by A. A. Milne
Waiter: Capercailzie or beef, sir?
Freshman (startled): What?
Waiter: Capperkelly or beef, sir?
Freshman (very pink): Er—I didn’t—er—
Waiter: Kepper—
Freshman: Beef, please.
The rest of us hit upon some standard pronunciation, I forget what, and avoided the beef. It is always difficult to know what to do about other people’s pronunciations.
I had to make arrangements with a mathematical coach, a Scotsman called Walker. I played football every afternoon, and didn’t feel inclined to work immediately afterwards, so proposed to go to him in the mornings at some hour when I wasn’t at a lecture. We discussed what subjects we should do together, and then he said, ‘And will ye come in the for-r-r-r-noon or the affter-r-r-rnoon?’ My three-quarter English blood boiled at the idea of saying ‘for-r-r-rnoon,’ politeness forbade me to say ‘morning,’ so I went to him in the afternoon, and never ceased to regret it. My previous coach, who had discovered that it was no good was E. W. Barnes. There we were, working away like anything at Differential Equations, and now he’s the Bishop of Birmingham and I write plays. Somehow I never thought of him as a clergyman; probably he never thought of me as a dramatist. Certainly he never thought of me as a mathematician.
I did all the usual things in my first term. I bought two pipes, silver-bound, in a morocco case. I started a banking account, and established my cheque-signature as ‘Alan A. Milne.’ So it has remained: with the result that any letter addressed thus proclaims itself at once a bill, receipt or charitable appeal. This has been very useful. I had breakfast with the Master of Trinity, the famous Dr Butler. It was he who came into the breakfast-room one wintry morning where half-a-dozen nervous freshmen were awaiting him, glanced out of the window, and said genially: ‘Well, well, we have a little sun this morning’ . . . and the most nervous freshman who answered: ‘I hope Mrs Butler is all right.’ I kept lectures, cut chapels, got up as late as I could, was called on by strangers and, shyly, returned calls. I also played outside-left in the Freshmen’s match and a silent Greek maiden in Agamemnon. While this was going on, A. K. M. was sending in a set of verses each week to The Granta, and receiving them back again. It was not until the beginning of my second term that we had our first contribution accepted. Ken invented a nonsense verse, a little in the limerick vein, which, once found, provided us with an easy formula for humour. We hoped that the result would come to be known as Milnicks, but it was not to be. Here is an example:
He was a violoncello
And she was a wedding-bell.
He loved ‘not wisely’ (Othello)
But she didn’t love ‘too well.’
One day she addressed him as ‘Fellow!’ . . .
And they buried him there where he fell.
This was the first of half-a-dozen such tragedies, the last of them having a more human note:
He was an ardent philosopher
And she was a girl of physique.
He said he was dying because of her,
But she told him she couldn’t stand cheek.
Then he recklessly said it was cross of her . . .
And he hopes to be well in a week.
A day or two after these verses came out, Trinity, Cambridge, was playing football against Trinity, Oxford. On our way back from Oxford we stopped inevitably at Bletchley, and went into the refreshment-room for a drink. And while I was shyly drinking my ginger-beer, and wishing that I liked beer and whisky more than I liked rice-pudding, which was not at all, I heard no less a person than the Captain of the Side say to no less a person than one of the ‘blues’ in the side: ‘Did you see those awfully good verses in The Granta this week–a new sort of limerick by somebody called A. K. M.?’ I plunged a glowing face into the ginger-beer. This was authorship. If only Ken had been next to me, so that we could have nudged each other and grinned, and talked it over happily together afterwards. Well, I would write to him to-morrow.
It was unlucky for poor old Ken that our verses were appearing in The Granta and not in the Weymouth Times. As we went on contributing, it gradually became accepted that I alone was A. K. M., disguising myself under these alien initials, presumably from modesty. A few friends knew the truth, but to others a brother in Dorsetshire seemed as remote from reality as a Bunbury in Shropshire or the dog that you go to see a man about. Our contributions came out regularly now, and from time to time somebody would say ‘I liked your last thing in The Granta,’ of which a shy smile seemed the appropriate acknowledgement. To go on: ‘Well, as it happens I have a brother down in Dorsetshire’ sounded like the beginning of a new and irrelevant anecdote desperately in need of an audience. With an apologetic nod the other hurried on his way.
Ken may have guessed that this was happening, though I don’t think he would have resented it, but it made little difference; for, at the end of the summer term, he announced his withdrawal from the partnership. His reason was that I could do ‘this sort of thing’ just as well without him, and that he would prefer to try some other sort of thing without me. In short, his heart wasn’t in frivolity, he wanted to be more serious. He put it, as he would, charmingly, making it seem that there had never really been a ‘K’ in A. K. M., making it seem that I had been generously carrying him on my back for two years. This was so completely untrue that I protested violently against any idea of separation; indeed, I felt miserable at the thought of it. It was in his second letter that he confessed to a wish to be alone.
Well, it was for him to say. If he wished it, he should write essays for The Cornhill, while I wrote nonsense for The Granta. And good luck to both of us.
The Granta was nominally the property of the editor, but in practice his rights did not extend much beyond the nomination of his successor. The printer managed the business side of it and told the editor what (if any) the profits were. When, as editor, I was told what the profits were, I looked forward eagerly to receiving my first literary earnings. After looking forward eagerly for some weeks I applied for the money; and was informed that until all the advertisement revenue had been collected, I was heavily in debt to the printer, and that an immediate settlement could be made on these lines if I wished it. I replied coldly that I was ‘putting the matter in the hands of my father’s solicitors’ (Barry), whereupon a cheque for my first literary earnings arrived. What the rights and wrongs of it were I don’t know; but it seemed to me all against tradition that, as between Town and University, the University should be kept waiting for its money.
The editor at the beginning of my second year was a Trinity man whom I knew slightly. Under his auspices the initials of which I have since grown rather tired made a first appearance. The verses above them were not noticeably improved, nor, I think, weakened, by the substitution of a second A for the absent K. But there was, uniquely, a contribution in prose (of no great merit) such as would not have been made in collaboration. I wrote it rather diffidently, wondering if this were the way to write. While I was still wondering, I received a letter from the editor, not, as I expected, saying, ‘Better stick to verse,’ but making the incredible suggestion that I should take over the editorship in the following term.
This was almost the biggest surprise of my life. The most surprising thing was that he took twenty pages to elaborate his theme: the pleasure and profit to be derived from editorship and my supreme fitness for the job: when four words ‘Will you be editor?’ would have been enough. I suppose that I was the only possible person in sight, and he had to be sure of getting the paper off his hands somehow. It was a little disappointingly easy. There is no fun in saying ‘I will’ grandly, and then being as good as told that, willy-nilly, you’ve got to.
Well, anyway, I was editor.
2
A Cambridge friend had asked me to spend a few days with him after Christmas, and I had accepted his invitation cheerfully, even after hearing that the
entertainment would include ‘private theatricals.’ I imagined myself, with the rest of the house-party, amusing a few friends in the drawing-room, my own part being one of those silent impersonations whose range, extending as it did now from a Greek maiden to a monkey, could embrace almost any-thing. More attractive was the thought that I might write the dialogue for the others to speak, or compose the lyrics for some home-made pantomime. At the least I should be helpful as prompter or scene-shifter. It was an appalling shock to find that we had taken the Ipswich Town Hall, and that in the one serious play in a triple bill I was to be the wounded hero.
Years later I wrote a series for Punch called ‘Little Plays for Amateurs.’ This might have been one of those. The hero can be (as you please) a Frenchman in the Franco-German war, a Roundhead in the Civil War or a Southerner in the War of Secession. Wounded after the appropriate battle, he drags himself to the house of his beloved, to find a German, a Cavalier or a Northerner billeted there; and not only billeted there, but making unacceptable advances to the heroine. One steps lightly into a play like this thinking that one is going to be the hero, only to discover in the big scene that it is the other man who is up-stage all the time, sacrificing duty and his own feelings to the call of an unrequited love. Personally I didn’t mind being down-stage, if I couldn’t be at home. Owing to the fact that I was wounded, the heroine and I had a passionate love-scene on the floor, with my head among the footlights; which was no position in which to remember a long speech describing my emotions during the Battle of Sedan. However I did my best. Only one line was unforgettable: ‘All through that long night I thought of thee.’ She moved my head out of the footlights and stroked it; I wish I could remember what she looked like. I said again ‘All through that long night I thought of you—thee,’ wondering what came next. Fortunately it was the German colonel, a little early on his cue. Having informed me gruffly that I was his prisoner, and that escape was impossible, he left us. It was a desperate situation, but all was not lost; a secret passage in which the heroine and I had played as children offered a way out. She helped me to my feet, and we had an affecting farewell scene. ‘All through that long night,’ I said–but she was in a hurry. ‘Quick, quick,’ she cried, ‘you must go!’ She led me in to the cunningly hidden door. ‘Farewell, beloved,’ I cried, and, opening the door, stepped into the arms of the Colonel who knew about it. He informed me briefly that I was still his prisoner and left us. The position now seemed hopeless or would have seemed so in any other play. Fortunately we remembered that on the other side of the room there was a second secret door, leading to a second secret passage, where also we had played as children. We had another farewell scene which I took more gaily, realizing that in five minutes I should have left the stage for ever and was editing The Granta next term. Flinging back the door, I cried, ‘Good-bye, my love,’ and stepped into the arms of the Colonel again. He seemed to know everything; it was very discouraging. I remembered suddenly, with a start of dismay which was effective, that there was another performance to-morrow night. The Colonel then took the centre of the stage and made his great speech of renunciation, giving me both little Renée and my freedom. All I wanted was to leave Ipswich.
But even at Ipswich one could get ready for next term. Alone in my bedroom, the Franco-German war forgotten for a few hours, I wrote a ballad. It began:
Oh Mary, my Mary, come over the sea!
I am, thinking of you, are you thinking of me?
They are thinking of him, he is thinking of thee—
(Oh Mary, my Mary, come over the sea).
All through that long night I thought of Mary, and by morning I had written my first contribution for the new Granta. I submitted it to myself as editor, and accepted it. We had begun.
3
It was the custom for undergraduates to meet their Tutor on the first day of term, not to present but to receive an address of welcome, and to be informed of any new College or University regulations which might concern them. On the first day of Lent Term 1902 our Tutor so addressed us, and then added, ‘Well, that’s all, thank you, gentlemen. Mr Milne will remain behind.’ The others went out, wondering what I had done. So did I.
He told me. In effect the conversation went like this:
‘I hear you are editing The Granta this term?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘You had no business whatever to commit yourself to anything like that without consulting me.’
‘Oh!’ I decided to consult him. ‘Well—may I?’
‘If you had consulted me, as you ought to have done, I should have forbidden it.’
‘But why?’
‘You’re a mathematician—’
‘Well—’
‘And the College pays you for being a mathematician—’
‘Not very much.’
‘And from what I hear you will have to work a great deal harder, even as it is, in order to get the degree that is expected of you. And this is the moment which you choose to take on other responsibilities—’
‘I always meant to edit The Granta. I simply must.’
‘I warn you that the College may decide to withdraw the money it pays you—’
‘I simply must. I always meant to.’
There is a long pause. I am not looking heroic. I am looking sulky and stubborn and uncomfortable.
‘I’d rather do it,’ I mumble, ‘than have the money.’
And you think you can edit The Granta and do your legitimate work properly?’
‘How many hours a day do you call properly?’
‘I should expect at least six from anyone with any pretensions to be a scholar.’
‘All right. Six.’
‘Very well then. You will keep a record of your working hours, and show it to me every week.’
So there it was. It is funny to think that my ‘working-hours’ then were the stern laborious hours when I wasn’t writing.
The constant weekly features of The Granta were the editorial, ‘Motley Notes,’ ‘Those in Authority’ (biographical sketches of the leading lights of Cambridge), Union Notes, Theatrical Notes, and comments on all the athletic activities of the term. The rest of the paper was filled with ‘humorous’ articles and verses.
The Union and Sporting Notes were written by Our Special Correspondents. There was a tradition that they were entitled to £2 a term for this, and another tradition that they never asked for it and never got it. Tradition was upheld in my time, save once by a football ‘blue,’ who was big enough to know better. I paid him as cheerfully as I could. Those in Authority chose their own biographers. An exception was made in the case of Edward VIIth, whom I put In Authority as Patron of the A.D.C. in the May Week number of The Granta.
Little or nothing is known of his early life [I wrote] but it is believed that even in this stage of his career he evinced that love for the drama which was destined to make him President, and afterwards Patron, of the A.D.C. Anyhow there is evidence to show that he frequently came on at Her Majesty’s and the Court about this time, while the Princess of Wales first saw him in 1862 with the part of Leading Gentleman, a part to which he has always lived up.
I meant to send him a specially printed copy, but finance or laziness intervened.
One of the privileges of editorship was the possession of a free pass to the theatre. Even in those days I realized that dramatic criticism demanded no quality but enthusiasm, and that the man who saw The Belle of New York twice on his first Saturday at Cambridge could provide all the enthusiasm necessary. But it seemed that the Manager of the New Theatre wanted more than enthusiasm: he wanted a definite promise in advance that his productions would be treated with more tenderness than they had been in the past. There was, of course, no reason why he should give me, or anybody else, free seats if he didn’t think it was good for busi
ness, and equally no reason why I shouldn’t buy my own seats and criticize his plays if I thought it was good for the drama; but, as I explained with dignity in the next number, for The Granta to take its revenge in this way ‘though apparently more expensive would in fact be rather cheap.’ So Theatrical Notes were abandoned.
Normally the editor wrote the leading article and Motley Notes, and depended on outside contributors for such stuff as jokes are made of. I took what I think must have been the mistaken view that no contribution to which I would not proudly have put my own initials was worth inclusion. The result was, human nature being what it is and authors what they are, that I couldn’t depend on anybody. When one more set of verses was wanted for the next number, and X. Y. Z.’s ‘Ode to My Tailor’ filled the space exactly, the fact that I was pledged to Electrodynamics for the next two hours did not prevent me wondering whether I couldn’t have filled the space as exactly, and even more delightfully, myself, if I had had the time. Naturally on these occasions one takes an exaggerated view of the possibilities. Pushing Loney’s Electrodynamics a little to one side and rattling pencil against my teeth, I allowed various ideas to wander through my mind, the conclusion three hours later being a set of verses signed A. B. C. which endeared itself to me as X. Y. Z.’s had never done. No doubt it was only better in my own opinion, but, as editor, whose opinion could I consult but my own? Making a note that I should have to do eighteen hours’ mathematics to-morrow to get back to schedule, I went to bed. Life was very full just then.
In the first number I began a series of dialogues which ran through the term. This series might be called the precursor (if anything as frivolous may be so dignified) of a series which appeared later in Punch called ‘The Rabbits.’ I don’t want to read ‘The Rabbits’ now, but I can do it without feeling uncomfortable. These earlier dialogues fill me not only with unease, but with a profound surprise that they led me anywhere. Yet they did, in fact, lead me away from the Civil Service, school-mastering, chartered accountancy, all the professions which I might have followed, into the profession of writing.