* * * *

"Foreign gentleman desires English lady to correct him, during
one hour every morning, from 9 to 10."--_Bournemouth Daily
Echo._

There is one foreigner whom innumerable English ladies would be
delighted to correct; but he is no gentleman.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Hostess (alluding to latest photograph of herself)._
"Well, dear, do you think it's like me?"

_Polite little Girl._ "Well, I don't think it has made you look
quite--quite--grown up enough."]

* * * * *

"BIOLOGY AT THE FRONT."

_To the Editor of "The Times."_

SIR,--I am encouraged by reading the very interesting letter which
appeared in your issue of May 29th under the heading, "Biology at the
Front," and dealt with the habit acquired by French poultry of imitating
the sound of flying shells, to relate an experience which recently
befell me. I was seated at breakfast "Somewhere in France," and had
ordered, as is my custom, a boiled egg. When it was brought to me I
proceeded to open it by giving it a smart tap. The egg immediately
exploded with a loud report, and the contents were scattered in all
directions. Those at table with me at once threw themselves prostrate on
the ground, and one, whose olfactory nerves were excessively developed,
exhibited every symptom of being gassed. On questioning the innkeeper we
learnt that the egg had been laid some weeks before by a hen in the
neighbourhood of the Front. I had previously noticed that it was
elongated in shape, the small end being pointed and the base end nearly
flat, while the whole was cased in a shell.

The continuance of this imitative habit would be a strange perpetual
memorial of the Great War--particularly for Pacificist politicians.

Yours, &c., Darwinian.

_The Ashpit, Egham._

* * * * *

WAR'S SURPRISES.

The Poet.

My gifted nephew Eric
Till just before the War
Was steeped in esoteric
And antinomian lore,
Now verging on the mystic,
Now darkly symbolistic,
Now frankly Futuristic,
And modern to the core.

Versed in the weird grivoiserie
Affected by VERLAINE,
And charmed by the chinoiserie
Of MARINETTI'S strain,
In all its multiplicity
He worshipped eccentricity,
And found his chief felicity
In aping the insane.

And yet this freak ink-slinger,
When England called for men,
Straigh