we must gauge the sacrifice
By all that they have lost.

The joy of young adventurous ways,
Of keen and undimmed sight,
The eager tramp through sunny days,
The dreamless sleep of night,

The happy hours that come and go,
In youth's untiring quest,
They gave, because they willed it so,
With some light-hearted jest.

No lavish love of future years,
No passionate regret,
No gift of sacrifice or tears
Can ever pay the debt.

Yet if ever you try to express this indebtedness to the wonderful young men
who survive, they turn the whole thing into a jest and tell you, for
example, that only two things really interest them, "Europe and their
stomachs"--nothing in between matters.

[Illustration: PAT (examining fare): "May the divil destroy the Germans!"

SUB: "Well, they don't do you much harm, anyway. You don't get near enough
to 'em."

PAT: "Do they not, thin? Have they not kilt all the half-crown officers and
left nothing but the shillin' ones?"]

Guy Fawkes Day has come and gone without fireworks, pursuant to the Defence
of the Realm Act. Even Parliament omitted to sit. Apropos of Secret
Sessions, Lord Northcliffe has been accused of having had one all to
himself and some five hundred other gentlemen at a club luncheon. The
_Daily Mail_ describes the debate on the subject as a "gross waste of
time," which seems to come perilously near _lese-majeste!_ But then,
as a writer in the _Evening News_--another Northcliffe paper--safely
observes, "It is the failing of many people to say what they think without
thinking."

_December, 1916_.

Rumania has unhappily given Germany the chance of a cheap and spectacular
triumph--of which, after being badly pounded on the Somme, she was sorely
in need. Here was a comparatively small nation, whom the Germans could
crush under their heel as they had crushed Belgium and Serbia. So in
Rumania they concentrated all the men they could spare from other fronts
and put them under their best generals. Their first plans were thwarted,
but eventually the big guns had their way and Bukarest fell. Then, after
the usual display of bunting and joy-bells in Berlin, was the moment to
make a noble offer of peace. The German peace overtures remind one of Mr.
Punch's correspondents of the American advertisement: "If John Robinson,
with whose wife I eloped six months ago, will take her back, all will be
forgiven."

The shadowy proposals of those who