under the strictest observation. My bit _may_ have gone to Egypt or
Nyassaland or Nagri Sembilan. But I have a depressing feeling that A 27
_x y z_ iv. 9.8 will be nearer the mark, and that I shall find it
meandering nightly to Bk 171 in large droves, there to insert more and
more humps of soggy Belgium into more and more sandbags. I don't want to
make myself unpleasant to the War Office, but I really can't see why we
haven't once and for all built trenches all done up in eight-inch thick
steel plates. They could easily be brought up ready-made, and simply
sunk into position.

They would sink all right; you'd just have to put them down anywhere and
look the other way for a minute. The difficulty would be to stop the
lift before it got to the basement--if there is a basement in Flanders.

There is a tragedy to report. We were adopted recently by a magpie. He
was a gentle creature of impulsive habits and strong woodpecking
instincts. Arsene we called him. For some days he gladdened us with his
soft bright eye. But when we came to know him well and I relied on him
to break the shells of my eggs every morning at breakfast, to steal my
pens and spill my ink, to wake me by a gentle nip on the nose from his
firm but courteous beak, a rough grenadier came one day to explain a new
type of infernal machine, and, when we went out, left a detonator on the
table.

I never saw what actually followed, but we buried Arsene with full
military honours.

* * * * *

"Ladies' Self-trimmed Velvet Hate for One
Shilling."--_North-Country Paper._

The latest fashion in Berlin.

* * * * *

MORE LIGHT FROM OUR LEADERS.

By way of a supplement to the Candle-shade epigrams recently contributed
by various distinguished men and women of light and leading, we have
been fortunate to secure the following sentiments for St. Valentine's
Day from several luminaries who were conspicuously absent from the list.

Mr. Harry Lauder, the illustrious comedian, poetizes as follows:--

"Let those wha wull compile the nation's annals, And guide oor
thochts in strict historic channels; Ma Muse prefers, far fra these
dull morasses, To laud the purrrple heather and the lassies."

Mr. Stevenson, the incomparable cueist, sends this pithy distich:--

"Big guns are useful in their way, 'tis true, But nursery cannons
have their uses too."

Miss Carrie Tubb, the