SPECTATOR. COMPETITION No. 35

Report by Mervyn Horder Chocolates, presumably, will one day come off the ration again, this time for ever. A prize was offered for an account of this event os it might have appeared in a narrative by any one of the follow- ing : Jane Austen, Mrs. Gaskell, Eleanor Glyn, Angela Brazil, Virginia Woolf, I. Compton Burnett.

Romping through dormitories at midnight, sgrving behind the counter at Cranford, rolling on tiger-skins with minor princesses and just waiting, waiting, while Mrs. Woolf's heroines make up their minds—it has been altogether a varied and entertaining day judging this competition, in which perhaps the net was spread almost too wide. One's sympathies have to be large indeed to weigh Elizabeth Bennet's heart against the biceps of a popular games-mistress at St. Edith's. Jane Austen and Angela Brazil ran neck-and-neck, together accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total entry. Unfor- tunately, I could not find a Jane Austen that stood out above the good average of the rest. Most competitors reproduced the sparkle but not the requisite fusion of sparkle and tenderness ; while the Angela Brazils were almost all too diffuse about nothing in particu- lar. (I was, however, delighted with M. J. Wilcock's headmistress: " Lest your appetites suffer, I have decided to purchase the school's supply of chocolates myself, so that you will buy them from me and continue to use your personal points " ; and Mrs. Manning's agonising denouement: " I've been giving her all my sweet coupons for months, and now she'll never speak to me again! ") The main prize of £3 goes to M. W. Palmer's Compton Burnett, in which I can hardly detect a single false note ; £1 each also to Frances Collingwood's Virginia Woolf and E. Bedwell's Mrs. Gaskell, both of them neat and plausible. Proxime accessit a superbly intemperate Elinor Glyn from Valerie Ranzetta. Hon. ment. to R. Kennard Davis, Audrey Collier, Philippa Kaye, R. J. P. Hewison and Margaret Bishop. The prize-winning entries follow ; for myself, after so much chocolate, I am off to buy a bottle of anchovies in vinegar.

FIRST PRIZE "We may remember they are not rationed," said Waldo, slightly advancing a dish of chocolates. " And each may eat his fill."

In the pause that ensued there was a suggestion that Bruno laughed.

"Did I hear my son laugh? " asked Waldo.

"None of us can.give information on that head," said Graham. "Did you laugh, Bruno?" said Waldo, articulating his words with care.

"I did not hear myself laugh," replied Bruno with promptitude.

" They say the squeaking of bats cannot be heard by human beings," remarked Priscilla, in a reconciling tone.

"That could not have been the sound, then, that our father heard,". said Graham ; " unless he claims, in this respect, to be more than human."

-Or less," put in Ralph. " Would not other bats hear the squeaking? It would seem wasted effort otherwise."

"Would we rather," enquired Priscilla, as if continuing her thought, "be children of a father more than human or less than human? The former would be gratifying, but the latter condition would seem to carry the fewer obligations."

" We still do not know," said Ralph, " what it was that father heard." " And I am still waiting for the explanation," said Waldo.

" And may. wait, one fears," said Graham, " if the sound was not audible to others."

It would hardly be surprising," said Eliiabeth, " if your father heard a thing that you did not. He must hear many such." ".And some, it seems, not intended for his ears," said Graham, in a low tone.

" 0, I do not claim any extraordinary powers," said Waldo, in a modest manner.

"Though that would be justified, it appears," said Graham. " Father's ear is larger than mine," said Bruno, looking at it as it was presented to him across the table, and touching his own consideringly. Perhaps it is also sharper." "Quantity is not a measure of quality, my little son," said Waldo ; even in the case of chocolates ;" and did not rebuke the laughter that all heard to follow.

SECOND PRIZES

She had come into the shop where the glass bottles waited ; where the :hocolates lay in piles ; where men and women stood in knots eating sweetmeats with their eyes. Looking at them. she thought, how am I to choose? This is the burden that the past has laid upon me. A long, lean camel in a desert caravanserai. Fill your hump, said the past. Roll your jaws, camel, till your stomach sicken, and your teeth drop out.

Voices interrupted. People choosing. I'll have a pound of barley sugar. But no, chocolate. The future was filled with a remembrance of chocolate, rich brown, like new-turned soil. Matinees, the tinkle of tea-cups. Do you like soft centres or hard? Rows of fancied chocolates. Here's one with a violet on top. Was it true? Would it ever be the same again?

They were looking at her now. She advanced, shuffling, as if the floor were strewn with some sort of sand. She pursed her lips and smiled at the lady behind the counter. Such a lovely day, she murmured, might I perhaps try one of those little green jellies?

Miss Matty was, of course, greatly relieved that she would no longer be under the compulsion of cutting-out, sorting and despatching the minute coupons—a duty that had always flustered her, and proved a sore trial to her weak eyes. With my own feelings of gratification that her trade must better, were admixed apprehensions that she might once again—as with the almond-comfits—allow her tender-hearted generosity to threaten her commercial profit by pressing on her tiny customers more than they had paid for.

Her conduct, however, proved alarming from quite an opposite cause. Far from becoming more bountiful, she actually imposed her own curb on her customers' purchases ; explaining that " she was sure an in- temperant indulgence in those sweetmeats could only give rise to the most unpleasant disorders in the dear little things." Naturally enough, the doorbell to her shop became ever more silent ; and myself ever more perturbed over her looming bankruptcy. My attempts to persuade her from her course were quite vain ; until, luckily, I hit on the argument that "no Government so dedicated as is ours to the safeguarding of the people's health, would have instituted an amending measure that spelt the ruin of juvenile digestions." It took dear Miss Matty some time to puzzle out the truth of this rather pompous statement, but in the end she succumbed to it. .. .