ut sceptics jibe--an odious tribe--
And swear that he will die in bed.

* * * * *

A New Way to Pay Old Debts.

"The Inventor of British and American Patents is desirous to Sell or
License to Manufacturers, &c., &c.... The above Inventor and Patentee
will be greatly obliged if anyone that he owes money to will forward
the amount not later than this month, otherwise he will not acknowledge
after."--_Financial Times._

* * * * *

"LITTLE WAR PICTURES.
A NOBLE ARMY OF OPTIMISTS IN TRANCE."--_Straits Times (Singapore)._

We wish our pessimists would join them.

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.

LVII.

My Dear Charles,--St. John, in 1914 a light-hearted lieut., advancing and
retiring with his platoon as an all-seeing Providence or a short-spoken
Company Commander might direct, and in 1915 a Brass-hat with a vast amount
of knowledge and only a hundred buff slips or so to write it down on, is
now Second in Command of his regiment. He tells me he is encamped with his
little lot on the forward slope of a muddy and much pitted ravine. On the
opposite slope are some nasty noisy guns, and at the bottom of the ravine
are the cookers.

When, after much forethought, he has found something to do and has begun
doing it, there is a cry of "Stand clear!" and, with that prudence which
even an Englishman will learn if you do not hustle him but give him a year
or two to find by experience that care should sometimes be taken, all get
to earth. The guns fire; the neighbourhood heaves and readjusts itself, and
a man may then come out again. By the time, however, he has collected his
senses and his materials there is another "Stand clear!" and back he must
go to earth. This is what is technically known as Rest.

It was not good enough for one of the battalion cooks. No man can do
justice to a mess of pottage by lying on his belly at a distance and
frowning at it. After many movements to and fro, he eventually said be
damned to guns and "Stand clears;" stood on the top of his cooker (there
was nowhere else to stand), and, holding a dixie lid in his hand and
bestowing on the contents of the dixie that encouraging smile without which
no stew can stew, defied all the artillery of the B.E.F. to do its worst.
It did.

The cook recovered to find himself among his dixies, frizzling pleasantly
and browning nicely in cert