ttle
went on much as before, except that the Turks were naturally more
outspoken than the Bulgars, calling freely upon Allah at the beginning of
the fight, and reconciling themselves to the end of it with "Kismet."
I also turned some of the horses into camels, and (for the sake of the
Indian troops) several pairs of puttees into _chupaties_. It was a good
story while it lasted.

However, nobody seems to care about art nowadays.

"What do you think?" cried Celia, bursting into my room.

I held up a delaying hand. I had suddenly thought of the word "adobe." My
story seemed to need it somewhere. If possible, among the wattles.

"But listen!" She read out the headline: "'Turkey Surrenders at
Discretion.'"

"Discretion!" I said indignantly. "I have never heard of anything so
tactless. And it isn't as though I could even move on to Mesopotamia."

"Couldn't there be a little local rising in Persia?" suggested Celia.

"I doubt it, I doubt it," I said thoughtfully. "You can't do much with
just wattles and a little sherbet--I mean you can't expect the public to
be interested in Persia at such a moment as this. No, we shall have to
step westward. We must see what we can do with the Italian Front."

But I had very little hope. A curious foreboding of evil came over me as
I placed those wattles tenderly along the west bank of the Piave. The old
clay hut still stood proudly amid them; the Bersaglieri advanced
impetuously with cries of "_En avant_!"--no, that's wrong--with cries
of--well, anyhow they advanced.

They advanced....

And as I shut my eyes I seemed to see--no, not that old clay hut amid the
wattles, nor yet the adobe edifice on the heights of Asiago, but Celia
coming into the library with another paper announcing that yet another
country was deaf to the call of art.

* * * * *

If anybody wants a really good story about the Peninsular War and will
drop me a line, I shall be glad to enter into negotiations with him. The
scene is laid in the neighbourhood of Badajoz, and the chief interest
centres round an old--yes, you have guessed it--an old clay hut in the
wattles.

THE TWO VISITS,

1888, 1919

("_Dispersal Areas, 10a, 10b, 10c--Crystal Palace_.")

It was, I think, in '88
That Luck or Providence or Fate
Assumed the more material state
Of Aunt (or Great-Aunt) Alice,
And took (the weather being fine,
And Bill, the eldest, only nine)
Three of us by the Brighton