you shout down and ask him?"

"No, no. I cannot be discovered interrogating urchins about secular affairs from a second storey window on Sunday evening. Still, I'd like to know."

The Reverend Henry perambulated the room with knitted brow.

"I never bought a Sunday paper of any sort in my life. Never."

"I suppose one must have some principles," said his wife.

"But it's enormously important, you know. They may easily have been surrounded and captured." He returned to the window. "Hullo, he's gone to the door. I say, Cook has bought one. This is exciting. I should never have thought Cook would have done that."

"It raises rather a nice point," said Mrs. Henry.

The Reverend Henry returned resolutely to his book. The shouts of the newsvendor died away.

"We must not forget," said the Reverend Henry irrelevantly, that Cook is a Dissenter." Then suddenly he broke out. "I wish I know," he said. "I am not paying the least attention to this book and I shan't sleep well, and I shall get up about two hours before the morning paper arrives, and be restive till I know whether the Belgians got out. But what am I to do? I can't ask Cook." in

"I might go down," his wife volunteered. I needn't say anything about about it, you know. I could just stroll about the kitchen and change the orders for breakfast. The paper is pretty sure to be lying about. There may be headlines."

"No," said the Reverend Henry with determination, "I really cannot consent to it."

"Well, I may as well go to bed. Don't sit up late."

The Reverend Henry did sit up rather late. He was wide awake and ill at ease. At last he listened intently at the door and then took a candle and stole down the passage.

The Reverend Henry had not been in his own kitchen for close upon ten years, and he did not know the way about very well. He had adventures and some moments of rigid suspense while the clatter of a kicked coal-scuttle died away in the distance. But when at last he crept noiselessly up-stairs he was assured of a good night's rest.

"What a mess your hands are in," said Mrs. Henry sleepily.

"Yes," said Henry. "That miserable woman had used it to lay the fire. But it's all right. They did get out—most of them."



Alf (reading French news).

"'British Troops Fighting (Official).'—Western Mail."

So the Censor has let the secret out at last, and the rumours of the last 70 days prove to be well founded.

"'Five hundred German prisoners were landed in Dublin yesterday afternoon, and conveyed under escort to Templemore, County Tipperary.'—Newcastle Daily Journal."

It's a long, long way, but they've got there at last.