Free Online Tips & Tricks at nazmy88 [dot] blogspot [dot] com

Biografi Derren Brown

2012-02-06T02:58:00.000-08:00

Derren Brown Victor (lahir 27 Februari 1971) adalah seorang pesulap, mentalist, pelukis, penulis dan skeptis. Dia terkenal karena penampilannya di televisi . Sejak siaran pertama acara Derren Brown yaitu Mind Control pada tahun 2000, Brown telah menjadi semakin terkenal karena dia mampu "membaca pikiran" orang lain. Dia telah menulis buku-buku tentang sulap. Karikatur karya seninya sering ditampilkan di setiap pameran dan tersedia juga koleksi dirinya.

Meskipun penampilannya dari membaca pikiran dan prestasi lain dari mentalism kemungkinan akan dianggap sebagai hasil praktek paranormal, dia menentang dan mengatakan tidak ada sama sekali mempunyai kemampuan seperti itu. Sejak awal Brown katakan bahwa kemampuannya itu hanyalah hasil dari kombinasi "permainan kata, sugesti, dan pengalihan perhatian". Dengan menggunakan pengetahuan dan keahliannya tersebut, dia tampak seperti ahli memprediksi dan mempengaruhi pikiran orang lain dengan halus, memanipulasi proses pengambilan keputusan dan membaca tanda-tanda fisik dan psikologis atau bahasa tubuh yang menunjukkan apa yang sedang dipikirkan seseorang.

Adapun sejumlah acara TV serta event lainnya yang dilakukan Derren Brown, bisa cek melalui link ini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown

Derren Brown uses kinda aura magnetic for the confusion

2012-01-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

Does Derren Brown use kinda aura magnetic from his hands for the confusion technique? What do you think?

Download Contoh RPP / Lesson Plan Bahasa Inggris

2011-02-10T05:11:00.000-08:00

Klik untuk download

Kelas 7

Kelas 8

Kelas 9

Kelas 10

Kelas 11

Kelas 12

Simple RPP

RPP Middle PPL 2

RPP Final PPL 2

Submit Blog ke Banyak Search Engine

2011-02-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Ane kasih tau cara mudah submit blog ke banyak search engine. Ente bisa pakai fasilitas dari mypagerank.net. Silahkan daftar dulu di www.mypagerank.net, kalau sudah daftar baru ente bisa pakai fasilitas Engines Submit.

Begitu sudah masuk ke Engines Submit, ente tinggal masukkan alamat blog dan jangan lupa checklist untuk otomatis select all engines yg tersedia di antaranya www.google.com, www.searchengine.com, www.infotiger.com, www.scrubtheweb.com, www.searchuk.com, www.entireweb.com, www.maxpromo.com, www.aesop.com, www.whatuseek.com, www.splatsearch.com, www.walhello.com, www.acoon.de, www.szukacz.pl, www.daypop.com, dan lain2.

Semangat nge-blog. Cek juga blog ane yg tentang tips meningkatkan traffic blog, cara mendapatkan PageRank, dan cara membuat software blogwalking.

Membuat Software Blogwalking

2011-01-31T19:36:00.001-08:00

Berikut ini adalah cara membuat software blogwalking dan merupakan metode ane dalam blogwalking. Software yg dipakai sederhana cukup notepad, yg nantinya akan di save sebagai file .BAT yg kemudian dieksekusi.

Pertama2, buka dulu notepad nya, lalu salin kode berikut ini:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" http://nazmy88.blogspot.com http://nazmy88.orgfree.com http://henz89.blogspot.com http://alamat-blogente.blogspot.com http://alamatblogentah-siapa.blogspot.com http://dan_seterusnya.blogspot.com

Bisa ente modif kisaran 10 s.d. 40 alamat blog, disesuaikan kecepatan koneksi warnet tempat ente mangkal atau modem sendiri.

Kalau sudah jadi, save dengan nama misalnya SENIN.BAT. Lalu bikin lagi notepad dengan sekian jumlah alamat blog dan save lagi dengan nama SELASA.BAT, dan seterusnya. Jadi harus punya banyak stok alamat blog teman2 ente neh.

Selanjutnya, ente tinggal eksekusi file yg sesuai dengan hari sekarang, dan langsung terbuka browser Mozilla Firefox disertai tab2 berdasarkan alamat2 yg sudah ente tulis tadi. Nggak cape' lagi khan buat blogwalking, coz udah dibikin otomatis dengan software sederhana ini. Moga bermanfaat dan semangat nge-blog!

Baca juga post ane yg tentang tips mendapatkan blog traffic dan cara mendapatkan pagerank.

Cara Mendapatkan Pagerank 3 Dalam Waktu 2 Bulan (Berdasarkan Pengalaman)

2011-01-30T20:27:00.000-08:00

Neh gan ane kasih tips cara mendapatkan Pagerank 3 dalam waktu 2 bulan dan ini berdasarkan pengalaman ane. Ane mulai aktif lagi nge-blog sejak tanggal 20an November 2010 tadi. Sekitar tanggal 10an Januari kaget ngeliat PageRank udah 2. Lalu 2 minggu kemudian naik jadi 3. Cepet banget heran jga jadinya. Hehehe. Ini dia apa2 saja yg ane lakuin sejak 20an November tadi:

1. Blogwalking tiap hari. Awalnya ku blogwalking 10 blog/hari. Tiap hari blog nya beda2. Dan bikin daftar alamat blog untuk hari Senin harus mengunjungi blog siapa2, Selasa blog siapa2, dan seterusnya. Nanti diulang lagi Senin depan nya dan seterusnya. Bertahap dan terus bertambah. Sekarang ane blogwalking 40an blog/hari.

2. Bikin artikel di situs2 penyedia tulisan. Di antaranya bisa lewat www.goarticles.com, www.ehow.com, www.easyarticles.com, dll. Kalau tulisan punya ane ad di alamat ini: http://goarticles.com/article/Tips-To-Increase-Blog-Traffic/3980579/

3. Jujur ane jarang update posting. Ane lebih sering update design blog. Liat aja page elementnya sering pindah2 kan dan template sudah berapa kali ganti.

4. Pasang link di kaskus dan perlu sedikit trik. Ane pakai trik gambar emoticon di komen kaskus di pasang link. Contohnya liat komen ane di thread ini: http://www.kaskus.us/showthread.php?p=355023146#post355023146

Paling bawah ada komen ane dan arahkan mouse ke gambar emoticon dan di status bar muncul itu link nya menuju blog ane.

Di samping itu juga ane bikin tips di kaskus, dan bahasa Inggris biar peluang traffic bukan hanya dari Indonesia aja, tpi seluruh dunia coz bahasa Inggris kan udah bahasa global.

5. Submit ke search engine biar gampang di cari orang. Googling aja dengan kata kunci "100 Sumbit URL" nanti banyak situs yg melayani submit url, ente tinggal masukin alamat blog.

6. Benerin dulu ye blog title, description, dan keywordsnya. Bisa dengan bantuan di www.mypagerank.net.

7. Baru2 ini ane bikin video di youtube ttg tips tentang meningkatkan traffic blog dan tentunya ane pasang link yg merujuk ke blog ane. Bisa liat videonya di alamat ini: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J99MQ_XcNtA, nggak bagus2 amat sieh, tpi namanya jga usaha.

Dari sekian tips, intinya kita harus sebisa mungkin attract pengunjung untuk sering2 datang ke blog kita. Itu aja kali dulu gan. Dari sekian bnyak tips, yg paling dominan dan sering ane lakuin adalah blogwalking coz tiap hari. Sukses ya gan, klo ada pertanyaan insyaAllah dengan senang hati ane bantu, silahkan add fb ane di http://www.facebook.com/people/Najmi-Jailani-Abin/1721547913 atau follow twitter ane @nazmy88 supaya curhat nya lebih enak, kalo lewat chatbox takutny ad yg terlewatkan. Moga tips cara mendapatkan pagerank ini berguna!

Gun Blood

2010-12-31T00:15:00.000-08:00

Gun Blood. A free online shooting game. Try it!

Click here to try other games
or click http://playfg329.blogspot.com

Tips To Increase Blog Traffic

2010-12-12T22:00:00.000-08:00

1. Register your blog on a number of Search Engines. Thus the address of your blog will spread everywhere and easy to find, not only for Indonesia, but worldwide.

2. Join forums and share your blog address. Preference will be given on the forum relating to the content of your blog. If your blog is about computers, you can search the forum about a computer by searching in google.

3. Blogwalking. If necessary you have a list of blogs that you write down the address and do blogwalking to 20 blogs per day. If you are serious about increasing blog traffic you would have a clear record of who to stop off the blog, and so developed.

4. Provide product / service in your blog. If you are not adept to create content as possible, at least you have a product / service mainstay in your blog, and the product is not necessarily in kind, good information alone can benefit visitors. Like a company, of the many products there must be a product that is most highlighted and promoted.

5. Use golden keywords that have value. You can googling keywords that have a competitiveness then you can update your blog with content.

A few tips from me. Thanks for reading, Good luck!

Download Free GBA Roms

2010-12-11T19:49:00.000-08:00

Steel Empire
Download

Bruce Lee - Return of the Legend Download

Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow
Download

How to make blinking text in HTML

2010-12-11T03:07:00.000-08:00

To make a blinking text like this, just put the "this" text on the <blink> </blink> tag.

How to open multiple links just in one click

2010-12-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

After googling search the code that could open multiple links and I found it. Let's check it out.

Put the following code at tag <head> </head>:

<script type="text/javascript">
function open_win() {
window.open("http://url1.com")
window.open("http://url2.com")
window.open("http://url3.comm")
window.open("http://etc.com")
}
</script>

The next, put the following code at <body> </body>:

<form>
<input type=button value="Cee Lok Baa" onclick="open_win()">
</form>

Save. That's all. Now you can modify it.

Tips Meningkatkan Traffic Blog

2010-12-08T03:15:00.000-08:00

1. Daftarkan alamat blog kamu pada sejumlah Search Engine. Dengan demikian alamat blog kamu akan tersebar di mana-mana dan mudah untuk dicari, tidak hanya untuk wilayah Indonesia saja, tetapi mendunia.

2. Rajin ikut forum dan berbagi alamat blog. Diutamakan pada forum yang berkaitan dengan konten blog kamu. Misal blog kamu tentang komputer, maka kamu bisa cari forum tentang komputer dengan mencarinya di google. Ikuti juga forum asing dan kamu harus mahir berbahasa Inggris.

3. Rajin blogwalking. Kalau perlu kamu punya daftar alamat blog yang kamu catat dan melakukan blogwalking ke 20 blog perhari. Jika kamu memang serius ingin meningkatkan traffic blog kamu tentu harus punya catatan yang jelas blog siapa yang harus disinggahi, dan seterusnya dikembangkan.

4. Sediakan produk/jasa andalan di blog kamu. Seandainya kamu tidak mahir untuk membuat konten sebagus mungkin, setidaknya kamu punya produk/jasa andalan dalam blog kamu, dan produk tersebut tidak mesti berbentuk barang, informasi yang bagus saja sudah bisa menguntungkan pengunjung. Ibarat sebuah perusahaan, dari sekian produk pasti ada produk andalan dan itu yang paling ditonjolkan dan dipromosikan.

5. Gunakan kata kunci atau keyword yang punya nilai jual. Kamu bisa googling kata kunci atau keyword apa saja yang mempunyai daya saing yang sedang, selanjutnya kamu bisa update blog kamu dengan konten-konten tersebut.

Sekian tips dari saya. Terima kasih sudah mau membaca, dan sewaktu-waktu post saya yang satu ini bisa saja mengalami perkembangan dan penambahan. Good luck!

Cool Widgets

2010-12-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

Executes or Calling Programs with timer via Batch Line

2010-11-25T18:00:00.001-08:00

After I search how to execute some programs with timer via batch line on google, finally I found it and here's the code I make it simple:

ping -n 60 127.0.0.1>nul
calc.exe

You can make it as batch file. From the code above, the number "60" means that 60 seconds. It needs 60 seconds to execute calculator after you click the batch file. You can change it into 120 for 2 minutes, and so on.

Easy Way to Parse HTML for Bloggers

2010-11-25T17:38:00.000-08:00

An easy way to parse HTML for bloggers, please enter http://www.blogcrowds.com/resources/parse_html.php, convert your HTML code on that site, then paste into your template code. It's easy huh?

Create an Inline Frame (Iframe)

2010-11-25T17:18:00.000-08:00

Iframe or Inline frame is a floating frame which sits within a web page document. The content is an external web document that is put inside the floating frame.

To create an iframe on your page, create a new HTML file and add some text then save it as yourpage.html. And then create one more new HTML file and then add the code below within the <BODY> </BODY> tags and name it as inlineframe.html:

<iframe src="inlineframe.html" width="200" height="200" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" name="myInlineFrame"></iframe>

If you've done it, try to open yourpage.html. This will place inlineframe.html inside the floating frame, within yourpage.html. For width and height, you can change it into a number you want.

Calling Firefox with URLs via Batch Line

2010-11-25T04:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is useful to call firefox with some URLs, maybe for business or maximizing the traffic purpose, or some else. Here's the code, you can make it as a BAT file by copy it into notepad and then save it as .BAT file.

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" www.google.com www.gmail.com www.yahoo.com http://nazmy88.blogspot.com

The code above is an example to call firefox and it automatically opens google, gmail, yahoo, and my blog. After you edit and make it as a .BAT file, for example named as OPEN.BAT, just with one click it opens those URLs.

Make a Web Page Auto Refresh

2010-11-25T04:05:00.000-08:00

Here is the code to make your web page or blog automatically refresh. Put it within <HEAD> </HEAD> section.

<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="10">

"10" means that the code will refresh every ten seconds. If you want the page to refresh more or less frequently, replace "10" with the number you want.

Then, don't forget to save. Your web page will now automatically refresh every ten seconds. It's simple, right?

Memakai Fitur Drop Cap

2009-05-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Ini untuk membuat huruf pertama sebuah paragraf dalam huruf besar. Lihat gambar berikut ini sebelum memakai fitur drop cap. Dan contoh hasilnya dapat dilihat gambar di bawah ini.

Untuk bisa melakukan ini, caranya masuk ke [Format] [Drop cap] kemudian tentukan lines to drop atau hingga berapa baris ukuran huruf tersebut. Di atas adalah contoh huruf yang drop hingga 3 baris.

Alternatif Membuat Spasi dengan Mudah di Microsoft Word

2009-05-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

Ini adalah beberapa tombol keyboard yang memudahkan kamu untuk membuat spasi.

[Ctrl+1], untuk satu spasi.
[Ctrl+2], untuk dua spasi.
[Ctrl+3], untuk 1,5 spasi.

Sebelum itu, perlu diblok terlebih dulu paragraf yang ingin diatur spasinya, kemudian ikuti langkah di atas.

Menonaktifkan AutoWeb Address Hyperlinking

2009-05-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

Ini adalah cara untuk mematikan fungsi Auto-Web Address Hyperlinking jika kamu tidak menginginkannya. Ia merupakan pendeteksi sebuah kata yang mengandung alamat URL kemudian dijadikan hyperlink menuju alamat tersebut. Cara mematikannya buka [Tools][AutoCorrect Options], pada tab [AutoFormat As You Type] hilangkan checklist pada [Internet and network paths with hyperlinks].

Membesarkan Icon Toolbar

2009-05-20T05:23:00.000-07:00

Jika menurut kamu icon2 pada toolbar yang ada kelihatan kecil buat kamu, kamu bisa membuatnya menjadi kelihatan besar. Caranya masuk ke [Tools] [Customize]. Lalu pada tab [Options] checklist pada box [Large icons]. Maka hasilnya akan seperti gambar di bawah ini dan bandingkan dengan icon sebelumnya.

Tombol INS sebagai Alternatif Lain untuk Paste

2009-05-20T05:18:00.000-07:00

Sudah kita ketahui langkah untuk paste sebuah teks misalnya pada Microsoft Word caranya adalah dengan sorot mouse kamu pada tombol Paste atau dengan mengklik kanan mouse kemudian klik [Paste].

Atau bagi yang mulai mahir lebih cepat Paste dengan mengklik [Ctrl+V]. Nah ini jika kamu masih belum puas juga atau kamu pengen nambah pengetahuan sebenarnya di sana masih ada cara lain untuk bisa melakukan Paste, yaitu dengan tombol INS. Untuk bisa melakukan ini, maka haruslah terlebih dulu mengaktifkan fungsi tombol ini, caranya masuk ke [Tools] [Options] pada tab [Edit] checklist pada box [Use the INS key for paste].

Menghapus Item dari Daftar Recent Files

2009-05-20T05:08:00.001-07:00

Buat kamu yang tidak ingin menghapus Daftar Recent Files agar tidak diganggu oleh orang lain, bisa coba cara ini, tekan [Ctrl+Alt+-] dan mouse akan berubah menjadi tanda minus. Klik menu [File], lalu klik item pada Recent Files yang ingin dihapus.
Jika sudah, hasilnya akan seperti ini:

Mempromosikan Blog

2009-05-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

Cara untuk bisa mempromosikan blog di antaranya dengan sering2 memberikan komentar pada posting atau meninggalkan pesan di ShoutBox pada blog yang dikunjungi Berikan komentar sebaik mungkin dengan pujian terhadap blog tersebut. Dengan begini, dapat dipastikan pemilik blog yang kamu kunjungi juga mengunjungi blog kamu dan memberikan komentar atau pesan ShoutBox kamu.

Kemudian alternatif lain adalah dengan mengikuti forum2 yang beredar di internet yang tentunya sesuai dengan tema blog kita. Berilah komentar dan jawaban sebaik-baiknya pada suatu permasalahan yang ditampilkan. Kalau perlu kamulah yang membuka forum dan membahas topik tertentu karena forum memiliki traffic rank yang tinggi karena sering dikunjungi. Paham kan maksudnya?

Di samping itu ada lagi nih cara untuk mempromosikan blog kita yaitu dengan bertukaran link dan lebih kreatif lagi berbentuk banner. Jika kamu adalah newbie dan pengen traffic rank blog kamu tinggi, kamu perlu bertukar link dengan blog yang sudah terkenal dan rankingnya juga tinggi. Dengan begini, blog kamu mudah terindex oleh Google. Jangan pelit untuk berbagi ya. Disarankan bikinlah dalam bentuk gambar biar lebih cantik.

Cara selanjutnya, promosi lewat chatting iRC, comment friendster, facebook, YM, MSNM. Cukup berikan alamat blog kamu disertai sedikit keterangan tentang blog kamu.

Kamu juga bisa promosi secara langsung tanpa harus online di internet, misal kamu langsung cerita ke teman2 kamu atau via SMS, papan pengumuman, selebaran, dll. Dan seterusnya kamu jangan hanya terpaku dari tips2 ini karena ini masih kurang dan diperlukan lagi kreativitas dari kamu sendiri dalam mempromosikan blog kamu, ok!

Mengatur Posisi Gambar pada Microsoft Word

2009-05-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

Pada saat memasukkan gambar ke dokumen dengan cara [Insert][Picture], gambar tersebut secara defaultnya bertempat di atas teks. Misalnya kamu mau merubah posisi gambar tersebut, caranya adalah dengan klik kanan mouse pada gambar tersebut kemudian pilih [Format Picture]. Masuk ke tab [Layout] kemudian pilihlah posisi yang diinginkan. Di sana ada 5 pilihan, yaitu [In line with text] atau satu baris dengan teks, [Square] atau posisi gambar dikelilingi teks, [Tight] posisi gambar dikelilingi teks lebih rapat, [Behind text] posisi gambar di belakang teks, dan [In front of text] gambar berada di depan teks. Pilih posisi yang diinginkan kemudian tekan [Ok].

Fitur Shrink To Fit pada Microsoft Word

2009-05-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

Fitur Shrink To Fit ini berguna untuk mengatur halaman tulisan pada dokumen. Sebagai contoh: missal kamu mempunyai artikel yang berjumlah 9 halaman sementara halaman 9 tersebut hanya ada beberapa baris. Tanggung khan? Nah Shrink To Fit lah yang akan mengatasi ini yaitu dengan menyulap dokumenmu menjadi 8 halaman saja biar pas. Shrink To Fit akan otomatis menyesuaikan sendiri font yang ada. Cara melakukannya, masuk ke [File] [Print Preview] lalu tekan [Shrink To Fit] seperti gambar di bawah ini:

Ini adalah contoh dokumen 4 halaman dengan halaman terakhir yang tanggung. Dengan fitur ini bisa menghasilkan seperti gambar di bawahnya.

Membuat Garis Horizontal di Microsoft Word

2009-05-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

Di Microsoft Word ada fitur yang memudahkan kita untuk membuat aneka bentuk garis. Caranya cukup dengan mengetik tiga buah suatu karakter maka otomatis akan membentuk suatu garis horizontal. Adapun contoh garis beserta 3 karakternya dipaparkan di bawah ini:

Jika tidak berhasil, kamu kudu cek dulu settingan ini: [Tools] [AutoFormat As You Type] kemudian checklist pada box [Border lines], tekan [Apply]. Coba ketik kembali rumus di atas.

Mengatasi Kekacauan Settings pada Microsoft Word 2003

2009-05-15T03:45:00.000-07:00

Pagi sebelum Jum'atan aku di SMS kawanku dan katanya Microsoft Wordnya bermasalah. Katanya ada gambar garis2 atau segi empat2 kecil gitu pada backgroundnya, wah aku pikir ini cuma masalah Settingannya aja yang sudah terlalu banyak modifikasi. Habis Jum'at kulangsung ke kosnya dan aku cek dlu bersihin dlu pake AntiVirus.

Lalu kubuka Mic. Word dan aku kaget juga karena baru pertama kali melihat tampilan Mic. Word ada banyak segi empat2 kecil, aku kira hanya setting "boundaries" ternyata tebakanku salah. Apakah ini akibat virus aku jg gak tau karena penyakitnya datang begitu saja. Mungkin ada pembaca yang tau dan pernah mengalami bisa sharing?

Trus aq scan2 aja lg pke AV siapa tau hilang, ternyata tetap aja begitu. Aq utak2 daerah [Tools][Options]. Sudah hampir 2 jam utak2 hasilnya nihil. Aq review lg jurus2q, oh iya mungkin ini jalan terakhir yaitu pke fasilitas Detect and Repair. Fungsinya ya mendeteksi dan memperbaiki. Caranya masuk [Help][Detect and Repair] kemudian checklist pada Discard my customized settings and restore default settings spt gmbar di bawah ini, lalu klik [Start].

Akhirnya... Mic. Wordnya kembali normal.

Menghias Tampilan FlashDisk

2009-05-13T17:33:00.003-07:00

Agar latar belakang pada FlashDisk tampak lebih keren, bisa ikuti cara berikut ini. Kode ini untuk memasang gambar pada latar belakang FlashDisk. Siapkan gambarnya terlebih dahulu yang ingin dijadikan gambar backgroundnya kemudian simpan di halaman utama pada FlashDisk tersebut. Selanjutnya bukalah software Notepad, salin kode berikut ini:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}={BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}
[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
IconArea_Image=Background.jpg
IconArea_Text=0x000000

Backround.jpg merupakan file gambar yang bakal dijadikan latar belakang pada FlashDisk. Kemudian save dengan nama "Desktop.ini" dan simpan di FlashDisk tersebut berdampingan dengan file gambar tadi. Kemudian refresh. Jadi deh...

Cara Menampilkan File atau Folder yang Tersembunyi

2009-05-13T17:32:00.001-07:00

Teman-temanku di kampus sering banget laptopnya kena virus dan dampak dari virus ini di antaranya menyebabkan beberapa file dan folder disembunyikan oleh virus tersebut. Nah untung aq punya caranya untuk mengembalikan file atau folder yang hilang, jika ada yang mengalami hal yang sama, bisa ikuti caraku berikut:

Buka [Start][Run] kemudian ketik "CMD" tanpa tanda petik kemudian akan tampil window CMD. Kemudian ketik dengan susunan parameter seperti ini:

attrib [drive:][path][filename] -a -h -r -s

misal:

attrib "F:\mydata.doc" -a -h -r -s

kemudian tekan ENTER, itu contoh cara mengembalikan file mydata.doc yang tersimpan di FlashDisk di drive F.

Cara Mudah Membuat E-book

2009-05-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Cara untuk bisa membuat file e-book, kusarankan dengan menggunakan OpenOffice.Org, silahkan cari mentahnya di google atau minta dari teman. Jika sudah punya, buka OpenOffice.Org Writer, kemudian tulislah sebuah tulisan layaknya di Mic. Word, kemudian untuk mengubahnya menjadi e-book caranya adalah klik menu [File] kemudian klik [Export as PDF], terus tentukan deh tempatnya dimana ia akan disimpan. Jadi deh, gampang khan. Selamat mencoba!

?

2009-03-10T00:26:00.000-07:00

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Your Guardian Angel

2009-03-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

Nih liriknya lagu Your Guardian Angel yang dibawakan oleh band The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, aku senang banget ma ni lagu, jadi aku muat aja liriknya di sini:

When I see your smile
tears run down my face
I can't replace
and now that I'm strong
I have figured out
how this world turns cold
and it breaks through my soul
and I know I'll find deep inside me
I can be the one

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
even if saving you sends me to Heaven

It's ok..(x3)

Seasons are changing
and waves are crashing
and stars are falling
all for us
days grow longer
and nights grow shorter

I can show you I'll be the one

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
even if saving you sends me to Heaven
cause you're my...you're my...my...
my true love
my whole heart
please don't throw that away
cause I'm here for you
please don't walk away!
please tell me you'll stay!

Use me as you will
pull my strings just for a thrill
and I know I'll be ok
though my skies are turning gray

I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to Heaven (x2)

Kertas Foto Seri R

2009-03-03T23:24:00.000-08:00

Ukuran kertas foto dengan seri R beserta ukurannya dalam centimetre:

2R = 6 x 9 cm
3R = 8,9 x 12,7 cm
4R = 10,2 x 15,2 cm
5R = 12,7 x 17,8 cm
6R = 15,2 x 20,3 cm
8R = 20,3 x 25,4 cm
10R = 25,4 x 30,5 cm
11R = 27,9 x 35,6 cm
12R = 30,5 x 38,1 cm

Pindah data PowerPoint ke Word

2008-09-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

Caranya, buka terlebih dahulu data PowerPoint (*.ppt) yang ingin dipindah ke Word, lalu setelah windownya muncul, klik [File] [Send To] [Microsoft Office Word].

Top 20 Antivirus

2008-06-30T02:21:00.000-07:00

1. BitDefender
2. Kaspersky
3. F-Secure Anti-Virus
4. PC-cillin
5. ESET Nod32
6. McAfee VirusScan
7. Norton AntiVirus
8. AVG AntiVirus
9. CA Antivirus
10. Norman Virus Control
11. AntiVirusKit
12. AVAST!
13. Panda Titanium
14. F-Prot
15. PCTools AntiVirus
16. ViRobot Expert
17. WinAntiVirus
18. CyberScrub AntiVirus
19. The Shield AntiVirus
20. Windows OneCare

Source: http://kaskus.us/showthread.php?t=515268

Mengapa Antivirus perlu di-Update?

2008-06-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Apakah itu update?

Update bahasa Indonesianya adalah diperbaharui. Dari waktu ke waktu, antivirus memang perlu pembaharuan guna mengenal virus-virus baru yang terus bermunculan.

Mengapa harus di-Update?

Berhubung virus-virus baru terus bermunculan, maka diperlukan tambahan kekuatan untuk antivirus anda dengan kode-kode terbaru sebagai penangkal dari virus yang ada, untuk melakukannya adalah dengan meng-Update antivirus.

Haruskah setiap hari untuk meng-Update virus?

Ini tergantung dari lajunya perkembangan virus sehingga si pembuat antivirus ini harus memperbaharui antivirus buatannya. Jika ada hal yang menyebabkan antivirus harus di-Update setiap hari maka begitulah kenyataannya. Sangatlah mudah bagi orang yang mempunyai koneksi Internet sendiri untuk melakukan Update. Tetapi bagi sebagian orang, orang yang tidak sering ke Internet atau tidak memiliki koneksi Internet di rumahnya, mereka akan merasa bahwa ini adalah sesuatu yang melelahkan karena adanya keharusan untuk meng-Update antivirus.

Jika ternyata antivirus sudah Out-of-date, masih bolehkah untuk menggunakannya?

Boleh, cuma seandainya di komputer anda terdapat virus keluaran baru dan antivirus anda ternyata tidak mengenalnya, maka antivirus tersebut tidak akan mungkin bisa mengatasi masalah tersebut. Mengenalnya sebagai virus pun tidak.

Bagaimana cara meng-Update antivirus?

Jika komputer anda mempunyai koneksi Internet, proses update akan dilakukan secara otomatis. Jika tidak, maka alternatif lain adalah anda harus minta antivirus up to date di servis komputer atau download antivirus versi terbaru di Internet.

What I Always Wanted by Kittie

2008-06-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

Fallen Leaves by Billy Talent

2008-06-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

Dirty Little Secret by All American Reject

2008-06-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

Face Down by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

2008-06-29T04:12:00.000-07:00

Ass Up by Baracuda

2008-06-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

All I Have to Give by Cara G. Stanfield

2008-06-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

You're the first thing I think of
Each morning when I rise.

You're the last thing I think of
Each night when I close my eyes.

You're in each thought I have
And every breath I take.
My feelings are growing stronger
With every move I make.

I want to prove I love you
But that's the hardest part.
So, I'm giving all I have to give
To you... I give my heart.

All Because of You by Kate Reneigh Woodruff

2008-06-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

I awake each day with a smile
And greet it with a laugh;
The world is a treasure to me
Because of you.

Every time I think of something sad,
I replace the thought- with you!
My mind is instantly changed
And my heart is filled with gladness.

Every breath I take is meant for you,
I live this life surrounded in joy
And I bathe in the promise of your love,
My soul belongs to you.

Each time I see something beautiful
I want to take it and bring it to you;
My life has so much meaning now
All because of you.

All Of You by David Norman Meece

2008-06-28T21:20:00.001-07:00

The sound of your voice is music to my ear
So soft, sweet, and clear
The kiss from your lips words can not explain
It takes away my worries and my pain
The caress of your hand sends shivers down my spine
Everyday I thank God that your mine.

The sight of your lovely face takes away all my fears
You're the one I want to love through out the years
For an eternity I want to spend in your arms
Everyday graced by your beauty and your charms.

A Heart Remembers by Desi D. Williams

2008-06-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

A memory burned within, from a heartfelt second long ago
a moment... one single moment, that only a heart can remember
a fleeting thought, gone astray, but the feeling looms inside you
a boy and a girl... so far apart, so long the days
that it took their hearts to remind them...
how fortunate they are, that a heart...
can return a fleeting thought,
one single moment, or a memory burned within...
so they can now live as one
as only inside true love, can such a past remain
until... it's found again

I Know You Know by Poetry Knight

2008-06-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

I know you know you know me
I know you know I know you
I know you know I cant see
I know you know it's true

I know you know the way
I know you know my will
I know you know my pay
I know you know me still

I know you know my friend
I know you know my life
I know you know it wont end.
I know you know my wife.

I know you know my past
I know you know my strife
I know you know at last
I asked you to be my wife.

Now With Pride by Tears

2008-06-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Love is being next to you standing by your side
Sharing all my meals with you even if their fried
Love is sharing private jokes whispered in my ear
Being always happy at times when you're so near
Love is wanting you again in the mornings grace
Kiss your lips and your eyes ,held in my embrace
Love is being jealous when others have desire
And yet being sure who really stokes my fire
Love is a feeling that never does subside
This I carry for you smiling now with pride

A Young Turkish Catastrophe by H. H. Munro

2008-06-28T20:53:00.000-07:00

The Minister for Fine Arts (to whose Department had been lately added the new sub-section of Electoral Engineering) paid a business visit to the Grand Vizier. According to Eastern etiquette they discoursed for a while on indifferent subjects. The minister only checked himself in time from making a passing reference to the Marathon Race, remembering that the Vizier had a Persian grandmother and might consider any allusion to Marathon as somewhat tactless. Presently the Minister broached the subject of his interview.

"Under the new Constitution are women to have votes?" he asked suddenly.

"To have votes? Women?" exclaimed the Vizier in some astonishment. "My dear Pasha, the New Departure has a flavour of the absurd as it is; don't let's try and make it altogether ridiculous. Women have no souls and no intelligence; why on earth should they have votes?"

"I know it sounds absurd," said the Minister, "but they are seriously considering the idea in the West."

"Then they must have a larger equipment of seriousness than I gave them credit for. After a lifetime of specialised effort in maintaining my gravity I can scarcely restrain an inclination to smile at the suggestion. Why, out womenfolk in most cases don't know how to read or write. How could they perform the operation of voting?"

"They could be shown the names of the candidates and where to make their cross."

"I beg your pardon?" interrupted the Vizier.

"Their crescent, I mean," corrected the Minister. "It would be to the liking of the Young Turkish Party," he added.

"Oh, well," said the Vizier, "if we are to do the thing at all we may as well go the whole h- " he pulled up just as he was uttering the name of an unclean animal, and continued, "the complete camel. I will issue instructions that womenfolk are to have votes."

* * *

The poll was drawing to a close in the Lakoumistan division. The candidate of the Young Turkish Party was known to be three or four hundred votes ahead, and he was already drafting his address, returning thanks to the electors. His victory had been almost a foregone conclusion, for he had set in motion all the approved electioneering machinery of the West. He had even employed motorcars. Few of his supporters had gone to the poll in these vehicles, but, thanks to the intelligent driving of his chauffeurs, many of his opponents had gone to their graves or to the local hospitals, or otherwise abstained from voting. And then something unlooked-for happened. The rival candidate, Ali the Blest, arrived on the scene with his wives and womenfolk, who numbered, roughly, six hundred. Ali had wasted little effort on election literature, but had been heard to remark that every vote given to his opponent meant another sack thrown into the Bosphorus. The Young Turkish candidate, who had conformed to the Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistresses, stood by helplessly while his adversary's poll swelled to a triumphant majority.

"Cristabel Columbus!" he exclaimed, invoking in some confusion the name of a distinguished pioneer; "who would have thought it?"

"Strange," mused Ali, "that one who harangued so clamorously about the Secret Ballot should have overlooked the Veiled Vote."

And, walking homeward with his constituents, he murmured in his beard an improvisation on the heretic poet of Persia:

"One, rich in metaphors, his Cause contrives
To urge with edged words, like Kabul knives;
And I, who worst him in this sorry game,
Was never rich in anything but--wives."

The Name-Day by H. H. Munro

2008-06-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Adventures, according to the proverb, are to the adventurous. Quite as often they are to the non- adventurous, to the retiring, to the constitutionally timid. John James Abbleway had been endowed by Nature with the sort of disposition that instinctively avoids Carlist intrigues, slum crusades, the tracking of wounded wild beasts, and the moving of hostile amendments at political meetings. If a mad dog or a Mad Mullah had come his way he would have surrendered the way without hesitation. At school he had unwillingly acquired a thorough knowledge of the German tongue out of deference to the plainly-expressed wishes of a foreign-languages master, who, though he taught modern subjects, employed old-fashioned methods in driving his lessons home. It was this enforced familiarity with an important commercial language which thrust Abbleway in later years into strange lands where adventures were less easy to guard against than in the ordered atmosphere of an English country town. The firm that he worked for saw fit to send him one day on a prosaic business errand to the far city of Vienna, and, having sent him there, continued to keep him there, still engaged in humdrum affairs of commerce, but with the possibilities of romance and adventure, or even misadventure, jostling at his elbow. After two and a half years of exile, however, John James Abbleway had embarked on only one hazardous undertaking, and that was of a nature which would assuredly have overtaken him sooner or later if he had been leading a sheltered, stay-at-home existence at Dorking or Huntingdon. He fell placidly in love with a placidly lovable English girl, the sister of one of his commercial colleagues, who was improving her mind by a short trip to foreign parts, and in due course he was formally accepted as the young man she was engaged to. The further step by which she was to become Mrs. John Abbleway was to take place a twelvemonth hence in a town in the English midlands, by which time the firm that employed John James would have no further need for his presence in the Austrian capital.

It was early in April, two months after the installation of Abbleway as the young man Miss Penning was engaged to, when he received a letter from her, written from Venice. She was still peregrinating under the wing of her brother, and as the latter's business arrangements would take him across to Fiume for a day or two, she had conceived the idea that it would be rather jolly if John could obtain leave of absence and run down to the Adriatic coast to meet them. She had looked up the route on the map, and the journey did not appear likely to be expensive. Between the lines of her communication there lay a hint that if he really cared for her -

Abbleway obtained leave of absence and added a journey to Fiume to his life's adventures. He left Vienna on a cold, cheerless day. The flower shops were full of spring blooms, and the weekly organs of illustrated humour were full of spring topics, but the skies were heavy with clouds that looked like cotton-wool that has been kept over long in a shop window.

"Snow comes," said the train official to the station officials; and they agreed that snow was about to come. And it came, rapidly, plenteously. The train had not been more than an hour on its journey when the cotton- wool clouds commenced to dissolve in a blinding downpour of snowflakes. The forest trees on either side of the line were speedily coated with a heavy white mantle, the telegraph wires became thick glistening ropes, the line itself was buried more and more completely under a carpeting of snow, through which the not very powerful engine ploughed its way with increasing difficulty. The Vienna-Fiume line is scarcely the best equipped of the Austrian State railways, and Abbleway began to have serious fears for a breakdown. The train had slowed down to a painful and precarious crawl and presently came to a halt at a spot where the drifting snow had accumulated in a formidable barrier. The engine made a special effort and broke through the obstruction, but in the course of another twenty minutes it was again held up. The process of breaking through was renewed, and the train doggedly resumed its way, encountering and surmounting fresh hindrances at frequent intervals. After a standstill of unusually long duration in a particularly deep drift the compartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge jerk and a lurch, and then seemed to remain stationary; it undoubtedly was not moving, and yet he could hear the puffing of the engine and the slow rumbling and jolting of wheels. The puffing and rumbling grew fainter, as though it were dying away through the agency of intervening distance. Abbleway suddenly gave vent to an exclamation of scandalised alarm, opened the window, and peered out into the snowstorm. The flakes perched on his eyelashes and blurred his vision, but he saw enough to help him to realise what had happened. The engine had made a mighty plunge through the drift and had gone merrily forward, lightened of the load of its rear carriage, whose coupling had snapped under the strain. Abbleway was alone, or almost alone, with a derelict railway waggon, in the heart of some Styrian or Croatian forest. In the third-class compartment next to his own he remembered to have seen a peasant woman, who had entered the train at a small wayside station. "With the exception of that woman," he exclaimed dramatically to himself, "the nearest living beings are probably a pack of wolves."

Before making his way to the third-class compartment to acquaint his fellow-traveller with the extent of the disaster Abbleway hurriedly pondered the question of the woman's nationality. He had acquired a smattering of Slavonic tongues during his residence in Vienna, and felt competent to grapple with several racial possibilities.

"If she is Croat or Serb or Bosniak I shall be able to make her understand," he promised himself. "If she is Magyar, heaven help me! We shall have to converse entirely by signs."

He entered the carriage and made his momentous announcement in the best approach to Croat speech that he could achieve.

"The train has broken away and left us!"

The woman shook her head with a movement that might be intended to convey resignation to the will of heaven, but probably meant noncomprehension. Abbleway repeated his information with variations of Slavonic tongues and generous displays of pantomime.

"Ah," said the woman at last in German dialect, "the train has gone? We are left. Ah, so."

She seemed about as much interested as though Abbleway had told her the result of the municipal elections in Amsterdam.

"They will find out at some station, and when the line is clear of snow they will send an engine. It happens that way sometimes."

"We may be here all night!" exclaimed Abbleway.

The woman nodded as though she thought it possible.

"Are there wolves in these parts?" asked Abbleway hurriedly.

"Many," said the woman; "just outside this forest my aunt was devoured three years ago, as she was coming home from market. The horse and a young pig that was in the cart were eaten too. The horse was a very old one, but it was a beautiful young pig, oh, so fat. I cried when I heard that it was taken. They spare nothing."

"They may attack us here," said Abbleway tremulously; "they could easily break in, these carriages are like matchwood. We may both be devoured."

"You, perhaps," said the woman calmly; "not me."

"Why not you?" demanded Abbleway.

"It is the day of Saint Maria Kleopha, my name-day. She would not allow me to be eaten by wolves on her day. Such a thing could not be thought of. You, yes, but not me."

Abbleway changed the subject.

"It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here till morning we shall be starving."

"I have here some good eatables," said the woman tranquilly; "on my festival day it is natural that I should have provision with me. I have five good blood- sausages; in the town shops they cost twenty-five heller each. Things are dear in the town shops."

"I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of them," said Abbleway with some enthusiasm.

"In a railway accident things become very dear," said the woman; "these blood-sausages are four kronen apiece."

"Four kronen!" exclaimed Abbleway; "four kronen for a blood-sausage!"

"You cannot get them any cheaper on this train," said the woman, with relentless logic, "because there aren't any others to get. In Agram you can buy them cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to us for nothing, but here they cost four kronen each. I have a small piece of Emmenthaler cheese and a honey-cake and a piece of bread that I can let you have. That will be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all. There is a piece of ham, but that I cannot let you have on my name-day."

Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would have put on the ham, and hurried to pay her the eleven kronen before her emergency tariff expanded into a famine tariff. As he was taking possession of his modest store of eatables he suddenly heard a noise which set his heart thumping in a miserable fever of fear. 'There was a scraping and shuffling as of some animal or animals trying to climb up to the footboard. In another moment, through the snow-encrusted glass of the carriage window, he saw a gaunt prick-eared head, with gaping jaw and lolling tongue and gleaming teeth; a second later another head shot up.

"There are hundreds of them," whispered Abbleway; "they have scented us. They will tear the carriage to pieces. We shall be devoured."

"Not me, on my name-day. The holy Maria Kleopha would not permit it," said the woman with provoking calm.

The heads dropped down from the window and an uncanny silence fell on the beleaguered carriage. Abbleway neither moved nor spoke. Perhaps the brutes had not clearly seen or winded the human occupants of the carriage, and had prowled away on some other errand of rapine.

The long torture-laden minutes passed slowly away.

"It grows cold," said the woman suddenly, crossing over to the far end of the carriage, where the heads had appeared. "The heating apparatus does not work any longer. See, over there beyond the trees, there is a chimney with smoke coming from it. It is not far, and the snow has nearly stopped, I shall find a path through the forest to that house with the chimney."

"But the wolves!" exclaimed Abbleway; "they may - "

"Not on my name-day," said the woman obstinately, and before he could stop her she had opened the door and climbed down into the snow. A moment later he hid his face in his hands; two gaunt lean figures rushed upon her from the forest. No doubt she had courted her fate, but Abbleway had no wish to see a human being torn to pieces and devoured before his eyes.

When he looked at last a new sensation of scandalised astonishment took possession of him. He had been straitly brought up in a small English town, and he was not prepared to be the witness of a miracle. The wolves were not doing anything worse to the woman than drench her with snow as they gambolled round her.

A short, joyous bark revealed the clue to the situation.

"Are those - dogs?" he called weakly.

"My cousin Karl's dogs, yes," she answered; that is his inn, over beyond the trees. I knew it was there, but I did not want to take you there; he is always grasping with strangers. However, it grows too cold to remain in the train. Ah, ah, see what comes!"

A whistle sounded, and a relief engine made its appearance, snorting its way sulkily through the snow. Abbleway did not have the opportunity for finding out whether Karl was really avaricious.

Mr and Mrs Dove by Katherine Mansfield

2008-06-28T20:48:00.001-07:00

Of course he knew - no man better - that he hadn't a ghost of a chance, he hadn't an earthly. The very idea of such a thing was preposterous. So preposterous that he'd perfectly understand it if her father - well, whatever her father chose to do he'd perfectly understand. In fact, nothing short of desperation, nothing short of the fact that this was positively his last day in England for God knows how long, would have screwed him up to it. And even now ... He chose a tie out of the chest of drawers, a blue and cream check tie, and sat on the side of his bed. Supposing she replied, "What impertinence!" would he be surprised? Not in the least, he decided, turning up his soft collar and turning it down over the tie. He expected her to say something like that. He didn't see, if he looked at the affair dead soberly, what else she could say.

Here he was! And nervously he tied a bow in front of the mirror, jammed his hair down with both hands, pulled out the flaps of his jacket pockets. Making between 500 and 600 pounds a year on a fruit farm in - of all places - Rhodesia. No capital. Not a penny coming to him. No chance of his income increasing for at least four years. As for looks and all that sort of thing, he was completely out of the running. He couldn't even boast of top-hole health, for the East Africa business had knocked him out so thoroughly that he'd had to take six months' leave. He was still fearfully pale - worse even than usual this afternoon, he thought, bending forward and peering into the mirror. Good heavens! What had happened? His hair looked almost bright green. Dash it all, he hadn't green hair at all events. That was a bit too steep. And then the green light trembled in the glass; it was the shadow from the tree outside. Reggie turned away, took out his cigarette case, but remembering how the mater hated him to smoke in his bedroom, put it back again and drifted over to the chest of drawers. No, he was dashed if he could think of one blessed thing in his favour, while she ... Ah! ... He stopped dead, folded his arms, and leaned hard against the chest of drawers.

And in spite of her position, her father's wealth, the fact that she was an only child and far and away the most popular girl in the neighbourhood; in spite of her beauty and her cleverness - cleverness! - it was a great deal more than that, there was really nothing she couldn't do; he fully believed, had it been necessary, she would have been a genius at anything - in spite of the fact that her parents adored her, and she them, and they'd as soon let her go all that way as ... In spite of every single thing you could think of, so terrific was his love that he couldn't help hoping. Well, was it hope? Or was this queer, timid longing to have the chance of looking after her, of making it his job to see that she had everything she wanted, and that nothing came near her that wasn't perfect - just love? How he loved her! He squeezed hard against the chest of drawers and murmured to it, "I love her, I love her!" And just for the moment he was with her on the way to Umtali. It was night. She sat in a corner asleep. Her soft chin was tucked into her soft collar, her gold-brown lashes lay on her cheeks. He doted on her delicate little nose, her perfect lips, her ear like a baby's, and the gold-brown curl that half covered it. They were passing through the jungle. It was warm and dark and far away. Then she woke up and said, "Have I been asleep?" and he answered, "Yes. Are you all right? Here, let me--" And he leaned forward to ... He bent over her. This was such bliss that he could dream no further. But it gave him the courage to bound downstairs, to snatch his straw hat from the hall, and to say as he closed the front door, "Well, I can only try my luck, that's all."

But his luck gave him a nasty jar, to say the least, almost immediately. Promenading up and down the garden path with Chinny and Biddy, the ancient Pekes, was the mater. Of course Reginald was fond of the mater and all that. She - she meant well, she had no end of grit, and so on. But there was no denying it, she was rather a grim parent. And there had been moments, many of them, in Reggie's life, before Uncle Alick died and left him the fruit farm, when he was convinced that to be a widow's only son was about the worst punishment a chap could have. And what made it rougher than ever was that she was positively all that he had. She wasn't only a combined parent, as it were, but she had quarrelled with all her own and the governor's relations before Reggie had won his first trouser pockets. So that whenever Reggie was homesick out there, sitting on his dark veranda by starlight, while the gramophone cried, "Dear, what is Life but Love?" his only vision was of the mater, tall and stout, rustling down the garden path, with Chinny and Biddy at her heels ...

The mater, with her scissors outspread to snap the head of a dead something or other, stopped at the sight of Reggie.

"You are not going out, Reginald?" she asked, seeing that he was.

"I'll be back for tea, mater," said Reggie weakly, plunging his hands into his jacket pockets.

Snip. Off came a head. Reggie almost jumped.

"I should have thought you could have spared your mother your last afternoon," said she.

Silence. The Pekes stared. They understood every word of the mater's. Biddy lay down with her tongue poked out; she was so fat and glossy she looked like a lump of half-melted toffee. But Chinny's porcelain eyes gloomed at Reginald, and he sniffed faintly, as though the whole world were one unpleasant smell. Snip, went the scissors again. Poor little beggars; they were getting it!

"And where are you going, if your mother may ask?" asked the mater.

It was over at last, but Reggie did not slow down until he was out of sight of the house and half-way to Colonel Proctor's. Then only he noticed what a top- hole afternoon it was. It had been raining all the morning, late summer rain, warm, heavy, quick, and now the sky was clear, except for a long tail of little clouds, like duckings, sailing over the forest. There was just enough wind to shake the last drops off the trees; one warm star splashed on his hand. Ping! - another drummed on his hat. The empty road gleamed, the hedges smelled of briar, and how big and bright the hollyhocks glowed in the cottage gardens. And here was Colonel Proctor's - here it was already. His hand was on the gate, his elbow jogged the syringa bushes, and petals and pollen scattered over his coat sleeve. But wait a bit. This was too quick altogether. He'd meant to think the whole thing out again. Here, steady. But he was walking up the path, with the huge rose bushes on either side. It can't be done like this. But his hand had grasped the bell, given it a pull, and started it pealing wildly, as if he'd come to say the house was on fire. The housemaid must have been in the hall, too, for the front door flashed open, and Reggie was shut in the empty drawing- room before that confounded bell had stopped ringing. Strangely enough, when it did, the big room, shadowy, with some one's parasol lying on top of the grand piano, bucked him up - or rather, excited him. It was so quiet, and yet in one moment the door would open, and his fate be decided. The feeling was not unlike that of being at the dentist's; he was almost reckless. But at the same time, to his immense surprise, Reggie heard himself saying, "Lord, Thou knowest, Thou hast not done much for me ... " That pulled him up; that made him realize again how dead serious it was. Too late. The door handle turned. Anne came in, crossed the shadowy space between them, gave him her hand, and said, in her small, soft voice, "I'm so sorry, father is out. And mother is having a day in town, hat-hunting. There's only me to entertain you, Reggie."

Reggie gasped, pressed his own hat to his jacket buttons, and stammered out, "As a matter of fact, I've only come ... to say good-bye."

"Oh!" cried Anne softly - she stepped back from him and her grey eyes danced - "what a very short visit!"

Then, watching him, her chin tilted, she laughed outright, a long, soft peal, and walked away from him over to the piano, and leaned against it, playing with the tassel of the parasol.

"I'm so sorry," she said, "to be laughing like this. I don't know why I do. It's just a bad ha - habit." And suddenly she stamped her grey shoe, and took a pocket-handkerchief out of her white woolly jacket. "I really must conquer it, it's too absurd," said she.

"Good heavens, Anne," cried Reggie, "I love to hear you laughing! I can't imagine anything more--"

But the truth was, and they both knew it, she wasn't always laughing; it wasn't really a habit. Only ever since the day they'd met, ever since that very first moment, for some strange reason that Reggie wished to God he understood, Anne had laughed at him. Why? It didn't matter where they were or what they were talking about. They might begin by being as serious as possible, dead serious - at any rate, as far as he was concerned - but then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, Anne would glance at him, and a little quick quiver passed over her face. Her lips parted, her eyes danced, and she began laughing.

Another queer thing about it was, Reggie had an idea she didn't herself know why she laughed. He had seen her turn away, frown, suck in her cheeks, press her hands together. But it was no use. The long, soft peal sounded, even while she cried, "I don't know why I'm laughing." It was a mystery ...

Now she tucked the handkerchief away.

"Do sit down," said she. "And smoke, won't you? There are cigarettes in that little box beside you. I'll have one too." He lighted a match for her, and as she bent forward he saw the tiny flame glow in the pearl ring she wore. "It is to-morrow that you're going, isn't it?" said Anne.

"Yes, to-morrow as ever was," said Reggie, and he blew a little fan of smoke. Why on earth was he so nervous? Nervous wasn't the word for it.

"It's - it's frightfully hard to believe," he added.

"Yes - isn't it?" said Anne softly, and she leaned forward and rolled the point of her cigarette round the green ash-tray. How beautiful she looked like that! - simply beautiful - and she was so small in that immense chair. Reginald's heart swelled with tenderness, but it was her voice, her soft voice, that made him tremble. "I feel you've been here for years," she said.

Reginald took a deep breath of his cigarette. "It's ghastly, this idea of going back," be said.

"Coo-roo-coo-coo-coo," sounded from the quiet.

"But you're fond of being out there, aren't you?" said Anne. She hooked her finger through her pearl necklace. "Father was saying only the other night how lucky he thought you were to have a life of your own." And she looked up at him. Reginald's smile was rather wan. "I don't feel fearfully lucky," he said lightly.

"Roo-coo-coo-coo," came again. And Anne murmured, "You mean it's lonely."

"Oh, it isn't the loneliness I care about," said Reginald, and he stumped his cigarette savagely on the green ash-tray. "I could stand any amount of it, used to like it even. It's the idea of--" Suddenly, to his horror, he felt himself blushing.

"Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!"

Anne jumped up. "Come and say good-bye to my doves," she said. "They've been moved to the side veranda. You do like doves, don't you, Reggie?"

"Awfully," said Reggie, so fervently that as he opened the French window for her and stood to one side, Anne ran forward and laughed at the doves instead.

To and fro, to and fro over the fine red sand on the floor of the dove house, walked the two doves. One was always in front of the other. One ran forward, uttering a little cry, and the other followed, solemnly bowing and bowing. "You see," explained Anne, "the one in front, she's Mrs. Dove. She looks at Mr. Dove and gives that little laugh and runs forward, and he follows her, bowing and bowing. And that makes her laugh again. Away she runs, and after her," cried Anne, and she sat back on her heels, "comes poor Mr. Dove, bowing and bowing ... and that's their whole life. They never do anything else, you know." She got up and took some yellow grains out of a bag on the roof of the dove house. "When you think of them, out in Rhodesia, Reggie, you can be sure that is what they will be doing ... "

Reggie gave no sign of having seen the doves or of having heard a word. For the moment he was conscious only of the immense effort it took to tear his secret out of himself and offer it to Anne. "Anne, do you think you could ever care for me?" It was done. It was over. And in the little pause that followed Reginald saw the garden open to the light, the blue quivering sky, the flutter of leaves on the veranda poles, and Anne turning over the grains of maize on her palm with one finger. Then slowly she shut her hand, and the new world faded as she murmured slowly, "No, never in that way." But he had scarcely time to feel anything before she walked quickly away, and he followed her down the steps, along the garden path, under the pink rose arches, across the lawn. There, with the gay herbaceous border behind her, Anne faced Reginald. "It isn't that I'm not awfully fond of you," she said. "I am. But" - her eyes widened - "not in the way" - a quiver passed over her face - "one ought to be fond of--" Her lips parted, and she couldn't stop herself. She began laughing. "There, you see, you see," she cried, "it's your check t-tie. Even at this moment, when one would think one really would be solemn, your tie reminds me fearfully of the bow-tie that cats wear in pictures! Oh, please forgive me for being so horrid, please!"

Reggie caught hold of her little warm hand. "There's no question of forgiving you," he said quickly. "How could there be? And I do believe I know why I make you laugh. It's because you're so far above me in every way that I am somehow ridiculous. I see that, Anne. But if I were to--"

"No, no." Anne squeezed his hand hard. "It's not that. That's all wrong. I'm not far above you at all. You're much better than I am. You're marvellously unselfish and ... and kind and simple. I'm none of those things. You don't know me. I'm the most awful character," said Anne. "Please don't interrupt. And besides, that's not the point. The point is" - she shook her head - "I couldn't possibly marry a man I laughed at. Surely you see that. The man I marry--" breathed Anne softly. She broke off. She drew her hand away, and looking at Reggie she smiled strangely, dreamily. "The man I marry--"

And it seemed to Reggie that a tall, handsome, brilliant stranger stepped in front of him and took his place - the kind of man that Anne and he had seen often at the theatre, walking on to the stage from nowhere, without a word catching the heroine in his arms, and after one long, tremendous look, carrying her off to anywhere ...

Reggie bowed to his vision. "Yes, I see," he said huskily.

"Do you?" said Anne. "Oh, I do hope you do. Because I feel so horrid about it. It's so hard to explain. You know I've never--" She stopped. Reggie looked at her. She was smiling. "Isn't it funny?" she said. "I can say anything to you. I always have been able to from the very beginning."

He tried to smile, to say "I'm glad." She went on. "I've never known any one I like as much as I like you. I've never felt so happy with any one. But I'm sure it's not what people and what books mean when they talk about love. Do you understand? Oh, if you only knew how horrid I feel. But we'd be like ... like Mr. and Mrs. Dove."

That did it. That seemed to Reginald final, and so terribly true that he could hardly bear it. "Don't drive it home," he said, and he turned away from Anne and looked across the lawn. There was the gardener's cottage, with the dark ilex-tree beside it. A wet, blue thumb of transparent smoke hung above the chimney. It didn't look real. How his throat ached! Could he speak? He had a shot. "I must be getting along home," he croaked, and he began walking across the lawn. But Anne ran after him. "No, don't. You can't go yet," she said imploringly. "You can't possibly go away feeling like that." And she stared up at him frowning, biting her lip.

"Oh, that's all right," said Reggie, giving himself a shake. "I'll ... I'll--" And he waved his hand as much to say "get over it."

"But this is awful," said Anne. She clasped her hands and stood in front of him. "Surely you do see how fatal it would be for us to marry, don't you?"

"Oh, quite, quite," said Reggie, looking at her with haggard eyes.

"How wrong, how wicked, feeling as I do. I mean, it's all very well for Mr. and Mrs. Dove. But imagine that in real life - imagine it!"

"Oh, absolutely," said Reggie, and he started to walk on. But again Anne stopped him. She tugged at his sleeve, and to his astonishment, this time, instead of laughing, she looked like a little girl who was going to cry.

"Then why, if you understand, are you so un-unhappy?" she wailed. "Why do you mind so fearfully? Why do you look so aw-awful?"

Reggie gulped, and again he waved something away. "I can't help it," he said, "I've had a blow. If I cut off now, I'll be able to--"

"How can you talk of cutting off now?" said Anne scornfully. She stamped her foot at Reggie; she was crimson. "How can you be so cruel? I can't let you go until I know for certain that you are just as happy as you were before you asked me to marry you. Surely you must see that, it's so simple."

But it did not seem at all simple to Reginald. It seemed impossibly difficult.

"Even if I can't marry you, how can I know that you're all that way away, with only that awful mother to write to, and that you're miserable, and that it's all my fault?"

"It's not your fault. Don't think that. It's just fate." Reggie took her hand off his sleeve and kissed it. "Don't pity me, dear little Anne," he said gently. And this time he nearly ran, under the pink arches, along the garden path.

"Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!" sounded from the veranda. "Reggie, Reggie," from the garden.

He stopped, he turned. But when she saw his timid, puzzled look, she gave a little laugh.

"Come back, Mr. Dove," said Anne. And Reginald came slowly across the lawn.

The Romance of an Ugly Policeman by P.G. Wodehouse

2008-06-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

Crossing the Thames by Chelsea Bridge, the wanderer through London finds himself in pleasant Battersea. Rounding the Park, where the female of the species wanders with its young by the ornamental water where the wild-fowl are, he comes upon a vast road. One side of this is given up to Nature, the other to Intellect. On the right, green trees stretch into the middle distance; on the left, endless blocks of residential flats. It is Battersea Park Road, the home of the cliff-dwellers.

Police-constable Plimmer's beat embraced the first quarter of a mile of the cliffs. It was his duty to pace in the measured fashion of the London policeman along the front of them, turn to the right, turn to the left, and come back along the road which ran behind them. In this way he was enabled to keep the king's peace over no fewer than four blocks of mansions.

It did not require a deal of keeping. Battersea may have its tough citizens, but they do not live in Battersea Park Road. Battersea Park Road's speciality is Brain, not Crime. Authors, musicians, newspaper men, actors, and artists are the inhabitants of these mansions. A child could control them. They assault and batter nothing but pianos; they steal nothing but ideas; they murder nobody except Chopin and Beethoven. Not through these shall an ambitious young constable achieve promotion.

At this conclusion Edward Plimmer arrived within forty-eight hours of his installation. He recognized the flats for what they were--just so many layers of big-brained blamelessness. And there was not even the chance of a burglary. No burglar wastes his time burgling authors. Constable Plimmer reconciled his mind to the fact that his term in Battersea must be looked on as something in the nature of a vacation.

He was not altogether sorry. At first, indeed, he found the new atmosphere soothing. His last beat had been in the heart of tempestuous Whitechapel, where his arms had ached from the incessant hauling of wiry inebriates to the station, and his shins had revolted at the kicks showered upon them by haughty spirits impatient of restraint. Also, one Saturday night, three friends of a gentleman whom he was trying to induce not to murder his wife had so wrought upon him that, when he came out of hospital, his already homely appearance was further marred by a nose which resembled the gnarled root of a tree. All these things had taken from the charm of Whitechapel, and the cloistral peace of Battersea Park Road was grateful and comforting.

And just when the unbroken calm had begun to lose its attraction and dreams of action were once more troubling him, a new interest entered his life; and with its coming he ceased to wish to be removed from Battersea. He fell in love.

It happened at the back of York Mansions. Anything that ever happened, happened there; for it is at the back of these blocks of flats that the real life is. At the front you never see anything, except an occasional tousle-headed young man smoking a pipe; but at the back, where the cooks come out to parley with the tradesmen, there is at certain hours of the day quite a respectable activity. Pointed dialogues about yesterday's eggs and the toughness of Saturday's meat are conducted fortissimo between cheerful youths in the road and satirical young women in print dresses, who come out of their kitchen doors on to little balconies. The whole thing has a pleasing Romeo and Juliet touch. Romeo rattles up in his cart. 'Sixty-four!' he cries. 'Sixty-fower, sixty-fower, sixty-fow--' The kitchen door opens, and Juliet emerges. She eyes Romeo without any great show of affection. 'Are you Perkins and Blissett?' she inquires coldly. Romeo admits it. 'Two of them yesterday's eggs was bad.' Romeo protests. He defends his eggs. They were fresh from the hen; he stood over her while she laid them. Juliet listens frigidly. 'I don't think,' she says. 'Well, half of sugar, one marmalade, and two of breakfast bacon,' she adds, and ends the argument. There is a rattling as of a steamer weighing anchor; the goods go up in the tradesman's lift; Juliet collects them, and exits, banging the door. The little drama is over.

Such is life at the back of York Mansions--a busy, throbbing thing.

The peace of afternoon had fallen upon the world one day towards the end of Constable Plimmer's second week of the simple life, when his attention was attracted by a whistle. It was followed by a musical 'Hi!'

Constable Plimmer looked up. On the kitchen balcony of a second-floor flat a girl was standing. As he took her in with a slow and exhaustive gaze, he was aware of strange thrills. There was something about this girl which excited Constable Plimmer. I do not say that she was a beauty; I do not claim that you or I would have raved about her; I merely say that Constable Plimmer thought she was All Right.

'Miss?' he said.

'Got the time about you?' said the girl. 'All the clocks have stopped.'

'The time,' said Constable Plimmer, consulting his watch, 'wants exactly ten minutes to four.'

'Thanks.'

'Not at all, miss.'

The girl was inclined for conversation. It was that gracious hour of the day when you have cleared lunch and haven't got to think of dinner yet, and have a bit of time to draw a breath or two. She leaned over the balcony and smiled pleasantly.

'If you want to know the time, ask a pleeceman,' she said. 'You been on this beat long?'

'Just short of two weeks, miss.'

'I been here three days.'

'I hope you like it, miss.'

'So-so. The milkman's a nice boy.'

Constable Plimmer did not reply. He was busy silently hating the milkman. He knew him--one of those good-looking blighters; one of those oiled and curled perishers; one of those blooming fascinators who go about the world making things hard for ugly, honest men with loving hearts. Oh, yes, he knew the milkman.

'He's a rare one with his jokes,' said the girl.

Constable Plimmer went on not replying. He was perfectly aware that the milkman was a rare one with his jokes. He had heard him. The way girls fell for anyone with the gift of the gab--that was what embittered Constable Plimmer.

'He--' she giggled. 'He calls me Little Pansy-Face.'

'If you'll excuse me, miss,' said Constable Plimmer coldly, 'I'll have to be getting along on my beat.'

Little Pansy-Face! And you couldn't arrest him for it! What a world! Constable Plimmer paced upon his way, a blue-clad volcano.

It is a terrible thing to be obsessed by a milkman. To Constable Plimmer's disordered imagination it seemed that, dating from this interview, the world became one solid milkman. Wherever he went, he seemed to run into this milkman. If he was in the front road, this milkman--Alf Brooks, it appeared, was his loathsome name--came rattling past with his jingling cans as if he were Apollo driving his chariot. If he was round at the back, there was Alf, his damned tenor doing duets with the balconies. And all this in defiance of the known law of natural history that milkmen do not come out after five in the morning. This irritated Constable Plimmer. You talk of a man 'going home with the milk' when you mean that he sneaks in in the small hours of the morning. If all milkmen were like Alf Brooks the phrase was meaningless.

He brooded. The unfairness of Fate was souring him. A man expects trouble in his affairs of the heart from soldiers and sailors, and to be cut out by even a postman is to fall before a worthy foe; but milkmen--no! Only grocers' assistants and telegraph-boys were intended by Providence to fear milkmen.

Yet here was Alf Brooks, contrary to all rules, the established pet of the mansions. Bright eyes shone from balconies when his 'Milk--oo--oo' sounded. Golden voices giggled delightedly at his bellowed chaff. And Ellen Brown, whom he called Little Pansy-Face, was definitely in love with him.

They were keeping company. They were walking out. This crushing truth Edward Plimmer learned from Ellen herself.

She had slipped out to mail a letter at the pillar-box on the corner, and she reached it just as the policeman arrived there in the course of his patrol.

Nervousness impelled Constable Plimmer to be arch.

''Ullo, 'ullo, 'ullo,' he said. 'Posting love-letters?'

'What, me? This is to the Police Commissioner, telling him you're no good.'

'I'll give it to him. Him and me are taking supper tonight.'

Nature had never intended Constable Plimmer to be playful. He was at his worst when he rollicked. He snatched at the letter with what was meant to be a debonair gaiety, and only succeeded in looking like an angry gorilla. The girl uttered a startled squeak.

The letter was addressed to Mr A. Brooks.

Playfulness, after this, was at a discount. The girl was frightened and angry, and he was scowling with mingled jealousy and dismay.

'Ho!' he said. 'Ho! Mr A. Brooks!'

Ellen Brown was a nice girl, but she had a temper, and there were moments when her manners lacked rather noticeably the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

'Well, what about it?' she cried. 'Can't one write to the young gentleman one's keeping company with, without having to get permission from every--' She paused to marshal her forces from the assault. 'Without having to get permission from every great, ugly, red-faced copper with big feet and a broken nose in London?'

Constable Plimmer's wrath faded into a dull unhappiness. Yes, she was right. That was the correct description. That was how an impartial Scotland Yard would be compelled to describe him, if ever he got lost. 'Missing. A great, ugly, red-faced copper with big feet and a broken nose.' They would never find him otherwise.

'Perhaps you object to my walking out with Alf? Perhaps you've got something against him? I suppose you're jealous!'

She threw in the last suggestion entirely in a sporting spirit. She loved battle, and she had a feeling that this one was going to finish far too quickly. To prolong it, she gave him this opening. There were a dozen ways in which he might answer, each more insulting than the last; and then, when he had finished, she could begin again. These little encounters, she held, sharpened the wits, stimulated the circulation, and kept one out in the open air.

'Yes,' said Constable Plimmer.

It was the one reply she was not expecting. For direct abuse, for sarcasm, for dignity, for almost any speech beginning, 'What! Jealous of you. Why--' she was prepared. But this was incredible. It disabled her, as the wild thrust of an unskilled fencer will disable a master of the rapier. She searched in her mind and found that she had nothing to say.

There was a tense moment in which she found him, looking her in the eyes, strangely less ugly than she had supposed, and then he was gone, rolling along on his beat with that air which all policemen must achieve, of having no feelings at all, and--as long as it behaves itself--no interest in the human race.

Ellen posted her letter. She dropped it into the box thoughtfully, and thoughtfully returned to the flat. She looked over her shoulder, but Constable Plimmer was out of sight.

Peaceful Battersea began to vex Constable Plimmer. To a man crossed in love, action is the one anodyne; and Battersea gave no scope for action. He dreamed now of the old Whitechapel days as a man dreams of the joys of his childhood. He reflected bitterly that a fellow never knows when he is well off in this world. Any one of those myriad drunk and disorderlies would have been as balm to him now. He was like a man who has run through a fortune and in poverty eats the bread of regret. Amazedly he recollected that in those happy days he had grumbled at his lot. He remembered confiding to a friend in the station-house, as he rubbed with liniment the spot on his right shin where the well-shod foot of a joyous costermonger had got home, that this sort of thing--meaning militant costermongers--was 'a bit too thick'. A bit too thick! Why, he would pay one to kick him now. And as for the three loyal friends of the would-be wife-murderer who had broken his nose, if he saw them coming round the corner he would welcome them as brothers.

And Battersea Park Road dozed on--calm, intellectual, law-abiding.

A friend of his told him that there had once been a murder in one of these flats. He did not believe it. If any of these white-corpuscled clams ever swatted a fly, it was much as they could do. The thing was ridiculous on the face of it. If they were capable of murder, they would have murdered Alf Brooks.

He stood in the road, and looked up at the placid buildings resentfully.

'Grr-rr-rr!' he growled, and kicked the side-walk.

And, even as he spoke, on the balcony of a second-floor flat there appeared a woman, an elderly, sharp-faced woman, who waved her arms and screamed, 'Policeman! Officer! Come up here! Come up here at once!'

Up the stone stairs went Constable Plimmer at the run. His mind was alert and questioning. Murder? Hardly murder, perhaps. If it had been that, the woman would have said so. She did not look the sort of woman who would be reticent about a thing like that. Well, anyway, it was something; and Edward Plimmer had been long enough in Battersea to be thankful for small favours. An intoxicated husband would be better than nothing. At least he would be something that a fellow could get his hands on to and throw about a bit.

The sharp-faced woman was waiting for him at the door. He followed her into the flat.

'What is it, ma'am?'

'Theft! Our cook has been stealing!'

She seemed sufficiently excited about it, but Constable Plimmer felt only depression and disappointment. A stout admirer of the sex, he hated arresting women. Moreover, to a man in the mood to tackle anarchists with bombs, to be confronted with petty theft is galling. But duty was duty. He produced his notebook.

'She is in her room. I locked her in. I know she has taken my brooch. We have missed money. You must search her.'

'Can't do that, ma'am. Female searcher at the station.'

'Well, you can search her box.'

A little, bald, nervous man in spectacles appeared as if out of a trap. As a matter of fact, he had been there all the time, standing by the bookcase; but he was one of those men you do not notice till they move and speak.

'Er--Jane.'

'Well, Henry?'

The little man seemed to swallow something.

'I--I think that you may possibly be wronging Ellen. It is just possible, as regards the money--' He smiled in a ghastly manner and turned to the policeman. 'Er--officer, I ought to tell you that my wife--ah--holds the purse-strings of our little home; and it is just possible that in an absent-minded moment I may have--'

'Do you mean to tell me, Henry, that you have been taking my money?'

'My dear, it is just possible that in the abs--'

'How often?'

He wavered perceptibly. Conscience was beginning to lose its grip.

'Oh, not often.'

'How often? More than once?'

Conscience had shot its bolt. The little man gave up the Struggle.

'No, no, not more than once. Certainly not more than once.'

'You ought not to have done it at all. We will talk about that later. It doesn't alter the fact that Ellen is a thief. I have missed money half a dozen times. Besides that, there's the brooch. Step this way, officer.'

Constable Plimmer stepped that way--his face a mask. He knew who was waiting for them behind the locked door at the end of the passage. But it was his duty to look as if he were stuffed, and he did so.

       *       *       *       *       *

She was sitting on her bed, dressed for the street. It was her afternoon out, the sharp-faced woman had informed Constable Plimmer, attributing the fact that she had discovered the loss of the brooch in time to stop her a direct interposition of Providence. She was pale, and there was a hunted look in her eyes.

'You wicked girl, where is my brooch?'

She held it out without a word. She had been holding it in her hand.

'You see, officer!'

'I wasn't stealing of it. I 'adn't but borrowed it. I was going to put it back.'

'Stuff and nonsense! Borrow it, indeed! What for?'

'I--I wanted to look nice.'

The woman gave a short laugh. Constable Plimmer's face was a mere block of wood, expressionless.

'And what about the money I've been missing? I suppose you'll say you only borrowed that?'

'I never took no money.'

'Well, it's gone, and money doesn't go by itself. Take her to the police-station, officer.'

Constable Plimmer raised heavy eyes.

'You make a charge, ma'am?'

'Bless the man! Of course I make a charge. What did you think I asked you to step in for?'

'Will you come along, miss?' said Constable Plimmer.

       *       *       *       *       *

Out in the street the sun shone gaily down on peaceful Battersea. It was the hour when children walk abroad with their nurses; and from the green depths of the Park came the sound of happy voices. A cat stretched itself in the sunshine and eyed the two as they passed with lazy content.

They walked in silence. Constable Plimmer was a man with a rigid sense of what was and what was not fitting behaviour in a policeman on duty: he aimed always at a machine-like impersonality. There were times when it came hard, but he did his best. He strode on, his chin up and his eyes averted. And beside him--

Well, she was not crying. That was something.

Round the corner, beautiful in light flannel, gay at both ends with a new straw hat and the yellowest shoes in South-West London, scented, curled, a prince among young men, stood Alf Brooks. He was feeling piqued. When he said three o'clock, he meant three o'clock. It was now three-fifteen, and she had not appeared. Alf Brooks swore an impatient oath, and the thought crossed his mind, as it had sometimes crossed it before, that Ellen Brown was not the only girl in the world.

'Give her another five min--'

Ellen Brown, with escort, at that moment turned the corner.

Rage was the first emotion which the spectacle aroused in Alf Brooks. Girls who kept a fellow waiting about while they fooled around with policemen were no girls for him. They could understand once and for all that he was a man who could pick and choose.

And then an electric shock set the world dancing mistily before his eyes. This policeman was wearing his belt; he was on duty. And Ellen's face was not the face of a girl strolling with the Force for pleasure.

His heart stopped, and then began to race. His cheeks flushed a dusky crimson. His jaw fell, and a prickly warmth glowed in the parts about his spine.

'Goo'!'

His fingers sought his collar.

'Crumbs!'

He was hot all over.

'Goo' Lor'! She's been pinched!'

He tugged at his collar. It was choking him.

Alf Brooks did not show up well in the first real crisis which life had forced upon him. That must be admitted. Later, when it was over, and he had leisure for self-examination, he admitted it to himself. But even then he excused himself by asking Space in a blustering manner what else he could ha' done. And if the question did not bring much balm to his soul at the first time of asking, it proved wonderfully soothing on constant repetition. He repeated it at intervals for the next two days, and by the end of that time his cure was complete. On the third morning his 'Milk--oo--oo' had regained its customary carefree ring, and he was feeling that he had acted in difficult circumstances in the only possible manner.

Consider. He was Alf Brooks, well known and respected in the neighbourhood; a singer in the choir on Sundays; owner of a milk-walk in the most fashionable part of Battersea; to all practical purposes a public man. Was he to recognize, in broad daylight and in open street, a girl who walked with a policeman because she had to, a malefactor, a girl who had been pinched?

Ellen, Constable Plimmer woodenly at her side, came towards him. She was ten yards off--seven--five--three--Alf Brooks tilted his hat over his eyes and walked past her, unseeing, a stranger.

He hurried on. He was conscious of a curious feeling that somebody was just going to kick him, but he dared not look round.

       *       *       *       *       *

Constable Plimmer eyed the middle distance with an earnest gaze. His face was redder than ever. Beneath his blue tunic strange emotions were at work. Something seemed to be filling his throat. He tried to swallow it.

He stopped in his stride. The girl glanced up at him in a kind of dull, questioning way. Their eyes met for the first time that afternoon, and it seemed to Constable Plimmer that whatever it was that was interfering with the inside of his throat had grown larger, and more unmanageable.

There was the misery of the stricken animal in her gaze. He had seen women look like that in Whitechapel. The woman to whom, indirectly, he owed his broken nose had looked like that. As his hand had fallen on the collar of the man who was kicking her to death, he had seen her eyes. They were Ellen's eyes, as she stood there now--tortured, crushed, yet uncomplaining.

Constable Plimmer looked at Ellen, and Ellen looked at Constable Plimmer. Down the street some children were playing with a dog. In one of the flats a woman began to sing.

'Hop it,' said Constable Plimmer.

He spoke gruffly. He found speech difficult.

The girl started.

'What say?'

'Hop it. Get along. Run away.'

'What do you mean?'

Constable Plimmer scowled. His face was scarlet. His jaw protruded like a granite break-water.

'Go on,' he growled. 'Hop it. Tell him it was all a joke. I'll explain at the station.'

Understanding seemed to come to her slowly.

'Do you mean I'm to go?'

'Yes.'

'What do you mean? You aren't going to take me to the station?'

'No.'

She stared at him. Then, suddenly, she broke down,

'He wouldn't look at me. He was ashamed of me. He pretended not to see me.'

She leaned against the wall, her back shaking.

'Well, run after him, and tell him it was all--'

'No, no, no.'

Constable Plimmer looked morosely at the side-walk. He kicked it.

She turned. Her eyes were red, but she was no longer crying. Her chin had a brave tilt.

'I couldn't--not after what he did. Let's go along. I--I don't care.'

She looked at him curiously.

'Were you really going to have let me go?'

Constable Plimmer nodded. He was aware of her eyes searching his face, but he did not meet them.

'Why?'

He did not answer.

'What would have happened to you, if you had have done?'

Constable Plimmer's scowl was of the stuff of which nightmares are made. He kicked the unoffending side-walk with an increased viciousness.

'Dismissed the Force,' he said curtly.

'And sent to prison, too, I shouldn't wonder.'

'Maybe.'

He heard her draw a deep breath, and silence fell upon them again. The dog down the road had stopped barking. The woman in the flat had stopped singing. They were curiously alone.

'Would you have done all that for me?' she said.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Because I don't think you ever did it. Stole that money, I mean. Nor the brooch, neither.'

'Was that all?'

'What do you mean--all?'

'Was that the only reason?'

He swung round on her, almost threateningly.

'No,' he said hoarsely. 'No, it wasn't, and you know it wasn't. Well, if you want it, you can have it. It was because I love you. There! Now I've said it, and now you can go on and laugh at me as much as you want.'

'I'm not laughing,' she said soberly.

'You think I'm a fool!'

'No, I don't.'

'I'm nothing to you. He's the fellow you're stuck on.'

She gave a little shudder.

'No.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've changed.' She paused. 'I think I shall have changed more by the time I come out.'

'Come out?'

'Come out of prison.'

'You're not going to prison.'

'Yes, I am.'

'I won't take you.'

'Yes, you will. Think I'm going to let you get yourself in trouble like that, to get me out of a fix? Not much.'

'You hop it, like a good girl.'

'Not me.'

He stood looking at her like a puzzled bear.

'They can't eat me.'

'They'll cut off all of your hair.'

'D'you like my hair?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it'll grow again.'

'Don't stand talking. Hop it.'

'I won't. Where's the station?'

'Next street.'

'Well, come along, then.'

       *       *       *       *       *

The blue glass lamp of the police-station came into sight, and for an instant she stopped. Then she was walking on again, her chin tilted. But her voice shook a little as she spoke.

'Nearly there. Next stop, Battersea. All change! I say, mister--I don't know your name.'

'Plimmer's my name, miss. Edward Plimmer.'

'I wonder if--I mean it'll be pretty lonely where I'm going--I wonder if--What I mean is, it would be rather a lark, when I come out, if I was to find a pal waiting for me to say "Hallo".'

Constable Plimmer braced his ample feet against the stones, and turned purple.

'Miss,' he said, 'I'll be there, if I have to sit up all night. The first thing you'll see when they open the doors is a great, ugly, red-faced copper with big feet and a broken nose. And if you'll say "Hallo" to him when he says "Hallo" to you, he'll be as pleased as Punch and as proud as a duke. And, miss'--he clenched his hands till the nails hurt the leathern flesh--'and, miss, there's just one thing more I'd like to say. You'll be having a good deal of time to yourself for awhile; you'll be able to do a good bit of thinking without anyone to disturb you; and what I'd like you to give your mind to, if you don't object, is just to think whether you can't forget that narrow-chested, God-forsaken blighter who treated you so mean, and get half-way fond of someone who knows jolly well you're the only girl there is.'

She looked past him at the lamp which hung, blue and forbidding, over the station door.

'How long'll I get?' she said. 'What will they give me? Thirty days?'

He nodded.

'It won't take me as long as that,' she said. 'I say, what do people call you?--people who are fond of you, I mean?--Eddie or Ted?'

Shields' and the Cricket Cup by P.G. Wodehouse

2008-06-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

The house cricket cup at Wrykyn has found itself on some strange mantelpieces in its time. New talent has a way of cropping up in the house matches. Tail-end men hit up fifties, and bowlers who have never taken a wicket before except at the nets go on fifth change, and dismiss first eleven experts with deliveries that bounce twice and shoot. So that nobody is greatly surprised in the ordinary run of things if the cup does not go to the favourites, or even to the second or third favourites. But one likes to draw the line. And Wrykyn drew it at Shields'. And yet, as we shall proceed to show, Shields' once won the cup, and that, too, in a year when Donaldson's had four first eleven men and Dexter's three.

Shields' occupied a unique position at the School. It was an absolutely inconspicuous house. There were other houses that were slack or wild or both, but the worst of these did something. Shields' never did anything. It never seemed to want to do anything. This may have been due in some degree to Mr. Shields. As the housemaster is, so the house is. He was the most inconspicuous master on the staff. He taught a minute form in the junior school, where earnest infants wrestled with somebody's handy book of easy Latin sentences, and depraved infants threw cunningly compounded ink-balls at one another and the ceiling. After school he would range the countryside with a pickle-bottle in search of polly woggles and other big game, which he subsequently transferred to slides and examined through a microscope till an advanced hour of the night. The curious part of the matter was that his house was never riotous. Perhaps he was looked on as a non-combatant, one whom it would be unfair and unsporting to rag. At any rate, a weird calm reigned over the place; and this spirit seemed to permeate the public lives of the Shieldsites. They said nothing much and they did nothing much and they were very inoffensive. As a rule, one hardly knew they were there.

Into this abode of lotus-eaters came Clephane, a day boy, owing to the departure of his parents for India. Clephane wanted to go to Donaldson's. In fact, he said so. His expressions, indeed, when he found that the whole thing had been settled, and that he was to spend his last term at school at a house which had never turned out so much as a member of the Gym. Six, bordered on the unfilial. It appeared that his father had met Mr. Shields at dinner in the town--a fact to which he seemed to attach a mystic importance. Clephane's criticism of this attitude of mind was of such a nature as to lead his father to address him as Archibald instead of Archie.

However, the thing was done, and Clephane showed his good sense by realising this and turning his energetic mind to the discovery of the best way of making life at Shields' endurable. Fortune favoured him by sending to the house another day boy, one Mansfield. Clephane had not known him intimately before, though they were both members of the second eleven; but at Shields' they instantly formed an alliance. And in due season--or a little later--the house matches began. Henfrey, of Day's, the Wrykyn cricket captain, met Clephane at the nets when the drawing for opponents had been done.

"Just the man I wanted to see," said Henfrey. "I suppose you're captain of Shields' lot, Clephane? Well, you're going to scratch as usual, I suppose?"

For the last five seasons that lamentable house had failed to put a team into the field. "You'd better," said Henfrey, "we haven't overmuch time as it is. That match with Paget's team has thrown us out a lot. We ought to have started the house matches a week ago."

"Scratch!" said Clephane. "Don't you wish we would! My good chap, we're going to get the cup."

"You needn't be a funny ass," said Henfrey in his complaining voice, "we really are awfully pushed. As it is we shall have to settle the opening rounds on the first innings. That's to say, we can only give 'em a day each; if they don't finish, the winner of the first innings wins. You might as well scratch."

"I can't help your troubles. By rotten mismanagement you have got the house-matches crowded up into the last ten days of term, and you come and expect me to sell a fine side like Shields' to get you out of the consequences of your reckless act. My word, Henfrey, you've sunk pretty low. Nice young fellow Henfrey was at one time, but seems to have got among bad companions. Quite changed now. Avoid him as much as I can. Leave me, Henfrey, I would be alone."

"But you can't raise a team."

"Raise a team! Do you happen to know that half the house is biting itself with agony because we can't find room for all? Shields gives stump-cricket soirees in his study after prep. One every time you hit the ball, two into the bowl of goldfish, and out if you smash the microscope."

"Well," said Henfrey viciously, "if you want to go through the farce of playing one round and making idiots of yourselves, you'll have to wait a bit. You've got a bye in the first round."

Clephane told the news to Mansfield after tea. "I've been and let the house in for a rollicking time," he said, abstracting the copy of Latin verses which his friend was doing, and sitting on them to ensure undivided attention to his words. "Wanting to score off old Henfrey--I have few pleasures--I told him that Shields' was not going to scratch. So we are booked to play in the second round of the housers. We drew a bye for the first. It would be an awful rag if we could do something. We must raise a team of some sort. Henfrey would score so if we didn't. Who's there, d'you think, that can play?"

Mansfield considered the question thoughtfully. "They all play, I suppose," he said slowly, "if you can call it playing. What I mean to say is, cricket's compulsory here, so I suppose they've all had an innings or two at one time or another in the eightieth game or so. But if you want record-breakers, I shouldn't trust to Shields' too much."

"Not a bit. So long as we put a full team into the field, that's all I care about. I've often wondered what it's like to go in first and bowl unchanged the whole time."

"You'll do that all right," said Mansfield. "I should think Shields' bowling ran to slow grubs, to judge from the look of 'em. You'd better go and see Wilkins about raising the team. As head of the house, he probably considers himself captain of cricket."

Wilkins, however, took a far more modest view of his position. The notion of leading a happy band of cricketers from Shields' into the field had, it seemed, small attractions for him. But he went so far as to get a house list, and help choose a really representative team. And as details about historic teams are always welcome, we may say that the averages ranged from 3.005 to 8.14. This last was Wilkins' own and was, as he would have been the first to admit, substantially helped by a contribution of nineteen in a single innings in the fifth game.

So the team was selected, and Clephane turned out after school next day to give them a little fielding-practice. To his surprise the fielding was not so outrageous as might have been expected. All the simpler catches were held, and one or two of the harder as well. Given this form on the day of their appearance in public, and Henfrey might be disappointed when he came to watch and smile sarcastically. A batting fiasco is not one half so ridiculous as maniac fielding.

In the meantime the first round of the house matches had been played off, and it would be as well to describe at this point the positions of the rival houses and their prospects. In the first place, there were only four teams really in the running for the cup, Day's (headed by the redoubtable Henfrey), Spence's, who had Jackson, that season a head and shoulders above the other batsmen in the first eleven--he had just wound up the school season with an average of 51.3, Donaldson's, and Dexter's. All the other house teams were mainly tail.

Now, in the first round the powerful quartette had been diminished by the fact that Donaldson's had drawn Dexter's, and had lost to them by a couple of wickets.

For the second round Shields' drew Appleby's, a poor team. Space on the Wrykyn field being a consideration, with three house matches to be played off at the same time, Clephane's men fought their first battle on rugged ground in an obscure corner. As the captain of cricket ordered these matters, Henfrey had naturally selected the best bit of turf for Day's v. Dexter's. That section of the ground which was sacred to the school second-eleven matches was allotted to Spence's v. the School House. The idle public divided its attention between the two big games, and paid no attention to the death struggle in progress at the far end of the field. Whereby it missed a deal of quiet fun.

I say death struggle advisedly. Clephane had won his second-eleven cap as a fast bowler. He had failed to get into the first eleven because he was considered too erratic. Put these two facts together, and you will suspect that dark deeds were wrought on the men of Appleby in that lonely corner of the Wrykyn meadow.

The pitch was not a good one. As a sample of the groundman's art it was sketchy and amateurish; it lacked finish. Clephane won the toss, took a hasty glance at the corrugated turf, and decided to bat first. The wicket was hardly likely to improve with use.

He and Mansfield opened the batting. He stood three feet out of his ground, and smote. The first four balls he took full pitch. The last two, owing to a passion for variety on the part of the bowler, were long hops. At the end of the over Shields' score was twenty-four. Mansfield pursued the same tactics. When the first wicket fell, seventy was on the board. A spirit of martial enthusiasm pervaded the ranks of the house team. Mild youths with spectacles leaped out of their ground like tigers, and snicked fours through the slips. When the innings concluded, blood had been spilt--from an injured finger--but the total was a hundred and two.

Then Clephane walked across to the School shop for a vanilla ice. He said he could get more devil, as it were, into his bowling after a vanilla ice. He had a couple.

When he bowled his first ball it was easy to see that there was truth in the report of the causes of his inclusion in the second eleven and exclusion from the first. The batsman observed somewhat weakly, "Here, I say!" and backed towards square leg. The ball soared over the wicket-keep's head and went to the boundary. The bowler grinned pleasantly, and said he was just getting his arm in.

The second ball landed full-pitch on the batsman's right thigh. The third was another full pitch, this time on the top of the middle stump, which it smashed. With profound satisfaction the batsman hobbled to the trees, and sat down. "Let somebody else have a shot," he said kindly.

Appleby's made twenty-eight that innings.

Their defeat by an innings and fifty-three runs they attributed subsequently to the fact that only seven of the team could be induced to go to the wickets in the second venture.

"So you've managed to win a match," grunted Henfrey, "I should like to have been there."

"You might just as well have been," said Clephane, "from what they tell me."

At which Henfrey became abusive, for he had achieved an "egg" that afternoon, and missed a catch; which things soured him, though Day's had polished off Dexter's handsomely.

"Well," he said at length, "you're in the semi-final now, of all weird places. You'd better play Spence's next. When can you play?"

"Henfrey," said Clephane, "I have a bright, open, boyish countenance, but I was not born yesterday. You want to get a dangerous rival out of the way without trouble, so you set Shields' to smash up Spence's. No, Henfrey. I do not intend to be your catspaw. We will draw lots who is to play which. Here comes Jackson. We'll toss odd man out."

And when the coins fell there were two tails and one head; and the head belonged to the coin of Clephane.

"So, you see," he said to Henfrey, "Shields' is in the final. No wonder you wanted us to scratch."

I should like this story to end with a vivid description of a tight finish. Considering that Day's beat Spence's, and consequently met Shields' in the final, that would certainly be the most artistic ending. Henfrey batting--Clephane bowling--one to tie, two to win, one wicket to fall. Up goes the ball! Will the lad catch it!! He fumbles it. It falls. All is over. But look! With a supreme effort--and so on.

The real conclusion was a little sensational in its way, but not nearly so exciting as that.

The match between Day's and Shields' opened in a conventional enough manner. Day's batted first, and made two hundred and fifty. Henfrey carried his bat for seventy-six, and there were some thirties. For Shields' Clephane and Mansfield made their usual first-wicket stand, and the rest brought the total up to ninety-eight. At this point Henfrey introduced a variation on custom. The match was a three days' match. In fact, owing to the speed with which the other games had been played, it could, if necessary, last four days. The follow-on was, therefore, a matter for the discretion of the side which led. Henfrey and his team saw no reason why they should not have another pleasant spell of batting before dismissing their opponents for the second time and acquiring the cup. So in they went again, and made another two hundred and fifty odd, Shields' being left with four hundred and twelve to make to win.

On the morning after Day's second innings, a fag from Day's brought Clephane a message from Henfrey. Henfrey was apparently in bed. He would be glad if Clephane would go and see him in the dinner-hour. The interview lasted fifteen minutes. Then Clephane burst out of the house, and dashed across to Shields' in search of Mansfield.

"I say, have you heard?" he shouted.

"What's up?"

"Why, every man in Day's team, bar two kids, is in bed. Ill. Do you mean to say you haven't heard? They thought they'd got that house cup safe, so all the team except the two kids, fags, you know, had a feed in honour of it in Henfrey's study. Some ass went and bought a bad rabbit pie, and now they're laid up. Not badly, but they won't be out for a day or two."

"But what about the match?"

"Oh, that'll go on. I made a point of that. They can play subs."

Mansfield looked thoughtful.

"But I say," he said, "it isn't very sporting, is it? Oughtn't we to wait or something?"

"Sporting! My dear chap, a case like this mustn't be judged by ordinary standards. We can't spoil the giant rag of the century because it isn't quite sporting. Think what it means--Shields' getting the cup! It'll keep the school laughing for terms. What do you want to spoil people's pleasure for?"

"Oh, all right," said Mansfield.

"Besides, think of the moral effect it'll have on the house. It may turn it into the blood house of Wrykyn. Shields himself may get quite sportive. We mustn't miss the chance."

The news having got about the school, Clephane and Mansfield opened their second innings to the somewhat embarrassed trundling of Masters Royce and Tibbit, of the Junior School, before a substantial and appreciative audience.

Both played carefully at first, but soon getting the measure of the bowling (which was not deep) began to hit out, and runs came quickly. At fifty, Tibbit, understudying Henfrey as captain of the side, summoned to his young friend Todby from short leg, and instructed him to "have a go" at the top end.

It was here that Clephane courteously interfered. Substitutes, he pointed out, were allowed, by the laws of cricket, only to field, not to bowl. He must, therefore, request friend Todby to return to his former sphere of utility, where, he added politely, he was a perfect demon.

"But, blow it," said Master Tibbit, who (alas!) was addicted to the use of strong language, "Royce and I can't bowl the whole blessed time."

"You'll have to, I'm afraid," said Clephane with the kindly air of a doctor soothing a refractory patient. "Of course, you can take a spell at grubs whenever you like."

"Oh, darn!" said Master Tibbit.

Shortly afterwards Clephane made his century.

* * * * *

The match ended late on the following afternoon in a victory for Shields' by nine wickets, and the scene at the School Shop when Royce and Tibbit arrived to drown their sorrows and moisten their dry throats with ginger beer is said by eyewitnesses to have been something quite out of the common run.

The score sheet of the match is also a little unusual. Clephane's three hundred and one (not out) is described in the Wrykinian as a "masterly exhibition of sound yet aggressive batting." How Henfrey described it we have never heard.