which I have been made the victim. On Tuesday last I was rudely
awakened from my afternoon rest by the sound of a large motor-car.
As I did not expect visitors I proceeded to the window in order
to discover to what the _intrusion_ might be due. What was my
_astonishment_ to discover that the vehicle contained a party of four
_perfect strangers_. Three of them, I regret to state, were wounded
officers; they were being driven by one of the modern games-playing
cigarette-smoking young women to whom the old-fashioned word "_lady_"
seems so _singularly_ inapplicable. Their sole object in entering
appeared to be the perpetration of a senseless practical _joke_, for
after _careering_ round my garden at a pace which I can only describe
as _unwomanly_, they went off by the way they had come.

My gardener, who witnessed the incident, tells me that on reaching
the road they stopped the vehicle and celebrated the success of their
inane efforts by _shrieking_ with that unrestrained mirth which jars
so painfully on refined ears.

Can _nothing_ be done?

I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,

LYDIA MENDIP.

_Manor Lodge, Little Budford_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Orderly Officer_. "HOW MANY HORSES ARE HERE, PICKET?"

_Picket (a little fed-up)_. "ER--HORSE LINE, 'SHUN! FROM THE
RIGHT--NUMBER!!"]

* * * * *

THE FOOD SHORTAGE IN GERMANY.

"While the horse doeuvres were being served, the Kaiser, etc."

At the Imperial table, it will be observed, they put the horse before
the _carte_.

* * * * *

"He held several Court appointments, including those of Keeper of
the Privy PuPrse to the Prince"--_The Star_.

It is not every Keeper of the Privy Purse who thus manages to double
the initial capital.

* * * * *

THE P.-P.-D.

Henry is in the War Office, where he takes a hand in the Direction of
Military Aeronautics. To meet him you might almost think that Military
Aeronautics was a one-man show. He has, at any rate in the eyes of the
layman, an encyclopaedic knowledge of aircraft and all appertaining
thereto. When he is out for a walk on Sunday with his wife and
daughter, and a British aeroplane passes over them with the usual
fascinating roar, Henry is very superior. Mummy (who is of coarse
clay) and Betty (aged 11/2, and coarser still) are frankly excited
every time.

"Look at the pretty a