Back Aa

Once a Week

<h3>THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT</h3> "It's my birthday to-morrow," said Mrs. Jeremy as she turned the pages of her engagement book. "Bless us, so it is," said Jeremy. "You're thirty-nine or twenty-seven or something. I must go and examine the wine-cellar. I believe there's one bottle left in the Apollinaris bin. It's the only stuff in the house that fizzes." "Jeremy! I'm only twenty-six." "You don't look it, darling; I mean you do look it, dear. What I mean—well, never mind that. Let's talk about birthday presents. Think of something absolutely tremendous for me to give you." "A rope of pearls." "I didn't mean that sort of tremendousness," said Jeremy quickly. "Anyone could give you a rope of pearls; it's simply a question of overdrawing enough from the bank. I meant something difficult that would really prove my love for you—like Lloyd George's ear or the Kaiser's cigar-holder. Something where I could kill somebody for you first. I am in a very devoted mood this morning." "Are you really?" smiled Mrs. Jeremy. "Because——" "I am. So is Baby, unfortunately. She will probably want to give you something horribly expensive. Between ourselves, dear, I shall be glad when Baby is old enough to buy her own presents for her mamma. Last Christmas her idea of a complete edition of Meredith and a pair of silver-backed brushes nearly ruined me." "You won't be ruined this time, Jeremy. I don't want you to give me anything; I want you to show that devotion of yours by doing something for me." "Anything," said Jeremy grandly. "Shall I swim the Channel? I was practising my new trudgeon stroke in the bath this morning." He got up from his chair and prepared to give an exhibition of it. "No, nothing like that." Mrs. Jeremy hesitated, looked anxiously at him, and then went boldly at it. "I want you to go in for that physical culture that everyone's talking about." "Who's everyone? Cook hasn't said a word to me on the subject; neither has Baby; neither has——" "Mrs. Hodgkin was talking to me about it yesterday. She was saying how thin you were looking." "The scandal that goes on in these villages," sighed Jeremy. "And the Vicar's wife too. Dear, all this is weeks and weeks old; I suppose it has only just reached the Vicarage. Do let us be up-to-date. Physical culture has been quite démodé since last Thursday." "Well, I never saw anything in the paper"—— "Knowing what wives are, I hid it from you. Let us now, my dear wife, talk of something else." "Jeremy! Not for my birthday present?" said his wife in a reproachful voice. "The Vicar does them every morning," she added casually. "Poor beggar! But it's what Vicars are for." Jeremy chuckled to himself. "I should love to see him," he said. "I suppose it's private, though. Perhaps if I said 'Press'——" "You are thin, you know." "My dear, the proper way to get fat is not to take violent exercise, but to lie in a hammock all day and drink milk. Besides, do you want a fat husband? Does Baby want a fat father? You wouldn't like, at your next garden party, to have everybody asking you in a whisper, 'Who is the enormously stout gentleman?' If Nature made me thin—or, to be more accurate, slender and of a pleasing litheness—let us believe that she knew best." "It isn't only thinness; these exercises keep you young and well and active in mind." "Like the Vicar?" "He's only just begun," said his wife hastily. "Let's wait a bit and watch him," suggested Jeremy. "If his sermons really get better, then I'll think about it seriously. I make you a present of his baldness; I shan't ask for any improvement there." Mrs. Jeremy went over to her husband and patted the top of his head. "'In a very devoted mood this morning,'" she quoted. Jeremy looked unhappy. "What pains me most about this," he said, "is the revelation of your shortcomings as a wife. You ought to think me the picture of manly beauty. Baby does. She thinks that, next to the postman, I am one of the——" "So you are, dear." "Well, why not leave it? Really, I can't waste my time fattening refined gold and stoutening the lily. I am a busy man. I walk up and down the pergola, I keep a dog, I paint little water-colours, I am treasurer of the cricket club; my life is full of activities." "This only takes a quarter of an hour before your bath, Jeremy." "I am shaving then; I should cut myself and get all the soap in my eyes. It would be most dangerous. When you were a widow, and Baby and the pony were orphans, you and Mrs. Hodgkin would be sorry. But it would be too late. The Vicar, tearing himself away from Position 5 to conduct the funeral service——" "Jeremy, don't!" "Ah, woman, now I move you. You are beginning to see what you were in danger of doing. Death I laugh at; but a fat death—the death of a stout man who has swallowed the shaving-brush through taking too deep a breath before beginning Exercise 3, that is more than I can bear." "Jeremy!" "When I said I wanted to kill someone for you, I didn't think you would suggest myself, least of all that you wanted me fattened up like a Christmas turkey first. To go down to posterity as the large-bodied gentleman who inhaled the badger's hair; to be billed in the London press in the words, 'Curious Fatal Accident to Adipose Treasurer'—to do this simply by way of celebrating your twenty-sixth birthday, when we actually have a bottle of Apollinaris left in the Apollinaris bin—darling, you cannot have been thinking——" His wife patted his head again gently. "Oh, Jeremy, you hopeless person," she sighed. "Give me a new sunshade. I want one badly." "No," said Jeremy, "Baby shall give you that. For myself I am still feeling that I should like to kill somebody for you. Lloyd George? No. F. E. Smith? N-no...." He rubbed his head thoughtfully. "Who invented those exercises?" he asked suddenly. "A German, I think." "Then," said Jeremy, buttoning up his coat, "I shall go and kill him." <hr /> <h3>ONE OF OUR SUFFERERS</h3> There is no question before the country of more importance than that of National Health. In my own small way I have made something of a study of it, and when a Royal Commission begins its enquiries, I shall put before it the evidence which I have accumulated. I shall lay particular stress upon the health of Thomson. "You'll beat me to-day," he said, as he swung his club stiffly on the first tee; "I shan't be able to hit a ball." "You should have some lessons," I suggested. Thomson gave a snort of indignation. "It's not that," he said. "But I've been very seedy lately, and——" "That's all right; I shan't mind. I haven't played a thoroughly well man for a month, now." "You know, I think my liver——" I held up my hand. "Not before my caddie, please," I said severely; "he is quite a child." Thomson said no more for the moment, but hit his ball hard and straight along the ground. "It's perfectly absurd," he said with a shrug; "I shan't be able to give you a game at all. Well, if you don't mind playing a sick man——" "Not if you don't mind being one," I replied, and drove a ball which also went along the ground, but not so far as my opponent's. "There! I'm about the only man in England who can do that when he's quite well." The ball was sitting up nicely for my second shot, and I managed to put it on the green. Thomson's, fifty yards farther on, was reclining in the worst part of a bunker which he had forgotten about. "Well, really," he said, "there's an example of luck for you. Your ball——" "I didn't do it on purpose," I pleaded. "Don't be angry with me." He made two attempts to get out, and then picked his ball up. We walked in silence to the second tee. "This time," I said, "I shall hit the sphere properly," and with a terrific swing I stroked it gently into a gorse bush. I looked at the thing in disgust and then felt my pulse. Apparently I was still quite well. Thomson, forgetting about his liver, drove a beauty. We met on the green. "Five," I said. "Only five?" asked Thomson suspiciously. "Six," I said, holing a very long putt. Thomson's health had a relapse. He took four short putts and was down in seven. "It's really rather absurd," he said, in a conversational way, as we went to the next tee, "that putting should be so ridiculously important. Take that hole, for instance. I get on the green in a perfect three; you fluff your drive completely and get on in—what was it?" "Five," I said again. "Er—five. And yet you win the hole. It is rather absurd, isn't it?" "I've often thought so," I admitted readily. "That is to say, when I've taken four putts. I'm two up." On the third tee Thomson's health became positively alarming. He missed the ball altogether. "It's ridiculous to try to play," he said, with a forced laugh. "I can't see the ball at all." "It's still there," I assured him. He struck at it again and it hurried off into a ditch. "Look here," he said, "wouldn't you rather play the pro.? This is not much of a match for you." I considered. Of course, a game with the pro. would be much pleasanter than a game with Thomson, but ought I to leave him in his present serious condition of health? His illness was approaching its critical stage, and it was my duty to pull him through if I could. "No, no," I said. "Let's go on. The fresh air will do you good." "Perhaps it will," he said hopefully. "I'm sorry I'm like this, but I've had a cold hanging about for some days, and that on the top of my liver——" "Quite so," I said. The climax was reached, at the next hole, when, with several strokes in hand, he topped his approach shot into a bunker. For my sake he tried to look as though he had meant to run it up along the ground, having forgotten about the intervening hazard. It was a brave effort to hide from me the real state of his health, but he soon saw that it was hopeless. He sighed and pressed his hand to his eyes. Then he held his fingers a foot away from him, and looked at them as if he were trying to count them correctly. His state was pitiable, and I felt that at any cost I must save him. I did. The corner was turned at the fifth, where I took four putts. "You aren't going to win all the holes," he said grudgingly, as he ran down his putt. Convalescence set in at the sixth, when I got into an impossible place and picked up. "Oh, well, I shall give you a game yet," he said. "Two down." The need for further bulletins ceased at the seventh hole, which he played really well and won easily. "A-ha, you won't beat me by much," he said, "in spite of my liver." "By the way, how is the liver?" I asked. "Your fresh-air cure is doing it good. Of course, it may come on again, but——" He drove a screamer. "I think I shall be all right," he announced. "All square," he said cheerily at the ninth. "I fancy I'm going to beat you now. Not bad, you know, considering you were four up. Practically speaking, I gave you a start of four holes." I decided that it was time to make an effort again, seeing that Thomson's health was now thoroughly re-established. Of the next seven holes I managed to win three and halve two. It is only fair to say, though (as Thomson did several times), that I had an extraordinary amount of good luck, and that he was dogged by ill-fortune throughout. But this, after all, is as nothing so long as one's health is above suspicion. The great thing was that Thomson's liver suffered no relapse; even though, at the seventeenth tee, he was one down and two to play. And it was on the seventeenth tee that I had to think seriously how I wanted the match to end. Thomson at lunch when he has won is a very different man from Thomson at lunch when he has lost. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was in rather a happy position. If I won, I won—which was jolly; if I lost, Thomson won—and we should have a pleasant lunch. However, as it happened, the match was halved. "Yes, I was afraid so," said Thomson; "I let you get too long a start. It's absurd to suppose that I can give you four holes up and beat you. It practically amounts to giving you four bisques. Four bisques is about six strokes—I'm not really six strokes better than you." "What about lunch?" I suggested. "Good; and you can have your revenge afterwards." He led the way into the pavilion. "Now I wonder," he said, "what I can safely eat. I want to be able to give you some sort of a game this afternoon." Well, if there is ever a Royal Commission upon the national physique I shall insist on giving evidence. For it seems to me that golf, far from improving the health of the country, is actually undermining it. Thomson, at any rate, since he has taken to the game, has never been quite fit. <hr /> <h3>IN THE SWIM</h3> "Do you tango?" asked Miss Hopkins, as soon as we were comfortably seated. I know her name was Hopkins, because I had her down on my programme as Popkins, which seemed too good to be true; and, in order to give her a chance of reconsidering it, I had asked her if she was one of the Popkinses of Hampshire. It had then turned out that she was really one of the Hopkinses of Maida Vale. "No," I said, "I don't." She was only the fifth person who had asked me, but then she was only my fifth partner. "Oh, you ought to. You must be up-to-date, you know." "I'm always a bit late with these things," I explained. "The waltz came to England in 1812, but I didn't really master it till 1904." "I'm afraid if you wait as long as that before you master the tango it will be out." "That's what I thought. By the time I learnt the tango, the bingo would be in. My idea was to learn the bingo in advance, so as to be ready for it. Think how you'll all envy me in 1917. Think how Society will flock to my Bingo Quick Lunches. I shall be the only man in London who bingoes properly. Of course, by 1918 you'll all be at it." "Then we must have one together in 1918," smiled Miss Hopkins. "In 1918," I pointed out coldly, "I shall be learning the pongo." My next partner had no name that I could discover, but a fund of conversation. "Do you tango?" she asked me as soon as we were comfortably seated. "No," I said, "I don't. But," I added, "I once learned the minuet." "Oh, they're not very much alike, are they?" "Not a bit. However, luckily that doesn't matter, because I've forgotten all the steps now." She seemed a little puzzled and decided to change the subject. "Are you going to learn the tango?" she asked. "I don't think so. It took me four months to learn the minuet." "But they're quite different, aren't they?" "Quite," I agreed. As she seemed to have exhausted herself for the moment, it was obviously my business to say something. There was only one thing to say. "Do you tango?" I asked. "No," she said, "I don't." "Are you going to learn?" "Oh, yes!" "Ah!" I said; and five minutes later we parted for ever. The next dance really was a tango, and I saw to my horror that I had a name down for it. With some difficulty I found the owner of it, and prepared to explain to her that unfortunately I couldn't dance the tango, but that for profound conversation about it I was undoubtedly the man. Luckily she explained first. "I'm afraid I can't do this," she apologised. "I'm so sorry." "Not at all," I said magnanimously. "We'll sit it out." We found a comfortable seat. "Do you tango?" she asked. I was tired of saying "No." "Yes," I said. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to find somebody else to do it with?" "Quite, thanks. The fact is I do it rather differently from the way they're doing it here to-night. You see, I actually learnt it in the Argentine." She was very much interested to hear this. "Really? Are you out there much? I've got an uncle living there now. I wonder if——" "When I say I learnt it in the Argentine," I explained, "I mean that I was actually taught it in St. John's Wood, but that my dancing mistress came from——" "In St. John's Wood?" she said eagerly. "But how funny! My sister is learning there. I wonder if——" She was a very difficult person to talk to. Her relations seemed to spread themselves all over the place. "Perhaps that is hardly doing justice to the situation," I explained again. "It would be more accurate to put it like this. When I decided—by the way, does your family frequent Paris? No? Good. Well, when I decided to learn the tango, the fact that my friends the Hopkinses of St. John's Wood, or rather Maida Vale, had already learnt it in Paris naturally led me to—— I say, what about an ice? It's getting awfully hot in here." "Oh, I don't think——" "I'll go and get them," I said hastily; and I went and took a long time getting them, and, as it turned out that she didn't want hers after all, a longer time eating them. When I was ready for conversation again the next dance was beginning. With a bow I relinquished her to another. "Come along," said a bright voice behind me; "this is ours." "Hallo, Norah, is that you? Come on." We hurried in, danced in silence, and then found ourselves a comfortable seat. For a moment neither of us spoke.... "Have you learnt the tango yet?" asked Norah. "Fourteen," I said aloud. "Help! Does that mean that I'm the fourteenth person who has asked you?" "The night is yet young, Norah. You are only the eighth. But I was betting that you'd ask me before I counted twenty. You lost, and you owe me a pair of ivory-backed hair-brushes and a cigar-cutter." "Bother! Anyhow, I'm not going to be stopped talking about the tango if I want to. Did you know I was learning? I can do the scissors." "Good. We'll do the new Fleet Street movement together, the scissors-and-paste. You go into the ball-room and do the scissors, and I'll—er—stick here and do the paste." "Can't you really do any of it at all, and aren't you going to learn?" "I can't do any of it at all, Norah. I am not going to learn, Norah." "It isn't so very difficult, you know. I'd teach you myself for tuppence." "Will you stop talking about it for threepence?" I asked, and I took out three coppers. "No." I sighed and put them back again. <hr class="min" /> It was the last dance of the evening. My hostess, finding me lonely, had dragged me up to somebody, and I and whatever her name was were in the supper-room drinking our farewell soup. So far we had said nothing to each other. I waited anxiously for her to begin. Suddenly she began. "Have you thought about Christmas presents yet?" she asked. I nearly swooned. With difficulty I remained in an upright position. She was the first person who had not begun by asking me if I danced the tango! "Excuse me," I said. "I'm afraid I didn't—would you tell me your name again?" I felt that it ought to be celebrated in some way. I had some notion of writing a sonnet to her. "Hopkins," she said; "I knew you'd forgotten me." "Of course I haven't," I said, suddenly remembering her. The sonnet would never be written now. "We had a dance together before." "Yes," she said. "Let me see," she added, "I did ask you if you danced the tango, didn't I?" <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.