Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsVanity Fair (UK), November 3, 1904
[See attribution note on Vanity Fair menu page]
In the Stocks.
A MAN who, while “learning to drive a motor-car, with the object of getting a license,” inadvertently charged into a cab, and bowled it over. There seems to have been a certain amount of license about him already.
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It is stated that Sir Frederick Treves has been invited to join the Committee now sitting on the revised edition of “Hymns Ancient and Modern.” He will, however, confine his attentions to the Appendix.
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A new system of correspondence has been inaugurated in Cleveland, Ohio. Principals are dispensing with correspondence clerks, and now dictate their correspondence by telephone to a central office, where there is a staff of girl stenographers and typewriters. The system is known as the “telagirl.” It has long been suspected that to tell a girl was the quickest method of getting things spread about.
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An entirely novel feature is promised by a monthly magazine. It is an article entitled “The Truth about Man, by a Lady Novelist.” It will be positively the first time that a lady novelist has told the truth about man.
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THE MODERN PLAYGOER.
(Mr. Bernard Shaw says that everyone ought to train for a fortnight before going to see a play.)
If you’re going to the theatre
For to see a modern play,
You must get yourself all ready for the tussle.
You must not forget your dumb-bells,
You must strive in every way
To foster your debilitated muscle.
You must exercise all day
If you’re going to the play.
Let me plan a little programme
Which is sure to make you fit
To appreciate a drama that is tragic.
Run a dozen miles each morning,
Put the gloves on for a bit,
And you’ll find the treatment act on you like magic.
In a week or so you may
Witness any tragic play.
But for comedies and farces
You must try another plan:
You must skip for twenty minutes after dinner,
Do a little rapid sprinting,
Ride a roadster, if you can,
And take a drug or two to make you thinner.
If these maxims you obey,
You’ll enjoy a comic play.
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At last a stand is being made against the “too old at forty” superstition. In Mr. Clyde Fitch’s new play, “Granny,” the star part is played by a lady aged eighty-four.
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It is not given to everyone to score off a policeman. To most people it is the dizzy height towards which the cultivator of repartee longs to soar. It is the laurel crown which he never really hopes to win. A lady of Southwark roped it in, however, only last Tuesday. “You call me an habitual drunkard,” she said, icily, to a constable who had become personal. “But, you see, you are an habitual liar.” It knocked the bottom right out of the argument in a moment.
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On the anniversary of Balaclava a veteran who had fought in the battle in the ranks of the 6th Dragoons prosecuted a woman for stealing clothing. It was felt that a charge was a peculiarly appropriate way of celebrating the day.
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Every genuine patriot must rejoice at the spirited manner in which England has got back at America for its latest dog-story. America, it may be remembered, shipped over to this side an anecdote of how a signalman’s dog took a red flag in its mouth and stopped a train. We are sending them this week one from the Daily Mail, that relates how a big dog saved a little dog from drowning. It will teach them to be careful another time.
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The entente cordiale would soon be strained if many Frenchmen acted like M. Louis Carré. He proposes to abolish fog in London by means of an ingenious system of fans. As if we had so many excuses for being late in the morning that we could dispense with the best of them all.
Rasper.
Printed unsigned in Vanity Fair; entered by Wodehouse as “In the Stocks” for this date in Money Received for Literary Work. It is possible that not all individual items are by Wodehouse.