Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, March 7, 1917

Excerpt

A ROMANCE OF RATIONS.

"Not like to like, but like in difference."

"The Princess."

I have always misjudged Victorine—I admit it now with shame. While other girls have become engaged—and disengaged quite soon after—she has remained unattached and solitary. As I watched the disappointed suitors turn sadly away I put it down to pride and self-sufficiency, but I was wrong. I see now that she always had the situation well in hand.

As for Algernon, he is the sort of man who writes sonnets to lilies and butterflies and the rosy-fingered dawn—this last from hearsay as he really knows nothing about it. He is prematurely bald and suffers from the grossest form of astigmatism, and I thought that no woman would ever love him. I never dreamt that Victorine had even noticed he was there.

One day I heard that they were engaged. It was too hard for me to understand.

On the third morning I went to see her.

"Victorine," I said, "you have never loved before?"

"Never," she assented softly.

"Now, this man you have chosen—you do not care overmuch for lilies and butterflies and rosy-fingered dawns?"

"Not overmuch," she admitted sadly.

"Then what is it brings you together? What strange link of the spirit has been forged between you? To speak quite plainly, what do you see in him?"

"Yesterday we lunched together, and two days before that he got here in time for breakfast."

"And the engagement still holds?" I am no optimist.

"Before that we dined. Yes, I do not exaggerate. It was my suggestion. One sees so much unhappiness now-a-days, and I wished to be quite sure we were suited to one another."

"And you are convinced of the sincerity of the attachment?"

"Why, I feel for him as Mother does for the knife-and-boot boy, and Uncle Stephen for the charlady. We cannot be separated. It would be monstrous."

I ceased to be articulate. Victorine suddenly became radiant.

"We must always be together—at any rate for the duration of the War, you see. I eat under my meat and he is over. In flour and sugar—oh, how can I confess it?—I exceed. He is far, far below his ration. Apart we are failures; together we are perfect. We both saw it at once."

I realised suddenly the inevitability of this mutual bond.

"So marriage is the only thing?" I asked; but I was already conquered.

She assented with a regal air.

As I went away I saw a new and strange beauty in the problem of Food Shortage.

IV.

The Farmer's Boy (New Style).

The Hun was set on making us fret

For lack of food to eat,

When up there ran a City man

In gaiters trim and neat—

Oh, just tell me if a farm there be

Where I can get employ,

To plough and sow for PROTH-ER-O,

And he a farmer's boy,

And be a farmer's boy.

"In khaki dight my juniors fight—

I wish that I could too;

But since the land's in need of hands

There's work for me to do;

Though you call me a 'swell,' I would labour well—

I'm aware it's not pure joy—

To plough and sow for PROTH-ER-O

And be a farmer's boy,

And be a farmer's boy."

The farmer quoth, "I be mortal loth,

But the farm 'tis goin' back,

And I do declare as I can't a-bear

Any farming hands to lack;

So if you've got grit and be middlin' fit

An'll larn to cry, 'Ut hoy!'

And to plough and sow for PROTH-ER-O,

You shall be a farmer's boy,

You shall be a farmer's boy."

Bold farmers all, obey the call

Of townsfolk game and gay...!