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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14135 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 14135-h.htm or 14135-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135/14135-h/14135-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135/14135-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 152
+
+JANUARY 10, 1917
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The effect of the curtailed train-service throughout the country is already
+observable. On certain sections of one of our Southern lines there are no
+trains running except those which started prior to January 1st.
+
+       ***
+
+The new Treasury Notes, we are told, are to have a picture of the House of
+Commons on the back. It is hoped that other places of amusement, such as
+the Crystal Palace and the Imperial Institute, will be represented on
+subsequent issues.
+
+       ***
+
+It is announced from Germany that arrangements have been made whereby
+criminals are to be enrolled in the army. They have, of course, already
+conducted many of its operations.
+
+       ***
+
+According to _The Daily Chronicle_ there are only twenty-three full
+Generals in the British Army--a total identical with that of the late
+Cabinet. It is only fair to the army to state that the number is purely a
+coincidence.
+
+       ***
+
+  "THE RISE IN BOOT PRICES
+  WOMEN'S LARGE PURCHASES."
+
+The above headlines in a contemporary have caused a good deal of natural
+jealousy among members of the Force.
+
+       ***
+
+"At them and through them!" says the _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_ in a
+seasonable message to the commander of the Turkish Navy. This will not
+deceive the Turk, who is beginning to realise that, while the invitation to
+go _at_ the enemy is sincere, any opportunities of "going _through_" him
+will be exclusively grasped by his Teutonic ally.
+
+       ***
+
+Prince BUELOW has again arrived in Switzerland. It is these bold and
+dramatic strokes that lift the German diplomat above the ranks of the
+commonplace.
+
+       ***
+
+It is explained by a railway official that a passenger who pays threepence
+for a ticket to-day is really only giving the company twopence, the rest
+being water, owing to the decline in the purchasing power of money. A
+movement is now on foot among some of the regular passengers to endeavour
+to persuade the companies to consent to take their fares neat for the
+future.
+
+       ***
+
+At his Coronation the Emperor KARL OF AUSTRIA waved the sword of ST.
+STEPHEN towards the four corners of the earth, to indicate his intention to
+protect his empire against all its foes. The incident has been receiving
+the earnest consideration of the KAISER, who has now finally decided that
+in the circumstances it is not necessary to regard it as an unfriendly act.
+
+       ***
+
+It was felt that the ceremonies connected with the Coronation ought to be
+curtailed out of regard for the sufferings due to the War. So they
+dispensed with the customary distribution of bread to the poor.
+
+       ***
+
+Lecturing to a juvenile audience Professor ARTHUR KEITH said that there was
+no difference between detectives and scientists, and some of the older boys
+are still wondering whether he was trying to popularise science or to
+discredit detective stories.
+
+       ***
+
+Germans cannot now obtain footwear, it is reported, without a permit card.
+Nevertheless we know a number of them who are assured of getting the boot
+without any troublesome formalities.
+
+       ***
+
+Burglars have stolen eighteen ducks from the estate of BETHMANN-HOLLWEG. It
+will be interesting to note how their defence--that "Necessity knows no
+law"--is received by the distinguished advocate of the invasion of Belgium.
+
+       ***
+
+"Taxicab drivers must expect a very low standard of intoxication to apply
+to them," said the Lambeth magistrate last week. On the other hand the
+police should be careful not to misinterpret the air of light-hearted
+devilry that endeared the "growler" to the hearts of an older generation.
+
+       ***
+
+It is stated that £2,250,000 has been sent by Germany into Switzerland to
+raise the exchanges. A much larger sum, according to Mr. PUTNAM, was sent
+into the United States merely to raise the wind.
+
+       ***
+
+Referring to the Highland regiments a _Globe_ writer says, "The streets of
+London will reel with the music of the pipes when they come back." This is
+one of those obstacles to peace that has been overlooked by the KAISER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON GUARD
+DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF WHEN THE COLONEL APPEARS ACCOMPANIED
+BY HIS DAUGHTER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VIENNA-BOUND: A REVERIE EN ROUTE.
+
+[A Wireless Press telegram says: "The German Imperial train has reached
+Constantinople in order to transport the Sultan to Vienna, to take part in
+the conference of Sovereigns to be held there."]
+
+  I hate all trains and told them so;
+    I said that I should much prefer
+    (Being, as Allah knows, no traveller)
+  To stick to Stamboul and the _status quo_.
+
+  They said, "If you would rather walk,
+    Pray do so; it will save the fare;"
+    Which shows that WILLIAM (who will take the Chair)
+  Insists that I shall come and hear him talk.
+
+  I've never tried a train before;
+    It makes me sick; it knocks my nerves;
+    The noises and the tunnels and the curves
+  Add a new horror to the woes of war.
+
+  What am I here for, anyhow?
+    I'm summoned for appearance' sake,
+    To nod approval at the Chief, but take
+  No further part in his one-man pow-wow.
+
+  My job is just to sit, it seems,
+    And act the silent super's _rôle_,
+    The while I wish myself, with all my soul,
+  Safe back in one or more of my hareems.
+
+  I'd let the Conference go hang;
+    Any who likes can have my pew
+    And play at peace-talk with this pirate crew,
+  WILLIAM and KARL and FERDIE--what a gang!
+
+  Our Chairman wants to save his skin
+    And (curse this train!) to cook a plan
+    For Germany to pouch what spoils she can--
+  All very nice; but where do I come in?
+
+  At best I'm but the missing link
+    Upon his Berlin-Baghdad line;
+    This is the senior partner's show, not mine;
+  Will he consult my feelings? I don't think.
+
+  If Russia's gain should mean my loss,
+    He'll wince at Teuton schemes cut short,
+    But for my grief, expelled from my own Porte,
+  Will he care greatly? Not one little toss.
+
+  Well, as I've said and said again,
+    'Tis Fate (Kismet), and, should it frown,
+    We Faithful have to take it lying down--
+  And yet, by Allah, how I loathe this train!
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A subaltern friend of mine landed at Gibraltar for a few hours, and he
+    was anxious to be able to say that he had been to Spain. So he walked
+    along the Isthmus to Ceuta, where the British and Spanish sentries
+    faced one another, and directly the Spanish soldier turned his head he
+    hopped quickly over into Spain. Then the sentry turned round, and he
+    hopped back again even more quickly."--_Daily Sketch_.
+
+Those of our readers who have walked from the Gibraltar frontier to Morocco
+and back, like the above subaltern, know that it takes some doing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "JAMES PHILLIPS, 16, was charged with doing damage to the extent of £4
+    10s. at a refreshment shop in Hackney belonging to Peter Persico. As he
+    was kept waiting a little time he broke a plate on the table; then he
+    put a saucer under his heel and broke it. When remonstrated with he
+    broke 10 cups and saucers by throwing them at partitions and enamelled
+    decorations, and overturned a marble table, the top of which he
+    smashed."--_The Times_.
+
+No doubt he was incited to these naughty deeds by the line, very popular in
+Hackney circles, "Persico's odi, puer, apparatus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
+
+(_The Emperor of AUSTRIA and Count TISZA_.)
+
+_Tisza_. So there is the full account, your Majesty, of men killed, wounded
+and captured.
+
+_The Emperor_. It is a gloomy list and I hardly can bear to consider it.
+
+_Tisza_. Yes, and beyond the mere list of casualties by fighting there are
+other matters to be considered. Food is scarce and of a poor quality, in
+Hungary as elsewhere. The armies we can yet feed, but the home-staying men
+and the women and children are a growing difficulty. It becomes more and
+more impossible to provide them with sufficient nourishment.
+
+_The Emperor_. It is strange, but in Austria the conditions are said to be
+even worse.
+
+_Tisza_. You are right, Sire, they are worse, much worse.
+
+_The Emperor_. Well, we must lose no time then. We must buy great stocks of
+food. More money must be spent.
+
+_Tisza_. More money? But where is it to come from? Not from Hungary, where
+we are within a narrow margin of financial collapse, and not in Austria,
+where there is already to all intents and purposes a state of bankruptcy.
+More money is not to be got, for we have none ourselves and nobody will
+lend us any.
+
+_The Emperor_. You paint the situation in dark colours, my friend TISZA.
+
+_Tisza_. I paint it as it is, Sire, at any rate as I see it. It is not the
+part of a Royal Counsellor to act otherwise.
+
+_The Emperor_. Yes, but there might be others who would take a different
+view, and support their belief with equally good reasons.
+
+_Tisza_. Not if they know the facts and are faithful to their duty as
+Ministers of the State. Here and there, no doubt, might be found foolish
+and ambitious men who would be willing to deceive, first themselves and
+then their Emperor, as to the true condition of affairs. But, if your
+Majesty trusted them and allowed them to guide you, you would learn too
+late how ill they had understood their duty. I myself, though determined to
+do everything in my power to promote the welfare of Hungary and its King,
+would willingly stand aside if you think that others would give you greater
+strength.
+
+_The Emperor_. I have every reason to trust you most fully. Have you any
+plan for extricating us from this dreadful morass of failure and difficulty
+into which we are plunged?
+
+_Tisza_. Your Majesty, there is only one way. We must have peace, and must
+have it as soon as possible.
+
+_The Emperor._ I too think we must have peace, but how shall we obtain it
+when we have a friend and ally who watches us with the closest care, and
+would not allow us even to hint at any steps that would really lead to
+peace?
+
+_Tisza_. Sire, you are a young man, but you are a scion of a great and
+ancient House, which was powerful and illustrious when the Hohenzollerns
+were but mean and petty barbarian princelings. Withdraw yourself, while the
+opportunity is still with you, from the fatal domination of this vain and
+inflated upstart who endeavours to serve only his own selfish designs. Our
+enemies will make peace with you, and thus he too will be forced to abandon
+the War. With him and with the deeds that have outraged the world they will
+not initiate any movement that tends to peace. He must go through his
+punishment, as indeed we all must, but his, I think, will be heavier than
+ours.
+
+_The Emperor_. Then you want me to make peace?
+
+_Tisza_. If it could be done by holding up your hand, I would urge you to
+hold it up at once.
+
+_The Emperor_. And what would the world say?
+
+_Tisza_. The world would glorify your name.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SHORT WAY WITH TINO.
+
+THE BIG GUN (_ringing up the Entente Exchange_). "OH, YOU _ARE_ THERE, ARE
+YOU? WELL, PUT ME ON TO NUMBER ONE, ATHENS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A KNIGHT-ERRANT.
+
+Sister Baynes came into my room just as I was putting on my out-door
+uniform and wanted to know how I was spending my two hours off duty. She is
+full of curiosity about--she calls it interest in--other people's affairs.
+When I told her I was going out to buy a birthday present she looked rather
+stern. Said she:--
+
+"The giving of unnecessary presents has become a luxury which few of us
+nowadays think it right to afford."
+
+I didn't answer her because at the moment I could think of no really
+adequate reason why Bobbie _should_ have a present, except that I so very
+much wanted to give him one. Bobbie is tall and young and red-haired and,
+of course, khaki clad. We are going to be married "when the War is over."
+
+I pondered Sister Baynes' words until I reached Oxford Street, and then
+forgot them in the interest of choosing the present. For a while I
+hesitated between cigarettes and chocolates, and finally decided on the
+latter. Bobbie is a perfect pig about sweets. I bought a
+comfortable-looking box, ornamented with a St. George, improbably attired
+in khaki, slaying a delightful German dragon clad in blue and a Uhlan
+helmet. St. George had red hair and a distinct look of Bobbie, which was
+one reason why I got him.
+
+[Illustration: THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER.
+
+BUY YOUR SERVANT ONE AND ADD A ZEST TO HER WORK.]
+
+This business accomplished, I thought I would call on a friend who lives
+near by. She is middle-aged and rather sad, and spends her time pushing
+trolleys about a munition works. Just now, however, I knew she had a cold
+and couldn't go out. I found her on the floor wrestling with brown paper,
+preparing a parcel for her soldier on Salisbury Plain. She adopted him
+through a League, and spends all her spare time and pocket-money in socks
+and cigarettes for him. She smiled at me wanly, with a piece of string
+between her teeth, and I felt I simply must do something to cheer her up.
+
+"I've brought you some chocolates for your cold," I said. "Eat one and
+forget the War and the weather," and I handed her Bobbie's box. Her
+necessity, as someone says somewhere, seemed at the moment so much greater
+than his.
+
+"You extravagant child!" she said, but her face lightened for an instant.
+She admired St. George almost as much as I had done, but, though she
+fingered the orange-coloured bow, she did not untie it, so I concluded she
+meant to have an orgy by herself later on. We talked for a while, and then
+I looked at the clock and fled for the hospital. She thanked me again for
+the chocolates as I went; she really seemed quite pleased with them.
+
+Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me a handful of
+letters and things to distribute. There was a fat parcel for Martha, the
+ward-maid. I found her in the closet where she keeps her brooms, and gave
+it her. Her eyes simply danced as she took it, first carefully wiping her
+hand on her apron.
+
+"It's from my bruvver," she explained. "'Im on Salisbury Plain. Very good
+to me 'e always is." She stripped off the paper and gave a sigh of rapture.
+"Lor, Nurse, ain't it beautiful?"
+
+It was a chocolate box, a comfortable-looking chocolate box, ornamented
+with a red-headed St. George, a large blue dragon and a vivid orange bow.
+
+"It does seem nice," I agreed.
+
+"Fancy 'im spending all that on me," said Martha.
+
+"You'll be able to have quite a feast," said I, smiling at my old friend
+St. George.
+
+Martha looked suddenly shy.
+
+"I'm not going to keep it," she confided. She came closer to me. "Do you
+remember young Renshaw, what used to be in your ward, Nurse?"
+
+I nodded; I remembered him well, a cheery boy with a smashed leg, now in a
+Convalescent Home by the sea.
+
+"'Im and me's engaged," said Martha in a hoarse whisper. "I liked 'im and
+he liked me, and one day I was doing the windows 'e asked me. 'E says the
+food down there is that monopolous, so I'll send him this 'ere just to
+cheer 'im up like."
+
+It seemed an excellent idea to me. I beamed upon Martha. I helped her to
+re-wrap St. George, and lent her my fountain-pen to write the address which
+was to send my Knight once more upon his travels. It appeared to me that he
+and his dragon were seeing a lot of life.
+
+Bobbie had arranged to call for me on his birthday, so when my off duty
+came I simply flung on my things and raced for the hall. As I passed
+Matron's door she called me in. I entered trembling; it was always a
+toss-up with Matron whether you were to be smiled upon or strafed.
+
+To-day she was lamb-like. She sat at a desk piled high with papers. Among
+them lay a vivid coloured object.
+
+"I've just had a letter from that young Renshaw," she said. "Such a
+charming letter, thanking us for all our kindness and enclosing a present
+to show his appreciation." She smiled. She seemed hugely pleased about
+something. "He addresses it to me," she went on; "but, though I am grateful
+for the kind thought, I do not myself eat chocolates."
+
+She picked up the box, a comfortable-looking box ornamented with an orange
+satin bow.
+
+"I think these are more in your line than mine," she said, "and Renshaw was
+in your ward. You have really the best right to them."
+
+She handed me the box of chocolates. I gazed at my travelled Saint and he
+gazed back. I could almost have sworn he winked.
+
+Clutching him and his dragon, I departed and danced down the corridor into
+the hall. There waited Bobbie, red-haired and khaki-clad, more like St.
+George than the gallant knight himself.
+
+"How do you do?" I greeted him. "Many happy returns, dear old thing!" As he
+held out his hand I put something into it. "A box of chocolates," I
+explained; "I bought them for your birthday!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Wanted, for Low Comedian, really Funny Sons."--_The Stage_.
+
+As a change, we suppose, from the eternal mother-in-law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Inveterate Golfer_ (_stung by the leading article_). "I
+SUPPOSE _I_ AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL. IT'S HARD TO REALISE THIS WITH ONE'S
+HANDICAP JUST REDUCED TO SEVEN."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.
+
+When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came
+home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired
+billy-goat he was, the same.
+
+"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place
+for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses,
+the dear knows," says she.
+
+So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the
+flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the
+way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human
+Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about
+as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address
+him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth
+he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch
+you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.
+
+And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.
+
+"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be
+patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment;" and with that she'd
+start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long
+silky hair.
+
+"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to question the workings
+o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of a rigiment, which I am not, and
+_had_ to have a mascot, it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but
+a nanny, or mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment
+and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the orficers' tea as
+well. If it's such cratures that bring ye fortune may I die a peaceful
+death in a poor-house," says I.
+
+"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a leopard with
+bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the mascot's silky hair twice daily,
+and the quick temper of the baste at the tangles.
+
+The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle, archin' his neck at
+the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder by dint of the standin' he had
+with the owld rigiment and the high-feedin' he had from Herself. Faith,
+'tis a great delight we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much
+as your life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if the
+domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let him eat the
+dresses off them before they dare say a word.
+
+In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by dint o' the
+high-feedin' and the natural nature of the crature. Herself, wid her
+iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it, and she sends wan o' the gerrls
+to tell meself and Mikeen to wash the baste.
+
+"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad, "but 'tis the
+orders--go get the cart-rope and the chain off the bull-dog, and we'll do
+it. Faith, it isn't all the bravery that's at the Front," says I.
+
+"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor
+boy.
+
+"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron
+pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' to sprinkle the mascot
+wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent--mebbe it will quench his
+powerfulness, she says."
+
+I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope,
+got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him
+buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the
+poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as
+lead, but we held on.
+
+The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as an eel, and
+broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.
+
+He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain off him!" I
+says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking around for a tree to shin.
+
+Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and through the
+fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve orficers kept in the camp
+beyond. ("Harriers" they called them, but, begob! there wasn't anythin'
+they wouldn't hunt from a fox to a turkey, those ones.)
+
+"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.
+
+"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the dear knows
+they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by this half-hour, and
+the breath is from them, their tongues is hangin' out a yard," I says.
+
+'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.
+
+"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll see sport this
+day."
+
+"Herself--" he begins.
+
+"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we dragged me bowld
+goat out before the dogs and let go the chain.
+
+The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let a yowl out of
+them like all the banshees in the nation of Ireland, and the billy legged
+it for his life--small blame to him!
+
+Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.
+
+"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the crature howlds
+them by two lengths."
+
+"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a Jew."
+
+"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the howly Saints he
+cannot burrow."
+
+"He has tripped up--they have him bayed," says Mikeen.
+
+And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.
+
+Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds like a lad to a
+fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their ribs a mile away. But they
+were too many for him and bit the grand silky hair off him by the mouthful.
+The way it flew you'd think it was a snowstorm.
+
+"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.
+
+"They have," says I, "God be praised!"
+
+At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double beside us; he
+was phlastered with muck from his hair to his boots.
+
+"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the mud and not
+knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out before him, whether it
+would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.
+
+"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I; "an' God save your
+honour for she'll have your blood in a bottle for this day's worrk."
+
+The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides afther them, flat
+on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the wink of an eye he is down among
+the dogs, larruppin' them with his whip and drawin' down curses on them
+that would wither ye to hear him--he had great eddication, that orficer.
+
+"Come now," says I to Mikeen, the poor lad, "let you and me bear the cowld
+corpse of the diseased back to Herself; mebbe she'll have a shillin' handy
+in her hand, the way she'd reward us for saving the body from the dogs,"
+says I.
+
+But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and well, the
+thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he had not a hair of it
+left to him, and when he stood up before you you wouldn't know him; he was
+that ordinary without his fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's
+goat, he was no more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the
+truth.
+
+He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young gerrl.
+
+Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him.
+
+"Ah, but that's not _my_ mascot," says she.
+
+"It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole Calendar--Mikeen too.
+
+"Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cow-house," says she, and stepped
+indoors without another word.
+
+We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his nakedness.
+
+"Ye'll do no more mascottin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra luck you would
+bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are now--you'll never step along
+again with the drums and tambourines."
+
+And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen rubbing him daily
+with bear's-grease and hair-lotion he never grew the same grand fleece
+again, and he'd stand about in the back-field, brooding for hours together,
+the divilment clane gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the
+stroke of an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just look
+at you sad-like and pass no remarks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TOP-O'-THE-MORNING.
+
+  Top-o'-the-Morning's shoes are off;
+    He runs in the orchard, rough, all day;
+  Chasing the hens for a turn at the trough,
+    Fighting the cows for a place at the hay;
+  With a coat where the Wiltshire mud has dried,
+    With brambles caught in his mane and tail--
+  Top-o'-the-Morning, pearl and pride
+    Of the foremost flight of the White Horse Vale!
+
+  The master he carried is Somewhere in France
+    Leading a cavalry troop to-day,
+  Ready, if Fortune but give him the chance,
+    Ready as ever to show them the way,
+  Riding as straight to his new desire
+    As ever he rode to the line of old,
+  Facing his fences of blood and fire
+  With a brow of flint and a heart of gold.
+
+  Do the hoofs of his horses wake a dream
+    Of a trampling crowd at the covert-side,
+  Of a lead on the grass and a glinting stream
+    And Top-o'-the-Morning shortening stride?
+  Does the triumph leap to his shining eyes
+    As the wind of the vale on his cheek blows cold,
+  And the buffeting big brown shoulders rise
+    To his light heel's touch and his light hand's hold?
+
+  When the swords are sheathed and the strife is done,
+    And the cry of hounds is a call to men;
+  When  the  straight-necked Wiltshire foxes run
+    And the first flight rides on the grass again;
+  May Top-o'-the-Morning, sleek of hide,
+    Shod, and tidy of mane and tail,
+  Light, and fit for a man to ride,
+    Lead them once more in the White Horse Vale!
+
+W.H.O.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Polygamy in Workington.
+
+"Supper was served by some of the wives of some of the
+members."--_Workington News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRAGEDY OF A DUTIFUL WIFE.
+
+[Illustration: "I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY
+WOMAN--WHAT?" "ISN'T SHE A LITTLE--ER--"
+
+"NOT A BIT OF IT. A WOMAN OUGHT TO BE CHEERY, ESPECIALLY IN THESE TIMES."
+"I SEE, DEAR."]
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT ON EARTH--?"
+
+"I'M MAKING A NEW HAT, DEAR. I SAW MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON WEARING ONE
+VERY LIKE THIS."]
+
+[Illustration: "GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO BITS
+FOR?"
+
+"IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAR. MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON HAS ONE QUITE AS SHORT AS
+THIS."]
+
+[Illustration: "GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?"
+
+"MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON ALWAYS MAKES UP A LITTLE WHEN SHE'S GOING OUT.
+OH--I FORGOT TO TELL YOU--I HAVEN'T ORDERED ANY DINNER, AS I THOUGHT WE
+MIGHT GO AND DINE AT A RESTAURANT."]
+
+[Illustration: "AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?"
+
+"BUT I THOUGHT YOU LIKED CHEERY PEOPLE LIKE MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON."]
+
+[Illustration: "I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED SMOKING.
+I EXPECT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON--"
+
+"D---- MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON!"
+
+"VERY WELL, DEAR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE PINCH OF WAR.
+
+_Lady of the House_ (_War Profiteer's wife, forlornly_). "THEY'VE JUST
+TAKEN OUR THIRD FOOTMAN; AND IF ANY MORE OF OUR MEN HAVE TO GO WE SHALL
+CLOSE THE HOUSE AND LIVE AT THE RITZ UNTIL THE WAR IS
+OVER--(_brightly_)--HOWEVER, WE MUST ALL SACRIFICE SOMETHING."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OVER-WEIGHT.
+
+_Scene: A London Terminus_.
+
+_Porter_ (_with an air of finality_). It weighs 'undred-and-four pounds.
+You can't take it, mum.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. Oh, I must take it.
+
+[_Porter is obliged by an irritation of the head to remove his cap, but
+does not speak._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. It's all right. I know the manager of the line, and he
+would pass it for me.
+
+_Her Friend_. Isn't your friend manager of the Great Southern?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_sharply_). He has a great deal to do with all these
+railways now. (_To Porter, hopefully, but not very confidently_) That will
+be all right.
+
+_Porter_. Very sorry, mum. It can't be done.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. My friend the manager would be very much annoyed at my
+being stopped like this. Only four pounds, too. Why, it's nothing.
+
+[_Porter removes his cap again on account of further irritation._
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_to her Friend_). I  don't know what I'm to do. (_To
+Porter_)  What am I to do?
+
+_Porter_ (_deliberately_). You must open it and take somethink out.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. I can't open it here.
+
+_Porter_ (_ignoring this_). Somethink weighing a bit over four pounds.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. But I can't do it here.
+
+_Porter_ (_ignoring this_). Pair o' boots or somethink.
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_to her Friend_). He seems to think my boots weigh four
+pounds.
+
+_Her Friend_. Haven't you got two pairs?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_sourly_). Yes, but two pairs of my boots wouldn't weigh
+four pounds.
+
+_Porter_ (who has been quietly undoing the straps_). Is it locked, mum?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_producing key and almost in tears_). It's too bad.
+
+[_She dives into box and extracts two pairs of boots wrapped in
+newspapers._
+
+_Porter_ (_taking them and weighing them judiciously in his hands_). That's
+all right, mum.
+
+[_He pushes box on to weighing machine which registers under 100 lbs._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. They're very thick boots, of course. Whatever am I to do
+with them now?
+
+_Her Friend_. We shall have to carry them. [_Takes one parcel._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. Jane shall hear of this. I told her never to use
+newspaper for packing.
+
+_Her Friend_ (_suddenly_). There's Major Merriman.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. So it is. Don't let him see us with these dreadful
+parcels. (_Angrily_) Why don't you turn round? He'll see you.
+
+_Major Merriman_. How do you do?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_in great surprise_).  Oh, how do you do, Major Merriman?
+We've been having such an amusing experience, etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What made Lord Devonport Dizzy.
+
+    "The following resolution was unanimously passed, and ordered to be
+    sent to the Prime Minister and the Food Controller (Lord
+    Beaconsfield)."--_The Western Gazette_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lamp-posts and trees and other pedestrians were found with unpleasant
+    and sometimes violent frequency."--_Beckenham Journal_.
+
+That's the worst of a fog; landmarks will keep on walking about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_À propos_ of the TSAR'S manifesto:--
+
+    "The _Retch_, says: 'The order puts the dot on all the
+    "t's."'"--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+It is a far, far better thing to dot your "t's" than cross your "i's."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DAWN OF DOUBT.
+
+GRETCHEN. "I WONDER IF THIS GENTLEMAN REALLY IS MY GOOD ANGEL AFTER ALL!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Benevolent Gentleman_. "YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY MAN, OR YOU
+WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.
+
+(SECOND SERIES.)
+
+XV.--THE TOWER.
+
+  They put a Lady in the Tower,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Lady in the Tower
+  And told her she was in their power
+  And left her there for half-an-hour,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Padlock on the Chain,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Padlock on the Chain,
+  But they left the Key in the South of Spain,
+  So the Lady took it off again,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Bulldog at the Door,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Bulldog at the Door,
+  He was so old he could only snore,
+  And he'd lost his Tooth the day before,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Beefeater at the Gate,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Beefeater at the Gate,
+  But as his age was eighty-eight
+  His Grandmother said he couldn't wait,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Prince to watch the Stair,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Prince to watch the Stair,
+  But he had a Golden Ring to spare,
+  So he married the Lady then and there,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  And ever since that grievous hour,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  Ever since that grievous hour
+  When the lovely Lady was in their power
+  They've never put nobody in the Tower,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Flattery from the Front.
+
+    "I got your parcel quite undamaged, and it came at a time when we were
+    short of grub. I could have eaten a dead monkey, so your cake came in
+    very useful."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Major-General (Temporary General) Sir Hugh de la Poer Bough, K.C.B.,
+    whose name appears in the New Year list of honours as being promoted to
+    the rank of lieutenant-general, is a second cousin of Major-General
+    Hugh Sutlej Kough."--_Liverpool Echo_.
+
+It is rumoured that he is also connected with that famous fighting family
+the GOUGHS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A POSTSCRIPT.
+
+(_Suggested by a later list of L. & N.W.R.
+stations which have been closed._)
+
+  A further list of closured stations
+  Elicits further protestations.
+  Blank desolation, grim and stark,
+  Broods sadly o'er Carpenders Park,
+  And Friezland, as perhaps is meet,
+  Is suffering badly from cold feet.
+  The population of Rhosneigr
+  Is raging like a wounded tiger;
+  And those who used to book at Llong
+  Are using language, loud and strong,
+  While residents around Chalk Farm
+  Are filled with anguish and alarm.
+
+  N.B. In our anterior lay
+  One letter somehow went astray;
+  We therefore now apologise;
+  'Tis Aspley, and not Apsley, Guise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an article on "Greece and Belgium":--
+
+    "King Tino has a black record of blood and treachery to answer, and to
+    compare his case with that of King Leopold is the blackest outrage of
+    all."--_Star_.
+
+Personally we think that it were blacker still to compare his case with
+that of KING ALBERT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT AWAY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LITTLE RIFT.
+
+My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We are like the
+Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always "arrive at a complete
+understanding" in all matters of policy. When strict economy was enjoined
+upon us I moved my desk into the dining-room to save a fire. She made a
+summer hat out of a bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an
+evening gown. All was well.
+
+I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I were to suggest
+that there was the slightest difference of opinion between us. I most
+solemnly declare that I am as good a patriot as she is. Still, as time goes
+on, I do feel a certain uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element
+that needs watching.
+
+We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She asks me to take
+two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the dog and the laundry-hamper
+along with me in the two-seater to the station, to save petrol. Well, I am
+willing. She fills the herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and
+carnations. Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
+say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of these things.
+
+Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I should say that
+here she has advantages over some, as I belong to the class of husband
+known as Easily Fed. She has got hold of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the
+War Office or somewhere--"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
+"How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and we feed on
+those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and yet I am well aware that
+rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in such forms as not to leave a single
+clue. I cannot tell you how I admire and approve. Still it makes me
+thoughtful sometimes.
+
+No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together by sharing these
+hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I don't feel easy about it. We are
+quite in sympathy, but there is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I
+affirm, is the nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am
+convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that she does it on
+purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea what I mean. I sometimes
+wonder wistfully if the hand that put that ugly new steel contraption at
+the back of the fire to save the coal is really the hand that I wooed and
+won ten years ago. I see in her the steady growth of an implacable
+conscience. In moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she
+always wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance till
+now.
+
+We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at all hard up
+and we had no compunctions about spending money. But now--I wonder how
+long the War will last? What I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I
+am already guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are
+going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them, but she
+isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The garden is to be
+reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the house. We are going to travel
+first, and I am not sure that we shan't have a new cook. And we are to have
+an Airedale and an Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama.
+
+As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only want to have
+something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever get back to the _status
+quo ante_ I will not ask for annexations.
+
+Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her latest
+suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit with benzine (I
+don't like the smell of it) instead of getting a new one. Only I live in a
+growing fear that the day when peace is signed in Europe will be the signal
+for an outbreak of a new form of warfare in our happy home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mistress_ (_from upper window_). "WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING
+OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?"
+
+_Romantic Maid_. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE OWLS, MA'AM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WHAT DID MR. ASQUITH DO?
+
+A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal meeting by
+asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr. GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or
+whatever year it was. Nobody knew, and neither did the inquirer himself,
+but uproar followed and his end was achieved. Now had the question run,
+"What did Mr. GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE,
+apart from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two priceless
+things, as I will show.
+
+Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last number was so
+unhappy about the deterioration that has come upon taxi-drivers, I left
+England only in October last, I find it a changed place; but no change, not
+even the iniquitous prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the
+increased darkness, or the queer division of _hors d'oeuvres_ into
+half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to the pathetic
+query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of course")--no change is so
+striking as the fact that when a paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or
+the PREMIER, it means no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux
+and mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a pyramid, a
+pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to alteration.
+
+Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad it is that he
+has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always reserved and intent, he
+discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the
+key on the Tenth Muse. Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board
+in Downing Street, but interviewers had no chance. In vain did the Quexes
+of this frivolous city hope for even a crumb--there was nothing for them.
+Mr. ASQUITH came into office, held it, and left it without a single
+concession to Demos's love of personalia. He did not even wear comic
+collars or white hats or a single eyeglass or any other grotesquely
+significant thing; and how much poorer are we in consequence and how much
+poorer will posterity be!
+
+Contrast the case of Mr. GLADSTONE, from whom anyone could draw a postcard
+and most people a chip of some recently-felled tree, and who is in my mind
+wonderful and supreme by reason of two inventions which, though no one
+would ever guess them to be the result of a Prime Minister's cogitations,
+deserve the widest fame. Of these one was the product of his unaided
+genius; the other the result of the collaboration with his wife.
+
+Let us begin with the individual triumph.
+
+Everyone who has ever stayed under anyone else's roof, from a
+dine-and-sleep at Windsor Castle to a week in lovely Lucerne, has been
+confronted, when packing-up time arrived, with the problem of the sponge.
+No matter how muscular the fingers that wring this article, no matter how
+thick and costly the rubbered receptacle that holds it, there is always the
+chance of dampness communicating itself to other things in the bag. Isn't
+there?
+
+How so to squeeze the sponge as to drive out the last drop of moisture was
+the problem before the massive intellect of the Grand Old Man. Need I say
+that he solved it? His method, as he himself in his unselfish way, told one
+of the diarists, possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E.
+RUSSELL--I forget whom--was to wrap up the sponge in a bath-towel and jump
+on it. Here, for the historical painter, is a theme indeed--something worth
+all the ordinary dull occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat
+staid brush: the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the
+author of _The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture_, leaping upon the
+bath-towel that held his sponge. But no historical painter could do justice
+to such a scene. It needs the movies.
+
+Those of us then who dry our sponges in this way--and I am a fervent
+devotee--owe the inventor a meed of praise. And equally those of us who put
+into our hot water bottles at night hot tea instead of hot water (as I
+never have done and never mean to do), so that, waking in the small hours,
+we may yet not be without refreshment, owe a meed of praise to the same
+inspired innovator, for, if the chroniclers are correct, it was Mrs.
+GLADSTONE'S habit to retire to rest with a bottle thus nutritiously filled,
+which would be ready for her great man on his return from the House weary
+and athirst.
+
+Here we see the difference between Liberal Premiers. For what has Mr.
+ASQUITH done towards the solution of domestic problems? Who can name a
+thing? Has he devised a collar stud that cannot be lost? Has he hit upon a
+way instantly to stop a shaving cut from bleeding? Has he contrived a taxi
+window that will open when shut or shut when open? No. In all these years
+he has spared no time for any inventions.
+
+No wonder then that he was found wanting and forced to resign.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A Scot among the Cynics.
+
+    "The railway fares are being raised, we are told, to stop pleasure
+    travelling, but it can hardly be imagined that a munition worker going
+    home to spend his week-end with his family is bent on pleasure."--
+    _Glasgow Evening News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Beautiful set of civic cat; very large stole and muff; accept
+    £12."--_The Lady_.
+
+As DICK WHITTINGTON'S mascot is the only civic cat known to history we
+think the relic should be secured for the Guildhall Museum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Simply as a citizen and as a non-party man, I want to say that Mr.
+    Asquith has my affection and respect--and that is the highest guerdon
+    that any statesman can have."--_Extract from Letter in Yorkshire
+    Paper_.
+
+We know now why Mr. ASQUITH refused a peerage. He did not want to vex his
+modest admirer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At Caxton Hall the conference was resumed of municipal authorities
+    interested in the conversation of old fruit, sardine and salmon
+    tins."--_Birmingham Daily Mail_.
+
+We ourselves always listen with pleasure to their talk. It has at once a
+fruity and a fishy flavour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Gentleman_ (_In favour of national work for everyone_).
+"AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING
+BEFORE THE WAR?"
+
+_New Assistant_ (_his first operation_). "EXACTLY, SIR. ALL THE SAME, IF
+ANYBODY HAD TOLD ME TWO DAYS AGO THAT I SHOULD NOW BE CUTTING THE HAIR OF A
+COMPLETE STRANGER, I'D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED 'IM."]
+
+WARS OF THE PAST.
+
+(_As recorded in the Press of the period._)
+
+VI.
+
+_From "The Athens Advertiser and Piræus Post_."
+
+MACEDONIA'S ARMY.
+
+THE FAMOUS PHALANX.
+
+ (_By our Military Expert_.)
+
+The Macedonian Army has recently undergone an entire reconstruction at the
+hands of KING PHILIP. It is now organised on a national and territorial
+basis and is divided into infantry and cavalry. The cavalry predominates
+and is therefore the stronger arm. The unit of cavalry is the squadron, of
+infantry the battalion. (It is of the utmost interest to note that there
+are two battalions in a regiment, each about fifteen hundred strong).
+
+KING PHILIP, it will be remembered, received his military education in the
+school of EPAMINONDAS, who, as is well known, revolutionised the Higher
+Thought of every Higher Command by the discovery and application of a
+single tactical fact--namely, that the chances of A being able to give B a
+stronger push than B can give him are _in direct ratio to the numerical
+superiority of A over B_. It follows, then, that, faced with a sufficient
+superiority, B _must_ retire, and _the initiative then rests with the side
+that possesses it_.
+
+In pursuance of this tactical ideal EPAMINONDAS argued that the old method
+of winning battles, which was that A should exercise superior force against
+every point of B's line (or body), required that A should be bigger than B,
+buskin for buskin and brisket for brisket. But since it is sufficient,
+while "refusing" the rest of one's own body (or line), to bring an
+overwhelming force to bear on the point of a person's jaw, in order to
+discomfit him, so in a battle a numerically inferior A, by concentrating on
+a vital point of numerically superior B, can gain a local numerical
+superiority which will enable him to rout B utterly. (This is always
+supposing that B is not doing the same thing himself on the other wing, in
+which case each army would miss the other altogether--a condition of things
+into which the military art does not care to follow them).
+
+Hence the phalanx or "preponderating mass formation." The Macedonian
+development of this depends (to reduce the matter to the simple algebraical
+formula to which all military problems are susceptible) on the fact that if
+_x_ equals the greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of
+stability to the _n_th rank equals the phalanx, then the rooted square of
+stability to the _n_th rank equals _x_ minus the tangential curve of
+velocity of mobility. This should be plain even to the amateur student of
+tactics. Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this cardinal
+doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of cavalry, PHILIP has
+given to this, the mobile arm, much of the striking power of the original
+phalanx. This is now placed in the centre, its business being mainly to
+force a salient in the enemy's line, the two resultant enclaves of which
+can then be shattered (at their re-entrants) by the cavalry squadrons,
+hurled forward on both phalanks. It should be noted, as a brilliant example
+of PHILIP'S staff work, that in the Macedonian Army, for the avoidance of
+confusion in the field, "phalanks" is now spelt "flanks."
+
+To the intelligent student who has followed me thus far in these articles
+it should not be necessary to explain again the terms "enclave," "salient,"
+and "re-entrant." "Tactical" is a term used when one is not using the term
+"strategical," and _vice versâ_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In the words of Bacon, it should be 'read, marked, learned and
+    inwardly digested.'"--_Financial Paper_.
+
+Our gay contemporary does not tell us whether it was before or after
+completing the works usually attributed to SHAKSPEARE that BACON compiled
+the Book of Common Prayer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE FLAPPER.
+
+[Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, in the January _Nineteenth Century_, in his article
+on "Ordeal by Fire," after denouncing idlers and loafers and shirkers,
+falls foul "above all" of the young girls called flappers, "with high
+heels, skirts up to their knees and blouses open to the diaphragm, painted,
+powdered, self-conscious, ogling: 'Allus adallacked and dizened oot and a
+'unting arter the men.'"]
+
+  Good Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, who lends lustre to a name
+  Which DRYDEN in his satires oft endeavoured to defame,
+  Has lately been discussing in a high-class magazine
+  The trials that confront us in the year Nineteen Seventeen.
+
+  He is not a smooth-tongued prophet; no, he takes a serious view;
+  We must make tremendous efforts if we're going to win through;
+  And though he's not unhopeful of the issue of the fray
+  He finds abundant causes for misgiving and dismay.
+
+  Our optimistic journals his exasperation fire,
+  And the idlers and the loafers stimulate his righteous ire;
+  But it is the flapper chiefly that in his gizzard sticks,
+  And he's down upon her failings like a waggon-load of bricks.
+
+  She's ubiquitous in theatres, in rail and 'bus and tram,
+  She wears her "blouses open down to the diaphragm,"
+  And, instead of realising what our men are fighting for,
+  She's an orgiastic nuisance who in fact _enjoys_ the War.
+
+  It's a strenuous indictment of our petticoated youth
+  And contains a large substratum of unpalatable truth;
+  Our women have been splendid, but the Sun himself has specks,
+  And the flapper can't be reckoned as a credit to her sex.
+
+  Still it needs to be remembered, to extenuate her crimes,
+  That these flappers have not always had the very best of times;
+  And the life that now she's leading, with no Mentors to restrain,
+  Is decidedly unhinging to an undeveloped brain.
+
+  Then again we only see her when she's out for play or meals,
+  And distresses the fastidious by her gestures and her squeals,
+  But she is not always idle or a decorative drone,
+  And if she wastes her wages, well, she wastes what is her own.
+
+  Still to say that she's heroic, as some scribes of late have said,
+  Is unkind as well as foolish, for it only swells her head;
+  She oughtn't to be flattered, she requires to be repressed,
+  Or she'll grow into a portent and a peril and a pest.
+
+  Dr. SHADWELL to the PREMIER makes an eloquent appeal
+  In firm and drastic fashion with this element to deal;
+  And 'twould be a real feather in our gifted Cambrian's cap
+  If he taught the peccant flapper less flamboyantly to flap.
+
+  But, in _Punch's_ way of thinking, 'tis for women, kind and wise,
+  These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize,
+  Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate,
+  And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant of the State.
+
+  She's young; her eyes are dazzled by the glamour of the streets;
+  She has to learn that life is not all cinemas and sweets;
+  But given wholesome guidance she may rise to self-control
+  And earn the right of entry on the Nation's golden Roll.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ONLY STEGGLES.
+
+Steggles is my groom, and my crowning mercy. But for his deafness I am sure
+he would long since have left the humble rank of gunner far beneath him,
+and the Staff might have gained a brilliant strategist. In addition to
+dulness of hearing, Steggles is endowed--I should indeed be ungrateful to
+use the word afflicted--with a vacuity of expression which puts rivals or
+antagonists off their guard, and doubles his value during the vicissitudes
+of active service. What would be handicaps to ordinary men Steggles turns
+to the advantage of himself, Sapphira my mare, and me.
+
+When on the march the Battery arrives at the morass allotted to it for
+horse lines, I know that all will be well with the mud-bespattered
+Sapphira. Steggles leaps from the waggon whereon, in company with one of
+the cooks, he tours the pleasant land of France, and receives the mare.
+With his toes strangely pointed out, he leads her away from the scene of
+labour and language, disappearing amidst the hovels of the adjacent
+village. Often I never see him or obtain news of him till next morning,
+when he produces Sapphira polished like a silk hat and every scrap of metal
+about her sparkling. Occasionally I have tracked him to the shelter where
+he secretes and waits upon Sapphira, always to find that he has discovered
+and occupied the best stable in the village. The grooms of my
+brother-officers never learn that Steggles' vacuous expression is the
+disguise of an intellect subtle, discriminating and alert, so they never
+trouble to endeavour to forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find
+Steggles, as he always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on
+him if she wanted anything during the night.
+
+From time to time he chooses the occasion of a night's halt on the march to
+indulge in a bilious attack; but he has no other vice except an inveterate
+reluctance to leave off polishing my boots when I mount. No matter how
+Sapphira may prance and back and sidle, he follows her round and round with
+a remnant of a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the stirrup. It is
+quite useless to bellow, "That will do, Steggles!"--his ideal is the
+unattainable perfection, and he persists. I have to escape by giving
+Sapphira the spur at the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or be late
+in turning out.
+
+He never gives anything, even his own performances, unqualified praise; in
+fact it is extremely hard to win from him any encomium higher than "It's
+not too bad." Perhaps there is Scotch blood in his veins.
+
+I very much want to recommend him for some decoration, but the organization
+likely to appreciate the most gallant of his deeds has not yet been
+formed--the S.P.G.P., or Society for the Preservation of Government
+Property.
+
+Steggles was once riding behind me down a valley liberally dimpled with
+shell-holes, further dimples being in process of formation as we rode. I
+was returning from an O Pip, or Observation Post, and Steggles was carrying
+a pair of my boots with a rolled puttee stuffed into each. Suddenly I was
+aware that he had wheeled his horse about, and was trotting back towards
+the most dimply area of the valley. Out of regard for his family, I
+cantered after him. He broke into a gallop. When, after a thrilling ride, I
+caught him and had a little talk amongst the dimples, it appeared that he
+had dropped one of the puttees, and wished to return and look for it. This
+incident will, I think, demonstrate the exceptional character of the man,
+who did not appear to regard himself as a hero, or to pose as a desperate
+_farceur_, or to aspire to the post of Q.M.S., though, incredible as it may
+seem, the puttee in question was of the variety G.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Orderly Officer_. "WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE ME?"
+
+_Latest called-up Recruit_. "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE COMING."
+
+_Orderly Officer_. "WHAT DID THE CORPORAL SAY WHEN HE POSTED YOU?"
+
+_Recruit_. "I WOULDN'T LIKE TO REPEAT IT TO AN OFFICER, SIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
+
+To those who would learn what soldiering is like in the armies of
+democratic France I would heartily commend two books recently published by
+Messrs. ALLEN AND UNWIN, _Battles and Bivouacs_, by JACQUES ROUJON, and
+_The Diary of a French Private_, by GASTON RIOU. M. ROUJON, infantryman of
+the line, was in private life a journalist on _Le Figaro_; M. RIOU, Red
+Cross orderly, a liberal lay-theologian and writer of European reputation.
+The former's transliterator ("Munitions are distributed around," writes he
+undismayed; and has also discovered a territory known as "Oriental
+Prussia") obtrudes a little between author and reader. M. RIOU fares
+better; but both contrive to give a really vivid impression of the horrors
+and anxieties of the early days of the War before the tide turned at the
+Marne, of the flying rumours so far from the actual truth, of the fine
+spirit of _camaraderie_ in common danger, of the intimate relations between
+officers and men, details, terrible or trivial, of campaigning, and,
+because our spirited brothers-in-arms are not ashamed to express their
+innermost feelings, of the deeper emotions at work under the surface
+gaieties. M. RIOU'S narrative is mainly the record of his year's captivity
+in a Bavarian fort. On his way he faced the fanatical hatred and cruelty of
+the German civilians, of the women especially, with a cynical fortitude.
+The commandant of his prison, Baron von STENGEL, was, however, a gentleman
+and a brick, and did everything in his power to make the difficult life
+bearable. An episode pleasant to recall is the reception of the Russian
+prisoners (intended by their captors to cause dissensions) by their French
+comrades in misfortune. The whole record gives an impression of fine
+courage and resourcefulness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very probably you are already acquainted with that restful and admirable
+book, _Father Payne_ (SMITH, ELDER), of which a new edition has just now
+been published. The point of this new edition is that, in its special
+Preface, the genesis and authorship of the book are assigned, for the first
+time on this side the Atlantic, to Mr. A.C. BENSON. And the point of the
+new preface is that it entirely gives away the original edition (also
+printed here), in which the secret was elaborately concealed. My wonder is,
+reading the book with this added knowledge, that anyone can have at any
+time failed to detect in it the gently persuasive hand of the Master of
+Magdalene, Cambridge. You remember, no doubt, how _Father Payne_ (a
+courtesy title), having had a small estate left to him, proceeded to turn
+it into the home of a secular community for young men desirous of pursuing
+the literary gift, and how he financed, encouraged and generally supervised
+them. Leisure, an exquisite setting, and the society of enthusiastic and
+personally-selected youth--one might call the book perhaps a Tutor's Dream
+of the Millennium. Anyhow, _Father Payne_, as shown in this volume, which
+is practically a record of his table-talk upon a great variety of themes,
+is exactly the gentle, shrewd and idealistic philosopher whom (knowing his
+parentage) one would expect. Bensonians (of the A.C. pattern) will
+certainly be glad to have what must surely have been their suspicions
+confirmed, and to admit _Father Payne_ to the shelves of authenticity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss DOROTHEA CONYERS has long ere this established herself as a specialist
+of repute in Irish sporting tales. You will need but one look at the
+picture wrapper of _The Financing of Fiona_ (ALLEN) to see that a
+repetition of the same agreeable mixture awaits you within. _Fiona_ was a
+charming young woman (Irish, of course) with a rich uncle and a poor, very
+unattractive cousin, who loved her for her expectations. As _Fiona_ had no
+conception about money beyond the spending of it, the uncle made a will,
+whose object was that she should have plenty. The suitor, however, knowing
+of this, and being a naughty, rather improbable person, destroyed part of
+it, with the result that _Fiona_ was apparently left only the ancestral
+home and no cash to keep it up. So she was forced to take in gentleman
+boarders for the hunting, and (for propriety's sake) to invent a mythical
+chaperon, who lived above stairs. And, after all, she needn't have done any
+such thing, because the rich uncle, in leaving her all the contents of the
+mansion, had foolishly forgotten to mention a secret drawer full of
+Canadian securities. As for the villain, I really hardly dare tell you the
+impossibly silly way in which he allowed himself to be caught out. But of
+course all this melodrama is not what matters. The important thing about
+Miss CONYERS' people is that (whatever their private worries) a-hunting
+they will go; and _Fiona_, financed by her paying guests, shows in this
+respect as capital sport as any of her predecessors. For the rest, I can
+hardly say with honesty that the story is equal to its author's best form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I like particularly about Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN is the friendly way in
+which he contrives to make his readers and himself into a family party. "We
+must," he writes at the beginning of a chapter in _Cinderella of Skookum
+Greek_ (NASH), "get a move on with the story, in case you become more tired
+of Archer's compound fracture than he was himself." This is by no means the
+only occasion on which he shows his thoughtfulness for us, and I think it
+very kind and nice of him. At the same time I will ungraciously admit that
+the weak point of his story is that it does not move quite fast enough.
+Admirable artist in psychology and atmosphere, his plot, if you can call it
+a plot, is very slight. _Cyrus Archer_, the young American of the compound
+fracture (who had my sympathy from the start because he could never
+remember dates), goes out into the back of beyond for a spell before
+settling down to married life and a place in his father's business, and at
+Skookum Creek, where he grows tomatoes and studies Indians, he meets his
+_Cinderella_, with the result that his life has to be completely
+rearranged. A commonplace tale, but there is a rare and distinct flavour
+about the telling of it. Mr. NIVEN'S manner has indeed a very particular
+charm, over which one would take an even keener pleasure in lingering if
+only he himself lingered a little less over his story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hardly think that Madame ALBANESI has chosen quite the most appropriate
+name for the story that she calls _Hearts and Sweethearts_ (HUTCHINSON).
+Personally, I fancy that _Suits and Lawsuits_ would have come nearer the
+mark; because, though there is a certain proportion of love-making in the
+tale, there is considerably more about going to law. One difficulty with
+which I fancy the writer had to contend is due to the fact that her hero
+and heroine are (in a sense) the opposing protagonists in a case of
+disputed succession; _Jemima Frant_ being engaged in the attempt to turn
+out _Sir John Norminster_ from his estates and establish the claim to them
+of her dead sister's child. Naturally, therefore, till this is settled
+their opportunities for the tender passion are, to put it very gently,
+restricted. But of course--well, a novel with such a title is hardly likely
+to leave anybody of importance unmarried at the final page. Before this is
+turned, you have some pleasant comedy of London in war-time, and meet a
+number of agreeably sketched persons, whose conversation may amuse you, or,
+on the other hand, may cause you to wish them a little less discursive.
+Madame ALBANESI indeed impressed me as having occasionally turned her
+subordinate characters loose into a chapter, with instructions to fill it
+up anyhow, while she herself thought out the next move. But the law was
+always leisurely, so this characteristic might perhaps be expected in a
+story so much concerned with it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Mother_ (_overhauling little Tommy's wardrobe_). "OH,
+CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS
+POCKET! A REAL CARTRIDGE WITH A BULLET IN IT. HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO
+BITS!"
+
+_The Father_ (_with a glowing consciousness of assisting his country at a
+critical time_). "JUST PUT IT IN A COOL PLACE FOR TO-NIGHT, MY DEAR, AND I
+WILL LEAVE IT AT THE WAR OFFICE TO-MORROW ON MY WAY TO BUSINESS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Handel in War-Time.
+
+    "The anthem 'O Thou that tillest' (Messiah), will be
+    rendered."--_Dublin Evening Mail_.
+
+No pains are being spared to promote agriculture in Ireland.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The river in many places has overflown its banks."--
+    _Henley Newspaper_.
+
+Even Father Thames cannot resist the modern mania for aviation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Extract from a review of Dr. JOHN FITZPATRICK'S "_This Realm, This
+England_":--
+
+    "From a Scotsman, we deprecate the definition of 'This Realm' as
+    'England,' and would suggest to the learned doctor that he would have
+    done nothing derogatory to himself, even in the eyes of Englishmen, if
+    he had used the really correct and comprehensive name Britain."--_Scots
+    Pictorial_.
+
+SHAKSPEARE (ghost of), please note.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14135 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14135 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152,
+January 10, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen</h1>
+<hr class="full" />
+    <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+     OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+    <h2>Vol. 152.</h2>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <h2>January 10th, 1917.</h2>
+    <hr class="full" />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"
+       id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span>
+
+    <h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+    <p>The effect of the curtailed train-service throughout the
+    country is already observable. On certain sections of one of
+    our Southern lines there are no trains running except those
+    which started prior to January 1st.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>The new Treasury Notes, we are told, are to have a picture
+    of the House of Commons on the back. It is hoped that other
+    places of amusement, such as the Crystal Palace and the
+    Imperial Institute, will be represented on subsequent
+    issues.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is announced from Germany that arrangements have been
+    made whereby criminals are to be enrolled in the army. They
+    have, of course, already conducted many of its operations.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>According to <i>The Daily Chronicle</i> there are only
+    twenty-three full Generals in the British Army&mdash;a total
+    identical with that of the late Cabinet. It is only fair to the
+    army to state that the number is purely a coincidence.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p class="center">"THE RISE IN BOOT PRICES<br />
+     WOMEN'S LARGE PURCHASES."</p>
+
+    <p>The above headlines in a contemporary have caused a good
+    deal of natural jealousy among members of the Force.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"At them and through them!" says the <i>Hamburger
+    Fremdenblatt</i> in a seasonable message to the commander of
+    the Turkish Navy. This will not deceive the Turk, who is
+    beginning to realise that, while the invitation to go <i>at</i>
+    the enemy is sincere, any opportunities of "going
+    <i>through</i>" him will be exclusively grasped by his Teutonic
+    ally.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Prince BUELOW has again arrived in Switzerland. It is these
+    bold and dramatic strokes that lift the German diplomat above
+    the ranks of the commonplace.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is explained by a railway official that a passenger who
+    pays threepence for a ticket to-day is really only giving the
+    company twopence, the rest being water, owing to the decline in
+    the purchasing power of money. A movement is now on foot among
+    some of the regular passengers to endeavour to persuade the
+    companies to consent to take their fares neat for the
+    future.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>At his Coronation the Emperor KARL OF AUSTRIA waved the
+    sword of ST. STEPHEN towards the four corners of the earth, to
+    indicate his intention to protect his empire against all its
+    foes. The incident has been receiving the earnest consideration
+    of the KAISER, who has now finally decided that in the
+    circumstances it is not necessary to regard it as an unfriendly
+    act.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It was felt that the ceremonies connected with the
+    Coronation ought to be curtailed out of regard for the
+    sufferings due to the War. So they dispensed with the customary
+    distribution of bread to the poor.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Lecturing to a juvenile audience Professor ARTHUR KEITH said
+    that there was no difference between detectives and scientists,
+    and some of the older boys are still wondering whether he was
+    trying to popularise science or to discredit detective
+    stories.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Germans cannot now obtain footwear, it is reported, without
+    a permit card. Nevertheless we know a number of them who are
+    assured of getting the boot without any troublesome
+    formalities.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Burglars have stolen eighteen ducks from the estate of
+    BETHMANN-HOLLWEG. It will be interesting to note how their
+    defence&mdash;that "Necessity knows no law"&mdash;is received
+    by the distinguished advocate of the invasion of Belgium.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"Taxicab drivers must expect a very low standard of
+    intoxication to apply to them," said the Lambeth magistrate
+    last week. On the other hand the police should be careful not
+    to misinterpret the air of light-hearted devilry that endeared
+    the "growler" to the hearts of an older generation.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is stated that &pound;2,250,000 has been sent by Germany
+    into Switzerland to raise the exchanges. A much larger sum,
+    according to Mr. PUTNAM, was sent into the United States merely
+    to raise the wind.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Referring to the Highland regiments a <i>Globe</i> writer
+    says, "The streets of London will reel with the music of the
+    pipes when they come back." This is one of those obstacles to
+    peace that has been overlooked by the KAISER.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:60%;">
+        <a href="images/17.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/17s.png"
+             alt="PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON GUARD DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON
+        GUARD DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF WHEN THE COLONEL
+        APPEARS ACCOMPANIED BY HIS DAUGHTER.</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"
+       id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span>
+
+    <h2>VIENNA-BOUND: A REVERIE EN ROUTE.</h2>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        [A Wireless Press telegram says: "The German Imperial train
+        has reached Constantinople in order to transport the Sultan
+        to Vienna, to take part in the conference of Sovereigns to
+        be held there."]
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I hate all trains and told them so;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I said that I should much prefer</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">(Being, as Allah knows, no traveller)</p>
+
+            <p>To stick to Stamboul and the <i>status quo</i>.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They said, "If you would rather walk,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Pray do so; it will save the fare;"</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Which shows that WILLIAM (who will take
+            the Chair)</p>
+
+            <p>Insists that I shall come and hear him talk.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I've never tried a train before;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">It makes me sick; it knocks my
+            nerves;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The noises and the tunnels and the
+            curves</p>
+
+            <p>Add a new horror to the woes of war.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>What am I here for, anyhow?</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I'm summoned for appearance' sake,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To nod approval at the Chief, but
+            take</p>
+
+            <p>No further part in his one-man pow-wow.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>My job is just to sit, it seems,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And act the silent super's
+            <i>r&ocirc;le</i>,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The while I wish myself, with all my
+            soul,</p>
+
+            <p>Safe back in one or more of my hareems.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I'd let the Conference go hang;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Any who likes can have my pew</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And play at peace-talk with this pirate
+            crew,</p>
+
+            <p>WILLIAM and KARL and FERDIE&mdash;what a gang!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Our Chairman wants to save his skin</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And (curse this train!) to cook a
+            plan</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">For Germany to pouch what spoils she
+            can&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>All very nice; but where do I come in?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>At best I'm but the missing link</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Upon his Berlin-Baghdad line;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">This is the senior partner's show, not
+            mine;</p>
+
+            <p>Will he consult my feelings? I don't think.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>If Russia's gain should mean my loss,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">He'll wince at Teuton schemes cut
+            short,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But for my grief, expelled from my own
+            Porte,</p>
+
+            <p>Will he care greatly? Not one little toss.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Well, as I've said and said again,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">'Tis Fate (Kismet), and, should it
+            frown,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">We Faithful have to take it lying
+            down&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>And yet, by Allah, how I loathe this train!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="center">O. S.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "A subaltern friend of mine landed at Gibraltar for a few
+        hours, and he was anxious to be able to say that he had
+        been to Spain. So he walked along the Isthmus to Ceuta,
+        where the British and Spanish sentries faced one another,
+        and directly the Spanish soldier turned his head he hopped
+        quickly over into Spain. Then the sentry turned round, and
+        he hopped back again even more quickly."&mdash;<i>Daily
+        Sketch.</i>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Those of our readers who have walked from the Gibraltar
+    frontier to Morocco and back, like the above subaltern, know
+    that it takes some doing.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "JAMES PHILLIPS, 16, was charged with doing damage to the
+        extent of &pound;4 10s. at a refreshment shop in Hackney
+        belonging to Peter Persico. As he was kept waiting a little
+        time he broke a plate on the table; then he put a saucer
+        under his heel and broke it. When remonstrated with he
+        broke 10 cups and saucers by throwing them at partitions
+        and enamelled decorations, and overturned a marble table,
+        the top of which he smashed."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>No doubt he was incited to these naughty deeds by the line,
+    very popular in Hackney circles, "Persico's odi, puer,
+    apparatus."</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">(<i>The Emperor of AUSTRIA and Count
+    TISZA</i>.)</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. So there is the full account, your Majesty, of
+    men killed, wounded and captured.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. It is a gloomy list and I hardly can
+    bear to consider it.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Yes, and beyond the mere list of casualties by
+    fighting there are other matters to be considered. Food is
+    scarce and of a poor quality, in Hungary as elsewhere. The
+    armies we can yet feed, but the home-staying men and the women
+    and children are a growing difficulty. It becomes more and more
+    impossible to provide them with sufficient nourishment.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. It is strange, but in Austria the
+    conditions are said to be even worse.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. You are right, Sire, they are worse, much
+    worse.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. Well, we must lose no time then. We must
+    buy great stocks of food. More money must be spent.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. More money? But where is it to come from? Not
+    from Hungary, where we are within a narrow margin of financial
+    collapse, and not in Austria, where there is already to all
+    intents and purposes a state of bankruptcy. More money is not
+    to be got, for we have none ourselves and nobody will lend us
+    any.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. You paint the situation in dark colours,
+    my friend TISZA.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. I paint it as it is, Sire, at any rate as I
+    see it. It is not the part of a Royal Counsellor to act
+    otherwise.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. Yes, but there might be others who would
+    take a different view, and support their belief with equally
+    good reasons.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Not if they know the facts and are faithful to
+    their duty as Ministers of the State. Here and there, no doubt,
+    might be found foolish and ambitious men who would be willing
+    to deceive, first themselves and then their Emperor, as to the
+    true condition of affairs. But, if your Majesty trusted them
+    and allowed them to guide you, you would learn too late how ill
+    they had understood their duty. I myself, though determined to
+    do everything in my power to promote the welfare of Hungary and
+    its King, would willingly stand aside if you think that others
+    would give you greater strength.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. I have every reason to trust you most
+    fully. Have you any plan for extricating us from this dreadful
+    morass of failure and difficulty into which we are plunged?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Your Majesty, there is only one way. We must
+    have peace, and must have it as soon as possible.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor.</i> I too think we must have peace, but how
+    shall we obtain it when we have a friend and ally who watches
+    us with the closest care, and would not allow us even to hint
+    at any steps that would really lead to peace?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Sire, you are a young man, but you are a scion
+    of a great and ancient House, which was powerful and
+    illustrious when the Hohenzollerns were but mean and petty
+    barbarian princelings. Withdraw yourself, while the opportunity
+    is still with you, from the fatal domination of this vain and
+    inflated upstart who endeavours to serve only his own selfish
+    designs. Our enemies will make peace with you, and thus he too
+    will be forced to abandon the War. With him and with the deeds
+    that have outraged the world they will not initiate any
+    movement that tends to peace. He must go through his
+    punishment, as indeed we all must, but his, I think, will be
+    heavier than ours.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. Then you want me to make peace?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. If it could be done by holding up your hand, I
+    would urge you to hold it up at once.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. And what would the world say?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. The world would glorify your name.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"
+       id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter">
+        <a href="images/19.png"><img src="images/19s.png"
+             alt="A SHORT WAY WITH TINO." /></a>
+
+        <h3>A SHORT WAY WITH TINO.</h3>
+
+        <p>THE BIG GUN (<i>ringing up the Entente Exchange</i>).
+        "OH, YOU <i>ARE</i> THERE, ARE YOU? WELL, PUT ME ON TO
+        NUMBER ONE, ATHENS."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"
+       id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span>
+
+    <h2>A KNIGHT-ERRANT.</h2>
+
+    <p>Sister Baynes came into my room just as I was putting on my
+    out-door uniform and wanted to know how I was spending my two
+    hours off duty. She is full of curiosity about&mdash;she calls
+    it interest in&mdash;other people's affairs. When I told her I
+    was going out to buy a birthday present she looked rather
+    stern. Said she:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <p>"The giving of unnecessary presents has become a luxury
+    which few of us nowadays think it right to afford."</p>
+
+    <p>I didn't answer her because at the moment I could think of
+    no really adequate reason why Bobbie <i>should</i> have a
+    present, except that I so very much wanted to give him one.
+    Bobbie is tall and young and red-haired and, of course, khaki
+    clad. We are going to be married "when the War is over."</p>
+
+    <p>I pondered Sister Baynes' words until I reached Oxford
+    Street, and then forgot them in the interest of choosing the
+    present. For a while I hesitated between cigarettes and
+    chocolates, and finally decided on the latter. Bobbie is a
+    perfect pig about sweets. I bought a comfortable-looking box,
+    ornamented with a St. George, improbably attired in khaki,
+    slaying a delightful German dragon clad in blue and a Uhlan
+    helmet. St. George had red hair and a distinct look of Bobbie,
+    which was one reason why I got him.</p>
+
+    <p>This business accomplished, I thought I would call on a
+    friend who lives near by. She is middle-aged and rather sad,
+    and spends her time pushing trolleys about a munition works.
+    Just now, however, I knew she had a cold and couldn't go out. I
+    found her on the floor wrestling with brown paper, preparing a
+    parcel for her soldier on Salisbury Plain. She adopted him
+    through a League, and spends all her spare time and
+    pocket-money in socks and cigarettes for him. She smiled at me
+    wanly, with a piece of string between her teeth, and I felt I
+    simply must do something to cheer her up.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've brought you some chocolates for your cold," I said.
+    "Eat one and forget the War and the weather," and I handed her
+    Bobbie's box. Her necessity, as someone says somewhere, seemed
+    at the moment so much greater than his.</p>
+
+    <p>"You extravagant child!" she said, but her face lightened
+    for an instant. She admired St. George almost as much as I had
+    done, but, though she fingered the orange-coloured bow, she did
+    not untie it, so I concluded she meant to have an orgy by
+    herself later on. We talked for a while, and then I looked at
+    the clock and fled for the hospital. She thanked me again for
+    the chocolates as I went; she really seemed quite pleased with
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me
+    a handful of letters and things to distribute. There was a fat
+    parcel for Martha, the ward-maid. I found her in the closet
+    where she keeps her brooms, and gave it her. Her eyes simply
+    danced as she took it, first carefully wiping her hand on her
+    apron.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's from my bruvver," she explained. "'Im on Salisbury
+    Plain. Very good to me 'e always is." She stripped off the
+    paper and gave a sigh of rapture. "Lor, Nurse, ain't it
+    beautiful?"</p>
+
+    <p>It was a chocolate box, a comfortable-looking chocolate box,
+    ornamented with a red-headed St. George, a large blue dragon
+    and a vivid orange bow.</p>
+
+    <p>"It does seem nice," I agreed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fancy 'im spending all that on me," said Martha.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll be able to have quite a feast," said I, smiling at
+    my old friend St. George.</p>
+
+    <p>Martha looked suddenly shy.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm not going to keep it," she confided. She came closer to
+    me. "Do you remember young Renshaw, what used to be in your
+    ward, Nurse?"</p>
+
+    <p>I nodded; I remembered him well, a cheery boy with a smashed
+    leg, now in a Convalescent Home by the sea.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Im and me's engaged," said Martha in a hoarse whisper. "I
+    liked 'im and he liked me, and one day I was doing the windows
+    'e asked me. 'E says the food down there is that monopolous, so
+    I'll send him this 'ere just to cheer 'im up like."</p>
+
+    <p>It seemed an excellent idea to me. I beamed upon Martha. I
+    helped her to re-wrap St. George, and lent her my fountain-pen
+    to write the address which was to send my Knight once more upon
+    his travels. It appeared to me that he and his dragon were
+    seeing a lot of life.</p>
+
+    <p>Bobbie had arranged to call for me on his birthday, so when
+    my off duty came I simply flung on my things and raced for the
+    hall. As I passed Matron's door she called me in. I entered
+    trembling; it was always a toss-up with Matron whether you were
+    to be smiled upon or strafed.</p>
+
+    <p>To-day she was lamb-like. She sat at a desk piled high with
+    papers. Among them lay a vivid coloured object.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've just had a letter from that young Renshaw," she said.
+    "Such a charming letter, thanking us for all our kindness and
+    enclosing a present to show his appreciation." She smiled. She
+    seemed hugely pleased about something. "He addresses it to me,"
+    she went on; "but, though I am grateful for the kind thought, I
+    do not myself eat chocolates."</p>
+
+    <p>She picked up the box, a comfortable-looking box ornamented
+    with an orange satin bow.</p>
+
+    <p>"I think these are more in your line than mine," she said,
+    "and Renshaw was in your ward. You have really the best right
+    to them."</p>
+
+    <p>She handed me the box of chocolates. I gazed at my travelled
+    Saint and he gazed back. I could almost have sworn he
+    winked.</p>
+
+    <p>Clutching him and his dragon, I departed and danced down the
+    corridor into the hall. There waited Bobbie, red-haired and
+    khaki-clad, more like St. George than the gallant knight
+    himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"How do you do?" I greeted him. "Many happy returns, dear
+    old thing!" As he held out his hand I put something into it. "A
+    box of chocolates," I explained; "I bought them for your
+    birthday!"</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/20.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/20s.png"
+             alt="THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER." />
+             </a> THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER.<br />
+         BUY YOUR SERVANT ONE AND ADD A ZEST TO HER WORK.
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Wanted, for Low Comedian, really Funny Sons."&mdash;<i>The
+        Stage</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>As a change, we suppose, from the eternal mother-in-law.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"
+       id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter">
+        <a href="images/21.png"><img src="images/21s.png"
+             alt="I SUPPOSE _I_ AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL." /></a>
+
+        <p><i>Inveterate Golfer</i> (<i>stung by the leading
+        article</i>). "I SUPPOSE <i>I</i> AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL.
+        IT'S HARD TO REALISE THIS WITH ONE'S HANDICAP JUST REDUCED
+        TO SEVEN."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.</h2>
+
+    <p>When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to
+    France, Herself came home bringin' the rigimental mascot with
+    her. A big white long-haired billy-goat he was, the same.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself;
+    "'tis no place for a domestic animal at all, the language them
+    little drummer-boys uses, the dear knows," says she.</p>
+
+    <p>So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free
+    with the flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the
+    domestic maids the way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land,
+    and not jist a plain human Angory goat. A proud arrygent
+    crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about as disdainy as a
+    Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address him
+    for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in
+    your mouth he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with
+    poteen taken, and fetch you a skelp with his horns that would
+    lay you out for dead.</p>
+
+    <p>And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say;
+    "we must be patient with him for the sake of the owld
+    rigiment;" and with that she'd start hand-feedin' him with
+    warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long silky hair.</p>
+
+    <p>"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to
+    question the workings o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of
+    a rigiment, which I am not, and <i>had</i> to have a mascot,
+    it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but a nanny, or
+    mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment
+    and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the
+    orficers' tea as well. If it's such cratures that bring ye
+    fortune may I die a peaceful death in a poor-house," says
+    I.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a
+    leopard with bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the
+    mascot's silky hair twice daily, and the quick temper of the
+    baste at the tangles.</p>
+
+    <p>The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle,
+    archin' his neck at the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder
+    by dint of the standin' he had with the owld rigiment and the
+    high-feedin' he had from Herself. Faith, 'tis a great delight
+    we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much as your
+    life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if
+    the domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let
+    him eat the dresses off them before they dare say a word.</p>
+
+    <p>In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by
+    dint o' the high-feedin' and the natural nature of the crature.
+    Herself, wid her iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it,
+    and she sends wan o' the gerrls to tell meself and Mikeen to
+    wash the baste.</p>
+
+    <p>"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad,
+    "but 'tis the orders&mdash;go get the cart-rope and the chain
+    off the bull-dog, and we'll do it. Faith, it isn't all the
+    bravery that's at the Front," says I.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his
+    shins, the poor boy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle
+    from her apron pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so
+    obligin' to sprinkle the mascot wid
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"
+       id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span> a dropeen of this ody-koloney
+       scent&mdash;mebbe it will quench his powerfulness, she
+       says."</p>
+
+    <p>I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat
+    with the rope, got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him
+    away towards the pond, him buckin' and ragin' between us like a
+    Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the poliss. To hear the roars
+    he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as lead, but we
+    held on.</p>
+
+    <p>The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as
+    an eel, and broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.</p>
+
+    <p>He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain
+    off him!" I says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking
+    around for a tree to shin.</p>
+
+    <p>Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and
+    through the fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve
+    orficers kept in the camp beyond. ("Harriers" they called them,
+    but, begob! there wasn't anythin' they wouldn't hunt from a fox
+    to a turkey, those ones.)</p>
+
+    <p>"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the
+    dear knows they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by
+    this half-hour, and the breath is from them, their tongues is
+    hangin' out a yard," I says.</p>
+
+    <p>'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll
+    see sport this day."</p>
+
+    <p>"Herself&mdash;" he begins.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we
+    dragged me bowld goat out before the dogs and let go the
+    chain.</p>
+
+    <p>The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let
+    a yowl out of them like all the banshees in the nation of
+    Ireland, and the billy legged it for his life&mdash;small blame
+    to him!</p>
+
+    <p>Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.</p>
+
+    <p>"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the
+    crature howlds them by two lengths."</p>
+
+    <p>"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a
+    Jew."</p>
+
+    <p>"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the
+    howly Saints he cannot burrow."</p>
+
+    <p>"He has tripped up&mdash;they have him bayed," says
+    Mikeen.</p>
+
+    <p>And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.</p>
+
+    <p>Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds
+    like a lad to a fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their
+    ribs a mile away. But they were too many for him and bit the
+    grand silky hair off him by the mouthful. The way it flew you'd
+    think it was a snowstorm.</p>
+
+    <p>"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.</p>
+
+    <p>"They have," says I, "God be praised!"</p>
+
+    <p>At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double
+    beside us; he was phlastered with muck from his hair to his
+    boots.</p>
+
+    <p>"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the
+    mud and not knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out
+    before him, whether it would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I;
+    "an' God save your honour for she'll have your blood in a
+    bottle for this day's worrk."</p>
+
+    <p>The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides
+    afther them, flat on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the
+    wink of an eye he is down among the dogs, larruppin' them with
+    his whip and drawin' down curses on them that would wither ye
+    to hear him&mdash;he had great eddication, that orficer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come now," says I to Mikeen, the poor lad, "let you and me
+    bear the cowld corpse of the diseased back to Herself; mebbe
+    she'll have a shillin' handy in her hand, the way she'd reward
+    us for saving the body from the dogs," says I.</p>
+
+    <p>But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and
+    well, the thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he
+    had not a hair of it left to him, and when he stood up before
+    you you wouldn't know him; he was that ordinary without his
+    fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's goat, he was no
+    more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the
+    truth.</p>
+
+    <p>He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young
+    gerrl.</p>
+
+    <p>Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah, but that's not <i>my</i> mascot," says she.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole
+    Calendar&mdash;Mikeen too.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cow-house," says she,
+    and stepped indoors without another word.</p>
+
+    <p>We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his
+    nakedness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ye'll do no more mascottin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra
+    luck you would bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are
+    now&mdash;you'll never step along again with the drums and
+    tambourines."</p>
+
+    <p>And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen
+    rubbing him daily with bear's-grease and hair-lotion he never
+    grew the same grand fleece again, and he'd stand about in the
+    back-field, brooding for hours together, the divilment clane
+    gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the stroke of
+    an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just
+    look at you sad-like and pass no remarks.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>TOP-O'-THE-MORNING.</h2>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Top-o'-the-Morning's shoes are off;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">He runs in the orchard, rough, all
+            day;</p>
+
+            <p>Chasing the hens for a turn at the trough,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Fighting the cows for a place at the
+            hay;</p>
+
+            <p>With a coat where the Wiltshire mud has dried,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">With brambles caught in his mane and
+            tail&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>Top-o'-the-Morning, pearl and pride</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of the foremost flight of the White Horse
+            Vale!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>The master he carried is Somewhere in France</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Leading a cavalry troop to-day,</p>
+
+            <p>Ready, if Fortune but give him the chance,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Ready as ever to show them the way,</p>
+
+            <p>Riding as straight to his new desire</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">As ever he rode to the line of old,</p>
+
+            <p>Facing his fences of blood and fire</p>
+
+            <p>With a brow of flint and a heart of gold.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Do the hoofs of his horses wake a dream</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of a trampling crowd at the
+            covert-side,</p>
+
+            <p>Of a lead on the grass and a glinting stream</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And Top-o'-the-Morning shortening
+            stride?</p>
+
+            <p>Does the triumph leap to his shining eyes</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">As the wind of the vale on his cheek
+            blows cold,</p>
+
+            <p>And the buffeting big brown shoulders rise</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To his light heel's touch and his light
+            hand's hold?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>When the swords are sheathed and the strife is
+            done,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And the cry of hounds is a call to
+            men;</p>
+
+            <p>When the straight-necked Wiltshire foxes run</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And the first flight rides on the grass
+            again;</p>
+
+            <p>May Top-o'-the-Morning, sleek of hide,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Shod, and tidy of mane and tail,</p>
+
+            <p>Light, and fit for a man to ride,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Lead them once more in the White Horse
+            Vale!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="center">W.H.O.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>Polygamy in Workington.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Supper was served by some of the wives of some of the
+        members."&mdash;<i>Workington News</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"
+       id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span>
+
+    <h3>TRAGEDY OF A DUTIFUL WIFE.</h3>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-1s.png"
+             alt="I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY WOMAN" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY
+        WOMAN&mdash;WHAT?"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"ISN'T SHE A
+        LITTLE&mdash;ER&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p>"NOT A BIT OF IT. A WOMAN OUGHT TO BE CHEERY, ESPECIALLY
+        IN THESE TIMES."&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I SEE, DEAR."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-2s.png"
+             alt="WHAT ON EARTH" /></a>
+
+        <p>"WHAT ON EARTH&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+        <p>"I'M MAKING A NEW HAT, DEAR. I SAW MRS. DASHWOOD
+        SPIFFINGTON WEARING ONE VERY LIKE THIS."</p>
+    </div><br clear="all" />
+
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-3.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-3s.png"
+             alt="GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO BITS FOR?" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO
+        BITS FOR?"</p>
+
+        <p>"IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAR. MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON HAS ONE
+        QUITE AS SHORT AS THIS."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-4.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-4s.png"
+             alt="GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?" />
+             </a>
+
+        <p>"GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?"</p>
+
+        <p>"MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON ALWAYS MAKES UP A LITTLE WHEN
+        SHE'S GOING OUT. OH&mdash;I FORGOT TO TELL YOU&mdash;I
+        HAVEN'T ORDERED ANY DINNER, AS I THOUGHT WE MIGHT GO AND
+        DINE AT A RESTAURANT."</p>
+    </div><br clear="all" />
+
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-5.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-5s.png"
+             alt="AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?" />
+             </a>
+
+        <p>"AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?"</p>
+
+        <p>"BUT I THOUGHT YOU LIKED CHEERY PEOPLE LIKE MRS.
+        DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-6.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-6s.png"
+             alt="I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED SMOKING." />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED
+        SMOKING. I EXPECT MRS. DASHWOOD
+        SPIFFINGTON&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p>"D&mdash;&mdash; MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON!"</p>
+
+        <p>"VERY WELL, DEAR."</p>
+    </div><br clear="all" />
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"
+       id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter">
+        <a href="images/24.png"><img src="images/24s.png"
+             alt="THE PINCH OF WAR." /></a>
+
+        <h3>THE PINCH OF WAR.</h3>
+
+        <p><i>Lady of the House</i> (<i>War Profiteer's wife,
+        forlornly</i>). "THEY'VE JUST TAKEN OUR THIRD FOOTMAN; AND
+        IF ANY MORE OF OUR MEN HAVE TO GO WE SHALL CLOSE THE HOUSE
+        AND LIVE AT THE RITZ UNTIL THE WAR IS
+        OVER&mdash;(<i>brightly</i>)&mdash;HOWEVER, WE MUST ALL
+        SACRIFICE SOMETHING."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>OVER-WEIGHT.</h3>
+
+    <p class="scene"><i>Scene: A London Terminus</i>.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>with an air of finality</i>). It weighs
+    'undred-and-four pounds. You can't take it, mum.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. Oh, I must take it.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>Porter is obliged by an irritation of the
+    head to remove his cap, but does not speak.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. It's all right. I know the manager of
+    the line, and he would pass it for me.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i>. Isn't your friend manager of the Great
+    Southern?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>sharply</i>). He has a great deal
+    to do with all these railways now. (<i>To Porter, hopefully,
+    but not very confidently</i>) That will be all right.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i>. Very sorry, mum. It can't be done.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. My friend the manager would be very
+    much annoyed at my being stopped like this. Only four pounds,
+    too. Why, it's nothing.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>Porter removes his cap again on account of
+    further irritation.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>to her Friend</i>). I don't know
+    what I'm to do. (<i>To Porter</i>) What am I to do?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>deliberately</i>). You must open it and
+    take somethink out.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. I can't open it here.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>ignoring this</i>). Somethink weighing a
+    bit over four pounds.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. But I can't do it here.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>ignoring this</i>). Pair o' boots or
+    somethink.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>to her Friend</i>). He seems to
+    think my boots weigh four pounds.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i>. Haven't you got two pairs?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>sourly</i>). Yes, but two pairs of
+    my boots wouldn't weigh four pounds.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>who has been quietly undoing the straps</i>). Is
+    it locked, mum?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>producing key and almost in
+    tears</i>). It's too bad.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>She dives into box and extracts two pairs
+    of boots wrapped in newspapers.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>taking them and weighing them judiciously
+    in his hands</i>). That's all right, mum.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>He pushes box on to weighing machine which
+    registers under 100 lbs.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. They're very thick boots, of course.
+    Whatever am I to do with them now?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i>. We shall have to carry them. [<i>Takes
+    one parcel.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. Jane shall hear of this. I told her
+    never to use newspaper for packing.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i> (<i>suddenly</i>). There's Major
+    Merriman.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. So it is. Don't let him see us with
+    these dreadful parcels. (<i>Angrily</i>) Why don't you turn
+    round? He'll see you.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Major Merriman</i>. How do you do?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>in great surprise</i>). Oh, how do
+    you do, Major Merriman? We've been having such an amusing
+    experience, etc., etc.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>What made Lord Devonport Dizzy.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The following resolution was unanimously passed, and
+        ordered to be sent to the Prime Minister and the Food
+        Controller (Lord Beaconsfield)."&mdash;<i>The Western
+        Gazette</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Lamp-posts and trees and other pedestrians were found with
+        unpleasant and sometimes violent
+        frequency."&mdash;<i>Beckenham Journal</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>That's the worst of a fog; landmarks will keep on walking
+    about.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p><i>&Agrave; propos</i> of the TSAR'S manifesto:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The <i>Retch</i>, says: 'The order puts the dot on all the
+        "t's. " ' " &mdash;<i>Provincial Paper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>It is a far, far better thing to dot your "t's" than cross
+    your "i's."</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"
+       id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/25.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/25s.png"
+             alt="THE DAWN OF DOUBT." /></a>
+
+        <h3>THE DAWN OF DOUBT.</h3>
+
+        <p>GRETCHEN. "I WONDER IF THIS GENTLEMAN REALLY IS MY GOOD
+        ANGEL AFTER ALL!"</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"
+       id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/26.png"><img src="images/26s.png"
+             alt="YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY MAN, OR YOU WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>Benevolent Gentleman</i>. "YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY
+        MAN, OR YOU WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(SECOND SERIES.)</h4>
+
+    <h4>XV.&mdash;THE TOWER.</h4>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Lady in the Tower,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Lady in the Tower</p>
+
+            <p>And told her she was in their power</p>
+
+            <p>And left her there for half-an-hour,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Padlock on the Chain,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Padlock on the Chain,</p>
+
+            <p>But they left the Key in the South of Spain,</p>
+
+            <p>So the Lady took it off again,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Bulldog at the Door,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Bulldog at the Door,</p>
+
+            <p>He was so old he could only snore,</p>
+
+            <p>And he'd lost his Tooth the day before,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Beefeater at the Gate,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Beefeater at the Gate,</p>
+
+            <p>But as his age was eighty-eight</p>
+
+            <p>His Grandmother said he couldn't wait,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Prince to watch the Stair,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Prince to watch the Stair,</p>
+
+            <p>But he had a Golden Ring to spare,</p>
+
+            <p>So he married the Lady then and there,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>And ever since that grievous hour,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>Ever since that grievous hour</p>
+
+            <p>When the lovely Lady was in their power</p>
+
+            <p>They've never put nobody in the Tower,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <h4>Flattery from the Front.</h4>
+
+        <p>"I got your parcel quite undamaged, and it came at a
+        time when we were short of grub. I could have eaten a dead
+        monkey, so your cake came in very useful."</p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Major-General (Temporary General) Sir Hugh de la Poer
+        Bough, K.C.B., whose name appears in the New Year list of
+        honours as being promoted to the rank of
+        lieutenant-general, is a second cousin of Major-General
+        Hugh Sutlej Kough."&mdash;<i>Liverpool Echo</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>It is rumoured that he is also connected with that famous
+    fighting family the GOUGHS.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>A POSTSCRIPT.</h3>
+
+    <p class="center">(<i>Suggested by a later list of L. &amp;
+    N.W.R. stations which have been closed.</i>)</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>A further list of closured stations</p>
+
+            <p>Elicits further protestations.</p>
+
+            <p>Blank desolation, grim and stark,</p>
+
+            <p>Broods sadly o'er Carpenders Park,</p>
+
+            <p>And Friezland, as perhaps is meet,</p>
+
+            <p>Is suffering badly from cold feet.</p>
+
+            <p>The population of Rhosneigr</p>
+
+            <p>Is raging like a wounded tiger;</p>
+
+            <p>And those who used to book at Llong</p>
+
+            <p>Are using language, loud and strong,</p>
+
+            <p>While residents around Chalk Farm</p>
+
+            <p>Are filled with anguish and alarm.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>N.B. In our anterior lay</p>
+
+            <p>One letter somehow went astray;</p>
+
+            <p>We therefore now apologise;</p>
+
+            <p>'Tis Aspley, and not Apsley, Guise.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <p>From an article on "Greece and Belgium":&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "King Tino has a black record of blood and treachery to
+        answer, and to compare his case with that of King Leopold
+        is the blackest outrage of all."&mdash;<i>Star</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Personally we think that it were blacker still to compare
+    his case with that of KING ALBERT.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"
+       id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:60%;">
+        <a href="images/27.png"><img src="images/27s.png"
+             alt="HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT AWAY." />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT
+        AWAY."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE LITTLE RIFT.</h2>
+
+    <p>My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We
+    are like the Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always
+    "arrive at a complete understanding" in all matters of policy.
+    When strict economy was enjoined upon us I moved my desk into
+    the dining-room to save a fire. She made a summer hat out of a
+    bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an evening
+    gown. All was well.</p>
+
+    <p>I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I
+    were to suggest that there was the slightest difference of
+    opinion between us. I most solemnly declare that I am as good a
+    patriot as she is. Still, as time goes on, I do feel a certain
+    uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element that needs
+    watching.</p>
+
+    <p>We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She
+    asks me to take two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the
+    dog and the laundry-hamper along with me in the two-seater to
+    the station, to save petrol. Well, I am willing. She fills the
+    herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and carnations.
+    Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
+    say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of
+    these things.</p>
+
+    <p>Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I
+    should say that here she has advantages over some, as I belong
+    to the class of husband known as Easily Fed. She has got hold
+    of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the War Office or
+    somewhere&mdash;"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
+    "How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and
+    we feed on those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and
+    yet I am well aware that rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in
+    such forms as not to leave a single clue. I cannot tell you how
+    I admire and approve. Still it makes me thoughtful
+    sometimes.</p>
+
+    <p>No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together
+    by sharing these hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I
+    don't feel easy about it. We are quite in sympathy, but there
+    is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I affirm, is the
+    nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am
+    convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that
+    she does it on purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea
+    what I mean. I sometimes wonder wistfully if the hand that put
+    that ugly new steel contraption at the back of the fire to save
+    the coal is really the hand that I wooed and won ten years ago.
+    I see in her the steady growth of an implacable conscience. In
+    moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she always
+    wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance
+    till now.</p>
+
+    <p>We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at
+    all hard up and we had no compunctions about spending money.
+    But now&mdash;I wonder how long the War will last? What
+    I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I am already
+    guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are
+    going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them,
+    but she isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The
+    garden is to be reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the
+    house. We are going to travel first, and I am not sure that we
+    shan't have a new cook. And we are to have an Airedale and an
+    Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama.</p>
+
+    <p>As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only
+    want to have something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever
+    get back to the <i>status quo ante</i> I will not ask for
+    annexations.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her
+    latest suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit
+    with benzine (I don't like the smell of it) instead of getting
+    a new one. Only I live in a growing fear that the day when
+    peace is signed in Europe will be the signal for an outbreak of
+    a new form of warfare in our happy home.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"
+       id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:40%;">
+        <a href="images/28.png"><img src="images/28s.png"
+             alt="WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>Mistress</i> (<i>from upper window</i>). "WHATEVER
+        ARE YOU DOING OUT-OF-DOORS AT <i>THIS</i> TIME OF NIGHT,
+        JANE?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Romantic Maid</i>. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE
+        OWLS, MA'AM."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>WHAT DID MR. ASQUITH DO?</h2>
+
+    <p>A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal
+    meeting by asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr.
+    GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or whatever year it was. Nobody knew,
+    and neither did the inquirer himself, but uproar followed and
+    his end was achieved. Now had the question run, "What did Mr.
+    GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE, apart
+    from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two
+    priceless things, as I will show.</p>
+
+    <p>Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last
+    number was so unhappy about the deterioration that has come
+    upon taxi-drivers, I left England only in October last, I find
+    it a changed place; but no change, not even the iniquitous
+    prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the increased
+    darkness, or the queer division of <i>hors d'oeuvres</i> into
+    half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to
+    the pathetic query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of
+    course")&mdash;no change is so striking as the fact that when a
+    paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or the PREMIER, it means
+    no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux and
+    mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a
+    pyramid, a pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to
+    alteration.</p>
+
+    <p>Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad
+    it is that he has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always
+    reserved and intent, he discouraged Press gossip to such a
+    degree as actually to have turned the key on the Tenth Muse.
+    Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board in Downing
+    Street, but interviewers had no chance. In vain did the Quexes
+    of this frivolous city hope for even a crumb&mdash;there was
+    nothing for them. Mr. ASQUITH came into office, held it, and
+    left it without a single concession to Demos's love of
+    personalia. He did not even wear comic collars or white hats or
+    a single eyeglass or any other grotesquely significant thing;
+    and how much poorer are we in consequence and how much poorer
+    will posterity be!</p>
+
+    <p>Contrast the case of Mr. GLADSTONE, from whom anyone could
+    draw a postcard and most people a chip of some recently-felled
+    tree, and who is in my mind wonderful and supreme by reason of
+    two inventions which, though no one would ever guess them to be
+    the result of a Prime Minister's cogitations, deserve the
+    widest fame. Of these one was the product of his unaided
+    genius; the other the result of the collaboration with his
+    wife.</p>
+
+    <p>Let us begin with the individual triumph.</p>
+
+    <p>Everyone who has ever stayed under anyone else's roof, from
+    a dine-and-sleep at Windsor Castle to a week in lovely Lucerne,
+    has been confronted, when packing-up time arrived, with the
+    problem of the sponge. No matter how muscular the fingers that
+    wring this article, no matter how thick and costly the rubbered
+    receptacle that holds it, there is always the chance of
+    dampness communicating itself to other things in the bag. Isn't
+    there?</p>
+
+    <p>How so to squeeze the sponge as to drive out the last drop
+    of moisture was the problem before the massive intellect of the
+    Grand Old Man. Need I say that he solved it? His method, as he
+    himself in his unselfish way, told one of the diarists,
+    possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E.
+    RUSSELL&mdash;I forget whom&mdash;was to wrap up the sponge in
+    a bath-towel and jump on it. Here, for the historical painter,
+    is a theme indeed&mdash;something worth all the ordinary dull
+    occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat staid brush:
+    the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the
+    author of <i>The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture</i>,
+    leaping upon the bath-towel that held his sponge. But no
+    historical painter could do justice to such a scene. It needs
+    the movies.</p>
+
+    <p>Those of us then who dry our sponges in this way&mdash;and I
+    am a fervent devotee&mdash;owe the inventor a meed of praise.
+    And equally those of us who put into our hot water bottles at
+    night hot tea instead of hot water (as I never have done and
+    never mean to do), so that, waking in the small hours, we may
+    yet not be without refreshment, owe a meed of praise to the
+    same inspired innovator, for, if the chroniclers are correct,
+    it was Mrs. GLADSTONE'S habit to retire to rest with a bottle
+    thus nutritiously filled, which would be ready for her great
+    man on his return from the House weary and athirst.</p>
+
+    <p>Here we see the difference between Liberal Premiers. For
+    what has Mr. ASQUITH done towards the solution of domestic
+    problems? Who can name a thing? Has he devised a collar stud
+    that cannot be lost? Has he hit upon a way instantly to stop a
+    shaving cut from bleeding? Has he contrived a taxi window that
+    will open when shut or shut when open? No. In all these years
+    he has spared no time for any inventions.</p>
+
+    <p>No wonder then that he was found wanting and forced to
+    resign.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>A Scot among the Cynics.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The railway fares are being raised, we are told, to stop
+        pleasure travelling, but it can hardly be imagined that a
+        munition worker going home to spend his week-end with his
+        family is bent on pleasure."&mdash;<i>Glasgow Evening
+        News</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Beautiful set of civic cat; very large stole and muff;
+        accept &pound;12."&mdash;<i>The Lady</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>As DICK WHITTINGTON'S mascot is the only civic cat known to
+    history we think the relic should be secured for the Guildhall
+    Museum.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Simply as a citizen and as a non-party man, I want to say
+        that Mr. Asquith has my affection and respect&mdash;and
+        that is the highest guerdon that any statesman can
+        have."&mdash;<i>Extract from Letter in Yorkshire Paper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We know now why Mr. ASQUITH refused a peerage. He did not
+    want to vex his modest admirer.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "At Caxton Hall the conference was resumed of municipal
+        authorities interested in the conversation of old fruit,
+        sardine and salmon tins."&mdash;<i>Birmingham Daily
+        Mail</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We ourselves always listen with pleasure to their talk. It
+    has at once a fruity and a fishy flavour.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"
+       id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:70%;">
+        <a href="images/29.png"><img src="images/29s.png"
+             alt="AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING BEFORE THE WAR?" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>Gentleman</i> (<i>In favour of national work for
+        everyone</i>). "AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY
+        WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING BEFORE THE WAR?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>New Assistant</i> (<i>his first operation</i>).
+        "EXACTLY, SIR. ALL THE SAME, IF ANYBODY HAD TOLD ME TWO
+        DAYS AGO THAT I SHOULD NOW BE CUTTING THE HAIR OF A
+        COMPLETE STRANGER, I'D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED 'IM."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>WARS OF THE PAST.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(<i>As recorded in the Press of the period.</i>)</h4>
+
+    <h4>VI.</h4>
+
+    <h4><i>From "The Athens Advertiser and Pir&aelig;us
+    Post</i>."</h4>
+
+    <h4>MACEDONIA'S ARMY.</h4>
+
+    <h4>THE FAMOUS PHALANX.</h4>
+
+    <h4>(<i>By our Military Expert</i>.)</h4>
+
+    <p>The Macedonian Army has recently undergone an entire
+    reconstruction at the hands of KING PHILIP. It is now organised
+    on a national and territorial basis and is divided into
+    infantry and cavalry. The cavalry predominates and is therefore
+    the stronger arm. The unit of cavalry is the squadron, of
+    infantry the battalion. (It is of the utmost interest to note
+    that there are two battalions in a regiment, each about fifteen
+    hundred strong).</p>
+
+    <p>KING PHILIP, it will be remembered, received his military
+    education in the school of EPAMINONDAS, who, as is well known,
+    revolutionised the Higher Thought of every Higher Command by
+    the discovery and application of a single tactical
+    fact&mdash;namely, that the chances of A being able to give B a
+    stronger push than B can give him are <i>in direct ratio to the
+    numerical superiority of A over B</i>. It follows, then, that,
+    faced with a sufficient superiority, B <i>must</i> retire, and
+    <i>the initiative then rests with the side that possesses
+    it</i>.</p>
+
+    <p>In pursuance of this tactical ideal EPAMINONDAS argued that
+    the old method of winning battles, which was that A should
+    exercise superior force against every point of B's line (or
+    body), required that A should be bigger than B, buskin for
+    buskin and brisket for brisket. But since it is sufficient,
+    while "refusing" the rest of one's own body (or line), to bring
+    an overwhelming force to bear on the point of a person's jaw,
+    in order to discomfit him, so in a battle a numerically
+    inferior A, by concentrating on a vital point of numerically
+    superior B, can gain a local numerical superiority which will
+    enable him to rout B utterly. (This is always supposing that B
+    is not doing the same thing himself on the other wing, in which
+    case each army would miss the other altogether&mdash;a
+    condition of things into which the military art does not care
+    to follow them).</p>
+
+    <p>Hence the phalanx or "preponderating mass formation." The
+    Macedonian development of this depends (to reduce the matter to
+    the simple algebraical formula to which all military problems
+    are susceptible) on the fact that if <i>x</i> equals the
+    greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of
+    stability to the <i>n</i>th rank equals the phalanx, then the
+    rooted square of stability to the <i>n</i>th rank equals
+    <i>x</i> minus the tangential curve of velocity of mobility.
+    This should be plain even to the amateur student of tactics.
+    Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this
+    cardinal doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of
+    cavalry, PHILIP has given to this, the mobile arm, much of the
+    striking power of the original phalanx. This is now placed in
+    the centre, its business being mainly to force a salient in the
+    enemy's line, the two resultant enclaves of which can then be
+    shattered (at their re-entrants) by the cavalry squadrons,
+    hurled forward on both phalanks. It should be noted, as a
+    brilliant example of PHILIP'S staff work, that in the
+    Macedonian Army, for the avoidance of confusion in the field,
+    "phalanks" is now spelt "flanks."</p>
+
+    <p>To the intelligent student who has followed me thus far in
+    these articles it should not be necessary to explain again the
+    terms "enclave," "salient," and "re-entrant." "Tactical" is a
+    term used when one is not using the term "strategical," and
+    <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "In the words of Bacon, it should be 'read, marked, learned
+        and inwardly digested.'"&mdash;<i>Financial Paper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Our gay contemporary does not tell us whether it was before
+    or after completing the works usually attributed to SHAKSPEARE
+    that BACON compiled the Book of Common Prayer.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"
+       id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span>
+
+    <h2>THE FLAPPER.</h2>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        [Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, in the January <i>Nineteenth
+        Century</i>, in his article on "Ordeal by Fire," after
+        denouncing idlers and loafers and shirkers, falls foul
+        "above all" of the young girls called flappers, "with high
+        heels, skirts up to their knees and blouses open to the
+        diaphragm, painted, powdered, self-conscious, ogling:
+        'Allus adallacked and dizened oot and a 'unting arter the
+        men.'"]
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Good Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, who lends lustre to a
+            name</p>
+
+            <p>Which DRYDEN in his satires oft endeavoured to
+            defame,</p>
+
+            <p>Has lately been discussing in a high-class
+            magazine</p>
+
+            <p>The trials that confront us in the year Nineteen
+            Seventeen.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>He is not a smooth-tongued prophet; no, he takes a
+            serious view;</p>
+
+            <p>We must make tremendous efforts if we're going to
+            win through;</p>
+
+            <p>And though he's not unhopeful of the issue of the
+            fray</p>
+
+            <p>He finds abundant causes for misgiving and
+            dismay.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Our optimistic journals his exasperation fire,</p>
+
+            <p>And the idlers and the loafers stimulate his
+            righteous ire;</p>
+
+            <p>But it is the flapper chiefly that in his gizzard
+            sticks,</p>
+
+            <p>And he's down upon her failings like a waggon-load
+            of bricks.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>She's ubiquitous in theatres, in rail and 'bus and
+            tram,</p>
+
+            <p>She wears her "blouses open down to the
+            diaphragm,"</p>
+
+            <p>And, instead of realising what our men are fighting
+            for,</p>
+
+            <p>She's an orgiastic nuisance who in fact
+            <i>enjoys</i> the War.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>It's a strenuous indictment of our petticoated
+            youth</p>
+
+            <p>And contains a large substratum of unpalatable
+            truth;</p>
+
+            <p>Our women have been splendid, but the Sun himself
+            has specks,</p>
+
+            <p>And the flapper can't be reckoned as a credit to her
+            sex.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Still it needs to be remembered, to extenuate her
+            crimes,</p>
+
+            <p>That these flappers have not always had the very
+            best of times;</p>
+
+            <p>And the life that now she's leading, with no Mentors
+            to restrain,</p>
+
+            <p>Is decidedly unhinging to an undeveloped brain.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Then again we only see her when she's out for play
+            or meals,</p>
+
+            <p>And distresses the fastidious by her gestures and
+            her squeals,</p>
+
+            <p>But she is not always idle or a decorative
+            drone,</p>
+
+            <p>And if she wastes her wages, well, she wastes what
+            is her own.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Still to say that she's heroic, as some scribes of
+            late have said,</p>
+
+            <p>Is unkind as well as foolish, for it only swells her
+            head;</p>
+
+            <p>She oughtn't to be flattered, she requires to be
+            repressed,</p>
+
+            <p>Or she'll grow into a portent and a peril and a
+            pest.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Dr. SHADWELL to the PREMIER makes an eloquent
+            appeal</p>
+
+            <p>In firm and drastic fashion with this element to
+            deal;</p>
+
+            <p>And 'twould be a real feather in our gifted
+            Cambrian's cap</p>
+
+            <p>If he taught the peccant flapper less flamboyantly
+            to flap.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>But, in <i>Punch's</i> way of thinking, 'tis for
+            women, kind and wise,</p>
+
+            <p>These neglected scattered units to enrol and
+            mobilize,</p>
+
+            <p>Their vagabond activities to curb and
+            concentrate,</p>
+
+            <p>And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant of the
+            State.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>She's young; her eyes are dazzled by the glamour of
+            the streets;</p>
+
+            <p>She has to learn that life is not all cinemas and
+            sweets;</p>
+
+            <p>But given wholesome guidance she may rise to
+            self-control</p>
+
+            <p>And earn the right of entry on the Nation's golden
+            Roll.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE ONLY STEGGLES.</h2>
+
+    <p>Steggles is my groom, and my crowning mercy. But for his
+    deafness I am sure he would long since have left the humble
+    rank of gunner far beneath him, and the Staff might have gained
+    a brilliant strategist. In addition to dulness of hearing,
+    Steggles is endowed&mdash;I should indeed be ungrateful to use
+    the word afflicted&mdash;with a vacuity of expression which
+    puts rivals or antagonists off their guard, and doubles his
+    value during the vicissitudes of active service. What would be
+    handicaps to ordinary men Steggles turns to the advantage of
+    himself, Sapphira my mare, and me.</p>
+
+    <p>When on the march the Battery arrives at the morass allotted
+    to it for horse lines, I know that all will be well with the
+    mud-bespattered Sapphira. Steggles leaps from the waggon
+    whereon, in company with one of the cooks, he tours the
+    pleasant land of France, and receives the mare. With his toes
+    strangely pointed out, he leads her away from the scene of
+    labour and language, disappearing amidst the hovels of the
+    adjacent village. Often I never see him or obtain news of him
+    till next morning, when he produces Sapphira polished like a
+    silk hat and every scrap of metal about her sparkling.
+    Occasionally I have tracked him to the shelter where he
+    secretes and waits upon Sapphira, always to find that he has
+    discovered and occupied the best stable in the village. The
+    grooms of my brother-officers never learn that Steggles'
+    vacuous expression is the disguise of an intellect subtle,
+    discriminating and alert, so they never trouble to endeavour to
+    forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find Steggles, as he
+    always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on him
+    if she wanted anything during the night.</p>
+
+    <p>From time to time he chooses the occasion of a night's halt
+    on the march to indulge in a bilious attack; but he has no
+    other vice except an inveterate reluctance to leave off
+    polishing my boots when I mount. No matter how Sapphira may
+    prance and back and sidle, he follows her round and round with
+    a remnant of a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the
+    stirrup. It is quite useless to bellow, "That will do,
+    Steggles!"&mdash;his ideal is the unattainable perfection, and
+    he persists. I have to escape by giving Sapphira the spur at
+    the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or be late in
+    turning out.</p>
+
+    <p>He never gives anything, even his own performances,
+    unqualified praise; in fact it is extremely hard to win from
+    him any encomium higher than "It's not too bad." Perhaps there
+    is Scotch blood in his veins.</p>
+
+    <p>I very much want to recommend him for some decoration, but
+    the organization likely to appreciate the most gallant of his
+    deeds has not yet been formed&mdash;the S.P.G.P., or Society
+    for the Preservation of Government Property.</p>
+
+    <p>Steggles was once riding behind me down a valley liberally
+    dimpled with shell-holes, further dimples being in process of
+    formation as we rode. I was returning from an O Pip, or
+    Observation Post, and Steggles was carrying a pair of my boots
+    with a rolled puttee stuffed into each. Suddenly I was aware
+    that he had wheeled his horse about, and was trotting back
+    towards the most dimply area of the valley. Out of regard for
+    his family, I cantered after him. He broke into a gallop. When,
+    after a thrilling ride, I caught him and had a little talk
+    amongst the dimples, it appeared that he had dropped one of the
+    puttees, and wished to return and look for it. This incident
+    will, I think, demonstrate the exceptional character of the
+    man, who did not appear to regard himself as a hero, or to pose
+    as a desperate <i>farceur</i>, or to aspire to the post of
+    Q.M.S., though, incredible as it may seem, the puttee in
+    question was of the variety G.S.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"
+       id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/31.png"><img src="images/31s.png"
+             alt="WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE ME?" /></a>
+
+        <p><i>Orderly Officer</i>. "WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE
+        ME?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Latest called-up Recruit</i>. "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE
+        COMING."</p>
+
+        <p><i>Orderly Officer</i>. "WHAT DID THE CORPORAL SAY WHEN
+        HE POSTED YOU?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Recruit</i>. "I WOULDN'T LIKE TO REPEAT IT TO AN
+        OFFICER, SIR."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks</i>.)</h4>
+
+    <p>To those who would learn what soldiering is like in the
+    armies of democratic France I would heartily commend two books
+    recently published by Messrs. ALLEN AND UNWIN, <i>Battles and
+    Bivouacs</i>, by JACQUES ROUJON, and <i>The Diary of a French
+    Private</i>, by GASTON RIOU. M. ROUJON, infantryman of the
+    line, was in private life a journalist on <i>Le Figaro</i>; M.
+    RIOU, Red Cross orderly, a liberal lay-theologian and writer of
+    European reputation. The former's transliterator ("Munitions
+    are distributed around," writes he undismayed; and has also
+    discovered a territory known as "Oriental Prussia") obtrudes a
+    little between author and reader. M. RIOU fares better; but
+    both contrive to give a really vivid impression of the horrors
+    and anxieties of the early days of the War before the tide
+    turned at the Marne, of the flying rumours so far from the
+    actual truth, of the fine spirit of <i>camaraderie</i> in
+    common danger, of the intimate relations between officers and
+    men, details, terrible or trivial, of campaigning, and, because
+    our spirited brothers-in-arms are not ashamed to express their
+    innermost feelings, of the deeper emotions at work under the
+    surface gaieties. M. RIOU'S narrative is mainly the record of
+    his year's captivity in a Bavarian fort. On his way he faced
+    the fanatical hatred and cruelty of the German civilians, of
+    the women especially, with a cynical fortitude. The commandant
+    of his prison, Baron von STENGEL, was, however, a gentleman and
+    a brick, and did everything in his power to make the difficult
+    life bearable. An episode pleasant to recall is the reception
+    of the Russian prisoners (intended by their captors to cause
+    dissensions) by their French comrades in misfortune. The whole
+    record gives an impression of fine courage and
+    resourcefulness.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Very probably you are already acquainted with that restful
+    and admirable book, <i>Father Payne</i> (SMITH, ELDER), of
+    which a new edition has just now been published. The point of
+    this new edition is that, in its special Preface, the genesis
+    and authorship of the book are assigned, for the first time on
+    this side the Atlantic, to Mr. A.C. BENSON. And the point of
+    the new preface is that it entirely gives away the original
+    edition (also printed here), in which the secret was
+    elaborately concealed. My wonder is, reading the book with this
+    added knowledge, that anyone can have at any time failed to
+    detect in it the gently persuasive hand of the Master of
+    Magdalene, Cambridge. You remember, no doubt, how <i>Father
+    Payne</i> (a courtesy title), having had a small estate left to
+    him, proceeded to turn it into the home of a secular community
+    for young men desirous of pursuing the literary gift, and how
+    he financed, encouraged and generally supervised them. Leisure,
+    an exquisite setting, and the society of enthusiastic and
+    personally-selected youth&mdash;one might call the book perhaps
+    a Tutor's Dream of the Millennium. Anyhow, <i>Father Payne</i>,
+    as shown in this volume, which is practically a record of his
+    table-talk <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"
+       id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> upon a great variety of
+       themes, is exactly the gentle, shrewd and idealistic
+       philosopher whom (knowing his parentage) one would expect.
+       Bensonians (of the A.C. pattern) will certainly be glad to
+       have what must surely have been their suspicions confirmed,
+       and to admit <i>Father Payne</i> to the shelves of
+       authenticity.</p>
+      <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Miss DOROTHEA CONYERS has long ere this established herself
+    as a specialist of repute in Irish sporting tales. You will
+    need but one look at the picture wrapper of <i>The Financing of
+    Fiona</i> (ALLEN) to see that a repetition of the same
+    agreeable mixture awaits you within. <i>Fiona</i> was a
+    charming young woman (Irish, of course) with a rich uncle and a
+    poor, very unattractive cousin, who loved her for her
+    expectations. As <i>Fiona</i> had no conception about money
+    beyond the spending of it, the uncle made a will, whose object
+    was that she should have plenty. The suitor, however, knowing
+    of this, and being a naughty, rather improbable person,
+    destroyed part of it, with the result that <i>Fiona</i> was
+    apparently left only the ancestral home and no cash to keep it
+    up. So she was forced to take in gentleman boarders for the
+    hunting, and (for propriety's sake) to invent a mythical
+    chaperon, who lived above stairs. And, after all, she needn't
+    have done any such thing, because the rich uncle, in leaving
+    her all the contents of the mansion, had foolishly forgotten to
+    mention a secret drawer full of Canadian securities. As for the
+    villain, I really hardly dare tell you the impossibly silly way
+    in which he allowed himself to be caught out. But of course all
+    this melodrama is not what matters. The important thing about
+    Miss CONYERS' people is that (whatever their private worries)
+    a-hunting they will go; and <i>Fiona</i>, financed by her
+    paying guests, shows in this respect as capital sport as any of
+    her predecessors. For the rest, I can hardly say with honesty
+    that the story is equal to its author's best form.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>What I like particularly about Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN is the
+    friendly way in which he contrives to make his readers and
+    himself into a family party. "We must," he writes at the
+    beginning of a chapter in <i>Cinderella of Skookum Greek</i>
+    (NASH), "get a move on with the story, in case you become more
+    tired of Archer's compound fracture than he was himself." This
+    is by no means the only occasion on which he shows his
+    thoughtfulness for us, and I think it very kind and nice of
+    him. At the same time I will ungraciously admit that the weak
+    point of his story is that it does not move quite fast enough.
+    Admirable artist in psychology and atmosphere, his plot, if you
+    can call it a plot, is very slight. <i>Cyrus Archer</i>, the
+    young American of the compound fracture (who had my sympathy
+    from the start because he could never remember dates), goes out
+    into the back of beyond for a spell before settling down to
+    married life and a place in his father's business, and at
+    Skookum Creek, where he grows tomatoes and studies Indians, he
+    meets his <i>Cinderella</i>, with the result that his life has
+    to be completely rearranged. A commonplace tale, but there is a
+    rare and distinct flavour about the telling of it. Mr. NIVEN'S
+    manner has indeed a very particular charm, over which one would
+    take an even keener pleasure in lingering if only he himself
+    lingered a little less over his story.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>I hardly think that Madame ALBANESI has chosen quite the
+    most appropriate name for the story that she calls <i>Hearts
+    and Sweethearts</i> (HUTCHINSON). Personally, I fancy that
+    <i>Suits and Lawsuits</i> would have come nearer the mark;
+    because, though there is a certain proportion of love-making in
+    the tale, there is considerably more about going to law. One
+    difficulty with which I fancy the writer had to contend is due
+    to the fact that her hero and heroine are (in a sense) the
+    opposing protagonists in a case of disputed succession;
+    <i>Jemima Frant</i> being engaged in the attempt to turn out
+    <i>Sir John Norminster</i> from his estates and establish the
+    claim to them of her dead sister's child. Naturally, therefore,
+    till this is settled their opportunities for the tender passion
+    are, to put it very gently, restricted. But of
+    course&mdash;well, a novel with such a title is hardly likely
+    to leave anybody of importance unmarried at the final page.
+    Before this is turned, you have some pleasant comedy of London
+    in war-time, and meet a number of agreeably sketched persons,
+    whose conversation may amuse you, or, on the other hand, may
+    cause you to wish them a little less discursive. Madame
+    ALBANESI indeed impressed me as having occasionally turned her
+    subordinate characters loose into a chapter, with instructions
+    to fill it up anyhow, while she herself thought out the next
+    move. But the law was always leisurely, so this characteristic
+    might perhaps be expected in a story so much concerned with
+    it.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/32.png"><img src="images/32s.png"
+             alt="OH, CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS POCKET!" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>The Mother</i> (<i>overhauling little Tommy's
+        wardrobe</i>). "OH, CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL
+        CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS POCKET! A REAL
+        CARTRIDGE WITH A BULLET IN IT. HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO
+        BITS!"</p>
+
+        <p><i>The Father</i> (<i>with a glowing consciousness of
+        assisting his country at a critical time</i>). "JUST PUT IT
+        IN A COOL PLACE FOR TO-NIGHT, MY DEAR, AND I WILL LEAVE IT
+        AT THE WAR OFFICE TO-MORROW ON MY WAY TO BUSINESS."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>Handel in War-Time.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The anthem 'O Thou that tillest' (Messiah), will be
+        rendered."&mdash;<i>Dublin Evening Mail</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>No pains are being spared to promote agriculture in
+    Ireland.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The river in many places has overflown its
+        banks."&mdash;<i>Henley Newspaper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Even Father Thames cannot resist the modern mania for
+    aviation.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Extract from a review of Dr. JOHN FITZPATRICK'S "<i>This
+    Realm, This England</i>":&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "From a Scotsman, we deprecate the definition of 'This
+        Realm' as 'England,' and would suggest to the learned
+        doctor that he would have done nothing derogatory to
+        himself, even in the eyes of Englishmen, if he had used the
+        really correct and comprehensive name
+        Britain."&mdash;<i>Scots Pictorial</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>SHAKSPEARE (ghost of), please note.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14135 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14135 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14135)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152,
+January 10, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2004  [eBook #14135]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 152, JANUARY 10, 1917***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 14135-h.htm or 14135-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135/14135-h/14135-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135/14135-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 152
+
+JANUARY 10, 1917
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The effect of the curtailed train-service throughout the country is already
+observable. On certain sections of one of our Southern lines there are no
+trains running except those which started prior to January 1st.
+
+       ***
+
+The new Treasury Notes, we are told, are to have a picture of the House of
+Commons on the back. It is hoped that other places of amusement, such as
+the Crystal Palace and the Imperial Institute, will be represented on
+subsequent issues.
+
+       ***
+
+It is announced from Germany that arrangements have been made whereby
+criminals are to be enrolled in the army. They have, of course, already
+conducted many of its operations.
+
+       ***
+
+According to _The Daily Chronicle_ there are only twenty-three full
+Generals in the British Army--a total identical with that of the late
+Cabinet. It is only fair to the army to state that the number is purely a
+coincidence.
+
+       ***
+
+  "THE RISE IN BOOT PRICES
+  WOMEN'S LARGE PURCHASES."
+
+The above headlines in a contemporary have caused a good deal of natural
+jealousy among members of the Force.
+
+       ***
+
+"At them and through them!" says the _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_ in a
+seasonable message to the commander of the Turkish Navy. This will not
+deceive the Turk, who is beginning to realise that, while the invitation to
+go _at_ the enemy is sincere, any opportunities of "going _through_" him
+will be exclusively grasped by his Teutonic ally.
+
+       ***
+
+Prince BUELOW has again arrived in Switzerland. It is these bold and
+dramatic strokes that lift the German diplomat above the ranks of the
+commonplace.
+
+       ***
+
+It is explained by a railway official that a passenger who pays threepence
+for a ticket to-day is really only giving the company twopence, the rest
+being water, owing to the decline in the purchasing power of money. A
+movement is now on foot among some of the regular passengers to endeavour
+to persuade the companies to consent to take their fares neat for the
+future.
+
+       ***
+
+At his Coronation the Emperor KARL OF AUSTRIA waved the sword of ST.
+STEPHEN towards the four corners of the earth, to indicate his intention to
+protect his empire against all its foes. The incident has been receiving
+the earnest consideration of the KAISER, who has now finally decided that
+in the circumstances it is not necessary to regard it as an unfriendly act.
+
+       ***
+
+It was felt that the ceremonies connected with the Coronation ought to be
+curtailed out of regard for the sufferings due to the War. So they
+dispensed with the customary distribution of bread to the poor.
+
+       ***
+
+Lecturing to a juvenile audience Professor ARTHUR KEITH said that there was
+no difference between detectives and scientists, and some of the older boys
+are still wondering whether he was trying to popularise science or to
+discredit detective stories.
+
+       ***
+
+Germans cannot now obtain footwear, it is reported, without a permit card.
+Nevertheless we know a number of them who are assured of getting the boot
+without any troublesome formalities.
+
+       ***
+
+Burglars have stolen eighteen ducks from the estate of BETHMANN-HOLLWEG. It
+will be interesting to note how their defence--that "Necessity knows no
+law"--is received by the distinguished advocate of the invasion of Belgium.
+
+       ***
+
+"Taxicab drivers must expect a very low standard of intoxication to apply
+to them," said the Lambeth magistrate last week. On the other hand the
+police should be careful not to misinterpret the air of light-hearted
+devilry that endeared the "growler" to the hearts of an older generation.
+
+       ***
+
+It is stated that £2,250,000 has been sent by Germany into Switzerland to
+raise the exchanges. A much larger sum, according to Mr. PUTNAM, was sent
+into the United States merely to raise the wind.
+
+       ***
+
+Referring to the Highland regiments a _Globe_ writer says, "The streets of
+London will reel with the music of the pipes when they come back." This is
+one of those obstacles to peace that has been overlooked by the KAISER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON GUARD
+DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF WHEN THE COLONEL APPEARS ACCOMPANIED
+BY HIS DAUGHTER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VIENNA-BOUND: A REVERIE EN ROUTE.
+
+[A Wireless Press telegram says: "The German Imperial train has reached
+Constantinople in order to transport the Sultan to Vienna, to take part in
+the conference of Sovereigns to be held there."]
+
+  I hate all trains and told them so;
+    I said that I should much prefer
+    (Being, as Allah knows, no traveller)
+  To stick to Stamboul and the _status quo_.
+
+  They said, "If you would rather walk,
+    Pray do so; it will save the fare;"
+    Which shows that WILLIAM (who will take the Chair)
+  Insists that I shall come and hear him talk.
+
+  I've never tried a train before;
+    It makes me sick; it knocks my nerves;
+    The noises and the tunnels and the curves
+  Add a new horror to the woes of war.
+
+  What am I here for, anyhow?
+    I'm summoned for appearance' sake,
+    To nod approval at the Chief, but take
+  No further part in his one-man pow-wow.
+
+  My job is just to sit, it seems,
+    And act the silent super's _rôle_,
+    The while I wish myself, with all my soul,
+  Safe back in one or more of my hareems.
+
+  I'd let the Conference go hang;
+    Any who likes can have my pew
+    And play at peace-talk with this pirate crew,
+  WILLIAM and KARL and FERDIE--what a gang!
+
+  Our Chairman wants to save his skin
+    And (curse this train!) to cook a plan
+    For Germany to pouch what spoils she can--
+  All very nice; but where do I come in?
+
+  At best I'm but the missing link
+    Upon his Berlin-Baghdad line;
+    This is the senior partner's show, not mine;
+  Will he consult my feelings? I don't think.
+
+  If Russia's gain should mean my loss,
+    He'll wince at Teuton schemes cut short,
+    But for my grief, expelled from my own Porte,
+  Will he care greatly? Not one little toss.
+
+  Well, as I've said and said again,
+    'Tis Fate (Kismet), and, should it frown,
+    We Faithful have to take it lying down--
+  And yet, by Allah, how I loathe this train!
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A subaltern friend of mine landed at Gibraltar for a few hours, and he
+    was anxious to be able to say that he had been to Spain. So he walked
+    along the Isthmus to Ceuta, where the British and Spanish sentries
+    faced one another, and directly the Spanish soldier turned his head he
+    hopped quickly over into Spain. Then the sentry turned round, and he
+    hopped back again even more quickly."--_Daily Sketch_.
+
+Those of our readers who have walked from the Gibraltar frontier to Morocco
+and back, like the above subaltern, know that it takes some doing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "JAMES PHILLIPS, 16, was charged with doing damage to the extent of £4
+    10s. at a refreshment shop in Hackney belonging to Peter Persico. As he
+    was kept waiting a little time he broke a plate on the table; then he
+    put a saucer under his heel and broke it. When remonstrated with he
+    broke 10 cups and saucers by throwing them at partitions and enamelled
+    decorations, and overturned a marble table, the top of which he
+    smashed."--_The Times_.
+
+No doubt he was incited to these naughty deeds by the line, very popular in
+Hackney circles, "Persico's odi, puer, apparatus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
+
+(_The Emperor of AUSTRIA and Count TISZA_.)
+
+_Tisza_. So there is the full account, your Majesty, of men killed, wounded
+and captured.
+
+_The Emperor_. It is a gloomy list and I hardly can bear to consider it.
+
+_Tisza_. Yes, and beyond the mere list of casualties by fighting there are
+other matters to be considered. Food is scarce and of a poor quality, in
+Hungary as elsewhere. The armies we can yet feed, but the home-staying men
+and the women and children are a growing difficulty. It becomes more and
+more impossible to provide them with sufficient nourishment.
+
+_The Emperor_. It is strange, but in Austria the conditions are said to be
+even worse.
+
+_Tisza_. You are right, Sire, they are worse, much worse.
+
+_The Emperor_. Well, we must lose no time then. We must buy great stocks of
+food. More money must be spent.
+
+_Tisza_. More money? But where is it to come from? Not from Hungary, where
+we are within a narrow margin of financial collapse, and not in Austria,
+where there is already to all intents and purposes a state of bankruptcy.
+More money is not to be got, for we have none ourselves and nobody will
+lend us any.
+
+_The Emperor_. You paint the situation in dark colours, my friend TISZA.
+
+_Tisza_. I paint it as it is, Sire, at any rate as I see it. It is not the
+part of a Royal Counsellor to act otherwise.
+
+_The Emperor_. Yes, but there might be others who would take a different
+view, and support their belief with equally good reasons.
+
+_Tisza_. Not if they know the facts and are faithful to their duty as
+Ministers of the State. Here and there, no doubt, might be found foolish
+and ambitious men who would be willing to deceive, first themselves and
+then their Emperor, as to the true condition of affairs. But, if your
+Majesty trusted them and allowed them to guide you, you would learn too
+late how ill they had understood their duty. I myself, though determined to
+do everything in my power to promote the welfare of Hungary and its King,
+would willingly stand aside if you think that others would give you greater
+strength.
+
+_The Emperor_. I have every reason to trust you most fully. Have you any
+plan for extricating us from this dreadful morass of failure and difficulty
+into which we are plunged?
+
+_Tisza_. Your Majesty, there is only one way. We must have peace, and must
+have it as soon as possible.
+
+_The Emperor._ I too think we must have peace, but how shall we obtain it
+when we have a friend and ally who watches us with the closest care, and
+would not allow us even to hint at any steps that would really lead to
+peace?
+
+_Tisza_. Sire, you are a young man, but you are a scion of a great and
+ancient House, which was powerful and illustrious when the Hohenzollerns
+were but mean and petty barbarian princelings. Withdraw yourself, while the
+opportunity is still with you, from the fatal domination of this vain and
+inflated upstart who endeavours to serve only his own selfish designs. Our
+enemies will make peace with you, and thus he too will be forced to abandon
+the War. With him and with the deeds that have outraged the world they will
+not initiate any movement that tends to peace. He must go through his
+punishment, as indeed we all must, but his, I think, will be heavier than
+ours.
+
+_The Emperor_. Then you want me to make peace?
+
+_Tisza_. If it could be done by holding up your hand, I would urge you to
+hold it up at once.
+
+_The Emperor_. And what would the world say?
+
+_Tisza_. The world would glorify your name.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SHORT WAY WITH TINO.
+
+THE BIG GUN (_ringing up the Entente Exchange_). "OH, YOU _ARE_ THERE, ARE
+YOU? WELL, PUT ME ON TO NUMBER ONE, ATHENS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A KNIGHT-ERRANT.
+
+Sister Baynes came into my room just as I was putting on my out-door
+uniform and wanted to know how I was spending my two hours off duty. She is
+full of curiosity about--she calls it interest in--other people's affairs.
+When I told her I was going out to buy a birthday present she looked rather
+stern. Said she:--
+
+"The giving of unnecessary presents has become a luxury which few of us
+nowadays think it right to afford."
+
+I didn't answer her because at the moment I could think of no really
+adequate reason why Bobbie _should_ have a present, except that I so very
+much wanted to give him one. Bobbie is tall and young and red-haired and,
+of course, khaki clad. We are going to be married "when the War is over."
+
+I pondered Sister Baynes' words until I reached Oxford Street, and then
+forgot them in the interest of choosing the present. For a while I
+hesitated between cigarettes and chocolates, and finally decided on the
+latter. Bobbie is a perfect pig about sweets. I bought a
+comfortable-looking box, ornamented with a St. George, improbably attired
+in khaki, slaying a delightful German dragon clad in blue and a Uhlan
+helmet. St. George had red hair and a distinct look of Bobbie, which was
+one reason why I got him.
+
+[Illustration: THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER.
+
+BUY YOUR SERVANT ONE AND ADD A ZEST TO HER WORK.]
+
+This business accomplished, I thought I would call on a friend who lives
+near by. She is middle-aged and rather sad, and spends her time pushing
+trolleys about a munition works. Just now, however, I knew she had a cold
+and couldn't go out. I found her on the floor wrestling with brown paper,
+preparing a parcel for her soldier on Salisbury Plain. She adopted him
+through a League, and spends all her spare time and pocket-money in socks
+and cigarettes for him. She smiled at me wanly, with a piece of string
+between her teeth, and I felt I simply must do something to cheer her up.
+
+"I've brought you some chocolates for your cold," I said. "Eat one and
+forget the War and the weather," and I handed her Bobbie's box. Her
+necessity, as someone says somewhere, seemed at the moment so much greater
+than his.
+
+"You extravagant child!" she said, but her face lightened for an instant.
+She admired St. George almost as much as I had done, but, though she
+fingered the orange-coloured bow, she did not untie it, so I concluded she
+meant to have an orgy by herself later on. We talked for a while, and then
+I looked at the clock and fled for the hospital. She thanked me again for
+the chocolates as I went; she really seemed quite pleased with them.
+
+Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me a handful of
+letters and things to distribute. There was a fat parcel for Martha, the
+ward-maid. I found her in the closet where she keeps her brooms, and gave
+it her. Her eyes simply danced as she took it, first carefully wiping her
+hand on her apron.
+
+"It's from my bruvver," she explained. "'Im on Salisbury Plain. Very good
+to me 'e always is." She stripped off the paper and gave a sigh of rapture.
+"Lor, Nurse, ain't it beautiful?"
+
+It was a chocolate box, a comfortable-looking chocolate box, ornamented
+with a red-headed St. George, a large blue dragon and a vivid orange bow.
+
+"It does seem nice," I agreed.
+
+"Fancy 'im spending all that on me," said Martha.
+
+"You'll be able to have quite a feast," said I, smiling at my old friend
+St. George.
+
+Martha looked suddenly shy.
+
+"I'm not going to keep it," she confided. She came closer to me. "Do you
+remember young Renshaw, what used to be in your ward, Nurse?"
+
+I nodded; I remembered him well, a cheery boy with a smashed leg, now in a
+Convalescent Home by the sea.
+
+"'Im and me's engaged," said Martha in a hoarse whisper. "I liked 'im and
+he liked me, and one day I was doing the windows 'e asked me. 'E says the
+food down there is that monopolous, so I'll send him this 'ere just to
+cheer 'im up like."
+
+It seemed an excellent idea to me. I beamed upon Martha. I helped her to
+re-wrap St. George, and lent her my fountain-pen to write the address which
+was to send my Knight once more upon his travels. It appeared to me that he
+and his dragon were seeing a lot of life.
+
+Bobbie had arranged to call for me on his birthday, so when my off duty
+came I simply flung on my things and raced for the hall. As I passed
+Matron's door she called me in. I entered trembling; it was always a
+toss-up with Matron whether you were to be smiled upon or strafed.
+
+To-day she was lamb-like. She sat at a desk piled high with papers. Among
+them lay a vivid coloured object.
+
+"I've just had a letter from that young Renshaw," she said. "Such a
+charming letter, thanking us for all our kindness and enclosing a present
+to show his appreciation." She smiled. She seemed hugely pleased about
+something. "He addresses it to me," she went on; "but, though I am grateful
+for the kind thought, I do not myself eat chocolates."
+
+She picked up the box, a comfortable-looking box ornamented with an orange
+satin bow.
+
+"I think these are more in your line than mine," she said, "and Renshaw was
+in your ward. You have really the best right to them."
+
+She handed me the box of chocolates. I gazed at my travelled Saint and he
+gazed back. I could almost have sworn he winked.
+
+Clutching him and his dragon, I departed and danced down the corridor into
+the hall. There waited Bobbie, red-haired and khaki-clad, more like St.
+George than the gallant knight himself.
+
+"How do you do?" I greeted him. "Many happy returns, dear old thing!" As he
+held out his hand I put something into it. "A box of chocolates," I
+explained; "I bought them for your birthday!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Wanted, for Low Comedian, really Funny Sons."--_The Stage_.
+
+As a change, we suppose, from the eternal mother-in-law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Inveterate Golfer_ (_stung by the leading article_). "I
+SUPPOSE _I_ AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL. IT'S HARD TO REALISE THIS WITH ONE'S
+HANDICAP JUST REDUCED TO SEVEN."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.
+
+When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came
+home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired
+billy-goat he was, the same.
+
+"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place
+for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses,
+the dear knows," says she.
+
+So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the
+flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the
+way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human
+Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about
+as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address
+him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth
+he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch
+you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.
+
+And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.
+
+"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be
+patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment;" and with that she'd
+start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long
+silky hair.
+
+"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to question the workings
+o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of a rigiment, which I am not, and
+_had_ to have a mascot, it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but
+a nanny, or mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment
+and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the orficers' tea as
+well. If it's such cratures that bring ye fortune may I die a peaceful
+death in a poor-house," says I.
+
+"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a leopard with
+bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the mascot's silky hair twice daily,
+and the quick temper of the baste at the tangles.
+
+The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle, archin' his neck at
+the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder by dint of the standin' he had
+with the owld rigiment and the high-feedin' he had from Herself. Faith,
+'tis a great delight we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much
+as your life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if the
+domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let him eat the
+dresses off them before they dare say a word.
+
+In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by dint o' the
+high-feedin' and the natural nature of the crature. Herself, wid her
+iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it, and she sends wan o' the gerrls
+to tell meself and Mikeen to wash the baste.
+
+"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad, "but 'tis the
+orders--go get the cart-rope and the chain off the bull-dog, and we'll do
+it. Faith, it isn't all the bravery that's at the Front," says I.
+
+"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor
+boy.
+
+"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron
+pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' to sprinkle the mascot
+wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent--mebbe it will quench his
+powerfulness, she says."
+
+I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope,
+got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him
+buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the
+poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as
+lead, but we held on.
+
+The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as an eel, and
+broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.
+
+He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain off him!" I
+says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking around for a tree to shin.
+
+Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and through the
+fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve orficers kept in the camp
+beyond. ("Harriers" they called them, but, begob! there wasn't anythin'
+they wouldn't hunt from a fox to a turkey, those ones.)
+
+"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.
+
+"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the dear knows
+they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by this half-hour, and
+the breath is from them, their tongues is hangin' out a yard," I says.
+
+'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.
+
+"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll see sport this
+day."
+
+"Herself--" he begins.
+
+"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we dragged me bowld
+goat out before the dogs and let go the chain.
+
+The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let a yowl out of
+them like all the banshees in the nation of Ireland, and the billy legged
+it for his life--small blame to him!
+
+Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.
+
+"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the crature howlds
+them by two lengths."
+
+"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a Jew."
+
+"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the howly Saints he
+cannot burrow."
+
+"He has tripped up--they have him bayed," says Mikeen.
+
+And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.
+
+Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds like a lad to a
+fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their ribs a mile away. But they
+were too many for him and bit the grand silky hair off him by the mouthful.
+The way it flew you'd think it was a snowstorm.
+
+"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.
+
+"They have," says I, "God be praised!"
+
+At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double beside us; he
+was phlastered with muck from his hair to his boots.
+
+"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the mud and not
+knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out before him, whether it
+would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.
+
+"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I; "an' God save your
+honour for she'll have your blood in a bottle for this day's worrk."
+
+The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides afther them, flat
+on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the wink of an eye he is down among
+the dogs, larruppin' them with his whip and drawin' down curses on them
+that would wither ye to hear him--he had great eddication, that orficer.
+
+"Come now," says I to Mikeen, the poor lad, "let you and me bear the cowld
+corpse of the diseased back to Herself; mebbe she'll have a shillin' handy
+in her hand, the way she'd reward us for saving the body from the dogs,"
+says I.
+
+But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and well, the
+thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he had not a hair of it
+left to him, and when he stood up before you you wouldn't know him; he was
+that ordinary without his fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's
+goat, he was no more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the
+truth.
+
+He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young gerrl.
+
+Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him.
+
+"Ah, but that's not _my_ mascot," says she.
+
+"It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole Calendar--Mikeen too.
+
+"Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cow-house," says she, and stepped
+indoors without another word.
+
+We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his nakedness.
+
+"Ye'll do no more mascottin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra luck you would
+bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are now--you'll never step along
+again with the drums and tambourines."
+
+And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen rubbing him daily
+with bear's-grease and hair-lotion he never grew the same grand fleece
+again, and he'd stand about in the back-field, brooding for hours together,
+the divilment clane gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the
+stroke of an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just look
+at you sad-like and pass no remarks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TOP-O'-THE-MORNING.
+
+  Top-o'-the-Morning's shoes are off;
+    He runs in the orchard, rough, all day;
+  Chasing the hens for a turn at the trough,
+    Fighting the cows for a place at the hay;
+  With a coat where the Wiltshire mud has dried,
+    With brambles caught in his mane and tail--
+  Top-o'-the-Morning, pearl and pride
+    Of the foremost flight of the White Horse Vale!
+
+  The master he carried is Somewhere in France
+    Leading a cavalry troop to-day,
+  Ready, if Fortune but give him the chance,
+    Ready as ever to show them the way,
+  Riding as straight to his new desire
+    As ever he rode to the line of old,
+  Facing his fences of blood and fire
+  With a brow of flint and a heart of gold.
+
+  Do the hoofs of his horses wake a dream
+    Of a trampling crowd at the covert-side,
+  Of a lead on the grass and a glinting stream
+    And Top-o'-the-Morning shortening stride?
+  Does the triumph leap to his shining eyes
+    As the wind of the vale on his cheek blows cold,
+  And the buffeting big brown shoulders rise
+    To his light heel's touch and his light hand's hold?
+
+  When the swords are sheathed and the strife is done,
+    And the cry of hounds is a call to men;
+  When  the  straight-necked Wiltshire foxes run
+    And the first flight rides on the grass again;
+  May Top-o'-the-Morning, sleek of hide,
+    Shod, and tidy of mane and tail,
+  Light, and fit for a man to ride,
+    Lead them once more in the White Horse Vale!
+
+W.H.O.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Polygamy in Workington.
+
+"Supper was served by some of the wives of some of the
+members."--_Workington News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRAGEDY OF A DUTIFUL WIFE.
+
+[Illustration: "I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY
+WOMAN--WHAT?" "ISN'T SHE A LITTLE--ER--"
+
+"NOT A BIT OF IT. A WOMAN OUGHT TO BE CHEERY, ESPECIALLY IN THESE TIMES."
+"I SEE, DEAR."]
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT ON EARTH--?"
+
+"I'M MAKING A NEW HAT, DEAR. I SAW MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON WEARING ONE
+VERY LIKE THIS."]
+
+[Illustration: "GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO BITS
+FOR?"
+
+"IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAR. MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON HAS ONE QUITE AS SHORT AS
+THIS."]
+
+[Illustration: "GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?"
+
+"MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON ALWAYS MAKES UP A LITTLE WHEN SHE'S GOING OUT.
+OH--I FORGOT TO TELL YOU--I HAVEN'T ORDERED ANY DINNER, AS I THOUGHT WE
+MIGHT GO AND DINE AT A RESTAURANT."]
+
+[Illustration: "AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?"
+
+"BUT I THOUGHT YOU LIKED CHEERY PEOPLE LIKE MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON."]
+
+[Illustration: "I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED SMOKING.
+I EXPECT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON--"
+
+"D---- MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON!"
+
+"VERY WELL, DEAR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE PINCH OF WAR.
+
+_Lady of the House_ (_War Profiteer's wife, forlornly_). "THEY'VE JUST
+TAKEN OUR THIRD FOOTMAN; AND IF ANY MORE OF OUR MEN HAVE TO GO WE SHALL
+CLOSE THE HOUSE AND LIVE AT THE RITZ UNTIL THE WAR IS
+OVER--(_brightly_)--HOWEVER, WE MUST ALL SACRIFICE SOMETHING."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OVER-WEIGHT.
+
+_Scene: A London Terminus_.
+
+_Porter_ (_with an air of finality_). It weighs 'undred-and-four pounds.
+You can't take it, mum.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. Oh, I must take it.
+
+[_Porter is obliged by an irritation of the head to remove his cap, but
+does not speak._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. It's all right. I know the manager of the line, and he
+would pass it for me.
+
+_Her Friend_. Isn't your friend manager of the Great Southern?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_sharply_). He has a great deal to do with all these
+railways now. (_To Porter, hopefully, but not very confidently_) That will
+be all right.
+
+_Porter_. Very sorry, mum. It can't be done.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. My friend the manager would be very much annoyed at my
+being stopped like this. Only four pounds, too. Why, it's nothing.
+
+[_Porter removes his cap again on account of further irritation._
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_to her Friend_). I  don't know what I'm to do. (_To
+Porter_)  What am I to do?
+
+_Porter_ (_deliberately_). You must open it and take somethink out.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. I can't open it here.
+
+_Porter_ (_ignoring this_). Somethink weighing a bit over four pounds.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. But I can't do it here.
+
+_Porter_ (_ignoring this_). Pair o' boots or somethink.
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_to her Friend_). He seems to think my boots weigh four
+pounds.
+
+_Her Friend_. Haven't you got two pairs?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_sourly_). Yes, but two pairs of my boots wouldn't weigh
+four pounds.
+
+_Porter_ (who has been quietly undoing the straps_). Is it locked, mum?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_producing key and almost in tears_). It's too bad.
+
+[_She dives into box and extracts two pairs of boots wrapped in
+newspapers._
+
+_Porter_ (_taking them and weighing them judiciously in his hands_). That's
+all right, mum.
+
+[_He pushes box on to weighing machine which registers under 100 lbs._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. They're very thick boots, of course. Whatever am I to do
+with them now?
+
+_Her Friend_. We shall have to carry them. [_Takes one parcel._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. Jane shall hear of this. I told her never to use
+newspaper for packing.
+
+_Her Friend_ (_suddenly_). There's Major Merriman.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. So it is. Don't let him see us with these dreadful
+parcels. (_Angrily_) Why don't you turn round? He'll see you.
+
+_Major Merriman_. How do you do?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_in great surprise_).  Oh, how do you do, Major Merriman?
+We've been having such an amusing experience, etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What made Lord Devonport Dizzy.
+
+    "The following resolution was unanimously passed, and ordered to be
+    sent to the Prime Minister and the Food Controller (Lord
+    Beaconsfield)."--_The Western Gazette_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lamp-posts and trees and other pedestrians were found with unpleasant
+    and sometimes violent frequency."--_Beckenham Journal_.
+
+That's the worst of a fog; landmarks will keep on walking about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_À propos_ of the TSAR'S manifesto:--
+
+    "The _Retch_, says: 'The order puts the dot on all the
+    "t's."'"--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+It is a far, far better thing to dot your "t's" than cross your "i's."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DAWN OF DOUBT.
+
+GRETCHEN. "I WONDER IF THIS GENTLEMAN REALLY IS MY GOOD ANGEL AFTER ALL!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Benevolent Gentleman_. "YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY MAN, OR YOU
+WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.
+
+(SECOND SERIES.)
+
+XV.--THE TOWER.
+
+  They put a Lady in the Tower,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Lady in the Tower
+  And told her she was in their power
+  And left her there for half-an-hour,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Padlock on the Chain,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Padlock on the Chain,
+  But they left the Key in the South of Spain,
+  So the Lady took it off again,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Bulldog at the Door,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Bulldog at the Door,
+  He was so old he could only snore,
+  And he'd lost his Tooth the day before,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Beefeater at the Gate,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Beefeater at the Gate,
+  But as his age was eighty-eight
+  His Grandmother said he couldn't wait,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Prince to watch the Stair,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Prince to watch the Stair,
+  But he had a Golden Ring to spare,
+  So he married the Lady then and there,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  And ever since that grievous hour,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  Ever since that grievous hour
+  When the lovely Lady was in their power
+  They've never put nobody in the Tower,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Flattery from the Front.
+
+    "I got your parcel quite undamaged, and it came at a time when we were
+    short of grub. I could have eaten a dead monkey, so your cake came in
+    very useful."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Major-General (Temporary General) Sir Hugh de la Poer Bough, K.C.B.,
+    whose name appears in the New Year list of honours as being promoted to
+    the rank of lieutenant-general, is a second cousin of Major-General
+    Hugh Sutlej Kough."--_Liverpool Echo_.
+
+It is rumoured that he is also connected with that famous fighting family
+the GOUGHS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A POSTSCRIPT.
+
+(_Suggested by a later list of L. & N.W.R.
+stations which have been closed._)
+
+  A further list of closured stations
+  Elicits further protestations.
+  Blank desolation, grim and stark,
+  Broods sadly o'er Carpenders Park,
+  And Friezland, as perhaps is meet,
+  Is suffering badly from cold feet.
+  The population of Rhosneigr
+  Is raging like a wounded tiger;
+  And those who used to book at Llong
+  Are using language, loud and strong,
+  While residents around Chalk Farm
+  Are filled with anguish and alarm.
+
+  N.B. In our anterior lay
+  One letter somehow went astray;
+  We therefore now apologise;
+  'Tis Aspley, and not Apsley, Guise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an article on "Greece and Belgium":--
+
+    "King Tino has a black record of blood and treachery to answer, and to
+    compare his case with that of King Leopold is the blackest outrage of
+    all."--_Star_.
+
+Personally we think that it were blacker still to compare his case with
+that of KING ALBERT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT AWAY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LITTLE RIFT.
+
+My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We are like the
+Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always "arrive at a complete
+understanding" in all matters of policy. When strict economy was enjoined
+upon us I moved my desk into the dining-room to save a fire. She made a
+summer hat out of a bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an
+evening gown. All was well.
+
+I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I were to suggest
+that there was the slightest difference of opinion between us. I most
+solemnly declare that I am as good a patriot as she is. Still, as time goes
+on, I do feel a certain uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element
+that needs watching.
+
+We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She asks me to take
+two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the dog and the laundry-hamper
+along with me in the two-seater to the station, to save petrol. Well, I am
+willing. She fills the herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and
+carnations. Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
+say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of these things.
+
+Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I should say that
+here she has advantages over some, as I belong to the class of husband
+known as Easily Fed. She has got hold of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the
+War Office or somewhere--"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
+"How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and we feed on
+those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and yet I am well aware that
+rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in such forms as not to leave a single
+clue. I cannot tell you how I admire and approve. Still it makes me
+thoughtful sometimes.
+
+No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together by sharing these
+hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I don't feel easy about it. We are
+quite in sympathy, but there is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I
+affirm, is the nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am
+convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that she does it on
+purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea what I mean. I sometimes
+wonder wistfully if the hand that put that ugly new steel contraption at
+the back of the fire to save the coal is really the hand that I wooed and
+won ten years ago. I see in her the steady growth of an implacable
+conscience. In moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she
+always wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance till
+now.
+
+We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at all hard up
+and we had no compunctions about spending money. But now--I wonder how
+long the War will last? What I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I
+am already guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are
+going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them, but she
+isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The garden is to be
+reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the house. We are going to travel
+first, and I am not sure that we shan't have a new cook. And we are to have
+an Airedale and an Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama.
+
+As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only want to have
+something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever get back to the _status
+quo ante_ I will not ask for annexations.
+
+Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her latest
+suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit with benzine (I
+don't like the smell of it) instead of getting a new one. Only I live in a
+growing fear that the day when peace is signed in Europe will be the signal
+for an outbreak of a new form of warfare in our happy home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mistress_ (_from upper window_). "WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING
+OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?"
+
+_Romantic Maid_. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE OWLS, MA'AM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WHAT DID MR. ASQUITH DO?
+
+A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal meeting by
+asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr. GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or
+whatever year it was. Nobody knew, and neither did the inquirer himself,
+but uproar followed and his end was achieved. Now had the question run,
+"What did Mr. GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE,
+apart from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two priceless
+things, as I will show.
+
+Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last number was so
+unhappy about the deterioration that has come upon taxi-drivers, I left
+England only in October last, I find it a changed place; but no change, not
+even the iniquitous prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the
+increased darkness, or the queer division of _hors d'oeuvres_ into
+half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to the pathetic
+query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of course")--no change is so
+striking as the fact that when a paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or
+the PREMIER, it means no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux
+and mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a pyramid, a
+pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to alteration.
+
+Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad it is that he
+has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always reserved and intent, he
+discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the
+key on the Tenth Muse. Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board
+in Downing Street, but interviewers had no chance. In vain did the Quexes
+of this frivolous city hope for even a crumb--there was nothing for them.
+Mr. ASQUITH came into office, held it, and left it without a single
+concession to Demos's love of personalia. He did not even wear comic
+collars or white hats or a single eyeglass or any other grotesquely
+significant thing; and how much poorer are we in consequence and how much
+poorer will posterity be!
+
+Contrast the case of Mr. GLADSTONE, from whom anyone could draw a postcard
+and most people a chip of some recently-felled tree, and who is in my mind
+wonderful and supreme by reason of two inventions which, though no one
+would ever guess them to be the result of a Prime Minister's cogitations,
+deserve the widest fame. Of these one was the product of his unaided
+genius; the other the result of the collaboration with his wife.
+
+Let us begin with the individual triumph.
+
+Everyone who has ever stayed under anyone else's roof, from a
+dine-and-sleep at Windsor Castle to a week in lovely Lucerne, has been
+confronted, when packing-up time arrived, with the problem of the sponge.
+No matter how muscular the fingers that wring this article, no matter how
+thick and costly the rubbered receptacle that holds it, there is always the
+chance of dampness communicating itself to other things in the bag. Isn't
+there?
+
+How so to squeeze the sponge as to drive out the last drop of moisture was
+the problem before the massive intellect of the Grand Old Man. Need I say
+that he solved it? His method, as he himself in his unselfish way, told one
+of the diarists, possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E.
+RUSSELL--I forget whom--was to wrap up the sponge in a bath-towel and jump
+on it. Here, for the historical painter, is a theme indeed--something worth
+all the ordinary dull occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat
+staid brush: the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the
+author of _The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture_, leaping upon the
+bath-towel that held his sponge. But no historical painter could do justice
+to such a scene. It needs the movies.
+
+Those of us then who dry our sponges in this way--and I am a fervent
+devotee--owe the inventor a meed of praise. And equally those of us who put
+into our hot water bottles at night hot tea instead of hot water (as I
+never have done and never mean to do), so that, waking in the small hours,
+we may yet not be without refreshment, owe a meed of praise to the same
+inspired innovator, for, if the chroniclers are correct, it was Mrs.
+GLADSTONE'S habit to retire to rest with a bottle thus nutritiously filled,
+which would be ready for her great man on his return from the House weary
+and athirst.
+
+Here we see the difference between Liberal Premiers. For what has Mr.
+ASQUITH done towards the solution of domestic problems? Who can name a
+thing? Has he devised a collar stud that cannot be lost? Has he hit upon a
+way instantly to stop a shaving cut from bleeding? Has he contrived a taxi
+window that will open when shut or shut when open? No. In all these years
+he has spared no time for any inventions.
+
+No wonder then that he was found wanting and forced to resign.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A Scot among the Cynics.
+
+    "The railway fares are being raised, we are told, to stop pleasure
+    travelling, but it can hardly be imagined that a munition worker going
+    home to spend his week-end with his family is bent on pleasure."--
+    _Glasgow Evening News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Beautiful set of civic cat; very large stole and muff; accept
+    £12."--_The Lady_.
+
+As DICK WHITTINGTON'S mascot is the only civic cat known to history we
+think the relic should be secured for the Guildhall Museum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Simply as a citizen and as a non-party man, I want to say that Mr.
+    Asquith has my affection and respect--and that is the highest guerdon
+    that any statesman can have."--_Extract from Letter in Yorkshire
+    Paper_.
+
+We know now why Mr. ASQUITH refused a peerage. He did not want to vex his
+modest admirer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At Caxton Hall the conference was resumed of municipal authorities
+    interested in the conversation of old fruit, sardine and salmon
+    tins."--_Birmingham Daily Mail_.
+
+We ourselves always listen with pleasure to their talk. It has at once a
+fruity and a fishy flavour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Gentleman_ (_In favour of national work for everyone_).
+"AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING
+BEFORE THE WAR?"
+
+_New Assistant_ (_his first operation_). "EXACTLY, SIR. ALL THE SAME, IF
+ANYBODY HAD TOLD ME TWO DAYS AGO THAT I SHOULD NOW BE CUTTING THE HAIR OF A
+COMPLETE STRANGER, I'D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED 'IM."]
+
+WARS OF THE PAST.
+
+(_As recorded in the Press of the period._)
+
+VI.
+
+_From "The Athens Advertiser and Piræus Post_."
+
+MACEDONIA'S ARMY.
+
+THE FAMOUS PHALANX.
+
+ (_By our Military Expert_.)
+
+The Macedonian Army has recently undergone an entire reconstruction at the
+hands of KING PHILIP. It is now organised on a national and territorial
+basis and is divided into infantry and cavalry. The cavalry predominates
+and is therefore the stronger arm. The unit of cavalry is the squadron, of
+infantry the battalion. (It is of the utmost interest to note that there
+are two battalions in a regiment, each about fifteen hundred strong).
+
+KING PHILIP, it will be remembered, received his military education in the
+school of EPAMINONDAS, who, as is well known, revolutionised the Higher
+Thought of every Higher Command by the discovery and application of a
+single tactical fact--namely, that the chances of A being able to give B a
+stronger push than B can give him are _in direct ratio to the numerical
+superiority of A over B_. It follows, then, that, faced with a sufficient
+superiority, B _must_ retire, and _the initiative then rests with the side
+that possesses it_.
+
+In pursuance of this tactical ideal EPAMINONDAS argued that the old method
+of winning battles, which was that A should exercise superior force against
+every point of B's line (or body), required that A should be bigger than B,
+buskin for buskin and brisket for brisket. But since it is sufficient,
+while "refusing" the rest of one's own body (or line), to bring an
+overwhelming force to bear on the point of a person's jaw, in order to
+discomfit him, so in a battle a numerically inferior A, by concentrating on
+a vital point of numerically superior B, can gain a local numerical
+superiority which will enable him to rout B utterly. (This is always
+supposing that B is not doing the same thing himself on the other wing, in
+which case each army would miss the other altogether--a condition of things
+into which the military art does not care to follow them).
+
+Hence the phalanx or "preponderating mass formation." The Macedonian
+development of this depends (to reduce the matter to the simple algebraical
+formula to which all military problems are susceptible) on the fact that if
+_x_ equals the greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of
+stability to the _n_th rank equals the phalanx, then the rooted square of
+stability to the _n_th rank equals _x_ minus the tangential curve of
+velocity of mobility. This should be plain even to the amateur student of
+tactics. Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this cardinal
+doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of cavalry, PHILIP has
+given to this, the mobile arm, much of the striking power of the original
+phalanx. This is now placed in the centre, its business being mainly to
+force a salient in the enemy's line, the two resultant enclaves of which
+can then be shattered (at their re-entrants) by the cavalry squadrons,
+hurled forward on both phalanks. It should be noted, as a brilliant example
+of PHILIP'S staff work, that in the Macedonian Army, for the avoidance of
+confusion in the field, "phalanks" is now spelt "flanks."
+
+To the intelligent student who has followed me thus far in these articles
+it should not be necessary to explain again the terms "enclave," "salient,"
+and "re-entrant." "Tactical" is a term used when one is not using the term
+"strategical," and _vice versâ_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In the words of Bacon, it should be 'read, marked, learned and
+    inwardly digested.'"--_Financial Paper_.
+
+Our gay contemporary does not tell us whether it was before or after
+completing the works usually attributed to SHAKSPEARE that BACON compiled
+the Book of Common Prayer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE FLAPPER.
+
+[Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, in the January _Nineteenth Century_, in his article
+on "Ordeal by Fire," after denouncing idlers and loafers and shirkers,
+falls foul "above all" of the young girls called flappers, "with high
+heels, skirts up to their knees and blouses open to the diaphragm, painted,
+powdered, self-conscious, ogling: 'Allus adallacked and dizened oot and a
+'unting arter the men.'"]
+
+  Good Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, who lends lustre to a name
+  Which DRYDEN in his satires oft endeavoured to defame,
+  Has lately been discussing in a high-class magazine
+  The trials that confront us in the year Nineteen Seventeen.
+
+  He is not a smooth-tongued prophet; no, he takes a serious view;
+  We must make tremendous efforts if we're going to win through;
+  And though he's not unhopeful of the issue of the fray
+  He finds abundant causes for misgiving and dismay.
+
+  Our optimistic journals his exasperation fire,
+  And the idlers and the loafers stimulate his righteous ire;
+  But it is the flapper chiefly that in his gizzard sticks,
+  And he's down upon her failings like a waggon-load of bricks.
+
+  She's ubiquitous in theatres, in rail and 'bus and tram,
+  She wears her "blouses open down to the diaphragm,"
+  And, instead of realising what our men are fighting for,
+  She's an orgiastic nuisance who in fact _enjoys_ the War.
+
+  It's a strenuous indictment of our petticoated youth
+  And contains a large substratum of unpalatable truth;
+  Our women have been splendid, but the Sun himself has specks,
+  And the flapper can't be reckoned as a credit to her sex.
+
+  Still it needs to be remembered, to extenuate her crimes,
+  That these flappers have not always had the very best of times;
+  And the life that now she's leading, with no Mentors to restrain,
+  Is decidedly unhinging to an undeveloped brain.
+
+  Then again we only see her when she's out for play or meals,
+  And distresses the fastidious by her gestures and her squeals,
+  But she is not always idle or a decorative drone,
+  And if she wastes her wages, well, she wastes what is her own.
+
+  Still to say that she's heroic, as some scribes of late have said,
+  Is unkind as well as foolish, for it only swells her head;
+  She oughtn't to be flattered, she requires to be repressed,
+  Or she'll grow into a portent and a peril and a pest.
+
+  Dr. SHADWELL to the PREMIER makes an eloquent appeal
+  In firm and drastic fashion with this element to deal;
+  And 'twould be a real feather in our gifted Cambrian's cap
+  If he taught the peccant flapper less flamboyantly to flap.
+
+  But, in _Punch's_ way of thinking, 'tis for women, kind and wise,
+  These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize,
+  Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate,
+  And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant of the State.
+
+  She's young; her eyes are dazzled by the glamour of the streets;
+  She has to learn that life is not all cinemas and sweets;
+  But given wholesome guidance she may rise to self-control
+  And earn the right of entry on the Nation's golden Roll.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ONLY STEGGLES.
+
+Steggles is my groom, and my crowning mercy. But for his deafness I am sure
+he would long since have left the humble rank of gunner far beneath him,
+and the Staff might have gained a brilliant strategist. In addition to
+dulness of hearing, Steggles is endowed--I should indeed be ungrateful to
+use the word afflicted--with a vacuity of expression which puts rivals or
+antagonists off their guard, and doubles his value during the vicissitudes
+of active service. What would be handicaps to ordinary men Steggles turns
+to the advantage of himself, Sapphira my mare, and me.
+
+When on the march the Battery arrives at the morass allotted to it for
+horse lines, I know that all will be well with the mud-bespattered
+Sapphira. Steggles leaps from the waggon whereon, in company with one of
+the cooks, he tours the pleasant land of France, and receives the mare.
+With his toes strangely pointed out, he leads her away from the scene of
+labour and language, disappearing amidst the hovels of the adjacent
+village. Often I never see him or obtain news of him till next morning,
+when he produces Sapphira polished like a silk hat and every scrap of metal
+about her sparkling. Occasionally I have tracked him to the shelter where
+he secretes and waits upon Sapphira, always to find that he has discovered
+and occupied the best stable in the village. The grooms of my
+brother-officers never learn that Steggles' vacuous expression is the
+disguise of an intellect subtle, discriminating and alert, so they never
+trouble to endeavour to forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find
+Steggles, as he always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on
+him if she wanted anything during the night.
+
+From time to time he chooses the occasion of a night's halt on the march to
+indulge in a bilious attack; but he has no other vice except an inveterate
+reluctance to leave off polishing my boots when I mount. No matter how
+Sapphira may prance and back and sidle, he follows her round and round with
+a remnant of a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the stirrup. It is
+quite useless to bellow, "That will do, Steggles!"--his ideal is the
+unattainable perfection, and he persists. I have to escape by giving
+Sapphira the spur at the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or be late
+in turning out.
+
+He never gives anything, even his own performances, unqualified praise; in
+fact it is extremely hard to win from him any encomium higher than "It's
+not too bad." Perhaps there is Scotch blood in his veins.
+
+I very much want to recommend him for some decoration, but the organization
+likely to appreciate the most gallant of his deeds has not yet been
+formed--the S.P.G.P., or Society for the Preservation of Government
+Property.
+
+Steggles was once riding behind me down a valley liberally dimpled with
+shell-holes, further dimples being in process of formation as we rode. I
+was returning from an O Pip, or Observation Post, and Steggles was carrying
+a pair of my boots with a rolled puttee stuffed into each. Suddenly I was
+aware that he had wheeled his horse about, and was trotting back towards
+the most dimply area of the valley. Out of regard for his family, I
+cantered after him. He broke into a gallop. When, after a thrilling ride, I
+caught him and had a little talk amongst the dimples, it appeared that he
+had dropped one of the puttees, and wished to return and look for it. This
+incident will, I think, demonstrate the exceptional character of the man,
+who did not appear to regard himself as a hero, or to pose as a desperate
+_farceur_, or to aspire to the post of Q.M.S., though, incredible as it may
+seem, the puttee in question was of the variety G.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Orderly Officer_. "WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE ME?"
+
+_Latest called-up Recruit_. "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE COMING."
+
+_Orderly Officer_. "WHAT DID THE CORPORAL SAY WHEN HE POSTED YOU?"
+
+_Recruit_. "I WOULDN'T LIKE TO REPEAT IT TO AN OFFICER, SIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
+
+To those who would learn what soldiering is like in the armies of
+democratic France I would heartily commend two books recently published by
+Messrs. ALLEN AND UNWIN, _Battles and Bivouacs_, by JACQUES ROUJON, and
+_The Diary of a French Private_, by GASTON RIOU. M. ROUJON, infantryman of
+the line, was in private life a journalist on _Le Figaro_; M. RIOU, Red
+Cross orderly, a liberal lay-theologian and writer of European reputation.
+The former's transliterator ("Munitions are distributed around," writes he
+undismayed; and has also discovered a territory known as "Oriental
+Prussia") obtrudes a little between author and reader. M. RIOU fares
+better; but both contrive to give a really vivid impression of the horrors
+and anxieties of the early days of the War before the tide turned at the
+Marne, of the flying rumours so far from the actual truth, of the fine
+spirit of _camaraderie_ in common danger, of the intimate relations between
+officers and men, details, terrible or trivial, of campaigning, and,
+because our spirited brothers-in-arms are not ashamed to express their
+innermost feelings, of the deeper emotions at work under the surface
+gaieties. M. RIOU'S narrative is mainly the record of his year's captivity
+in a Bavarian fort. On his way he faced the fanatical hatred and cruelty of
+the German civilians, of the women especially, with a cynical fortitude.
+The commandant of his prison, Baron von STENGEL, was, however, a gentleman
+and a brick, and did everything in his power to make the difficult life
+bearable. An episode pleasant to recall is the reception of the Russian
+prisoners (intended by their captors to cause dissensions) by their French
+comrades in misfortune. The whole record gives an impression of fine
+courage and resourcefulness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very probably you are already acquainted with that restful and admirable
+book, _Father Payne_ (SMITH, ELDER), of which a new edition has just now
+been published. The point of this new edition is that, in its special
+Preface, the genesis and authorship of the book are assigned, for the first
+time on this side the Atlantic, to Mr. A.C. BENSON. And the point of the
+new preface is that it entirely gives away the original edition (also
+printed here), in which the secret was elaborately concealed. My wonder is,
+reading the book with this added knowledge, that anyone can have at any
+time failed to detect in it the gently persuasive hand of the Master of
+Magdalene, Cambridge. You remember, no doubt, how _Father Payne_ (a
+courtesy title), having had a small estate left to him, proceeded to turn
+it into the home of a secular community for young men desirous of pursuing
+the literary gift, and how he financed, encouraged and generally supervised
+them. Leisure, an exquisite setting, and the society of enthusiastic and
+personally-selected youth--one might call the book perhaps a Tutor's Dream
+of the Millennium. Anyhow, _Father Payne_, as shown in this volume, which
+is practically a record of his table-talk upon a great variety of themes,
+is exactly the gentle, shrewd and idealistic philosopher whom (knowing his
+parentage) one would expect. Bensonians (of the A.C. pattern) will
+certainly be glad to have what must surely have been their suspicions
+confirmed, and to admit _Father Payne_ to the shelves of authenticity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss DOROTHEA CONYERS has long ere this established herself as a specialist
+of repute in Irish sporting tales. You will need but one look at the
+picture wrapper of _The Financing of Fiona_ (ALLEN) to see that a
+repetition of the same agreeable mixture awaits you within. _Fiona_ was a
+charming young woman (Irish, of course) with a rich uncle and a poor, very
+unattractive cousin, who loved her for her expectations. As _Fiona_ had no
+conception about money beyond the spending of it, the uncle made a will,
+whose object was that she should have plenty. The suitor, however, knowing
+of this, and being a naughty, rather improbable person, destroyed part of
+it, with the result that _Fiona_ was apparently left only the ancestral
+home and no cash to keep it up. So she was forced to take in gentleman
+boarders for the hunting, and (for propriety's sake) to invent a mythical
+chaperon, who lived above stairs. And, after all, she needn't have done any
+such thing, because the rich uncle, in leaving her all the contents of the
+mansion, had foolishly forgotten to mention a secret drawer full of
+Canadian securities. As for the villain, I really hardly dare tell you the
+impossibly silly way in which he allowed himself to be caught out. But of
+course all this melodrama is not what matters. The important thing about
+Miss CONYERS' people is that (whatever their private worries) a-hunting
+they will go; and _Fiona_, financed by her paying guests, shows in this
+respect as capital sport as any of her predecessors. For the rest, I can
+hardly say with honesty that the story is equal to its author's best form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I like particularly about Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN is the friendly way in
+which he contrives to make his readers and himself into a family party. "We
+must," he writes at the beginning of a chapter in _Cinderella of Skookum
+Greek_ (NASH), "get a move on with the story, in case you become more tired
+of Archer's compound fracture than he was himself." This is by no means the
+only occasion on which he shows his thoughtfulness for us, and I think it
+very kind and nice of him. At the same time I will ungraciously admit that
+the weak point of his story is that it does not move quite fast enough.
+Admirable artist in psychology and atmosphere, his plot, if you can call it
+a plot, is very slight. _Cyrus Archer_, the young American of the compound
+fracture (who had my sympathy from the start because he could never
+remember dates), goes out into the back of beyond for a spell before
+settling down to married life and a place in his father's business, and at
+Skookum Creek, where he grows tomatoes and studies Indians, he meets his
+_Cinderella_, with the result that his life has to be completely
+rearranged. A commonplace tale, but there is a rare and distinct flavour
+about the telling of it. Mr. NIVEN'S manner has indeed a very particular
+charm, over which one would take an even keener pleasure in lingering if
+only he himself lingered a little less over his story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hardly think that Madame ALBANESI has chosen quite the most appropriate
+name for the story that she calls _Hearts and Sweethearts_ (HUTCHINSON).
+Personally, I fancy that _Suits and Lawsuits_ would have come nearer the
+mark; because, though there is a certain proportion of love-making in the
+tale, there is considerably more about going to law. One difficulty with
+which I fancy the writer had to contend is due to the fact that her hero
+and heroine are (in a sense) the opposing protagonists in a case of
+disputed succession; _Jemima Frant_ being engaged in the attempt to turn
+out _Sir John Norminster_ from his estates and establish the claim to them
+of her dead sister's child. Naturally, therefore, till this is settled
+their opportunities for the tender passion are, to put it very gently,
+restricted. But of course--well, a novel with such a title is hardly likely
+to leave anybody of importance unmarried at the final page. Before this is
+turned, you have some pleasant comedy of London in war-time, and meet a
+number of agreeably sketched persons, whose conversation may amuse you, or,
+on the other hand, may cause you to wish them a little less discursive.
+Madame ALBANESI indeed impressed me as having occasionally turned her
+subordinate characters loose into a chapter, with instructions to fill it
+up anyhow, while she herself thought out the next move. But the law was
+always leisurely, so this characteristic might perhaps be expected in a
+story so much concerned with it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Mother_ (_overhauling little Tommy's wardrobe_). "OH,
+CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS
+POCKET! A REAL CARTRIDGE WITH A BULLET IN IT. HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO
+BITS!"
+
+_The Father_ (_with a glowing consciousness of assisting his country at a
+critical time_). "JUST PUT IT IN A COOL PLACE FOR TO-NIGHT, MY DEAR, AND I
+WILL LEAVE IT AT THE WAR OFFICE TO-MORROW ON MY WAY TO BUSINESS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Handel in War-Time.
+
+    "The anthem 'O Thou that tillest' (Messiah), will be
+    rendered."--_Dublin Evening Mail_.
+
+No pains are being spared to promote agriculture in Ireland.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The river in many places has overflown its banks."--
+    _Henley Newspaper_.
+
+Even Father Thames cannot resist the modern mania for aviation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Extract from a review of Dr. JOHN FITZPATRICK'S "_This Realm, This
+England_":--
+
+    "From a Scotsman, we deprecate the definition of 'This Realm' as
+    'England,' and would suggest to the learned doctor that he would have
+    done nothing derogatory to himself, even in the eyes of Englishmen, if
+    he had used the really correct and comprehensive name Britain."--_Scots
+    Pictorial_.
+
+SHAKSPEARE (ghost of), please note.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+152, JANUARY 10, 1917***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 14135-8.txt or 14135-8.zip *******
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917, by Various</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152,
+January 10, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917</p>
+<p>Author: Various</p>
+<p>Release Date: November 23, 2004  [eBook #14135]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 152, JANUARY 10, 1917***</p>
+<br /><br /><h4>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram<br />
+                and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h4><br /><br />
+<hr class="full" />
+    <h1>PUNCH,<br />
+     OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.</h1>
+
+    <h2>Vol. 152.</h2>
+    <hr class="full" />
+
+    <h2>January 10th, 1917.</h2>
+    <hr class="full" />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"
+       id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span>
+
+    <h2>CHARIVARIA.</h2>
+
+    <p>The effect of the curtailed train-service throughout the
+    country is already observable. On certain sections of one of
+    our Southern lines there are no trains running except those
+    which started prior to January 1st.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>The new Treasury Notes, we are told, are to have a picture
+    of the House of Commons on the back. It is hoped that other
+    places of amusement, such as the Crystal Palace and the
+    Imperial Institute, will be represented on subsequent
+    issues.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is announced from Germany that arrangements have been
+    made whereby criminals are to be enrolled in the army. They
+    have, of course, already conducted many of its operations.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>According to <i>The Daily Chronicle</i> there are only
+    twenty-three full Generals in the British Army&mdash;a total
+    identical with that of the late Cabinet. It is only fair to the
+    army to state that the number is purely a coincidence.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p class="center">"THE RISE IN BOOT PRICES<br />
+     WOMEN'S LARGE PURCHASES."</p>
+
+    <p>The above headlines in a contemporary have caused a good
+    deal of natural jealousy among members of the Force.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"At them and through them!" says the <i>Hamburger
+    Fremdenblatt</i> in a seasonable message to the commander of
+    the Turkish Navy. This will not deceive the Turk, who is
+    beginning to realise that, while the invitation to go <i>at</i>
+    the enemy is sincere, any opportunities of "going
+    <i>through</i>" him will be exclusively grasped by his Teutonic
+    ally.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Prince BUELOW has again arrived in Switzerland. It is these
+    bold and dramatic strokes that lift the German diplomat above
+    the ranks of the commonplace.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is explained by a railway official that a passenger who
+    pays threepence for a ticket to-day is really only giving the
+    company twopence, the rest being water, owing to the decline in
+    the purchasing power of money. A movement is now on foot among
+    some of the regular passengers to endeavour to persuade the
+    companies to consent to take their fares neat for the
+    future.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>At his Coronation the Emperor KARL OF AUSTRIA waved the
+    sword of ST. STEPHEN towards the four corners of the earth, to
+    indicate his intention to protect his empire against all its
+    foes. The incident has been receiving the earnest consideration
+    of the KAISER, who has now finally decided that in the
+    circumstances it is not necessary to regard it as an unfriendly
+    act.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It was felt that the ceremonies connected with the
+    Coronation ought to be curtailed out of regard for the
+    sufferings due to the War. So they dispensed with the customary
+    distribution of bread to the poor.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Lecturing to a juvenile audience Professor ARTHUR KEITH said
+    that there was no difference between detectives and scientists,
+    and some of the older boys are still wondering whether he was
+    trying to popularise science or to discredit detective
+    stories.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Germans cannot now obtain footwear, it is reported, without
+    a permit card. Nevertheless we know a number of them who are
+    assured of getting the boot without any troublesome
+    formalities.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Burglars have stolen eighteen ducks from the estate of
+    BETHMANN-HOLLWEG. It will be interesting to note how their
+    defence&mdash;that "Necessity knows no law"&mdash;is received
+    by the distinguished advocate of the invasion of Belgium.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>"Taxicab drivers must expect a very low standard of
+    intoxication to apply to them," said the Lambeth magistrate
+    last week. On the other hand the police should be careful not
+    to misinterpret the air of light-hearted devilry that endeared
+    the "growler" to the hearts of an older generation.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>It is stated that &pound;2,250,000 has been sent by Germany
+    into Switzerland to raise the exchanges. A much larger sum,
+    according to Mr. PUTNAM, was sent into the United States merely
+    to raise the wind.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Referring to the Highland regiments a <i>Globe</i> writer
+    says, "The streets of London will reel with the music of the
+    pipes when they come back." This is one of those obstacles to
+    peace that has been overlooked by the KAISER.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:60%;">
+        <a href="images/17.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/17s.png"
+             alt="PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON GUARD DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON
+        GUARD DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF WHEN THE COLONEL
+        APPEARS ACCOMPANIED BY HIS DAUGHTER.</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"
+       id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span>
+
+    <h2>VIENNA-BOUND: A REVERIE EN ROUTE.</h2>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        [A Wireless Press telegram says: "The German Imperial train
+        has reached Constantinople in order to transport the Sultan
+        to Vienna, to take part in the conference of Sovereigns to
+        be held there."]
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I hate all trains and told them so;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I said that I should much prefer</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">(Being, as Allah knows, no traveller)</p>
+
+            <p>To stick to Stamboul and the <i>status quo</i>.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They said, "If you would rather walk,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Pray do so; it will save the fare;"</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Which shows that WILLIAM (who will take
+            the Chair)</p>
+
+            <p>Insists that I shall come and hear him talk.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I've never tried a train before;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">It makes me sick; it knocks my
+            nerves;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The noises and the tunnels and the
+            curves</p>
+
+            <p>Add a new horror to the woes of war.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>What am I here for, anyhow?</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">I'm summoned for appearance' sake,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To nod approval at the Chief, but
+            take</p>
+
+            <p>No further part in his one-man pow-wow.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>My job is just to sit, it seems,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And act the silent super's
+            <i>r&ocirc;le</i>,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">The while I wish myself, with all my
+            soul,</p>
+
+            <p>Safe back in one or more of my hareems.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>I'd let the Conference go hang;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Any who likes can have my pew</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And play at peace-talk with this pirate
+            crew,</p>
+
+            <p>WILLIAM and KARL and FERDIE&mdash;what a gang!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Our Chairman wants to save his skin</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And (curse this train!) to cook a
+            plan</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">For Germany to pouch what spoils she
+            can&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>All very nice; but where do I come in?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>At best I'm but the missing link</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Upon his Berlin-Baghdad line;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">This is the senior partner's show, not
+            mine;</p>
+
+            <p>Will he consult my feelings? I don't think.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>If Russia's gain should mean my loss,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">He'll wince at Teuton schemes cut
+            short,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">But for my grief, expelled from my own
+            Porte,</p>
+
+            <p>Will he care greatly? Not one little toss.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Well, as I've said and said again,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">'Tis Fate (Kismet), and, should it
+            frown,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">We Faithful have to take it lying
+            down&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>And yet, by Allah, how I loathe this train!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="center">O. S.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "A subaltern friend of mine landed at Gibraltar for a few
+        hours, and he was anxious to be able to say that he had
+        been to Spain. So he walked along the Isthmus to Ceuta,
+        where the British and Spanish sentries faced one another,
+        and directly the Spanish soldier turned his head he hopped
+        quickly over into Spain. Then the sentry turned round, and
+        he hopped back again even more quickly."&mdash;<i>Daily
+        Sketch.</i>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Those of our readers who have walked from the Gibraltar
+    frontier to Morocco and back, like the above subaltern, know
+    that it takes some doing.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "JAMES PHILLIPS, 16, was charged with doing damage to the
+        extent of &pound;4 10s. at a refreshment shop in Hackney
+        belonging to Peter Persico. As he was kept waiting a little
+        time he broke a plate on the table; then he put a saucer
+        under his heel and broke it. When remonstrated with he
+        broke 10 cups and saucers by throwing them at partitions
+        and enamelled decorations, and overturned a marble table,
+        the top of which he smashed."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i>
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>No doubt he was incited to these naughty deeds by the line,
+    very popular in Hackney circles, "Persico's odi, puer,
+    apparatus."</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.</h2>
+
+    <p class="center">(<i>The Emperor of AUSTRIA and Count
+    TISZA</i>.)</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. So there is the full account, your Majesty, of
+    men killed, wounded and captured.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. It is a gloomy list and I hardly can
+    bear to consider it.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Yes, and beyond the mere list of casualties by
+    fighting there are other matters to be considered. Food is
+    scarce and of a poor quality, in Hungary as elsewhere. The
+    armies we can yet feed, but the home-staying men and the women
+    and children are a growing difficulty. It becomes more and more
+    impossible to provide them with sufficient nourishment.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. It is strange, but in Austria the
+    conditions are said to be even worse.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. You are right, Sire, they are worse, much
+    worse.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. Well, we must lose no time then. We must
+    buy great stocks of food. More money must be spent.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. More money? But where is it to come from? Not
+    from Hungary, where we are within a narrow margin of financial
+    collapse, and not in Austria, where there is already to all
+    intents and purposes a state of bankruptcy. More money is not
+    to be got, for we have none ourselves and nobody will lend us
+    any.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. You paint the situation in dark colours,
+    my friend TISZA.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. I paint it as it is, Sire, at any rate as I
+    see it. It is not the part of a Royal Counsellor to act
+    otherwise.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. Yes, but there might be others who would
+    take a different view, and support their belief with equally
+    good reasons.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Not if they know the facts and are faithful to
+    their duty as Ministers of the State. Here and there, no doubt,
+    might be found foolish and ambitious men who would be willing
+    to deceive, first themselves and then their Emperor, as to the
+    true condition of affairs. But, if your Majesty trusted them
+    and allowed them to guide you, you would learn too late how ill
+    they had understood their duty. I myself, though determined to
+    do everything in my power to promote the welfare of Hungary and
+    its King, would willingly stand aside if you think that others
+    would give you greater strength.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. I have every reason to trust you most
+    fully. Have you any plan for extricating us from this dreadful
+    morass of failure and difficulty into which we are plunged?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Your Majesty, there is only one way. We must
+    have peace, and must have it as soon as possible.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor.</i> I too think we must have peace, but how
+    shall we obtain it when we have a friend and ally who watches
+    us with the closest care, and would not allow us even to hint
+    at any steps that would really lead to peace?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. Sire, you are a young man, but you are a scion
+    of a great and ancient House, which was powerful and
+    illustrious when the Hohenzollerns were but mean and petty
+    barbarian princelings. Withdraw yourself, while the opportunity
+    is still with you, from the fatal domination of this vain and
+    inflated upstart who endeavours to serve only his own selfish
+    designs. Our enemies will make peace with you, and thus he too
+    will be forced to abandon the War. With him and with the deeds
+    that have outraged the world they will not initiate any
+    movement that tends to peace. He must go through his
+    punishment, as indeed we all must, but his, I think, will be
+    heavier than ours.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. Then you want me to make peace?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. If it could be done by holding up your hand, I
+    would urge you to hold it up at once.</p>
+
+    <p><i>The Emperor</i>. And what would the world say?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Tisza</i>. The world would glorify your name.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"
+       id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter">
+        <a href="images/19.png"><img src="images/19s.png"
+             alt="A SHORT WAY WITH TINO." /></a>
+
+        <h3>A SHORT WAY WITH TINO.</h3>
+
+        <p>THE BIG GUN (<i>ringing up the Entente Exchange</i>).
+        "OH, YOU <i>ARE</i> THERE, ARE YOU? WELL, PUT ME ON TO
+        NUMBER ONE, ATHENS."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"
+       id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span>
+
+    <h2>A KNIGHT-ERRANT.</h2>
+
+    <p>Sister Baynes came into my room just as I was putting on my
+    out-door uniform and wanted to know how I was spending my two
+    hours off duty. She is full of curiosity about&mdash;she calls
+    it interest in&mdash;other people's affairs. When I told her I
+    was going out to buy a birthday present she looked rather
+    stern. Said she:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <p>"The giving of unnecessary presents has become a luxury
+    which few of us nowadays think it right to afford."</p>
+
+    <p>I didn't answer her because at the moment I could think of
+    no really adequate reason why Bobbie <i>should</i> have a
+    present, except that I so very much wanted to give him one.
+    Bobbie is tall and young and red-haired and, of course, khaki
+    clad. We are going to be married "when the War is over."</p>
+
+    <p>I pondered Sister Baynes' words until I reached Oxford
+    Street, and then forgot them in the interest of choosing the
+    present. For a while I hesitated between cigarettes and
+    chocolates, and finally decided on the latter. Bobbie is a
+    perfect pig about sweets. I bought a comfortable-looking box,
+    ornamented with a St. George, improbably attired in khaki,
+    slaying a delightful German dragon clad in blue and a Uhlan
+    helmet. St. George had red hair and a distinct look of Bobbie,
+    which was one reason why I got him.</p>
+
+    <p>This business accomplished, I thought I would call on a
+    friend who lives near by. She is middle-aged and rather sad,
+    and spends her time pushing trolleys about a munition works.
+    Just now, however, I knew she had a cold and couldn't go out. I
+    found her on the floor wrestling with brown paper, preparing a
+    parcel for her soldier on Salisbury Plain. She adopted him
+    through a League, and spends all her spare time and
+    pocket-money in socks and cigarettes for him. She smiled at me
+    wanly, with a piece of string between her teeth, and I felt I
+    simply must do something to cheer her up.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've brought you some chocolates for your cold," I said.
+    "Eat one and forget the War and the weather," and I handed her
+    Bobbie's box. Her necessity, as someone says somewhere, seemed
+    at the moment so much greater than his.</p>
+
+    <p>"You extravagant child!" she said, but her face lightened
+    for an instant. She admired St. George almost as much as I had
+    done, but, though she fingered the orange-coloured bow, she did
+    not untie it, so I concluded she meant to have an orgy by
+    herself later on. We talked for a while, and then I looked at
+    the clock and fled for the hospital. She thanked me again for
+    the chocolates as I went; she really seemed quite pleased with
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me
+    a handful of letters and things to distribute. There was a fat
+    parcel for Martha, the ward-maid. I found her in the closet
+    where she keeps her brooms, and gave it her. Her eyes simply
+    danced as she took it, first carefully wiping her hand on her
+    apron.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's from my bruvver," she explained. "'Im on Salisbury
+    Plain. Very good to me 'e always is." She stripped off the
+    paper and gave a sigh of rapture. "Lor, Nurse, ain't it
+    beautiful?"</p>
+
+    <p>It was a chocolate box, a comfortable-looking chocolate box,
+    ornamented with a red-headed St. George, a large blue dragon
+    and a vivid orange bow.</p>
+
+    <p>"It does seem nice," I agreed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fancy 'im spending all that on me," said Martha.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll be able to have quite a feast," said I, smiling at
+    my old friend St. George.</p>
+
+    <p>Martha looked suddenly shy.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm not going to keep it," she confided. She came closer to
+    me. "Do you remember young Renshaw, what used to be in your
+    ward, Nurse?"</p>
+
+    <p>I nodded; I remembered him well, a cheery boy with a smashed
+    leg, now in a Convalescent Home by the sea.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Im and me's engaged," said Martha in a hoarse whisper. "I
+    liked 'im and he liked me, and one day I was doing the windows
+    'e asked me. 'E says the food down there is that monopolous, so
+    I'll send him this 'ere just to cheer 'im up like."</p>
+
+    <p>It seemed an excellent idea to me. I beamed upon Martha. I
+    helped her to re-wrap St. George, and lent her my fountain-pen
+    to write the address which was to send my Knight once more upon
+    his travels. It appeared to me that he and his dragon were
+    seeing a lot of life.</p>
+
+    <p>Bobbie had arranged to call for me on his birthday, so when
+    my off duty came I simply flung on my things and raced for the
+    hall. As I passed Matron's door she called me in. I entered
+    trembling; it was always a toss-up with Matron whether you were
+    to be smiled upon or strafed.</p>
+
+    <p>To-day she was lamb-like. She sat at a desk piled high with
+    papers. Among them lay a vivid coloured object.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've just had a letter from that young Renshaw," she said.
+    "Such a charming letter, thanking us for all our kindness and
+    enclosing a present to show his appreciation." She smiled. She
+    seemed hugely pleased about something. "He addresses it to me,"
+    she went on; "but, though I am grateful for the kind thought, I
+    do not myself eat chocolates."</p>
+
+    <p>She picked up the box, a comfortable-looking box ornamented
+    with an orange satin bow.</p>
+
+    <p>"I think these are more in your line than mine," she said,
+    "and Renshaw was in your ward. You have really the best right
+    to them."</p>
+
+    <p>She handed me the box of chocolates. I gazed at my travelled
+    Saint and he gazed back. I could almost have sworn he
+    winked.</p>
+
+    <p>Clutching him and his dragon, I departed and danced down the
+    corridor into the hall. There waited Bobbie, red-haired and
+    khaki-clad, more like St. George than the gallant knight
+    himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"How do you do?" I greeted him. "Many happy returns, dear
+    old thing!" As he held out his hand I put something into it. "A
+    box of chocolates," I explained; "I bought them for your
+    birthday!"</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/20.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/20s.png"
+             alt="THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER." />
+             </a> THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER.<br />
+         BUY YOUR SERVANT ONE AND ADD A ZEST TO HER WORK.
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Wanted, for Low Comedian, really Funny Sons."&mdash;<i>The
+        Stage</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>As a change, we suppose, from the eternal mother-in-law.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"
+       id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter">
+        <a href="images/21.png"><img src="images/21s.png"
+             alt="I SUPPOSE _I_ AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL." /></a>
+
+        <p><i>Inveterate Golfer</i> (<i>stung by the leading
+        article</i>). "I SUPPOSE <i>I</i> AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL.
+        IT'S HARD TO REALISE THIS WITH ONE'S HANDICAP JUST REDUCED
+        TO SEVEN."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.</h2>
+
+    <p>When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to
+    France, Herself came home bringin' the rigimental mascot with
+    her. A big white long-haired billy-goat he was, the same.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself;
+    "'tis no place for a domestic animal at all, the language them
+    little drummer-boys uses, the dear knows," says she.</p>
+
+    <p>So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free
+    with the flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the
+    domestic maids the way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land,
+    and not jist a plain human Angory goat. A proud arrygent
+    crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about as disdainy as a
+    Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address him
+    for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in
+    your mouth he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with
+    poteen taken, and fetch you a skelp with his horns that would
+    lay you out for dead.</p>
+
+    <p>And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say;
+    "we must be patient with him for the sake of the owld
+    rigiment;" and with that she'd start hand-feedin' him with
+    warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long silky hair.</p>
+
+    <p>"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to
+    question the workings o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of
+    a rigiment, which I am not, and <i>had</i> to have a mascot,
+    it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but a nanny, or
+    mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment
+    and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the
+    orficers' tea as well. If it's such cratures that bring ye
+    fortune may I die a peaceful death in a poor-house," says
+    I.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a
+    leopard with bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the
+    mascot's silky hair twice daily, and the quick temper of the
+    baste at the tangles.</p>
+
+    <p>The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle,
+    archin' his neck at the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder
+    by dint of the standin' he had with the owld rigiment and the
+    high-feedin' he had from Herself. Faith, 'tis a great delight
+    we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much as your
+    life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if
+    the domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let
+    him eat the dresses off them before they dare say a word.</p>
+
+    <p>In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by
+    dint o' the high-feedin' and the natural nature of the crature.
+    Herself, wid her iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it,
+    and she sends wan o' the gerrls to tell meself and Mikeen to
+    wash the baste.</p>
+
+    <p>"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad,
+    "but 'tis the orders&mdash;go get the cart-rope and the chain
+    off the bull-dog, and we'll do it. Faith, it isn't all the
+    bravery that's at the Front," says I.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his
+    shins, the poor boy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle
+    from her apron pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so
+    obligin' to sprinkle the mascot wid
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"
+       id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span> a dropeen of this ody-koloney
+       scent&mdash;mebbe it will quench his powerfulness, she
+       says."</p>
+
+    <p>I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat
+    with the rope, got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him
+    away towards the pond, him buckin' and ragin' between us like a
+    Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the poliss. To hear the roars
+    he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as lead, but we
+    held on.</p>
+
+    <p>The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as
+    an eel, and broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.</p>
+
+    <p>He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain
+    off him!" I says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking
+    around for a tree to shin.</p>
+
+    <p>Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and
+    through the fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve
+    orficers kept in the camp beyond. ("Harriers" they called them,
+    but, begob! there wasn't anythin' they wouldn't hunt from a fox
+    to a turkey, those ones.)</p>
+
+    <p>"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the
+    dear knows they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by
+    this half-hour, and the breath is from them, their tongues is
+    hangin' out a yard," I says.</p>
+
+    <p>'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll
+    see sport this day."</p>
+
+    <p>"Herself&mdash;" he begins.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we
+    dragged me bowld goat out before the dogs and let go the
+    chain.</p>
+
+    <p>The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let
+    a yowl out of them like all the banshees in the nation of
+    Ireland, and the billy legged it for his life&mdash;small blame
+    to him!</p>
+
+    <p>Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.</p>
+
+    <p>"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the
+    crature howlds them by two lengths."</p>
+
+    <p>"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a
+    Jew."</p>
+
+    <p>"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the
+    howly Saints he cannot burrow."</p>
+
+    <p>"He has tripped up&mdash;they have him bayed," says
+    Mikeen.</p>
+
+    <p>And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.</p>
+
+    <p>Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds
+    like a lad to a fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their
+    ribs a mile away. But they were too many for him and bit the
+    grand silky hair off him by the mouthful. The way it flew you'd
+    think it was a snowstorm.</p>
+
+    <p>"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.</p>
+
+    <p>"They have," says I, "God be praised!"</p>
+
+    <p>At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double
+    beside us; he was phlastered with muck from his hair to his
+    boots.</p>
+
+    <p>"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the
+    mud and not knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out
+    before him, whether it would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I;
+    "an' God save your honour for she'll have your blood in a
+    bottle for this day's worrk."</p>
+
+    <p>The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides
+    afther them, flat on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the
+    wink of an eye he is down among the dogs, larruppin' them with
+    his whip and drawin' down curses on them that would wither ye
+    to hear him&mdash;he had great eddication, that orficer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come now," says I to Mikeen, the poor lad, "let you and me
+    bear the cowld corpse of the diseased back to Herself; mebbe
+    she'll have a shillin' handy in her hand, the way she'd reward
+    us for saving the body from the dogs," says I.</p>
+
+    <p>But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and
+    well, the thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he
+    had not a hair of it left to him, and when he stood up before
+    you you wouldn't know him; he was that ordinary without his
+    fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's goat, he was no
+    more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the
+    truth.</p>
+
+    <p>He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young
+    gerrl.</p>
+
+    <p>Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah, but that's not <i>my</i> mascot," says she.</p>
+
+    <p>"It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole
+    Calendar&mdash;Mikeen too.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cow-house," says she,
+    and stepped indoors without another word.</p>
+
+    <p>We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his
+    nakedness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ye'll do no more mascottin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra
+    luck you would bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are
+    now&mdash;you'll never step along again with the drums and
+    tambourines."</p>
+
+    <p>And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen
+    rubbing him daily with bear's-grease and hair-lotion he never
+    grew the same grand fleece again, and he'd stand about in the
+    back-field, brooding for hours together, the divilment clane
+    gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the stroke of
+    an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just
+    look at you sad-like and pass no remarks.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>TOP-O'-THE-MORNING.</h2>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Top-o'-the-Morning's shoes are off;</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">He runs in the orchard, rough, all
+            day;</p>
+
+            <p>Chasing the hens for a turn at the trough,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Fighting the cows for a place at the
+            hay;</p>
+
+            <p>With a coat where the Wiltshire mud has dried,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">With brambles caught in his mane and
+            tail&mdash;</p>
+
+            <p>Top-o'-the-Morning, pearl and pride</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of the foremost flight of the White Horse
+            Vale!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>The master he carried is Somewhere in France</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Leading a cavalry troop to-day,</p>
+
+            <p>Ready, if Fortune but give him the chance,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Ready as ever to show them the way,</p>
+
+            <p>Riding as straight to his new desire</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">As ever he rode to the line of old,</p>
+
+            <p>Facing his fences of blood and fire</p>
+
+            <p>With a brow of flint and a heart of gold.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Do the hoofs of his horses wake a dream</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Of a trampling crowd at the
+            covert-side,</p>
+
+            <p>Of a lead on the grass and a glinting stream</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And Top-o'-the-Morning shortening
+            stride?</p>
+
+            <p>Does the triumph leap to his shining eyes</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">As the wind of the vale on his cheek
+            blows cold,</p>
+
+            <p>And the buffeting big brown shoulders rise</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">To his light heel's touch and his light
+            hand's hold?</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>When the swords are sheathed and the strife is
+            done,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And the cry of hounds is a call to
+            men;</p>
+
+            <p>When the straight-necked Wiltshire foxes run</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">And the first flight rides on the grass
+            again;</p>
+
+            <p>May Top-o'-the-Morning, sleek of hide,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Shod, and tidy of mane and tail,</p>
+
+            <p>Light, and fit for a man to ride,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Lead them once more in the White Horse
+            Vale!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <p class="center">W.H.O.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>Polygamy in Workington.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Supper was served by some of the wives of some of the
+        members."&mdash;<i>Workington News</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"
+       id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span>
+
+    <h3>TRAGEDY OF A DUTIFUL WIFE.</h3>
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-1.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-1s.png"
+             alt="I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY WOMAN" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY
+        WOMAN&mdash;WHAT?"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"ISN'T SHE A
+        LITTLE&mdash;ER&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p>"NOT A BIT OF IT. A WOMAN OUGHT TO BE CHEERY, ESPECIALLY
+        IN THESE TIMES."&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I SEE, DEAR."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-2.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-2s.png"
+             alt="WHAT ON EARTH" /></a>
+
+        <p>"WHAT ON EARTH&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+        <p>"I'M MAKING A NEW HAT, DEAR. I SAW MRS. DASHWOOD
+        SPIFFINGTON WEARING ONE VERY LIKE THIS."</p>
+    </div><br clear="all" />
+
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-3.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-3s.png"
+             alt="GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO BITS FOR?" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO
+        BITS FOR?"</p>
+
+        <p>"IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAR. MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON HAS ONE
+        QUITE AS SHORT AS THIS."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-4.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-4s.png"
+             alt="GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?" />
+             </a>
+
+        <p>"GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?"</p>
+
+        <p>"MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON ALWAYS MAKES UP A LITTLE WHEN
+        SHE'S GOING OUT. OH&mdash;I FORGOT TO TELL YOU&mdash;I
+        HAVEN'T ORDERED ANY DINNER, AS I THOUGHT WE MIGHT GO AND
+        DINE AT A RESTAURANT."</p>
+    </div><br clear="all" />
+
+
+    <div class="figleft"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-5.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-5s.png"
+             alt="AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?" />
+             </a>
+
+        <p>"AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?"</p>
+
+        <p>"BUT I THOUGHT YOU LIKED CHEERY PEOPLE LIKE MRS.
+        DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON."</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="figright"
+         style="width:45%;">
+        <a href="images/23-6.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/23-6s.png"
+             alt="I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED SMOKING." />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED
+        SMOKING. I EXPECT MRS. DASHWOOD
+        SPIFFINGTON&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+        <p>"D&mdash;&mdash; MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON!"</p>
+
+        <p>"VERY WELL, DEAR."</p>
+    </div><br clear="all" />
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"
+       id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter">
+        <a href="images/24.png"><img src="images/24s.png"
+             alt="THE PINCH OF WAR." /></a>
+
+        <h3>THE PINCH OF WAR.</h3>
+
+        <p><i>Lady of the House</i> (<i>War Profiteer's wife,
+        forlornly</i>). "THEY'VE JUST TAKEN OUR THIRD FOOTMAN; AND
+        IF ANY MORE OF OUR MEN HAVE TO GO WE SHALL CLOSE THE HOUSE
+        AND LIVE AT THE RITZ UNTIL THE WAR IS
+        OVER&mdash;(<i>brightly</i>)&mdash;HOWEVER, WE MUST ALL
+        SACRIFICE SOMETHING."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>OVER-WEIGHT.</h3>
+
+    <p class="scene"><i>Scene: A London Terminus</i>.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>with an air of finality</i>). It weighs
+    'undred-and-four pounds. You can't take it, mum.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. Oh, I must take it.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>Porter is obliged by an irritation of the
+    head to remove his cap, but does not speak.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. It's all right. I know the manager of
+    the line, and he would pass it for me.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i>. Isn't your friend manager of the Great
+    Southern?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>sharply</i>). He has a great deal
+    to do with all these railways now. (<i>To Porter, hopefully,
+    but not very confidently</i>) That will be all right.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i>. Very sorry, mum. It can't be done.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. My friend the manager would be very
+    much annoyed at my being stopped like this. Only four pounds,
+    too. Why, it's nothing.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>Porter removes his cap again on account of
+    further irritation.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>to her Friend</i>). I don't know
+    what I'm to do. (<i>To Porter</i>) What am I to do?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>deliberately</i>). You must open it and
+    take somethink out.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. I can't open it here.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>ignoring this</i>). Somethink weighing a
+    bit over four pounds.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. But I can't do it here.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>ignoring this</i>). Pair o' boots or
+    somethink.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>to her Friend</i>). He seems to
+    think my boots weigh four pounds.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i>. Haven't you got two pairs?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>sourly</i>). Yes, but two pairs of
+    my boots wouldn't weigh four pounds.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>who has been quietly undoing the straps</i>). Is
+    it locked, mum?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>producing key and almost in
+    tears</i>). It's too bad.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>She dives into box and extracts two pairs
+    of boots wrapped in newspapers.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Porter</i> (<i>taking them and weighing them judiciously
+    in his hands</i>). That's all right, mum.</p>
+
+    <p class="scene">[<i>He pushes box on to weighing machine which
+    registers under 100 lbs.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. They're very thick boots, of course.
+    Whatever am I to do with them now?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i>. We shall have to carry them. [<i>Takes
+    one parcel.</i></p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. Jane shall hear of this. I told her
+    never to use newspaper for packing.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Her Friend</i> (<i>suddenly</i>). There's Major
+    Merriman.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i>. So it is. Don't let him see us with
+    these dreadful parcels. (<i>Angrily</i>) Why don't you turn
+    round? He'll see you.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Major Merriman</i>. How do you do?</p>
+
+    <p><i>Lady Traveller</i> (<i>in great surprise</i>). Oh, how do
+    you do, Major Merriman? We've been having such an amusing
+    experience, etc., etc.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>What made Lord Devonport Dizzy.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The following resolution was unanimously passed, and
+        ordered to be sent to the Prime Minister and the Food
+        Controller (Lord Beaconsfield)."&mdash;<i>The Western
+        Gazette</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Lamp-posts and trees and other pedestrians were found with
+        unpleasant and sometimes violent
+        frequency."&mdash;<i>Beckenham Journal</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>That's the worst of a fog; landmarks will keep on walking
+    about.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p><i>&Agrave; propos</i> of the TSAR'S manifesto:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The <i>Retch</i>, says: 'The order puts the dot on all the
+        "t's. " ' " &mdash;<i>Provincial Paper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>It is a far, far better thing to dot your "t's" than cross
+    your "i's."</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"
+       id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/25.png"><img width="100%"
+             src="images/25s.png"
+             alt="THE DAWN OF DOUBT." /></a>
+
+        <h3>THE DAWN OF DOUBT.</h3>
+
+        <p>GRETCHEN. "I WONDER IF THIS GENTLEMAN REALLY IS MY GOOD
+        ANGEL AFTER ALL!"</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"
+       id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/26.png"><img src="images/26s.png"
+             alt="YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY MAN, OR YOU WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>Benevolent Gentleman</i>. "YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY
+        MAN, OR YOU WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(SECOND SERIES.)</h4>
+
+    <h4>XV.&mdash;THE TOWER.</h4>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Lady in the Tower,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Lady in the Tower</p>
+
+            <p>And told her she was in their power</p>
+
+            <p>And left her there for half-an-hour,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Padlock on the Chain,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Padlock on the Chain,</p>
+
+            <p>But they left the Key in the South of Spain,</p>
+
+            <p>So the Lady took it off again,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Bulldog at the Door,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Bulldog at the Door,</p>
+
+            <p>He was so old he could only snore,</p>
+
+            <p>And he'd lost his Tooth the day before,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Beefeater at the Gate,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Beefeater at the Gate,</p>
+
+            <p>But as his age was eighty-eight</p>
+
+            <p>His Grandmother said he couldn't wait,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>They put a Prince to watch the Stair,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>They put a Prince to watch the Stair,</p>
+
+            <p>But he had a Golden Ring to spare,</p>
+
+            <p>So he married the Lady then and there,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>And ever since that grievous hour,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+
+            <p>Ever since that grievous hour</p>
+
+            <p>When the lovely Lady was in their power</p>
+
+            <p>They've never put nobody in the Tower,</p>
+
+            <p class="i2">Heigh-o, fiddlededee!</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        <h4>Flattery from the Front.</h4>
+
+        <p>"I got your parcel quite undamaged, and it came at a
+        time when we were short of grub. I could have eaten a dead
+        monkey, so your cake came in very useful."</p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Major-General (Temporary General) Sir Hugh de la Poer
+        Bough, K.C.B., whose name appears in the New Year list of
+        honours as being promoted to the rank of
+        lieutenant-general, is a second cousin of Major-General
+        Hugh Sutlej Kough."&mdash;<i>Liverpool Echo</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>It is rumoured that he is also connected with that famous
+    fighting family the GOUGHS.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h3>A POSTSCRIPT.</h3>
+
+    <p class="center">(<i>Suggested by a later list of L. &amp;
+    N.W.R. stations which have been closed.</i>)</p>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>A further list of closured stations</p>
+
+            <p>Elicits further protestations.</p>
+
+            <p>Blank desolation, grim and stark,</p>
+
+            <p>Broods sadly o'er Carpenders Park,</p>
+
+            <p>And Friezland, as perhaps is meet,</p>
+
+            <p>Is suffering badly from cold feet.</p>
+
+            <p>The population of Rhosneigr</p>
+
+            <p>Is raging like a wounded tiger;</p>
+
+            <p>And those who used to book at Llong</p>
+
+            <p>Are using language, loud and strong,</p>
+
+            <p>While residents around Chalk Farm</p>
+
+            <p>Are filled with anguish and alarm.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>N.B. In our anterior lay</p>
+
+            <p>One letter somehow went astray;</p>
+
+            <p>We therefore now apologise;</p>
+
+            <p>'Tis Aspley, and not Apsley, Guise.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <p>From an article on "Greece and Belgium":&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "King Tino has a black record of blood and treachery to
+        answer, and to compare his case with that of King Leopold
+        is the blackest outrage of all."&mdash;<i>Star</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Personally we think that it were blacker still to compare
+    his case with that of KING ALBERT.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"
+       id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:60%;">
+        <a href="images/27.png"><img src="images/27s.png"
+             alt="HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT AWAY." />
+        </a>
+
+        <p>"HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT
+        AWAY."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE LITTLE RIFT.</h2>
+
+    <p>My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We
+    are like the Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always
+    "arrive at a complete understanding" in all matters of policy.
+    When strict economy was enjoined upon us I moved my desk into
+    the dining-room to save a fire. She made a summer hat out of a
+    bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an evening
+    gown. All was well.</p>
+
+    <p>I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I
+    were to suggest that there was the slightest difference of
+    opinion between us. I most solemnly declare that I am as good a
+    patriot as she is. Still, as time goes on, I do feel a certain
+    uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element that needs
+    watching.</p>
+
+    <p>We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She
+    asks me to take two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the
+    dog and the laundry-hamper along with me in the two-seater to
+    the station, to save petrol. Well, I am willing. She fills the
+    herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and carnations.
+    Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
+    say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of
+    these things.</p>
+
+    <p>Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I
+    should say that here she has advantages over some, as I belong
+    to the class of husband known as Easily Fed. She has got hold
+    of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the War Office or
+    somewhere&mdash;"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
+    "How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and
+    we feed on those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and
+    yet I am well aware that rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in
+    such forms as not to leave a single clue. I cannot tell you how
+    I admire and approve. Still it makes me thoughtful
+    sometimes.</p>
+
+    <p>No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together
+    by sharing these hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I
+    don't feel easy about it. We are quite in sympathy, but there
+    is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I affirm, is the
+    nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am
+    convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that
+    she does it on purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea
+    what I mean. I sometimes wonder wistfully if the hand that put
+    that ugly new steel contraption at the back of the fire to save
+    the coal is really the hand that I wooed and won ten years ago.
+    I see in her the steady growth of an implacable conscience. In
+    moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she always
+    wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance
+    till now.</p>
+
+    <p>We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at
+    all hard up and we had no compunctions about spending money.
+    But now&mdash;I wonder how long the War will last? What
+    I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I am already
+    guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are
+    going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them,
+    but she isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The
+    garden is to be reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the
+    house. We are going to travel first, and I am not sure that we
+    shan't have a new cook. And we are to have an Airedale and an
+    Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama.</p>
+
+    <p>As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only
+    want to have something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever
+    get back to the <i>status quo ante</i> I will not ask for
+    annexations.</p>
+
+    <p>Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her
+    latest suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit
+    with benzine (I don't like the smell of it) instead of getting
+    a new one. Only I live in a growing fear that the day when
+    peace is signed in Europe will be the signal for an outbreak of
+    a new form of warfare in our happy home.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"
+       id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:40%;">
+        <a href="images/28.png"><img src="images/28s.png"
+             alt="WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>Mistress</i> (<i>from upper window</i>). "WHATEVER
+        ARE YOU DOING OUT-OF-DOORS AT <i>THIS</i> TIME OF NIGHT,
+        JANE?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Romantic Maid</i>. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE
+        OWLS, MA'AM."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>WHAT DID MR. ASQUITH DO?</h2>
+
+    <p>A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal
+    meeting by asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr.
+    GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or whatever year it was. Nobody knew,
+    and neither did the inquirer himself, but uproar followed and
+    his end was achieved. Now had the question run, "What did Mr.
+    GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE, apart
+    from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two
+    priceless things, as I will show.</p>
+
+    <p>Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last
+    number was so unhappy about the deterioration that has come
+    upon taxi-drivers, I left England only in October last, I find
+    it a changed place; but no change, not even the iniquitous
+    prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the increased
+    darkness, or the queer division of <i>hors d'oeuvres</i> into
+    half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to
+    the pathetic query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of
+    course")&mdash;no change is so striking as the fact that when a
+    paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or the PREMIER, it means
+    no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux and
+    mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a
+    pyramid, a pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to
+    alteration.</p>
+
+    <p>Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad
+    it is that he has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always
+    reserved and intent, he discouraged Press gossip to such a
+    degree as actually to have turned the key on the Tenth Muse.
+    Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board in Downing
+    Street, but interviewers had no chance. In vain did the Quexes
+    of this frivolous city hope for even a crumb&mdash;there was
+    nothing for them. Mr. ASQUITH came into office, held it, and
+    left it without a single concession to Demos's love of
+    personalia. He did not even wear comic collars or white hats or
+    a single eyeglass or any other grotesquely significant thing;
+    and how much poorer are we in consequence and how much poorer
+    will posterity be!</p>
+
+    <p>Contrast the case of Mr. GLADSTONE, from whom anyone could
+    draw a postcard and most people a chip of some recently-felled
+    tree, and who is in my mind wonderful and supreme by reason of
+    two inventions which, though no one would ever guess them to be
+    the result of a Prime Minister's cogitations, deserve the
+    widest fame. Of these one was the product of his unaided
+    genius; the other the result of the collaboration with his
+    wife.</p>
+
+    <p>Let us begin with the individual triumph.</p>
+
+    <p>Everyone who has ever stayed under anyone else's roof, from
+    a dine-and-sleep at Windsor Castle to a week in lovely Lucerne,
+    has been confronted, when packing-up time arrived, with the
+    problem of the sponge. No matter how muscular the fingers that
+    wring this article, no matter how thick and costly the rubbered
+    receptacle that holds it, there is always the chance of
+    dampness communicating itself to other things in the bag. Isn't
+    there?</p>
+
+    <p>How so to squeeze the sponge as to drive out the last drop
+    of moisture was the problem before the massive intellect of the
+    Grand Old Man. Need I say that he solved it? His method, as he
+    himself in his unselfish way, told one of the diarists,
+    possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E.
+    RUSSELL&mdash;I forget whom&mdash;was to wrap up the sponge in
+    a bath-towel and jump on it. Here, for the historical painter,
+    is a theme indeed&mdash;something worth all the ordinary dull
+    occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat staid brush:
+    the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the
+    author of <i>The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture</i>,
+    leaping upon the bath-towel that held his sponge. But no
+    historical painter could do justice to such a scene. It needs
+    the movies.</p>
+
+    <p>Those of us then who dry our sponges in this way&mdash;and I
+    am a fervent devotee&mdash;owe the inventor a meed of praise.
+    And equally those of us who put into our hot water bottles at
+    night hot tea instead of hot water (as I never have done and
+    never mean to do), so that, waking in the small hours, we may
+    yet not be without refreshment, owe a meed of praise to the
+    same inspired innovator, for, if the chroniclers are correct,
+    it was Mrs. GLADSTONE'S habit to retire to rest with a bottle
+    thus nutritiously filled, which would be ready for her great
+    man on his return from the House weary and athirst.</p>
+
+    <p>Here we see the difference between Liberal Premiers. For
+    what has Mr. ASQUITH done towards the solution of domestic
+    problems? Who can name a thing? Has he devised a collar stud
+    that cannot be lost? Has he hit upon a way instantly to stop a
+    shaving cut from bleeding? Has he contrived a taxi window that
+    will open when shut or shut when open? No. In all these years
+    he has spared no time for any inventions.</p>
+
+    <p>No wonder then that he was found wanting and forced to
+    resign.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>A Scot among the Cynics.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The railway fares are being raised, we are told, to stop
+        pleasure travelling, but it can hardly be imagined that a
+        munition worker going home to spend his week-end with his
+        family is bent on pleasure."&mdash;<i>Glasgow Evening
+        News</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Beautiful set of civic cat; very large stole and muff;
+        accept &pound;12."&mdash;<i>The Lady</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>As DICK WHITTINGTON'S mascot is the only civic cat known to
+    history we think the relic should be secured for the Guildhall
+    Museum.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "Simply as a citizen and as a non-party man, I want to say
+        that Mr. Asquith has my affection and respect&mdash;and
+        that is the highest guerdon that any statesman can
+        have."&mdash;<i>Extract from Letter in Yorkshire Paper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We know now why Mr. ASQUITH refused a peerage. He did not
+    want to vex his modest admirer.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "At Caxton Hall the conference was resumed of municipal
+        authorities interested in the conversation of old fruit,
+        sardine and salmon tins."&mdash;<i>Birmingham Daily
+        Mail</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>We ourselves always listen with pleasure to their talk. It
+    has at once a fruity and a fishy flavour.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"
+       id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:70%;">
+        <a href="images/29.png"><img src="images/29s.png"
+             alt="AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING BEFORE THE WAR?" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>Gentleman</i> (<i>In favour of national work for
+        everyone</i>). "AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY
+        WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING BEFORE THE WAR?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>New Assistant</i> (<i>his first operation</i>).
+        "EXACTLY, SIR. ALL THE SAME, IF ANYBODY HAD TOLD ME TWO
+        DAYS AGO THAT I SHOULD NOW BE CUTTING THE HAIR OF A
+        COMPLETE STRANGER, I'D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED 'IM."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>WARS OF THE PAST.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(<i>As recorded in the Press of the period.</i>)</h4>
+
+    <h4>VI.</h4>
+
+    <h4><i>From "The Athens Advertiser and Pir&aelig;us
+    Post</i>."</h4>
+
+    <h4>MACEDONIA'S ARMY.</h4>
+
+    <h4>THE FAMOUS PHALANX.</h4>
+
+    <h4>(<i>By our Military Expert</i>.)</h4>
+
+    <p>The Macedonian Army has recently undergone an entire
+    reconstruction at the hands of KING PHILIP. It is now organised
+    on a national and territorial basis and is divided into
+    infantry and cavalry. The cavalry predominates and is therefore
+    the stronger arm. The unit of cavalry is the squadron, of
+    infantry the battalion. (It is of the utmost interest to note
+    that there are two battalions in a regiment, each about fifteen
+    hundred strong).</p>
+
+    <p>KING PHILIP, it will be remembered, received his military
+    education in the school of EPAMINONDAS, who, as is well known,
+    revolutionised the Higher Thought of every Higher Command by
+    the discovery and application of a single tactical
+    fact&mdash;namely, that the chances of A being able to give B a
+    stronger push than B can give him are <i>in direct ratio to the
+    numerical superiority of A over B</i>. It follows, then, that,
+    faced with a sufficient superiority, B <i>must</i> retire, and
+    <i>the initiative then rests with the side that possesses
+    it</i>.</p>
+
+    <p>In pursuance of this tactical ideal EPAMINONDAS argued that
+    the old method of winning battles, which was that A should
+    exercise superior force against every point of B's line (or
+    body), required that A should be bigger than B, buskin for
+    buskin and brisket for brisket. But since it is sufficient,
+    while "refusing" the rest of one's own body (or line), to bring
+    an overwhelming force to bear on the point of a person's jaw,
+    in order to discomfit him, so in a battle a numerically
+    inferior A, by concentrating on a vital point of numerically
+    superior B, can gain a local numerical superiority which will
+    enable him to rout B utterly. (This is always supposing that B
+    is not doing the same thing himself on the other wing, in which
+    case each army would miss the other altogether&mdash;a
+    condition of things into which the military art does not care
+    to follow them).</p>
+
+    <p>Hence the phalanx or "preponderating mass formation." The
+    Macedonian development of this depends (to reduce the matter to
+    the simple algebraical formula to which all military problems
+    are susceptible) on the fact that if <i>x</i> equals the
+    greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of
+    stability to the <i>n</i>th rank equals the phalanx, then the
+    rooted square of stability to the <i>n</i>th rank equals
+    <i>x</i> minus the tangential curve of velocity of mobility.
+    This should be plain even to the amateur student of tactics.
+    Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this
+    cardinal doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of
+    cavalry, PHILIP has given to this, the mobile arm, much of the
+    striking power of the original phalanx. This is now placed in
+    the centre, its business being mainly to force a salient in the
+    enemy's line, the two resultant enclaves of which can then be
+    shattered (at their re-entrants) by the cavalry squadrons,
+    hurled forward on both phalanks. It should be noted, as a
+    brilliant example of PHILIP'S staff work, that in the
+    Macedonian Army, for the avoidance of confusion in the field,
+    "phalanks" is now spelt "flanks."</p>
+
+    <p>To the intelligent student who has followed me thus far in
+    these articles it should not be necessary to explain again the
+    terms "enclave," "salient," and "re-entrant." "Tactical" is a
+    term used when one is not using the term "strategical," and
+    <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "In the words of Bacon, it should be 'read, marked, learned
+        and inwardly digested.'"&mdash;<i>Financial Paper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Our gay contemporary does not tell us whether it was before
+    or after completing the works usually attributed to SHAKSPEARE
+    that BACON compiled the Book of Common Prayer.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"
+       id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span>
+
+    <h2>THE FLAPPER.</h2>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        [Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, in the January <i>Nineteenth
+        Century</i>, in his article on "Ordeal by Fire," after
+        denouncing idlers and loafers and shirkers, falls foul
+        "above all" of the young girls called flappers, "with high
+        heels, skirts up to their knees and blouses open to the
+        diaphragm, painted, powdered, self-conscious, ogling:
+        'Allus adallacked and dizened oot and a 'unting arter the
+        men.'"]
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <div class="poem">
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Good Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, who lends lustre to a
+            name</p>
+
+            <p>Which DRYDEN in his satires oft endeavoured to
+            defame,</p>
+
+            <p>Has lately been discussing in a high-class
+            magazine</p>
+
+            <p>The trials that confront us in the year Nineteen
+            Seventeen.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>He is not a smooth-tongued prophet; no, he takes a
+            serious view;</p>
+
+            <p>We must make tremendous efforts if we're going to
+            win through;</p>
+
+            <p>And though he's not unhopeful of the issue of the
+            fray</p>
+
+            <p>He finds abundant causes for misgiving and
+            dismay.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Our optimistic journals his exasperation fire,</p>
+
+            <p>And the idlers and the loafers stimulate his
+            righteous ire;</p>
+
+            <p>But it is the flapper chiefly that in his gizzard
+            sticks,</p>
+
+            <p>And he's down upon her failings like a waggon-load
+            of bricks.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>She's ubiquitous in theatres, in rail and 'bus and
+            tram,</p>
+
+            <p>She wears her "blouses open down to the
+            diaphragm,"</p>
+
+            <p>And, instead of realising what our men are fighting
+            for,</p>
+
+            <p>She's an orgiastic nuisance who in fact
+            <i>enjoys</i> the War.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>It's a strenuous indictment of our petticoated
+            youth</p>
+
+            <p>And contains a large substratum of unpalatable
+            truth;</p>
+
+            <p>Our women have been splendid, but the Sun himself
+            has specks,</p>
+
+            <p>And the flapper can't be reckoned as a credit to her
+            sex.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Still it needs to be remembered, to extenuate her
+            crimes,</p>
+
+            <p>That these flappers have not always had the very
+            best of times;</p>
+
+            <p>And the life that now she's leading, with no Mentors
+            to restrain,</p>
+
+            <p>Is decidedly unhinging to an undeveloped brain.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Then again we only see her when she's out for play
+            or meals,</p>
+
+            <p>And distresses the fastidious by her gestures and
+            her squeals,</p>
+
+            <p>But she is not always idle or a decorative
+            drone,</p>
+
+            <p>And if she wastes her wages, well, she wastes what
+            is her own.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Still to say that she's heroic, as some scribes of
+            late have said,</p>
+
+            <p>Is unkind as well as foolish, for it only swells her
+            head;</p>
+
+            <p>She oughtn't to be flattered, she requires to be
+            repressed,</p>
+
+            <p>Or she'll grow into a portent and a peril and a
+            pest.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>Dr. SHADWELL to the PREMIER makes an eloquent
+            appeal</p>
+
+            <p>In firm and drastic fashion with this element to
+            deal;</p>
+
+            <p>And 'twould be a real feather in our gifted
+            Cambrian's cap</p>
+
+            <p>If he taught the peccant flapper less flamboyantly
+            to flap.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>But, in <i>Punch's</i> way of thinking, 'tis for
+            women, kind and wise,</p>
+
+            <p>These neglected scattered units to enrol and
+            mobilize,</p>
+
+            <p>Their vagabond activities to curb and
+            concentrate,</p>
+
+            <p>And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant of the
+            State.</p>
+        </div>
+
+        <div class="stanza">
+            <p>She's young; her eyes are dazzled by the glamour of
+            the streets;</p>
+
+            <p>She has to learn that life is not all cinemas and
+            sweets;</p>
+
+            <p>But given wholesome guidance she may rise to
+            self-control</p>
+
+            <p>And earn the right of entry on the Nation's golden
+            Roll.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>THE ONLY STEGGLES.</h2>
+
+    <p>Steggles is my groom, and my crowning mercy. But for his
+    deafness I am sure he would long since have left the humble
+    rank of gunner far beneath him, and the Staff might have gained
+    a brilliant strategist. In addition to dulness of hearing,
+    Steggles is endowed&mdash;I should indeed be ungrateful to use
+    the word afflicted&mdash;with a vacuity of expression which
+    puts rivals or antagonists off their guard, and doubles his
+    value during the vicissitudes of active service. What would be
+    handicaps to ordinary men Steggles turns to the advantage of
+    himself, Sapphira my mare, and me.</p>
+
+    <p>When on the march the Battery arrives at the morass allotted
+    to it for horse lines, I know that all will be well with the
+    mud-bespattered Sapphira. Steggles leaps from the waggon
+    whereon, in company with one of the cooks, he tours the
+    pleasant land of France, and receives the mare. With his toes
+    strangely pointed out, he leads her away from the scene of
+    labour and language, disappearing amidst the hovels of the
+    adjacent village. Often I never see him or obtain news of him
+    till next morning, when he produces Sapphira polished like a
+    silk hat and every scrap of metal about her sparkling.
+    Occasionally I have tracked him to the shelter where he
+    secretes and waits upon Sapphira, always to find that he has
+    discovered and occupied the best stable in the village. The
+    grooms of my brother-officers never learn that Steggles'
+    vacuous expression is the disguise of an intellect subtle,
+    discriminating and alert, so they never trouble to endeavour to
+    forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find Steggles, as he
+    always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on him
+    if she wanted anything during the night.</p>
+
+    <p>From time to time he chooses the occasion of a night's halt
+    on the march to indulge in a bilious attack; but he has no
+    other vice except an inveterate reluctance to leave off
+    polishing my boots when I mount. No matter how Sapphira may
+    prance and back and sidle, he follows her round and round with
+    a remnant of a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the
+    stirrup. It is quite useless to bellow, "That will do,
+    Steggles!"&mdash;his ideal is the unattainable perfection, and
+    he persists. I have to escape by giving Sapphira the spur at
+    the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or be late in
+    turning out.</p>
+
+    <p>He never gives anything, even his own performances,
+    unqualified praise; in fact it is extremely hard to win from
+    him any encomium higher than "It's not too bad." Perhaps there
+    is Scotch blood in his veins.</p>
+
+    <p>I very much want to recommend him for some decoration, but
+    the organization likely to appreciate the most gallant of his
+    deeds has not yet been formed&mdash;the S.P.G.P., or Society
+    for the Preservation of Government Property.</p>
+
+    <p>Steggles was once riding behind me down a valley liberally
+    dimpled with shell-holes, further dimples being in process of
+    formation as we rode. I was returning from an O Pip, or
+    Observation Post, and Steggles was carrying a pair of my boots
+    with a rolled puttee stuffed into each. Suddenly I was aware
+    that he had wheeled his horse about, and was trotting back
+    towards the most dimply area of the valley. Out of regard for
+    his family, I cantered after him. He broke into a gallop. When,
+    after a thrilling ride, I caught him and had a little talk
+    amongst the dimples, it appeared that he had dropped one of the
+    puttees, and wished to return and look for it. This incident
+    will, I think, demonstrate the exceptional character of the
+    man, who did not appear to regard himself as a hero, or to pose
+    as a desperate <i>farceur</i>, or to aspire to the post of
+    Q.M.S., though, incredible as it may seem, the puttee in
+    question was of the variety G.S.</p>
+    <hr />
+    <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"
+       id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span>
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:100%;">
+        <a href="images/31.png"><img src="images/31s.png"
+             alt="WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE ME?" /></a>
+
+        <p><i>Orderly Officer</i>. "WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE
+        ME?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Latest called-up Recruit</i>. "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE
+        COMING."</p>
+
+        <p><i>Orderly Officer</i>. "WHAT DID THE CORPORAL SAY WHEN
+        HE POSTED YOU?"</p>
+
+        <p><i>Recruit</i>. "I WOULDN'T LIKE TO REPEAT IT TO AN
+        OFFICER, SIR."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h2>OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.</h2>
+
+    <h4>(<i>By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks</i>.)</h4>
+
+    <p>To those who would learn what soldiering is like in the
+    armies of democratic France I would heartily commend two books
+    recently published by Messrs. ALLEN AND UNWIN, <i>Battles and
+    Bivouacs</i>, by JACQUES ROUJON, and <i>The Diary of a French
+    Private</i>, by GASTON RIOU. M. ROUJON, infantryman of the
+    line, was in private life a journalist on <i>Le Figaro</i>; M.
+    RIOU, Red Cross orderly, a liberal lay-theologian and writer of
+    European reputation. The former's transliterator ("Munitions
+    are distributed around," writes he undismayed; and has also
+    discovered a territory known as "Oriental Prussia") obtrudes a
+    little between author and reader. M. RIOU fares better; but
+    both contrive to give a really vivid impression of the horrors
+    and anxieties of the early days of the War before the tide
+    turned at the Marne, of the flying rumours so far from the
+    actual truth, of the fine spirit of <i>camaraderie</i> in
+    common danger, of the intimate relations between officers and
+    men, details, terrible or trivial, of campaigning, and, because
+    our spirited brothers-in-arms are not ashamed to express their
+    innermost feelings, of the deeper emotions at work under the
+    surface gaieties. M. RIOU'S narrative is mainly the record of
+    his year's captivity in a Bavarian fort. On his way he faced
+    the fanatical hatred and cruelty of the German civilians, of
+    the women especially, with a cynical fortitude. The commandant
+    of his prison, Baron von STENGEL, was, however, a gentleman and
+    a brick, and did everything in his power to make the difficult
+    life bearable. An episode pleasant to recall is the reception
+    of the Russian prisoners (intended by their captors to cause
+    dissensions) by their French comrades in misfortune. The whole
+    record gives an impression of fine courage and
+    resourcefulness.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Very probably you are already acquainted with that restful
+    and admirable book, <i>Father Payne</i> (SMITH, ELDER), of
+    which a new edition has just now been published. The point of
+    this new edition is that, in its special Preface, the genesis
+    and authorship of the book are assigned, for the first time on
+    this side the Atlantic, to Mr. A.C. BENSON. And the point of
+    the new preface is that it entirely gives away the original
+    edition (also printed here), in which the secret was
+    elaborately concealed. My wonder is, reading the book with this
+    added knowledge, that anyone can have at any time failed to
+    detect in it the gently persuasive hand of the Master of
+    Magdalene, Cambridge. You remember, no doubt, how <i>Father
+    Payne</i> (a courtesy title), having had a small estate left to
+    him, proceeded to turn it into the home of a secular community
+    for young men desirous of pursuing the literary gift, and how
+    he financed, encouraged and generally supervised them. Leisure,
+    an exquisite setting, and the society of enthusiastic and
+    personally-selected youth&mdash;one might call the book perhaps
+    a Tutor's Dream of the Millennium. Anyhow, <i>Father Payne</i>,
+    as shown in this volume, which is practically a record of his
+    table-talk <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"
+       id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> upon a great variety of
+       themes, is exactly the gentle, shrewd and idealistic
+       philosopher whom (knowing his parentage) one would expect.
+       Bensonians (of the A.C. pattern) will certainly be glad to
+       have what must surely have been their suspicions confirmed,
+       and to admit <i>Father Payne</i> to the shelves of
+       authenticity.</p>
+      <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Miss DOROTHEA CONYERS has long ere this established herself
+    as a specialist of repute in Irish sporting tales. You will
+    need but one look at the picture wrapper of <i>The Financing of
+    Fiona</i> (ALLEN) to see that a repetition of the same
+    agreeable mixture awaits you within. <i>Fiona</i> was a
+    charming young woman (Irish, of course) with a rich uncle and a
+    poor, very unattractive cousin, who loved her for her
+    expectations. As <i>Fiona</i> had no conception about money
+    beyond the spending of it, the uncle made a will, whose object
+    was that she should have plenty. The suitor, however, knowing
+    of this, and being a naughty, rather improbable person,
+    destroyed part of it, with the result that <i>Fiona</i> was
+    apparently left only the ancestral home and no cash to keep it
+    up. So she was forced to take in gentleman boarders for the
+    hunting, and (for propriety's sake) to invent a mythical
+    chaperon, who lived above stairs. And, after all, she needn't
+    have done any such thing, because the rich uncle, in leaving
+    her all the contents of the mansion, had foolishly forgotten to
+    mention a secret drawer full of Canadian securities. As for the
+    villain, I really hardly dare tell you the impossibly silly way
+    in which he allowed himself to be caught out. But of course all
+    this melodrama is not what matters. The important thing about
+    Miss CONYERS' people is that (whatever their private worries)
+    a-hunting they will go; and <i>Fiona</i>, financed by her
+    paying guests, shows in this respect as capital sport as any of
+    her predecessors. For the rest, I can hardly say with honesty
+    that the story is equal to its author's best form.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>What I like particularly about Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN is the
+    friendly way in which he contrives to make his readers and
+    himself into a family party. "We must," he writes at the
+    beginning of a chapter in <i>Cinderella of Skookum Greek</i>
+    (NASH), "get a move on with the story, in case you become more
+    tired of Archer's compound fracture than he was himself." This
+    is by no means the only occasion on which he shows his
+    thoughtfulness for us, and I think it very kind and nice of
+    him. At the same time I will ungraciously admit that the weak
+    point of his story is that it does not move quite fast enough.
+    Admirable artist in psychology and atmosphere, his plot, if you
+    can call it a plot, is very slight. <i>Cyrus Archer</i>, the
+    young American of the compound fracture (who had my sympathy
+    from the start because he could never remember dates), goes out
+    into the back of beyond for a spell before settling down to
+    married life and a place in his father's business, and at
+    Skookum Creek, where he grows tomatoes and studies Indians, he
+    meets his <i>Cinderella</i>, with the result that his life has
+    to be completely rearranged. A commonplace tale, but there is a
+    rare and distinct flavour about the telling of it. Mr. NIVEN'S
+    manner has indeed a very particular charm, over which one would
+    take an even keener pleasure in lingering if only he himself
+    lingered a little less over his story.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>I hardly think that Madame ALBANESI has chosen quite the
+    most appropriate name for the story that she calls <i>Hearts
+    and Sweethearts</i> (HUTCHINSON). Personally, I fancy that
+    <i>Suits and Lawsuits</i> would have come nearer the mark;
+    because, though there is a certain proportion of love-making in
+    the tale, there is considerably more about going to law. One
+    difficulty with which I fancy the writer had to contend is due
+    to the fact that her hero and heroine are (in a sense) the
+    opposing protagonists in a case of disputed succession;
+    <i>Jemima Frant</i> being engaged in the attempt to turn out
+    <i>Sir John Norminster</i> from his estates and establish the
+    claim to them of her dead sister's child. Naturally, therefore,
+    till this is settled their opportunities for the tender passion
+    are, to put it very gently, restricted. But of
+    course&mdash;well, a novel with such a title is hardly likely
+    to leave anybody of importance unmarried at the final page.
+    Before this is turned, you have some pleasant comedy of London
+    in war-time, and meet a number of agreeably sketched persons,
+    whose conversation may amuse you, or, on the other hand, may
+    cause you to wish them a little less discursive. Madame
+    ALBANESI indeed impressed me as having occasionally turned her
+    subordinate characters loose into a chapter, with instructions
+    to fill it up anyhow, while she herself thought out the next
+    move. But the law was always leisurely, so this characteristic
+    might perhaps be expected in a story so much concerned with
+    it.</p>
+    <hr />
+
+    <div class="figcenter"
+         style="width:50%;">
+        <a href="images/32.png"><img src="images/32s.png"
+             alt="OH, CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS POCKET!" />
+        </a>
+
+        <p><i>The Mother</i> (<i>overhauling little Tommy's
+        wardrobe</i>). "OH, CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL
+        CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS POCKET! A REAL
+        CARTRIDGE WITH A BULLET IN IT. HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO
+        BITS!"</p>
+
+        <p><i>The Father</i> (<i>with a glowing consciousness of
+        assisting his country at a critical time</i>). "JUST PUT IT
+        IN A COOL PLACE FOR TO-NIGHT, MY DEAR, AND I WILL LEAVE IT
+        AT THE WAR OFFICE TO-MORROW ON MY WAY TO BUSINESS."</p>
+    </div>
+    <hr />
+
+    <h4>Handel in War-Time.</h4>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The anthem 'O Thou that tillest' (Messiah), will be
+        rendered."&mdash;<i>Dublin Evening Mail</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>No pains are being spared to promote agriculture in
+    Ireland.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "The river in many places has overflown its
+        banks."&mdash;<i>Henley Newspaper</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>Even Father Thames cannot resist the modern mania for
+    aviation.</p>
+    <hr class="short" />
+
+    <p>Extract from a review of Dr. JOHN FITZPATRICK'S "<i>This
+    Realm, This England</i>":&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        "From a Scotsman, we deprecate the definition of 'This
+        Realm' as 'England,' and would suggest to the learned
+        doctor that he would have done nothing derogatory to
+        himself, even in the eyes of Englishmen, if he had used the
+        really correct and comprehensive name
+        Britain."&mdash;<i>Scots Pictorial</i>.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p>SHAKSPEARE (ghost of), please note.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 152, JANUARY 10, 1917***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 14135-h.txt or 14135-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/3/14135</a></p>
+<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152,
+January 10, 1917, by Various, Edited by Owen Seamen
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: November 23, 2004  [eBook #14135]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
+VOL. 152, JANUARY 10, 1917***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 14135-h.htm or 14135-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135/14135-h/14135-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/3/14135/14135-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
+
+VOL. 152
+
+JANUARY 10, 1917
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARIVARIA.
+
+The effect of the curtailed train-service throughout the country is already
+observable. On certain sections of one of our Southern lines there are no
+trains running except those which started prior to January 1st.
+
+       ***
+
+The new Treasury Notes, we are told, are to have a picture of the House of
+Commons on the back. It is hoped that other places of amusement, such as
+the Crystal Palace and the Imperial Institute, will be represented on
+subsequent issues.
+
+       ***
+
+It is announced from Germany that arrangements have been made whereby
+criminals are to be enrolled in the army. They have, of course, already
+conducted many of its operations.
+
+       ***
+
+According to _The Daily Chronicle_ there are only twenty-three full
+Generals in the British Army--a total identical with that of the late
+Cabinet. It is only fair to the army to state that the number is purely a
+coincidence.
+
+       ***
+
+  "THE RISE IN BOOT PRICES
+  WOMEN'S LARGE PURCHASES."
+
+The above headlines in a contemporary have caused a good deal of natural
+jealousy among members of the Force.
+
+       ***
+
+"At them and through them!" says the _Hamburger Fremdenblatt_ in a
+seasonable message to the commander of the Turkish Navy. This will not
+deceive the Turk, who is beginning to realise that, while the invitation to
+go _at_ the enemy is sincere, any opportunities of "going _through_" him
+will be exclusively grasped by his Teutonic ally.
+
+       ***
+
+Prince BUELOW has again arrived in Switzerland. It is these bold and
+dramatic strokes that lift the German diplomat above the ranks of the
+commonplace.
+
+       ***
+
+It is explained by a railway official that a passenger who pays threepence
+for a ticket to-day is really only giving the company twopence, the rest
+being water, owing to the decline in the purchasing power of money. A
+movement is now on foot among some of the regular passengers to endeavour
+to persuade the companies to consent to take their fares neat for the
+future.
+
+       ***
+
+At his Coronation the Emperor KARL OF AUSTRIA waved the sword of ST.
+STEPHEN towards the four corners of the earth, to indicate his intention to
+protect his empire against all its foes. The incident has been receiving
+the earnest consideration of the KAISER, who has now finally decided that
+in the circumstances it is not necessary to regard it as an unfriendly act.
+
+       ***
+
+It was felt that the ceremonies connected with the Coronation ought to be
+curtailed out of regard for the sufferings due to the War. So they
+dispensed with the customary distribution of bread to the poor.
+
+       ***
+
+Lecturing to a juvenile audience Professor ARTHUR KEITH said that there was
+no difference between detectives and scientists, and some of the older boys
+are still wondering whether he was trying to popularise science or to
+discredit detective stories.
+
+       ***
+
+Germans cannot now obtain footwear, it is reported, without a permit card.
+Nevertheless we know a number of them who are assured of getting the boot
+without any troublesome formalities.
+
+       ***
+
+Burglars have stolen eighteen ducks from the estate of BETHMANN-HOLLWEG. It
+will be interesting to note how their defence--that "Necessity knows no
+law"--is received by the distinguished advocate of the invasion of Belgium.
+
+       ***
+
+"Taxicab drivers must expect a very low standard of intoxication to apply
+to them," said the Lambeth magistrate last week. On the other hand the
+police should be careful not to misinterpret the air of light-hearted
+devilry that endeared the "growler" to the hearts of an older generation.
+
+       ***
+
+It is stated that L2,250,000 has been sent by Germany into Switzerland to
+raise the exchanges. A much larger sum, according to Mr. PUTNAM, was sent
+into the United States merely to raise the wind.
+
+       ***
+
+Referring to the Highland regiments a _Globe_ writer says, "The streets of
+London will reel with the music of the pipes when they come back." This is
+one of those obstacles to peace that has been overlooked by the KAISER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PRIVATE SLOGGER, JUST ARRIVED WITH LAST DRAFT AND ON GUARD
+DUTY FOR FIRST TIME, FORGETS HIMSELF WHEN THE COLONEL APPEARS ACCOMPANIED
+BY HIS DAUGHTER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VIENNA-BOUND: A REVERIE EN ROUTE.
+
+[A Wireless Press telegram says: "The German Imperial train has reached
+Constantinople in order to transport the Sultan to Vienna, to take part in
+the conference of Sovereigns to be held there."]
+
+  I hate all trains and told them so;
+    I said that I should much prefer
+    (Being, as Allah knows, no traveller)
+  To stick to Stamboul and the _status quo_.
+
+  They said, "If you would rather walk,
+    Pray do so; it will save the fare;"
+    Which shows that WILLIAM (who will take the Chair)
+  Insists that I shall come and hear him talk.
+
+  I've never tried a train before;
+    It makes me sick; it knocks my nerves;
+    The noises and the tunnels and the curves
+  Add a new horror to the woes of war.
+
+  What am I here for, anyhow?
+    I'm summoned for appearance' sake,
+    To nod approval at the Chief, but take
+  No further part in his one-man pow-wow.
+
+  My job is just to sit, it seems,
+    And act the silent super's _role_,
+    The while I wish myself, with all my soul,
+  Safe back in one or more of my hareems.
+
+  I'd let the Conference go hang;
+    Any who likes can have my pew
+    And play at peace-talk with this pirate crew,
+  WILLIAM and KARL and FERDIE--what a gang!
+
+  Our Chairman wants to save his skin
+    And (curse this train!) to cook a plan
+    For Germany to pouch what spoils she can--
+  All very nice; but where do I come in?
+
+  At best I'm but the missing link
+    Upon his Berlin-Baghdad line;
+    This is the senior partner's show, not mine;
+  Will he consult my feelings? I don't think.
+
+  If Russia's gain should mean my loss,
+    He'll wince at Teuton schemes cut short,
+    But for my grief, expelled from my own Porte,
+  Will he care greatly? Not one little toss.
+
+  Well, as I've said and said again,
+    'Tis Fate (Kismet), and, should it frown,
+    We Faithful have to take it lying down--
+  And yet, by Allah, how I loathe this train!
+
+O. S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "A subaltern friend of mine landed at Gibraltar for a few hours, and he
+    was anxious to be able to say that he had been to Spain. So he walked
+    along the Isthmus to Ceuta, where the British and Spanish sentries
+    faced one another, and directly the Spanish soldier turned his head he
+    hopped quickly over into Spain. Then the sentry turned round, and he
+    hopped back again even more quickly."--_Daily Sketch_.
+
+Those of our readers who have walked from the Gibraltar frontier to Morocco
+and back, like the above subaltern, know that it takes some doing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "JAMES PHILLIPS, 16, was charged with doing damage to the extent of L4
+    10s. at a refreshment shop in Hackney belonging to Peter Persico. As he
+    was kept waiting a little time he broke a plate on the table; then he
+    put a saucer under his heel and broke it. When remonstrated with he
+    broke 10 cups and saucers by throwing them at partitions and enamelled
+    decorations, and overturned a marble table, the top of which he
+    smashed."--_The Times_.
+
+No doubt he was incited to these naughty deeds by the line, very popular in
+Hackney circles, "Persico's odi, puer, apparatus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
+
+(_The Emperor of AUSTRIA and Count TISZA_.)
+
+_Tisza_. So there is the full account, your Majesty, of men killed, wounded
+and captured.
+
+_The Emperor_. It is a gloomy list and I hardly can bear to consider it.
+
+_Tisza_. Yes, and beyond the mere list of casualties by fighting there are
+other matters to be considered. Food is scarce and of a poor quality, in
+Hungary as elsewhere. The armies we can yet feed, but the home-staying men
+and the women and children are a growing difficulty. It becomes more and
+more impossible to provide them with sufficient nourishment.
+
+_The Emperor_. It is strange, but in Austria the conditions are said to be
+even worse.
+
+_Tisza_. You are right, Sire, they are worse, much worse.
+
+_The Emperor_. Well, we must lose no time then. We must buy great stocks of
+food. More money must be spent.
+
+_Tisza_. More money? But where is it to come from? Not from Hungary, where
+we are within a narrow margin of financial collapse, and not in Austria,
+where there is already to all intents and purposes a state of bankruptcy.
+More money is not to be got, for we have none ourselves and nobody will
+lend us any.
+
+_The Emperor_. You paint the situation in dark colours, my friend TISZA.
+
+_Tisza_. I paint it as it is, Sire, at any rate as I see it. It is not the
+part of a Royal Counsellor to act otherwise.
+
+_The Emperor_. Yes, but there might be others who would take a different
+view, and support their belief with equally good reasons.
+
+_Tisza_. Not if they know the facts and are faithful to their duty as
+Ministers of the State. Here and there, no doubt, might be found foolish
+and ambitious men who would be willing to deceive, first themselves and
+then their Emperor, as to the true condition of affairs. But, if your
+Majesty trusted them and allowed them to guide you, you would learn too
+late how ill they had understood their duty. I myself, though determined to
+do everything in my power to promote the welfare of Hungary and its King,
+would willingly stand aside if you think that others would give you greater
+strength.
+
+_The Emperor_. I have every reason to trust you most fully. Have you any
+plan for extricating us from this dreadful morass of failure and difficulty
+into which we are plunged?
+
+_Tisza_. Your Majesty, there is only one way. We must have peace, and must
+have it as soon as possible.
+
+_The Emperor._ I too think we must have peace, but how shall we obtain it
+when we have a friend and ally who watches us with the closest care, and
+would not allow us even to hint at any steps that would really lead to
+peace?
+
+_Tisza_. Sire, you are a young man, but you are a scion of a great and
+ancient House, which was powerful and illustrious when the Hohenzollerns
+were but mean and petty barbarian princelings. Withdraw yourself, while the
+opportunity is still with you, from the fatal domination of this vain and
+inflated upstart who endeavours to serve only his own selfish designs. Our
+enemies will make peace with you, and thus he too will be forced to abandon
+the War. With him and with the deeds that have outraged the world they will
+not initiate any movement that tends to peace. He must go through his
+punishment, as indeed we all must, but his, I think, will be heavier than
+ours.
+
+_The Emperor_. Then you want me to make peace?
+
+_Tisza_. If it could be done by holding up your hand, I would urge you to
+hold it up at once.
+
+_The Emperor_. And what would the world say?
+
+_Tisza_. The world would glorify your name.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SHORT WAY WITH TINO.
+
+THE BIG GUN (_ringing up the Entente Exchange_). "OH, YOU _ARE_ THERE, ARE
+YOU? WELL, PUT ME ON TO NUMBER ONE, ATHENS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A KNIGHT-ERRANT.
+
+Sister Baynes came into my room just as I was putting on my out-door
+uniform and wanted to know how I was spending my two hours off duty. She is
+full of curiosity about--she calls it interest in--other people's affairs.
+When I told her I was going out to buy a birthday present she looked rather
+stern. Said she:--
+
+"The giving of unnecessary presents has become a luxury which few of us
+nowadays think it right to afford."
+
+I didn't answer her because at the moment I could think of no really
+adequate reason why Bobbie _should_ have a present, except that I so very
+much wanted to give him one. Bobbie is tall and young and red-haired and,
+of course, khaki clad. We are going to be married "when the War is over."
+
+I pondered Sister Baynes' words until I reached Oxford Street, and then
+forgot them in the interest of choosing the present. For a while I
+hesitated between cigarettes and chocolates, and finally decided on the
+latter. Bobbie is a perfect pig about sweets. I bought a
+comfortable-looking box, ornamented with a St. George, improbably attired
+in khaki, slaying a delightful German dragon clad in blue and a Uhlan
+helmet. St. George had red hair and a distinct look of Bobbie, which was
+one reason why I got him.
+
+[Illustration: THE COMBINATION SCOOTER AND CARPET SWEEPER.
+
+BUY YOUR SERVANT ONE AND ADD A ZEST TO HER WORK.]
+
+This business accomplished, I thought I would call on a friend who lives
+near by. She is middle-aged and rather sad, and spends her time pushing
+trolleys about a munition works. Just now, however, I knew she had a cold
+and couldn't go out. I found her on the floor wrestling with brown paper,
+preparing a parcel for her soldier on Salisbury Plain. She adopted him
+through a League, and spends all her spare time and pocket-money in socks
+and cigarettes for him. She smiled at me wanly, with a piece of string
+between her teeth, and I felt I simply must do something to cheer her up.
+
+"I've brought you some chocolates for your cold," I said. "Eat one and
+forget the War and the weather," and I handed her Bobbie's box. Her
+necessity, as someone says somewhere, seemed at the moment so much greater
+than his.
+
+"You extravagant child!" she said, but her face lightened for an instant.
+She admired St. George almost as much as I had done, but, though she
+fingered the orange-coloured bow, she did not untie it, so I concluded she
+meant to have an orgy by herself later on. We talked for a while, and then
+I looked at the clock and fled for the hospital. She thanked me again for
+the chocolates as I went; she really seemed quite pleased with them.
+
+Two days later Matron collared me in the passage and gave me a handful of
+letters and things to distribute. There was a fat parcel for Martha, the
+ward-maid. I found her in the closet where she keeps her brooms, and gave
+it her. Her eyes simply danced as she took it, first carefully wiping her
+hand on her apron.
+
+"It's from my bruvver," she explained. "'Im on Salisbury Plain. Very good
+to me 'e always is." She stripped off the paper and gave a sigh of rapture.
+"Lor, Nurse, ain't it beautiful?"
+
+It was a chocolate box, a comfortable-looking chocolate box, ornamented
+with a red-headed St. George, a large blue dragon and a vivid orange bow.
+
+"It does seem nice," I agreed.
+
+"Fancy 'im spending all that on me," said Martha.
+
+"You'll be able to have quite a feast," said I, smiling at my old friend
+St. George.
+
+Martha looked suddenly shy.
+
+"I'm not going to keep it," she confided. She came closer to me. "Do you
+remember young Renshaw, what used to be in your ward, Nurse?"
+
+I nodded; I remembered him well, a cheery boy with a smashed leg, now in a
+Convalescent Home by the sea.
+
+"'Im and me's engaged," said Martha in a hoarse whisper. "I liked 'im and
+he liked me, and one day I was doing the windows 'e asked me. 'E says the
+food down there is that monopolous, so I'll send him this 'ere just to
+cheer 'im up like."
+
+It seemed an excellent idea to me. I beamed upon Martha. I helped her to
+re-wrap St. George, and lent her my fountain-pen to write the address which
+was to send my Knight once more upon his travels. It appeared to me that he
+and his dragon were seeing a lot of life.
+
+Bobbie had arranged to call for me on his birthday, so when my off duty
+came I simply flung on my things and raced for the hall. As I passed
+Matron's door she called me in. I entered trembling; it was always a
+toss-up with Matron whether you were to be smiled upon or strafed.
+
+To-day she was lamb-like. She sat at a desk piled high with papers. Among
+them lay a vivid coloured object.
+
+"I've just had a letter from that young Renshaw," she said. "Such a
+charming letter, thanking us for all our kindness and enclosing a present
+to show his appreciation." She smiled. She seemed hugely pleased about
+something. "He addresses it to me," she went on; "but, though I am grateful
+for the kind thought, I do not myself eat chocolates."
+
+She picked up the box, a comfortable-looking box ornamented with an orange
+satin bow.
+
+"I think these are more in your line than mine," she said, "and Renshaw was
+in your ward. You have really the best right to them."
+
+She handed me the box of chocolates. I gazed at my travelled Saint and he
+gazed back. I could almost have sworn he winked.
+
+Clutching him and his dragon, I departed and danced down the corridor into
+the hall. There waited Bobbie, red-haired and khaki-clad, more like St.
+George than the gallant knight himself.
+
+"How do you do?" I greeted him. "Many happy returns, dear old thing!" As he
+held out his hand I put something into it. "A box of chocolates," I
+explained; "I bought them for your birthday!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Wanted, for Low Comedian, really Funny Sons."--_The Stage_.
+
+As a change, we suppose, from the eternal mother-in-law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Inveterate Golfer_ (_stung by the leading article_). "I
+SUPPOSE _I_ AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL. IT'S HARD TO REALISE THIS WITH ONE'S
+HANDICAP JUST REDUCED TO SEVEN."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.
+
+When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came
+home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired
+billy-goat he was, the same.
+
+"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place
+for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses,
+the dear knows," says she.
+
+So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the
+flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the
+way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human
+Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about
+as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address
+him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth
+he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch
+you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.
+
+And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.
+
+"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be
+patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment;" and with that she'd
+start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long
+silky hair.
+
+"Far be it from me," I says to Mikeen, the herd, "to question the workings
+o' Providence, but were I the Colonel of a rigiment, which I am not, and
+_had_ to have a mascot, it's not a raparee billy I'd be afther havin', but
+a nanny, or mebbe a cow, that would step along dacently with the rigiment
+and bring ye luck, and mebbe a dropeen o' milk for the orficers' tea as
+well. If it's such cratures that bring ye fortune may I die a peaceful
+death in a poor-house," says I.
+
+"I'm wid ye," says Mikeen, groanin', he bein' spotted like a leopard with
+bruises by rason of him havin' to comb the mascot's silky hair twice daily,
+and the quick temper of the baste at the tangles.
+
+The long of a summer the billy stops up at the Castle, archin' his neck at
+the wurrld and growin' prouder and prouder by dint of the standin' he had
+with the owld rigiment and the high-feedin' he had from Herself. Faith,
+'tis a great delight we servints had of him I'm tellin' ye! It was as much
+as your life's blood was worth to cross his path in the garden, and if the
+domestic maids would be meetin' him in the house they'd let him eat the
+dresses off them before they dare say a word.
+
+In the autumn me bowld mascot gets a wee trifle powerful by dint o' the
+high-feedin' and the natural nature of the crature. Herself, wid her
+iligant lady's nose, is afther noticin' it, and she sends wan o' the gerrls
+to tell meself and Mikeen to wash the baste.
+
+"There will be murdher done this day," says I to the lad, "but 'tis the
+orders--go get the cart-rope and the chain off the bull-dog, and we'll do
+it. Faith, it isn't all the bravery that's at the Front," says I.
+
+"That's the true wurrd," says he, rubbin' the lumps on his shins, the poor
+boy.
+
+"Oh, Delaney," says the domestic gerrl, drawin' a bottle from her apron
+pocket, "Herself says will ye plaze be so obligin' to sprinkle the mascot
+wid a dropeen of this ody-koloney scent--mebbe it will quench his
+powerfulness, she says."
+
+I put the bottle in me pocket. We tripped up me brave goat with the rope,
+got the bull's collar and chain, and dragged him away towards the pond, him
+buckin' and ragin' between us like a Tyrone Street lady in the arms of the
+poliss. To hear the roars he let out of him would turn your hearts cowld as
+lead, but we held on.
+
+The Saints were wid us; in half-an-hour we had him as wet as an eel, and
+broke the bottle of ody-koloney over his back.
+
+He was clane mad. "God save us all when he gets that chain off him!" I
+says. "God save us it is!" says Mikeen, looking around for a tree to shin.
+
+Just at the minut we heard a great screechin' o' dogs, and through the
+fence comes the harrier pack that the Reserve orficers kept in the camp
+beyond. ("Harriers" they called them, but, begob! there wasn't anythin'
+they wouldn't hunt from a fox to a turkey, those ones.)
+
+"What are they afther chasin'?" says Mikeen.
+
+"'Tis a stag to-day, be the newspapers," I says, "but the dear knows
+they'll not cotch him this month, he must be gone by this half-hour, and
+the breath is from them, their tongues is hangin' out a yard," I says.
+
+'Twas at that moment the Blessed Saints gave me wisdom.
+
+"Mikeen," I says, "drag the mascot out before them; we'll see sport this
+day."
+
+"Herself--" he begins.
+
+"Hoult your whisht," says I, "and come on." With that we dragged me bowld
+goat out before the dogs and let go the chain.
+
+The dogs sniffed up the strong blast of ody-koloney and let a yowl out of
+them like all the banshees in the nation of Ireland, and the billy legged
+it for his life--small blame to him!
+
+Meself and Mikeen climbed a double to see the sport.
+
+"They have him," says Mikeen. "They have not," says I; "the crature howlds
+them by two lengths."
+
+"He has doubled on them," says Mikeen; "he is as sly as a Jew."
+
+"He is forninst the rabbit holes now," I says. "I thank the howly Saints he
+cannot burrow."
+
+"He has tripped up--they have him bayed," says Mikeen.
+
+And that was the mortal truth, the dogs had him.
+
+Oh, but it was a bowld billy! He went in among those hounds like a lad to a
+fair, you could hear his horns lambastin' their ribs a mile away. But they
+were too many for him and bit the grand silky hair off him by the mouthful.
+The way it flew you'd think it was a snowstorm.
+
+"They have him desthroyed," says Mikeen.
+
+"They have," says I, "God be praised!"
+
+At the moment the huntsman leps his harse up on the double beside us; he
+was phlastered with muck from his hair to his boots.
+
+"What have they out there?" says he, blinkin' through the mud and not
+knowin' rightly what his hounds were coursin' out before him, whether it
+would be a stag or a Bengal tiger.
+
+"'Tis her ladyship's Rile Imperial Mascot Goat," says I; "an' God save your
+honour for she'll have your blood in a bottle for this day's worrk."
+
+The huntsman lets a curse out of his stummick and rides afther them, flat
+on his saddle, both spurs tearin'. In the wink of an eye he is down among
+the dogs, larruppin' them with his whip and drawin' down curses on them
+that would wither ye to hear him--he had great eddication, that orficer.
+
+"Come now," says I to Mikeen, the poor lad, "let you and me bear the cowld
+corpse of the diseased back to Herself; mebbe she'll have a shillin' handy
+in her hand, the way she'd reward us for saving the body from the dogs,"
+says I.
+
+But was me bowld mascot dead? He was not. He was alive and well, the
+thickness of his wool had saved him. For all that he had not a hair of it
+left to him, and when he stood up before you you wouldn't know him; he was
+that ordinary without his fleece, he was no more than a common poor man's
+goat, he was no more to look at than a skinned rabbit, and that's the
+truth.
+
+He walked home with meself and Mikeen as meek as a young gerrl.
+
+Herself came runnin' out, all fluttery, to look at him.
+
+"Ah, but that's not _my_ mascot," says she.
+
+"It is, Marm," says I; and I swore to it by the whole Calendar--Mikeen too.
+
+"Bah! how disgustin'. Take it to the cow-house," says she, and stepped
+indoors without another word.
+
+We led the billy away, him hangin' his head for shame at his nakedness.
+
+"Ye'll do no more mascottin' avic," says I to him. "Sorra luck you would
+bring to a blind beggar-man the way you are now--you'll never step along
+again with the drums and tambourines."
+
+And that was the true word, for though Herself had Mikeen rubbing him daily
+with bear's-grease and hair-lotion he never grew the same grand fleece
+again, and he'd stand about in the back-field, brooding for hours together,
+the divilment clane gone out of his system; and if, mebbe, you'd draw the
+stroke of an ash-plant across his ribs to hearten him, he'd only just look
+at you sad-like and pass no remarks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TOP-O'-THE-MORNING.
+
+  Top-o'-the-Morning's shoes are off;
+    He runs in the orchard, rough, all day;
+  Chasing the hens for a turn at the trough,
+    Fighting the cows for a place at the hay;
+  With a coat where the Wiltshire mud has dried,
+    With brambles caught in his mane and tail--
+  Top-o'-the-Morning, pearl and pride
+    Of the foremost flight of the White Horse Vale!
+
+  The master he carried is Somewhere in France
+    Leading a cavalry troop to-day,
+  Ready, if Fortune but give him the chance,
+    Ready as ever to show them the way,
+  Riding as straight to his new desire
+    As ever he rode to the line of old,
+  Facing his fences of blood and fire
+  With a brow of flint and a heart of gold.
+
+  Do the hoofs of his horses wake a dream
+    Of a trampling crowd at the covert-side,
+  Of a lead on the grass and a glinting stream
+    And Top-o'-the-Morning shortening stride?
+  Does the triumph leap to his shining eyes
+    As the wind of the vale on his cheek blows cold,
+  And the buffeting big brown shoulders rise
+    To his light heel's touch and his light hand's hold?
+
+  When the swords are sheathed and the strife is done,
+    And the cry of hounds is a call to men;
+  When  the  straight-necked Wiltshire foxes run
+    And the first flight rides on the grass again;
+  May Top-o'-the-Morning, sleek of hide,
+    Shod, and tidy of mane and tail,
+  Light, and fit for a man to ride,
+    Lead them once more in the White Horse Vale!
+
+W.H.O.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Polygamy in Workington.
+
+"Supper was served by some of the wives of some of the
+members."--_Workington News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRAGEDY OF A DUTIFUL WIFE.
+
+[Illustration: "I SAY, THAT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON SEEMS A JOLLY
+WOMAN--WHAT?" "ISN'T SHE A LITTLE--ER--"
+
+"NOT A BIT OF IT. A WOMAN OUGHT TO BE CHEERY, ESPECIALLY IN THESE TIMES."
+"I SEE, DEAR."]
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT ON EARTH--?"
+
+"I'M MAKING A NEW HAT, DEAR. I SAW MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON WEARING ONE
+VERY LIKE THIS."]
+
+[Illustration: "GREAT HEAVENS! WHAT ARE YOU CUTTING YOUR NEW DRESS TO BITS
+FOR?"
+
+"IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAR. MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON HAS ONE QUITE AS SHORT AS
+THIS."]
+
+[Illustration: "GOOD LORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR FACE?"
+
+"MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON ALWAYS MAKES UP A LITTLE WHEN SHE'S GOING OUT.
+OH--I FORGOT TO TELL YOU--I HAVEN'T ORDERED ANY DINNER, AS I THOUGHT WE
+MIGHT GO AND DINE AT A RESTAURANT."]
+
+[Illustration: "AREN'T YOU MAKING YOURSELF RATHER CONSPICUOUS?"
+
+"BUT I THOUGHT YOU LIKED CHEERY PEOPLE LIKE MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON."]
+
+[Illustration: "I'M AWFULLY SORRY, DEAR. I OUGHT TO HAVE PRACTISED SMOKING.
+I EXPECT MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON--"
+
+"D---- MRS. DASHWOOD SPIFFINGTON!"
+
+"VERY WELL, DEAR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE PINCH OF WAR.
+
+_Lady of the House_ (_War Profiteer's wife, forlornly_). "THEY'VE JUST
+TAKEN OUR THIRD FOOTMAN; AND IF ANY MORE OF OUR MEN HAVE TO GO WE SHALL
+CLOSE THE HOUSE AND LIVE AT THE RITZ UNTIL THE WAR IS
+OVER--(_brightly_)--HOWEVER, WE MUST ALL SACRIFICE SOMETHING."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OVER-WEIGHT.
+
+_Scene: A London Terminus_.
+
+_Porter_ (_with an air of finality_). It weighs 'undred-and-four pounds.
+You can't take it, mum.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. Oh, I must take it.
+
+[_Porter is obliged by an irritation of the head to remove his cap, but
+does not speak._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. It's all right. I know the manager of the line, and he
+would pass it for me.
+
+_Her Friend_. Isn't your friend manager of the Great Southern?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_sharply_). He has a great deal to do with all these
+railways now. (_To Porter, hopefully, but not very confidently_) That will
+be all right.
+
+_Porter_. Very sorry, mum. It can't be done.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. My friend the manager would be very much annoyed at my
+being stopped like this. Only four pounds, too. Why, it's nothing.
+
+[_Porter removes his cap again on account of further irritation._
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_to her Friend_). I  don't know what I'm to do. (_To
+Porter_)  What am I to do?
+
+_Porter_ (_deliberately_). You must open it and take somethink out.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. I can't open it here.
+
+_Porter_ (_ignoring this_). Somethink weighing a bit over four pounds.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. But I can't do it here.
+
+_Porter_ (_ignoring this_). Pair o' boots or somethink.
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_to her Friend_). He seems to think my boots weigh four
+pounds.
+
+_Her Friend_. Haven't you got two pairs?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_sourly_). Yes, but two pairs of my boots wouldn't weigh
+four pounds.
+
+_Porter_ (who has been quietly undoing the straps_). Is it locked, mum?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_producing key and almost in tears_). It's too bad.
+
+[_She dives into box and extracts two pairs of boots wrapped in
+newspapers._
+
+_Porter_ (_taking them and weighing them judiciously in his hands_). That's
+all right, mum.
+
+[_He pushes box on to weighing machine which registers under 100 lbs._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. They're very thick boots, of course. Whatever am I to do
+with them now?
+
+_Her Friend_. We shall have to carry them. [_Takes one parcel._
+
+_Lady Traveller_. Jane shall hear of this. I told her never to use
+newspaper for packing.
+
+_Her Friend_ (_suddenly_). There's Major Merriman.
+
+_Lady Traveller_. So it is. Don't let him see us with these dreadful
+parcels. (_Angrily_) Why don't you turn round? He'll see you.
+
+_Major Merriman_. How do you do?
+
+_Lady Traveller_ (_in great surprise_).  Oh, how do you do, Major Merriman?
+We've been having such an amusing experience, etc., etc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What made Lord Devonport Dizzy.
+
+    "The following resolution was unanimously passed, and ordered to be
+    sent to the Prime Minister and the Food Controller (Lord
+    Beaconsfield)."--_The Western Gazette_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Lamp-posts and trees and other pedestrians were found with unpleasant
+    and sometimes violent frequency."--_Beckenham Journal_.
+
+That's the worst of a fog; landmarks will keep on walking about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_A propos_ of the TSAR'S manifesto:--
+
+    "The _Retch_, says: 'The order puts the dot on all the
+    "t's."'"--_Provincial Paper_.
+
+It is a far, far better thing to dot your "t's" than cross your "i's."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DAWN OF DOUBT.
+
+GRETCHEN. "I WONDER IF THIS GENTLEMAN REALLY IS MY GOOD ANGEL AFTER ALL!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Benevolent Gentleman_. "YOU MUST BE CAREFUL, MY MAN, OR YOU
+WILL GET CLERGYMAN'S SORE THROAT."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.
+
+(SECOND SERIES.)
+
+XV.--THE TOWER.
+
+  They put a Lady in the Tower,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Lady in the Tower
+  And told her she was in their power
+  And left her there for half-an-hour,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Padlock on the Chain,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Padlock on the Chain,
+  But they left the Key in the South of Spain,
+  So the Lady took it off again,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Bulldog at the Door,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Bulldog at the Door,
+  He was so old he could only snore,
+  And he'd lost his Tooth the day before,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Beefeater at the Gate,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Beefeater at the Gate,
+  But as his age was eighty-eight
+  His Grandmother said he couldn't wait,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  They put a Prince to watch the Stair,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  They put a Prince to watch the Stair,
+  But he had a Golden Ring to spare,
+  So he married the Lady then and there,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+  And ever since that grievous hour,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+  Ever since that grievous hour
+  When the lovely Lady was in their power
+  They've never put nobody in the Tower,
+    Heigh-o, fiddlededee!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Flattery from the Front.
+
+    "I got your parcel quite undamaged, and it came at a time when we were
+    short of grub. I could have eaten a dead monkey, so your cake came in
+    very useful."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Major-General (Temporary General) Sir Hugh de la Poer Bough, K.C.B.,
+    whose name appears in the New Year list of honours as being promoted to
+    the rank of lieutenant-general, is a second cousin of Major-General
+    Hugh Sutlej Kough."--_Liverpool Echo_.
+
+It is rumoured that he is also connected with that famous fighting family
+the GOUGHS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A POSTSCRIPT.
+
+(_Suggested by a later list of L. & N.W.R.
+stations which have been closed._)
+
+  A further list of closured stations
+  Elicits further protestations.
+  Blank desolation, grim and stark,
+  Broods sadly o'er Carpenders Park,
+  And Friezland, as perhaps is meet,
+  Is suffering badly from cold feet.
+  The population of Rhosneigr
+  Is raging like a wounded tiger;
+  And those who used to book at Llong
+  Are using language, loud and strong,
+  While residents around Chalk Farm
+  Are filled with anguish and alarm.
+
+  N.B. In our anterior lay
+  One letter somehow went astray;
+  We therefore now apologise;
+  'Tis Aspley, and not Apsley, Guise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From an article on "Greece and Belgium":--
+
+    "King Tino has a black record of blood and treachery to answer, and to
+    compare his case with that of King Leopold is the blackest outrage of
+    all."--_Star_.
+
+Personally we think that it were blacker still to compare his case with
+that of KING ALBERT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "HI! BILL! DON'T COME DOWN THIS LADDER. I'VE TOOK IT AWAY."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LITTLE RIFT.
+
+My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We are like the
+Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always "arrive at a complete
+understanding" in all matters of policy. When strict economy was enjoined
+upon us I moved my desk into the dining-room to save a fire. She made a
+summer hat out of a bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an
+evening gown. All was well.
+
+I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I were to suggest
+that there was the slightest difference of opinion between us. I most
+solemnly declare that I am as good a patriot as she is. Still, as time goes
+on, I do feel a certain uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element
+that needs watching.
+
+We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She asks me to take
+two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the dog and the laundry-hamper
+along with me in the two-seater to the station, to save petrol. Well, I am
+willing. She fills the herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and
+carnations. Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
+say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of these things.
+
+Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I should say that
+here she has advantages over some, as I belong to the class of husband
+known as Easily Fed. She has got hold of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the
+War Office or somewhere--"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
+"How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and we feed on
+those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and yet I am well aware that
+rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in such forms as not to leave a single
+clue. I cannot tell you how I admire and approve. Still it makes me
+thoughtful sometimes.
+
+No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together by sharing these
+hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I don't feel easy about it. We are
+quite in sympathy, but there is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I
+affirm, is the nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am
+convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that she does it on
+purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea what I mean. I sometimes
+wonder wistfully if the hand that put that ugly new steel contraption at
+the back of the fire to save the coal is really the hand that I wooed and
+won ten years ago. I see in her the steady growth of an implacable
+conscience. In moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she
+always wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance till
+now.
+
+We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at all hard up
+and we had no compunctions about spending money. But now--I wonder how
+long the War will last? What I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I
+am already guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are
+going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them, but she
+isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The garden is to be
+reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the house. We are going to travel
+first, and I am not sure that we shan't have a new cook. And we are to have
+an Airedale and an Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama.
+
+As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only want to have
+something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever get back to the _status
+quo ante_ I will not ask for annexations.
+
+Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her latest
+suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit with benzine (I
+don't like the smell of it) instead of getting a new one. Only I live in a
+growing fear that the day when peace is signed in Europe will be the signal
+for an outbreak of a new form of warfare in our happy home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mistress_ (_from upper window_). "WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING
+OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?"
+
+_Romantic Maid_. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE OWLS, MA'AM."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WHAT DID MR. ASQUITH DO?
+
+A famous story tells how a heckler once broke up a Liberal meeting by
+asking with raucous iteration, "What did Mr. GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or
+whatever year it was. Nobody knew, and neither did the inquirer himself,
+but uproar followed and his end was achieved. Now had the question run,
+"What did Mr. GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE,
+apart from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two priceless
+things, as I will show.
+
+Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last number was so
+unhappy about the deterioration that has come upon taxi-drivers, I left
+England only in October last, I find it a changed place; but no change, not
+even the iniquitous prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the
+increased darkness, or the queer division of _hors d'oeuvres_ into
+half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to the pathetic
+query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of course")--no change is so
+striking as the fact that when a paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or
+the PREMIER, it means no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux
+and mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a pyramid, a
+pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to alteration.
+
+Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad it is that he
+has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always reserved and intent, he
+discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the
+key on the Tenth Muse. Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board
+in Downing Street, but interviewers had no chance. In vain did the Quexes
+of this frivolous city hope for even a crumb--there was nothing for them.
+Mr. ASQUITH came into office, held it, and left it without a single
+concession to Demos's love of personalia. He did not even wear comic
+collars or white hats or a single eyeglass or any other grotesquely
+significant thing; and how much poorer are we in consequence and how much
+poorer will posterity be!
+
+Contrast the case of Mr. GLADSTONE, from whom anyone could draw a postcard
+and most people a chip of some recently-felled tree, and who is in my mind
+wonderful and supreme by reason of two inventions which, though no one
+would ever guess them to be the result of a Prime Minister's cogitations,
+deserve the widest fame. Of these one was the product of his unaided
+genius; the other the result of the collaboration with his wife.
+
+Let us begin with the individual triumph.
+
+Everyone who has ever stayed under anyone else's roof, from a
+dine-and-sleep at Windsor Castle to a week in lovely Lucerne, has been
+confronted, when packing-up time arrived, with the problem of the sponge.
+No matter how muscular the fingers that wring this article, no matter how
+thick and costly the rubbered receptacle that holds it, there is always the
+chance of dampness communicating itself to other things in the bag. Isn't
+there?
+
+How so to squeeze the sponge as to drive out the last drop of moisture was
+the problem before the massive intellect of the Grand Old Man. Need I say
+that he solved it? His method, as he himself in his unselfish way, told one
+of the diarists, possibly Sir M.E. GRANT-DUFF, possibly Mr. G.W.E.
+RUSSELL--I forget whom--was to wrap up the sponge in a bath-towel and jump
+on it. Here, for the historical painter, is a theme indeed--something worth
+all the ordinary dull occasions which provoke his talented if somewhat
+staid brush: the great Liberal statesman, the promoter of Home Rule, the
+author of _The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture_, leaping upon the
+bath-towel that held his sponge. But no historical painter could do justice
+to such a scene. It needs the movies.
+
+Those of us then who dry our sponges in this way--and I am a fervent
+devotee--owe the inventor a meed of praise. And equally those of us who put
+into our hot water bottles at night hot tea instead of hot water (as I
+never have done and never mean to do), so that, waking in the small hours,
+we may yet not be without refreshment, owe a meed of praise to the same
+inspired innovator, for, if the chroniclers are correct, it was Mrs.
+GLADSTONE'S habit to retire to rest with a bottle thus nutritiously filled,
+which would be ready for her great man on his return from the House weary
+and athirst.
+
+Here we see the difference between Liberal Premiers. For what has Mr.
+ASQUITH done towards the solution of domestic problems? Who can name a
+thing? Has he devised a collar stud that cannot be lost? Has he hit upon a
+way instantly to stop a shaving cut from bleeding? Has he contrived a taxi
+window that will open when shut or shut when open? No. In all these years
+he has spared no time for any inventions.
+
+No wonder then that he was found wanting and forced to resign.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A Scot among the Cynics.
+
+    "The railway fares are being raised, we are told, to stop pleasure
+    travelling, but it can hardly be imagined that a munition worker going
+    home to spend his week-end with his family is bent on pleasure."--
+    _Glasgow Evening News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Beautiful set of civic cat; very large stole and muff; accept
+    L12."--_The Lady_.
+
+As DICK WHITTINGTON'S mascot is the only civic cat known to history we
+think the relic should be secured for the Guildhall Museum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Simply as a citizen and as a non-party man, I want to say that Mr.
+    Asquith has my affection and respect--and that is the highest guerdon
+    that any statesman can have."--_Extract from Letter in Yorkshire
+    Paper_.
+
+We know now why Mr. ASQUITH refused a peerage. He did not want to vex his
+modest admirer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "At Caxton Hall the conference was resumed of municipal authorities
+    interested in the conversation of old fruit, sardine and salmon
+    tins."--_Birmingham Daily Mail_.
+
+We ourselves always listen with pleasure to their talk. It has at once a
+fruity and a fishy flavour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Gentleman_ (_In favour of national work for everyone_).
+"AND WHY SHOULDN'T PEOPLE BE DOING TO-DAY WHAT THEY NEVER DREAMED OF DOING
+BEFORE THE WAR?"
+
+_New Assistant_ (_his first operation_). "EXACTLY, SIR. ALL THE SAME, IF
+ANYBODY HAD TOLD ME TWO DAYS AGO THAT I SHOULD NOW BE CUTTING THE HAIR OF A
+COMPLETE STRANGER, I'D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED 'IM."]
+
+WARS OF THE PAST.
+
+(_As recorded in the Press of the period._)
+
+VI.
+
+_From "The Athens Advertiser and Piraeus Post_."
+
+MACEDONIA'S ARMY.
+
+THE FAMOUS PHALANX.
+
+ (_By our Military Expert_.)
+
+The Macedonian Army has recently undergone an entire reconstruction at the
+hands of KING PHILIP. It is now organised on a national and territorial
+basis and is divided into infantry and cavalry. The cavalry predominates
+and is therefore the stronger arm. The unit of cavalry is the squadron, of
+infantry the battalion. (It is of the utmost interest to note that there
+are two battalions in a regiment, each about fifteen hundred strong).
+
+KING PHILIP, it will be remembered, received his military education in the
+school of EPAMINONDAS, who, as is well known, revolutionised the Higher
+Thought of every Higher Command by the discovery and application of a
+single tactical fact--namely, that the chances of A being able to give B a
+stronger push than B can give him are _in direct ratio to the numerical
+superiority of A over B_. It follows, then, that, faced with a sufficient
+superiority, B _must_ retire, and _the initiative then rests with the side
+that possesses it_.
+
+In pursuance of this tactical ideal EPAMINONDAS argued that the old method
+of winning battles, which was that A should exercise superior force against
+every point of B's line (or body), required that A should be bigger than B,
+buskin for buskin and brisket for brisket. But since it is sufficient,
+while "refusing" the rest of one's own body (or line), to bring an
+overwhelming force to bear on the point of a person's jaw, in order to
+discomfit him, so in a battle a numerically inferior A, by concentrating on
+a vital point of numerically superior B, can gain a local numerical
+superiority which will enable him to rout B utterly. (This is always
+supposing that B is not doing the same thing himself on the other wing, in
+which case each army would miss the other altogether--a condition of things
+into which the military art does not care to follow them).
+
+Hence the phalanx or "preponderating mass formation." The Macedonian
+development of this depends (to reduce the matter to the simple algebraical
+formula to which all military problems are susceptible) on the fact that if
+_x_ equals the greatest efficiency of an army, and the rooted square of
+stability to the _n_th rank equals the phalanx, then the rooted square of
+stability to the _n_th rank equals _x_ minus the tangential curve of
+velocity of mobility. This should be plain even to the amateur student of
+tactics. Blending almost a military expert's appreciation of this cardinal
+doctrine with his natural selfishness as a leader of cavalry, PHILIP has
+given to this, the mobile arm, much of the striking power of the original
+phalanx. This is now placed in the centre, its business being mainly to
+force a salient in the enemy's line, the two resultant enclaves of which
+can then be shattered (at their re-entrants) by the cavalry squadrons,
+hurled forward on both phalanks. It should be noted, as a brilliant example
+of PHILIP'S staff work, that in the Macedonian Army, for the avoidance of
+confusion in the field, "phalanks" is now spelt "flanks."
+
+To the intelligent student who has followed me thus far in these articles
+it should not be necessary to explain again the terms "enclave," "salient,"
+and "re-entrant." "Tactical" is a term used when one is not using the term
+"strategical," and _vice versa_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "In the words of Bacon, it should be 'read, marked, learned and
+    inwardly digested.'"--_Financial Paper_.
+
+Our gay contemporary does not tell us whether it was before or after
+completing the works usually attributed to SHAKSPEARE that BACON compiled
+the Book of Common Prayer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE FLAPPER.
+
+[Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, in the January _Nineteenth Century_, in his article
+on "Ordeal by Fire," after denouncing idlers and loafers and shirkers,
+falls foul "above all" of the young girls called flappers, "with high
+heels, skirts up to their knees and blouses open to the diaphragm, painted,
+powdered, self-conscious, ogling: 'Allus adallacked and dizened oot and a
+'unting arter the men.'"]
+
+  Good Dr. ARTHUR SHADWELL, who lends lustre to a name
+  Which DRYDEN in his satires oft endeavoured to defame,
+  Has lately been discussing in a high-class magazine
+  The trials that confront us in the year Nineteen Seventeen.
+
+  He is not a smooth-tongued prophet; no, he takes a serious view;
+  We must make tremendous efforts if we're going to win through;
+  And though he's not unhopeful of the issue of the fray
+  He finds abundant causes for misgiving and dismay.
+
+  Our optimistic journals his exasperation fire,
+  And the idlers and the loafers stimulate his righteous ire;
+  But it is the flapper chiefly that in his gizzard sticks,
+  And he's down upon her failings like a waggon-load of bricks.
+
+  She's ubiquitous in theatres, in rail and 'bus and tram,
+  She wears her "blouses open down to the diaphragm,"
+  And, instead of realising what our men are fighting for,
+  She's an orgiastic nuisance who in fact _enjoys_ the War.
+
+  It's a strenuous indictment of our petticoated youth
+  And contains a large substratum of unpalatable truth;
+  Our women have been splendid, but the Sun himself has specks,
+  And the flapper can't be reckoned as a credit to her sex.
+
+  Still it needs to be remembered, to extenuate her crimes,
+  That these flappers have not always had the very best of times;
+  And the life that now she's leading, with no Mentors to restrain,
+  Is decidedly unhinging to an undeveloped brain.
+
+  Then again we only see her when she's out for play or meals,
+  And distresses the fastidious by her gestures and her squeals,
+  But she is not always idle or a decorative drone,
+  And if she wastes her wages, well, she wastes what is her own.
+
+  Still to say that she's heroic, as some scribes of late have said,
+  Is unkind as well as foolish, for it only swells her head;
+  She oughtn't to be flattered, she requires to be repressed,
+  Or she'll grow into a portent and a peril and a pest.
+
+  Dr. SHADWELL to the PREMIER makes an eloquent appeal
+  In firm and drastic fashion with this element to deal;
+  And 'twould be a real feather in our gifted Cambrian's cap
+  If he taught the peccant flapper less flamboyantly to flap.
+
+  But, in _Punch's_ way of thinking, 'tis for women, kind and wise,
+  These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize,
+  Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate,
+  And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant of the State.
+
+  She's young; her eyes are dazzled by the glamour of the streets;
+  She has to learn that life is not all cinemas and sweets;
+  But given wholesome guidance she may rise to self-control
+  And earn the right of entry on the Nation's golden Roll.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE ONLY STEGGLES.
+
+Steggles is my groom, and my crowning mercy. But for his deafness I am sure
+he would long since have left the humble rank of gunner far beneath him,
+and the Staff might have gained a brilliant strategist. In addition to
+dulness of hearing, Steggles is endowed--I should indeed be ungrateful to
+use the word afflicted--with a vacuity of expression which puts rivals or
+antagonists off their guard, and doubles his value during the vicissitudes
+of active service. What would be handicaps to ordinary men Steggles turns
+to the advantage of himself, Sapphira my mare, and me.
+
+When on the march the Battery arrives at the morass allotted to it for
+horse lines, I know that all will be well with the mud-bespattered
+Sapphira. Steggles leaps from the waggon whereon, in company with one of
+the cooks, he tours the pleasant land of France, and receives the mare.
+With his toes strangely pointed out, he leads her away from the scene of
+labour and language, disappearing amidst the hovels of the adjacent
+village. Often I never see him or obtain news of him till next morning,
+when he produces Sapphira polished like a silk hat and every scrap of metal
+about her sparkling. Occasionally I have tracked him to the shelter where
+he secretes and waits upon Sapphira, always to find that he has discovered
+and occupied the best stable in the village. The grooms of my
+brother-officers never learn that Steggles' vacuous expression is the
+disguise of an intellect subtle, discriminating and alert, so they never
+trouble to endeavour to forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find
+Steggles, as he always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on
+him if she wanted anything during the night.
+
+From time to time he chooses the occasion of a night's halt on the march to
+indulge in a bilious attack; but he has no other vice except an inveterate
+reluctance to leave off polishing my boots when I mount. No matter how
+Sapphira may prance and back and sidle, he follows her round and round with
+a remnant of a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the stirrup. It is
+quite useless to bellow, "That will do, Steggles!"--his ideal is the
+unattainable perfection, and he persists. I have to escape by giving
+Sapphira the spur at the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or be late
+in turning out.
+
+He never gives anything, even his own performances, unqualified praise; in
+fact it is extremely hard to win from him any encomium higher than "It's
+not too bad." Perhaps there is Scotch blood in his veins.
+
+I very much want to recommend him for some decoration, but the organization
+likely to appreciate the most gallant of his deeds has not yet been
+formed--the S.P.G.P., or Society for the Preservation of Government
+Property.
+
+Steggles was once riding behind me down a valley liberally dimpled with
+shell-holes, further dimples being in process of formation as we rode. I
+was returning from an O Pip, or Observation Post, and Steggles was carrying
+a pair of my boots with a rolled puttee stuffed into each. Suddenly I was
+aware that he had wheeled his horse about, and was trotting back towards
+the most dimply area of the valley. Out of regard for his family, I
+cantered after him. He broke into a gallop. When, after a thrilling ride, I
+caught him and had a little talk amongst the dimples, it appeared that he
+had dropped one of the puttees, and wished to return and look for it. This
+incident will, I think, demonstrate the exceptional character of the man,
+who did not appear to regard himself as a hero, or to pose as a desperate
+_farceur_, or to aspire to the post of Q.M.S., though, incredible as it may
+seem, the puttee in question was of the variety G.S.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Orderly Officer_. "WHY DON'T YOU CHALLENGE ME?"
+
+_Latest called-up Recruit_. "I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE COMING."
+
+_Orderly Officer_. "WHAT DID THE CORPORAL SAY WHEN HE POSTED YOU?"
+
+_Recruit_. "I WOULDN'T LIKE TO REPEAT IT TO AN OFFICER, SIR."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
+
+(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
+
+To those who would learn what soldiering is like in the armies of
+democratic France I would heartily commend two books recently published by
+Messrs. ALLEN AND UNWIN, _Battles and Bivouacs_, by JACQUES ROUJON, and
+_The Diary of a French Private_, by GASTON RIOU. M. ROUJON, infantryman of
+the line, was in private life a journalist on _Le Figaro_; M. RIOU, Red
+Cross orderly, a liberal lay-theologian and writer of European reputation.
+The former's transliterator ("Munitions are distributed around," writes he
+undismayed; and has also discovered a territory known as "Oriental
+Prussia") obtrudes a little between author and reader. M. RIOU fares
+better; but both contrive to give a really vivid impression of the horrors
+and anxieties of the early days of the War before the tide turned at the
+Marne, of the flying rumours so far from the actual truth, of the fine
+spirit of _camaraderie_ in common danger, of the intimate relations between
+officers and men, details, terrible or trivial, of campaigning, and,
+because our spirited brothers-in-arms are not ashamed to express their
+innermost feelings, of the deeper emotions at work under the surface
+gaieties. M. RIOU'S narrative is mainly the record of his year's captivity
+in a Bavarian fort. On his way he faced the fanatical hatred and cruelty of
+the German civilians, of the women especially, with a cynical fortitude.
+The commandant of his prison, Baron von STENGEL, was, however, a gentleman
+and a brick, and did everything in his power to make the difficult life
+bearable. An episode pleasant to recall is the reception of the Russian
+prisoners (intended by their captors to cause dissensions) by their French
+comrades in misfortune. The whole record gives an impression of fine
+courage and resourcefulness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very probably you are already acquainted with that restful and admirable
+book, _Father Payne_ (SMITH, ELDER), of which a new edition has just now
+been published. The point of this new edition is that, in its special
+Preface, the genesis and authorship of the book are assigned, for the first
+time on this side the Atlantic, to Mr. A.C. BENSON. And the point of the
+new preface is that it entirely gives away the original edition (also
+printed here), in which the secret was elaborately concealed. My wonder is,
+reading the book with this added knowledge, that anyone can have at any
+time failed to detect in it the gently persuasive hand of the Master of
+Magdalene, Cambridge. You remember, no doubt, how _Father Payne_ (a
+courtesy title), having had a small estate left to him, proceeded to turn
+it into the home of a secular community for young men desirous of pursuing
+the literary gift, and how he financed, encouraged and generally supervised
+them. Leisure, an exquisite setting, and the society of enthusiastic and
+personally-selected youth--one might call the book perhaps a Tutor's Dream
+of the Millennium. Anyhow, _Father Payne_, as shown in this volume, which
+is practically a record of his table-talk upon a great variety of themes,
+is exactly the gentle, shrewd and idealistic philosopher whom (knowing his
+parentage) one would expect. Bensonians (of the A.C. pattern) will
+certainly be glad to have what must surely have been their suspicions
+confirmed, and to admit _Father Payne_ to the shelves of authenticity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss DOROTHEA CONYERS has long ere this established herself as a specialist
+of repute in Irish sporting tales. You will need but one look at the
+picture wrapper of _The Financing of Fiona_ (ALLEN) to see that a
+repetition of the same agreeable mixture awaits you within. _Fiona_ was a
+charming young woman (Irish, of course) with a rich uncle and a poor, very
+unattractive cousin, who loved her for her expectations. As _Fiona_ had no
+conception about money beyond the spending of it, the uncle made a will,
+whose object was that she should have plenty. The suitor, however, knowing
+of this, and being a naughty, rather improbable person, destroyed part of
+it, with the result that _Fiona_ was apparently left only the ancestral
+home and no cash to keep it up. So she was forced to take in gentleman
+boarders for the hunting, and (for propriety's sake) to invent a mythical
+chaperon, who lived above stairs. And, after all, she needn't have done any
+such thing, because the rich uncle, in leaving her all the contents of the
+mansion, had foolishly forgotten to mention a secret drawer full of
+Canadian securities. As for the villain, I really hardly dare tell you the
+impossibly silly way in which he allowed himself to be caught out. But of
+course all this melodrama is not what matters. The important thing about
+Miss CONYERS' people is that (whatever their private worries) a-hunting
+they will go; and _Fiona_, financed by her paying guests, shows in this
+respect as capital sport as any of her predecessors. For the rest, I can
+hardly say with honesty that the story is equal to its author's best form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What I like particularly about Mr. FREDERICK NIVEN is the friendly way in
+which he contrives to make his readers and himself into a family party. "We
+must," he writes at the beginning of a chapter in _Cinderella of Skookum
+Greek_ (NASH), "get a move on with the story, in case you become more tired
+of Archer's compound fracture than he was himself." This is by no means the
+only occasion on which he shows his thoughtfulness for us, and I think it
+very kind and nice of him. At the same time I will ungraciously admit that
+the weak point of his story is that it does not move quite fast enough.
+Admirable artist in psychology and atmosphere, his plot, if you can call it
+a plot, is very slight. _Cyrus Archer_, the young American of the compound
+fracture (who had my sympathy from the start because he could never
+remember dates), goes out into the back of beyond for a spell before
+settling down to married life and a place in his father's business, and at
+Skookum Creek, where he grows tomatoes and studies Indians, he meets his
+_Cinderella_, with the result that his life has to be completely
+rearranged. A commonplace tale, but there is a rare and distinct flavour
+about the telling of it. Mr. NIVEN'S manner has indeed a very particular
+charm, over which one would take an even keener pleasure in lingering if
+only he himself lingered a little less over his story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I hardly think that Madame ALBANESI has chosen quite the most appropriate
+name for the story that she calls _Hearts and Sweethearts_ (HUTCHINSON).
+Personally, I fancy that _Suits and Lawsuits_ would have come nearer the
+mark; because, though there is a certain proportion of love-making in the
+tale, there is considerably more about going to law. One difficulty with
+which I fancy the writer had to contend is due to the fact that her hero
+and heroine are (in a sense) the opposing protagonists in a case of
+disputed succession; _Jemima Frant_ being engaged in the attempt to turn
+out _Sir John Norminster_ from his estates and establish the claim to them
+of her dead sister's child. Naturally, therefore, till this is settled
+their opportunities for the tender passion are, to put it very gently,
+restricted. But of course--well, a novel with such a title is hardly likely
+to leave anybody of importance unmarried at the final page. Before this is
+turned, you have some pleasant comedy of London in war-time, and meet a
+number of agreeably sketched persons, whose conversation may amuse you, or,
+on the other hand, may cause you to wish them a little less discursive.
+Madame ALBANESI indeed impressed me as having occasionally turned her
+subordinate characters loose into a chapter, with instructions to fill it
+up anyhow, while she herself thought out the next move. But the law was
+always leisurely, so this characteristic might perhaps be expected in a
+story so much concerned with it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The Mother_ (_overhauling little Tommy's wardrobe_). "OH,
+CHARLES, JUST SEE WHAT THAT DREADFUL CHILD HAS BEEN CARRYING ABOUT IN HIS
+POCKET! A REAL CARTRIDGE WITH A BULLET IN IT. HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO
+BITS!"
+
+_The Father_ (_with a glowing consciousness of assisting his country at a
+critical time_). "JUST PUT IT IN A COOL PLACE FOR TO-NIGHT, MY DEAR, AND I
+WILL LEAVE IT AT THE WAR OFFICE TO-MORROW ON MY WAY TO BUSINESS."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Handel in War-Time.
+
+    "The anthem 'O Thou that tillest' (Messiah), will be
+    rendered."--_Dublin Evening Mail_.
+
+No pains are being spared to promote agriculture in Ireland.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "The river in many places has overflown its banks."--
+    _Henley Newspaper_.
+
+Even Father Thames cannot resist the modern mania for aviation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Extract from a review of Dr. JOHN FITZPATRICK'S "_This Realm, This
+England_":--
+
+    "From a Scotsman, we deprecate the definition of 'This Realm' as
+    'England,' and would suggest to the learned doctor that he would have
+    done nothing derogatory to himself, even in the eyes of Englishmen, if
+    he had used the really correct and comprehensive name Britain."--_Scots
+    Pictorial_.
+
+SHAKSPEARE (ghost of), please note.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL.
+152, JANUARY 10, 1917***
+
+
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