THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1936
Music Hath Qualms
[Continued from Pope 9)
Nevertheless, it was Rupert, bal- anced precariously on one of Miss Winterly's fragile armchairs, lis- tening appreciatively to an ac- curate if unnecessarily loud render- ing of "Home. Sweet Home" on the hated harmonium, who did the damage.
He had arrived in Little Wor- plesdon that morning, and listen- ed with equal appreciation to military description of the said harmonium. He had sympathised with the colonel, congratulated Miss Winterly. and was drinking Miss Winterly's excellent. China tex.
now
"I wonder," said Miss Winter- ly with great satisfaction, "just why your uncle hates the
monium so much?”
har?
It was not so much a question as à purr of gratitude to those. powers-that-be who had so
COD- structed the colonel's emotional system. But Rupert answered it with a bombshell.
+
"He doesn't really hate it, you know" said Rupert. "He loves It. It's you having it that be hates so much!"
With pardonable asperity Miss Winterly struck a discord. She liked Rupert, but she had no pati-į ance with the muddle-headedness of Youth.
"Fiddlesticks.!" said Miss Win- terly testily, and pressed anew on the loud pecial.
But Rupert was not abashed. "It's a fact," he said. "I know it is the most ridiculous thing you ever could imagine, but there it is. My uncle has had the same weakness all his life. He never could resist a harmonium.”
Out of sheer exasperation Miss Winterly stopped playing.. -
"What on earth are you talking about, Rupert?" she demanded.
to
"Why, the harmonium! Always makes my uncle feel sentimental That's why he hates having listen to it 80 much. Military you man-sentiment-not done, know. Thought you knew.”
"Are you trying to tell me," said Miss Winterly with ominous calm, that your uncle really likes the harmonium?”
know?
Rupert looked surprised. "Why, yes! Didn't you Thought you played it just to make him feel all goosey. Look!
Miss Winterly looked, Out of her drawing-room window. Across the garden wall. Into the kitchen of her foe.
There was no mistaking that brick-red countenance, bewed over the kitchen table, unusual though it might seem. Colonel Bludgeon was undoubtedly seated in his kitchen, and even as they looked be raised his head and two largel drops, detaching themselves from either eye, trickled down his cheek and splashed into invisibility. . . .] "To think," said Mis Winterly between Her teeth, "that for fire] whole weeks I have been pander- ing to the senile snivellings of that maudlin old fool?"
Miss Winterly's harmonium now stands in the village institute, sad' the feud pursues in normal course. There are many, the story having leaked out, who deplored the fact that Rupert Bludgeon should have exhibited such a small knowledge of feminine psychology, and thus turned to putty in her hands a weapon that brought Miss Win-1 terly so close to victory:
There are two things which will ever remain a puzzle to the colonel The first is just what exactly his nephew can have said to Miss Win- terly to effect so miraculous a re moval of the cause of his night- mares. The second, more my- sterious still, is why he stern 'pillar of the militia that he is, should invariably be referred to by. Miss Winterly as "that senti- mental.old idiot
Two things also Miss Winterly will never know. One is that Rupert Bludgeon left Little Wor plesdon on the eve of the trans- ference of her harmonium to the institute with a cheque for fifty pounds in his pocket, that being the agreed reward for engineer- ing said transference
"And the other is that on that same day Rupert demanded of his for uncle that there should be their, dinner his famous Bengal) carry. No hands save the colonel's awn- dared mix that fiery dish, and chief among the ingredients of it are the very strongest of onions
THE END
– MANGSUNGITENTED
DEAR GET UP-COUNT DE IS HERE TO SEE YOUA HAS A FRIEND OF
WITH HIM-
【AN ('VE DECIDED TO (GVE A BEEFSTEAK Y TO THE GANG AND WANT YOU ON TH COMMIT *EE, IF YOUR WIFE
OBJEC
WE'PHONED
FOR SOME
OF TH' BOYS TO COME UP.
MAGGIE
"BY GOLLY-
THIS REMINDS
MEOFTH’DAYS. INTH'GOOD OL NEIGHBORHOOD
IS IT
YOU JUST TELL MRS.. JIGGS THAT
O.K. MRS. JIGGS?
Rosie's BEAU
BY
THINK IT'S A GRAND IDEA
ALL RIGHT-- BUT IF I
| DON'T COME BACK-COME AN' GIT. ME
CALL ME MAGGIE,
·DINTY, SURE, IT'S ALL RIGHT-I'LL: BE GLAD TO SING THE OLD SONGS FOR
THEM~
TH'OLD LADY IS LIKE SHE. WUZ IN THE OLD DAYS-
GEO MCMANUS
--Ragistered U. 5. Patent Office
WHAT IN THE WORLD HAS H ARCH
PHO
SETS ABOUT 'LL NEVER S FAK TO HIM.
MORE-
LITTLE
ANNIE
Bringing Up Father
THE FRIEND IS DINTY MOORE AS MR. MOORE IS A FRIEND OF THE COUNTS, I HAVEN'TANY OBJECTION TO DINTY-
WHY.CERTAINLY, WHAT-
EVER THE COUNT SAYS
ALL-RIGHT IS ALWAY I'M SO GLAD TO SEE YOU
ED IN THE INTEREST
IS IT REALLY SAFE' TO COME IN, OR IS IT JUST A"TRICK-2
ROONEY
IS MY SWEET HEART-
I PROMISED ROSIE LAT ID CALL HER AT “TIME-I-HOPE ISN'T IN SO I CAN
HIS'
WELL, MAGGIE YOU GLADDEN, ME HEART WITH THEM
WORDS-:
MAGGIE-ME DARUN LAST WE BEGINN UNDERSTAN EACH
HELLO-BOYS- STEP RIGSHT IN-
COUNT-GIT ME ANOTHER GLASS OF
BEER-
OH! I BEG
YOUR PARDON
ONE HOUR LATER, AND
ON THE"!
BUY
DS,
BUT BET
GE
(WELL,DINTY,
YES ANITS THIS 13 A
SOMETHIN ISURPRISETO|| NEW FOR
SEE YOUIN ME HOUSE
I'LL PHONE DUGAN, CASEY, MORAN AN ́ GROGAN, O'BRIEN AN MCMAHON SHOULD BE ON COMMITTEE
THEY ARE GO
FIGH
HOW! STER
¡ANG- SHT
THIS WAY-
MR. MOORE HAS
ENGAGED ME
BE HIS SOCIAL ADVISER ANDÍVE
HIRED HIMA TO
CQUAINT ME WITH YOUR COUNTRY
TELL'EM TO COME HERE RIGHT AWAY AN' BRING SOME OF
THE GAN
الشاط
COME IN,BOYS, AN FERGT YOUR MANNERS
THIS IS GOING
IFI COULD) DREAM LIKE THAT-D NEVER WANTI TOWAKE UP.
DADDY, I WANT" - MY ALLOWANCE I'M GOIN'
SH
• 1936, King Features Syndicate, Int., Great Brinio rights reserved.
3051 WILL BOS THINKOF ME
NOW-
CAM
WHATLL I DO NOW?
1936, King Features Syndicate, Ink, Great Britain rights reserved.
TOBE AJOLLY
PARTY