by A. A. Milne
“Is that the same as the Tree Pipit?” said my hostess, who seemed to know more about birds than I had hoped.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly.
“What’s the difference exactly?”
“Well, one is tufted,” I said, doing my best, “and the other—er—climbs trees.”
“Oh, I see.”
“And of course the eggs are more speckled,” I added, gradually acquiring confidence.
“I often wish I knew more about birds,” she said regretfully. “You must tell us something about them now we’ve got you here.”
And all this because of one miserable Cuckoo!
“By all means,” I said, wondering how long it would take to get a book about birds down from London.
However, it was easier than I thought. We had tea in the garden that afternoon, and a bird of some kind struck up in the plane-tree.
“There, now,” said my hostess, “what’s that?”
I listened with my head on one side. The bird said it again.
“That’s the Lesser Bunting,” I said hopefully.
“The Lesser Bunting,” said an earnest-looking girl; “I shall always remember that.”
I hoped she wouldn’t, but I could hardly say so. Fortunately the bird lesser-bunted again, and I seized the opportunity of playing for safety.
“Or is it the Sardinian White-throat?” I wondered. “They have very much the same note during the breeding season. But of course the eggs are more speckled,” I added casually.
And so on for the rest of the evening. You see how easy it is.
However, the next afternoon a more unfortunate occurrence occurred. A real Bird Authority came to tea. As soon as the information leaked out, I sent up a hasty prayer for bird-silence until we had got him safely out of the place; but it was not granted. Our feathered songster in the plane-tree broke into his little piece.
“There,” said my hostess—“there’s that bird again.” She turned to me. “What did you say it was?”
I hoped that the Authority would speak first, and that the others would then accept my assurance that they had misunderstood me the day before; but he was entangled at that moment in a watercress sandwich, the loose ends of which were still waiting to be tucked away.
I looked anxiously at the girl who had promised to remember, in case she wanted to say something, but she also was silent. Everybody was silent except that miserable bird.
Well, I had to have another go at it. “Blackman’s Warbler,” I said firmly.
“Oh, yes,” said my hostess.
“Blackman’s Warbler; I shall always remember that,” lied the earnest-looking girl.
The Authority, who was free by this time, looked at me indignantly.
“Nonsense,” he said; “it’s the Chiff-chaff.”
Everybody else looked at me reproachfully. I was about to say that “Blackman’s Warbler” was the local name for the Chiff-chaff in our part of Somerset, when the Authority spoke again.
“The Chiff-chaff,” he said to our hostess with an insufferable air of knowledge.
I wasn’t going to stand that.
“So I thought when I heard it first,” I said, giving him a gentle smile. It was now the Authority’s turn to get the reproachful looks.
“Are they very much alike?” my hostess asked me, much impressed.
“Very much. Blackman’s Warbler is often mistaken for the Chiff-chaff, even by so-called experts”—and I turned to the Authority and added, “Have another sandwich, won’t you?”—“particularly so, of course, during the breeding season. It is true that the eggs are more speckled, but—”
“Bless my soul,” said the Authority, but it was easy to see that he was shaken, “I should think I know a Chiff-chaff when I hear one.”
“Ah, but do you know a Blackman’s Warbler? One doesn’t often hear them in this country. Now in Algiers—”
The bird said “Chiff-chaff” again with an almost indecent plainness of speech.
“There you are!” I said triumphantly. “Listen,” and I held up a finger. “You notice the difference? Obviously a Blackman’s Warbler.”
Everybody looked at the Authority. He was wondering how long it would take to get a book about birds down from London, and deciding that it couldn’t be done that afternoon. Meanwhile he did not dare to repudiate me. For all he had caught of our mumbled introduction I might have been Blackman myself.
“Possibly you’re right,” he said reluctantly.
Another bird said “Chiff-chaff” from another tree and I thought it wise to be generous. “There,” I said, “now that was a Chiff-chaff.”
The earnest-looking girl remarked (silly creature) that it sounded just like the other one, but nobody took any notice of her. They were all busy admiring me.
Of course I mustn’t meet the Authority again, because you may be pretty sure that when he got back to his books he looked up Blackman’s Warbler and found that there was no such animal. But if you mix in the right society, and only see the wrong people once, it is really quite easy to be an authority on birds—or, I imagine, on anything else.
The Last Straw
It was one of those summer evenings with the chill on, so after dinner we lit the smoking-room fire and wondered what to do. There were eight of us; just the right number for two bridge tables, or four picquet pairs, or eight patience singles.
“Oh, no, not cards,” said Celia quickly. “They’re so dull.”
“Not when you get a grand slam,” said our host, thinking of an accident which had happened to him the night before.
“Even then I don’t suppose anybody laughed.”
Peter and I, who were partners on that occasion, admitted that we hadn’t laughed.
“Well, there you are,” said Celia triumphantly. “Let’s play proverbs.”
“I don’t think I know it,” said Herbert. (He wouldn’t.)
“Oh, it’s quite easy. First you think of a proverb.”
“Like ‘A burnt camel spoils the moss,’” I explained.
“You mean ‘A burnt child dreads the fire,’” corrected Herbert.
Celia caught my eye and went on hurriedly, “Well, then somebody goes outside, and then he asks questions—”
“From outside?” asked Mrs. Herbert.
“From inside,” I assured her. “Generally from very near the fire, because he has got so cold waiting in the hall.”
“Oh, yes, I see.”
“And then he asks questions, and we each have to get one of the words of the proverb into our answer, without letting him know what the proverb is. It’s rather fun.”
Peter and his wife, who knew the game, agreed. Mrs. Herbert seemed resigned to the worst, but Herbert, though faint, was still pursuing.
“But doesn’t he guess what the proverb is?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But sometimes, if we are very, very clever, he doesn’t. That, in fact, is the game.”
Our host got up and went to the door.
“I think I see,” he said; “and I want my pipe anyhow. So I’ll go out first.”
“Now then,” said Celia, when the door was safely closed, “what shall we have?”
Of course you know this game, and you know the difficulty of thinking of a proverb which has no moss or stable-doors or glasshouses in it; all of them words which it is impossible to include naturally in an answer to an ordinary question. The proverbs which Mrs. Herbert suggested were full of moss.
“What about ‘It’s never too late to mend?’” said Mrs. Peter. “The only difficult word is ‘mend.’”
“We mustn’t have less than seven words, one for each of us.”
“Can’t we get something from Solomon for a change?” said Peter. “‘A roaring lion is a calamity to its father, but the cautious man cometh not again.’ That sort of thing.”
“We might try it,” said Celia doubtfully, not feeling quite sure if it were a real proverb; “but ‘cometh’ would be difficult.”
“Well, of course, if he asked you, ‘By what train cometh thou up in the mornings?’ you could answer, ‘I cometh up by the ten-fifteen.’ Only you don’t get that sort of question as a rule.”
“Oh, I see,” said Herbert. “I didn’t quite understand.”
“After all, its really much more fun having camels and things,” said Celia. “’It’s the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.’ Who’ll do ‘camel’s’? You’d better,” she added kindly to me.
Everybody but myself seemed to think that this was much more fun.
“I’ll do ‘straw,’” said Peter generously, whereupon Celia volunteered for “breaks.” There were seven of us for nine words. We gave Mrs. Herbert the second “the,” fearing to trust her with anything more alarming and in order to keep it in the family we gave the other “the” to Herbert, who was also responsible for “back.” Our hostess had “last” and Mrs. Peter had “that.”
All this being settled, our host was admitted into his smoking-room again.
“You begin with me,” I said, and I was promptly asked, “How many blue beans make five?” When I had made a suitable answer into which “it’s” came without much difficulty, our host turned to Herbert. Herbert’s face had already assumed a look of strained expectancy.
“Well, Herbert, what do you think of Lloyd George?”
“Yes,” said Herbert. “Yes—er—yes.” He wiped the perspiration from his brow. “He—er—that is to say—er—Lloyd George, yes.”
“Is that the answer?” said our host, rather surprised.
Herbert explained hastily that he hadn’t really begun yet, and with the aid of an anecdote about a cousin of his who had met Winston Churchill at Dieppe once, he managed to get “the” in several times before blowing his nose vigorously and announcing that he had finished.
“I believe he’s playing a different game,” murmured Celia to Mrs. Peter.
The next three words were disposed of easily enough, a lucky question to Peter about the weather giving him an opportunity to refer to his straw hat. It was now Celia’s turn for “breaks.”
“Nervous?” I asked her.
“All of a twitter,” she said.
“Well, Celia,” said our host, “how long are you going to stay with us?”
“Oh, a long time yet,” said Celia confidently.
“Till Wednesday, anyhow,” I interrupted, thinking it a good opportunity to clinch the matter.
“We generally stay,” explained Celia, “until our host breaks it to us that he can’t stick us any longer.”
“Not that that often happens,” I added.
“Look here, which of you is answering the question?”
“I am,” said Celia firmly.
“Well, have you answered it yet?”
“To tell the truth I’ve quite forgotten the word that—Oh, I remember now. Yes,” she went on very distinctly and slowly, “I hope to remain under your roof until next Wednesday morn. Whew!” and she fanned herself with her handkerchief.
Mrs. Herbert repeated her husband’s triumph with “the,” and then it was my turn again for these horrible camels. My only hope was that our host would ask me if I had been to the Zoo lately, but I didn’t see why he should. He didn’t.
“Would it surprise you to hear,” he asked, “that the President of Czecho-Slovakia has a very long beard?”
“If it had only been ‘goats,’” I murmured to myself. Aloud I said, “What?” in the hope of gaining a little more time.
He repeated his question.
“No,” I said slowly, “no, it wouldn’t,” and I telegraphed an appeal to Celia for help. She nodded back at me.
“Have you finished?” asked our host.
“Good Lord, no, I shall be half an hour yet. The fact is you’ve asked the wrong question. You see, I’ve got to get in ‘moss.’”
“I thought it was ‘camels,’” said Celia carelessly.
“No, ‘moss.’ Now if you’d only asked me a question about gardening—You see, the proverb we wanted to have first of all was ‘People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,’ only ‘throw’ was so difficult. Almost as difficult as—” I turned to Celia. “What was it you said just now? Oh yes, camels. Or stable doors, or frying-pans. However, there it is.” And I enlarged a little more on the difficulty of getting in these difficult words.
“Thank you very much,” said our host faintly when I had finished.
It was the last straw which broke the camel’s back, and it was Herbert who stepped forward blithely with the last straw. Our host, as he admitted afterwards, was still quite in the dark, and with his last question he presented Herbert with an absolute gift.
“When do you go back to Devonshire?” he asked.
“We—er—return next month,” answered Herbert. “I should say,” he added hastily, “we go back next month.”
My own private opinion was that the sooner he returned to Devonshire the better.
Disillusioned
The card was just an ordinary card,
The letter just an ordinary letter.
The letter simply said “Dear Mr. Brown,
I’m asked by Mrs. Phipp to send you this”;
The card said, “Mrs. Philby Phipp, At Home,”
And in a corner, “Dancing, 10 p.m.,”
No more—except a date, a hint in French
That a reply would not be deemed offensive,
And, most important, Mrs. Phipp’s address.
Destiny, as the poets have observed
(Or will do shortly) is a mighty thing.
It takes us by the ear and lugs us firmly
Down different paths towards one common goal,
Paths pre-appointed, not of our own choosing;
Or sometimes throws two travellers together,
Marches them side by side for half a mile,
Then snatches them apart and hauls them onward.
Thus happened it that Mrs. Phipp and I
Had never met to any great extent,
Had never met, as far as I remembered,
At all…And yet there must have been a time
When she and I were very near together,
When some one told her, “That is Mr. Brown,”
Or introduced us “This is Mr. Brown,”
Or asked her if she’d heard of Mr. Brown;
I know not what, I only know that now
She stood At Home in need of Mr. Brown,
And I had pledged myself to her assistance.
Behold me on the night, the latest word
In all that separates the gentleman
(And waiters) from the evening-dress-less mob
And graced, moreover, by the latest word
In waistcoats such as mark one from the waiters
My shirt, I must not speak about my shirt;
My tie, I cannot dwell upon my tie—
Enough that all was neat, harmonious,
And suitable to Mrs. Philby Phipp.
Behold me, then, complete. A hasty search
To find the card, and reassure myself
That this is certainly the day—(It is)—
And 10 p.m. the hour; “p.m.,” not “a.m.,”
Not after breakfast—good; and then outside,
To jump into a cab and take the winds,
The cold east winds of March, with beauty. So.
Let us get on more quickly. Looms ahead
Tragedy. Let us on and have it over.
I hung with men and women on the stairs
And watched the tall white footman take the names,
And heard him shout them out, and there I shaped
My own name ready for him, “Mr. Brown.”
And Mrs. Philby Phipp, hearing the name,
Would, I imagined, brighten suddenly
And smile and say, “How are you, Mr. Brown?”
And in an ins
tant I’d remember her,
And where we met, and who was Mr. Phipp,
And all the jolly time at Grindelwald
(If that was where it was); and she and I
Would talk of Art and Politics and things
As we had talked these many years ago…
So “Mr. Brown” I murmured to the man,
And he—the fool!—he took a mighty breath
And shouted, “Mr. BROWNIE!”—Brownie!
Yes,
He shouted “Mr. BROWNIE” to the roof.
And Mrs. Philby Phipp, hearing the name,
Brightened up suddenly and smiled and said,
“How are you, Mr. Brownie?”—(Brownie! Lord!)
And, while my mouth was open to protest,
“How do you do?” to some one at the back.
So I was passed along into the crowd
As Brownie!
Who on earth is Mr. Brownie?
Did he, I wonder, he and Mrs. Phipp
Talk Art and Politics at Grindelwald,
Or did one simply point him out to her
With “That is Mr. Brownie?” Were they friends,
Dear friends, or casual acquaintances?
She brightened at his name, some memory
Came back to her that brought a happy smile—
Why surely they were friends! But I am Brown,
A stranger, all unknown to Mrs. Phipp,
As she to me, a common interloper—I
see it now—an uninvited guest,
Whose card was clearly meant for Mr. Brownie.
Soft music fell, and the kaleidoscope
Of lovely woman glided, swayed and turned
Beneath the shaded lights; but Mr. Brownie
(N Brown, not Brownie) stood upon one side
And brooded silently. Some spoke to him;
Whether to Brown or Brownie mattered not,
He did not answer, did not notice them,
Just stood and brooded…Then went home to
bed.
A Few Tricks For Christmas
(In the manner of many contemporaries)
Now that the “festive season” (copyright) is approaching, it behooves us all to prepare ourselves in some way to contribute to the gaiety of the Christmas house-party. A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain. Fortunately there are a few simple conjuring tricks which are within the reach of us all. With practice even the clumsiest of us can obtain sufficient dexterity in the art of illusion to puzzle the most observant of our fellow-guests. The few simple tricks which I am about to explain, if studied diligently for a few days before Christmas, will make a genuine addition to the gaiety of any gathering, and the amateur prestidigitator (if I may use that word again) will find that he is amply repaying the hospitality of his host and hostess by his contribution to the general festivity.