Dear Aunt Verena,—I am sending you the second number of The Beguiler and we all hope it will amuse you. We also hope that no other number will be needed, not because we are tired, but because we want you to be well.—Your loving niece,
Evangeline
No. 2. September, 1919
THE BEGUILER
OR
THE INVALID’S FRIEND
A Miscellany
COMPILED BY
EVANGELINE BARRANCE
ASSISTED BY A BUNCH OF FLOWERS
THE TEST
A STORY
There was once a girl named Philippa Barnes whose father and mother died when she was seventeen. As she was too young to be married and was very rich, she had to have a guardian, and in reply to an advertisement a number of candidates for that position came forward. They were all handsome elderly men of nearly forty, and when Philippa saw them she liked most of them a good deal, but as their references were all perfect she was puzzled how to choose. Being very fond of Shakespeare she had read The Merchant of Venice and she decided that she must devise a test, as Portia did, but as it would be foolish to borrow the idea of the three caskets, which most people know about, she had to invent a new one.
All the applicants for the post of guardian were told to be at her family mansion at ten o’clock in the morning, and when they were assembled Philippa sent for them one by one and told each that he must recount to her some anecdote in which he had taken part with some person of inferior position—such as a bus-conductor or a taxi-driver or a railway porter or a waiter or a char. When they had all finished Philippa made her choice, which fell upon a candidate named Barclay Pole who was not so tall as the others and not so well dressed, although his references were beyond dispute.
“But,” said her old nurse, who had been standing by her side all through the interviews, “why do you choose him when there are all those handsome ones at your disposal?”
“Because,” Philippa said, “he was the only one who when he told the story did not make the other person call him Sir.”
Barclay Pole thus became her guardian and carried out his duties with perfect success until it was time to give her hand in marriage to Captain Knightliville of the Guards.
“Heartease”
PEOPLE WHO REALLY DESERVE THE O.B.E.
II. THE POSTMAN
When my brother was small he wanted to be a postman because he wanted to knock double knocks; but no one who is grown up would want it, because there is no fun in spending your life in delivering letters to other people, other people’s letters are so dull.
Other people have such odd ways with their letters. Father even is cross when there is a letter for him and says “Confound the thing!—why can’t they leave me alone?” But my eldest sister waits for the postman and is miserable if he doesn’t bring her anything.
Some people lay their letters by their plates and go on eating. This seems to me extraordinary.
Some of our visitors who get letters say “Excuse me” before they read them, but others don’t.
When I think of the postman going on for ever and ever taking letters to other people I am convinced that he ought to have the O.B.E.
“Rose”
THE CINEMA
One of the strange things to reflect about is what people did before the cinema was invented. My father was an old man before he ever saw a moving picture and when he was a boy there were none. He does not like them now because he says he always comes away with either a headache or a flea, but I like them excessively.
I like the serious ones best, but my brother Jack wants the comic ones. He can walk like Charlie Chaplin. He likes Mutt and Jeff too. I know a girl who was photographed by a cinema man while she was at Church Parade in the Park and the next week she saw it at a Picture Palace and recognized herself.
One kind of a film is always very dull and that is the kind that shows the King shaking hands with the Lord Mayor and people coming away from football matches. It is a very curious thing but nearly always when I get into a cinema this kind of film happens at once and goes on for a long time, so that it is very often too late to stay to the end of the story-film.
I wish they would turn more books into films. A girl I know lived in Paris and saw The Count of Monte Cristo and it was splendid. Lots of books would make good films. The other day we all said what books we would most like to see on the movies. Two girls came to tea and one said The Black Tulip and the other Little Women. Jack wanted Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and I think one of Mrs. Nesbit’s books like The Enchanted Castle would be splendid.
One thing that I don’t like about the movies is that they give you too much time to read the short sentences in.
It is funny how a high wind always blows in American drawing-rooms in the cinema.
M.P.s when you see them on the movies going to the opening of Parliament always walk too fast.
“Dandelion”
UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING NEAR CHELSEA HOSPITAL
HISTORICAL RHYMES
II. LINES ON THE LANDING OF KING JOHN AFTER A CERTAIN TRAGIC EVENT
A VISIT TO THE ZOO
Last Saturday we all went to the Zoo. There were no lion or tiger cubs, but we went behind the cages in the reptile house and the keeper showed us some baby crocodiles and let us hold one. It had the funniest little teeth like a tiny saw, and a white throat which it can close up in the water, and a film comes over its eyes when it likes just like the shutter of a Brownie. The keeper said it was a few months old but would very likely live to be a hundred.
Then he hooked a boa constrictor out of its cage and asked us to hold it. I was frightened at first but after Jack and the others had held it I tried. Its body feels terribly strong and electric and all the time it is coiling about and darting out a little forked tongue. I was very glad when the keeper took it away.
We saw the diving birds being fed in their tank. There are two of them, one in a cage at each end, and the keeper throws little live fish into the tank and lets out one bird at a time. At first we were very sorry for the poor little fish, which swim about frantically in all directions to escape from the terrible great bird who dashes after them like a cruel submarine; but after a while we began to want the bird not to miss any. Isn’t that funny? And my brother Jack got so excited that he pointed out to the bird where one of the little fish was hiding and cried out “Here he is, look, down here! Look, in the corner!”
“Convolvulus”
A FABLE
There was once a garden path paved with flat stones, and in between the stones were little tufts of thyme and other herbs.
On each side of the path were beds full of gay flowers, among which was a very vain geranium, who, when no one was about, used to mock the thyme because it was in such an exposed spot and liable to be walked on.
“The proper place for plants,” the geranium said, “is in a bed where they are safe from people’s feet and are treated with respect. Look at me!”
“Yes,” said the thyme, “but the more I am trampled on the sweeter I become and the more the lady who planted me likes me. Haven’t you seen her squeezing me with her beautiful hands and then inhaling my fragrance, whereas if anything hits you you are done for for ever.”
And at that moment a tennis ball, struck out of the court near by, fell on the geranium and broke it in two.
The moral is that every one has his own place in life and we should mind our own business.
“Carnation”
CORRESPONDENCE
I
To the Editor of The Beguiler
Dear Madam,—You ask me to tell you what is the most depressing thing I ever heard. It was this. I was crossing the Channel on a rough day, feeling more miserable than I can describe and clinging to my deck-chair because I knew that to move would be fatal, when two young men passed me, in rude health and spirits, both smoking large pipes, and I heard one say, “Personally, I’ve got no use for a smooth sea.” I can conceive of nothing more offensively depressing than this.
Hoping you can find a place for the “anecdote” in your bright little periodical,—I am yours faithfully,
Hector Barrance
II
To the Editor of The Beguiler
Dear Madam,—I am glad to hear that you approved of my contribution to your last number. Being still unable to write, I again send you something copied from the works of another. It is a poem by Joyce Kilmer, a young American killed in the war.
Believe me, your admiring subscriber,
Richard Haven
X His mark
TREES
End of Number 2 of
The Beguiler; or, The Invalid’s Friend