Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War
On the Home Front the situation shows that a famous literary critic was also a true prophet:
O Matthew Arnold! You were right:
We need more Sweetness and more Light;
For till we break the brutal foe,
Our sugar's short, our lights are low.
The domestic problem daily grows more acute. A maid, who asked for a rise in her wages to which her mistress demurred, explained that the gentleman she walked out with had just got a job in a munition factory and she would be obliged to dress up to him.
Cook (who, after interview with prospective mistress, is going to think it over):
"'Ullo! Prambilator! If you'd told me you 'ad children I needn't have troubled meself to 'ave come."
The Prospective Mistress: "Oh! B-but if you think the place would otherwise suit you, I dare say we could board the children out."
Maids are human, however, though their psychology is sometimes disconcerting. One who was told by her mistress not to worry because her young man had gone into the trenches responded cheerfully, "Oh, no, ma'am, I've left off worrying now. He can't walk out with anyone else while he's there."
132
