o as to read, "Confound their Scandi-knavish
tricks." But he finds it hard to accept Sweden's professions of official
rectitude, and so does President Wilson.

The German Press accuses the United States of having stolen the cipher key
of the Luxburg dispatches. It is this sort of thing that is gradually
convincing Germany that it is beneath her dignity to fight with a nation
like America. And the growing conviction in the United States that there
can be no peace with the Hohenzollerns only tends to fortify this view in
Court circles. The Kaiser's protestations of his love for his people become
more strident every day.

[Illustration: PERFECT INNOCENCE

CONSTABLE WOODROW WILSON: "That's a very mischievous thing to do."

SWEDEN: "Please, sir, I didn't know it was loaded."]

In Russia the Provisional Government has been dissolved and a Republic
proclaimed. If eloquence can save the situation, Mr. Kerensky is the man to
do it; but so far the men of few words have gone farthest in the war. A
"History of the Russian Revolution" has already been published. The pen may
not be mightier than the sword to-day, but it manages to keep ahead of it.

With fresh enemy battalions, as well as batteries, constantly arriving from
Russia, the Italians have been hard pressed; but their great assault on San
Gabriele has saved the Bainsizza plateau. The Italian success has been
remarkable, but the Russian collapse has prevented it from being pushed
home. On the Western front no great events are recorded, but the mills of
death grind on with ever-increasing assistance from the resources of
applied science and the new art of _camouflage_. Yet the dominion of
din and death and discomfort is still unable to impair our soldiers'
capacity of extracting amusement from trivialities.

[Illustration: TRIALS OF A CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER

SERGEANT-MAJOR: "Beg pardon, sir, I was to ask if you'd step up to the
battery, sir."

CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER: "What's the matter?"

SERGEANT-MAJOR: "It's those painted grass screens, sir. The mules have
eaten them."]

[Illustration: THE INSEPARABLE

THE KAISER (to his people): "Do not listen to those who would sow
dissension between us. _I will never desert you_."]

The weather has been so persistently wet that it looks as if this year the
Channel had decided to swim Great Britain. A correspondent, in a list of
improbable events on an "extraordinary day" at the front, gives as the
culminating entry, "It did not ra