ys.

The lady secretary opens the throttle and plays a few bars on the
"cap." key.

"A red lion?" says the Higher Command seductively.

"It has already been done," says the lady secretary coldly.

"Who by--I mean by whom?" inquires the H.C. indignantly.

"By the Deputy Assistant Director of Higher Commands, when you were
on leave last week," she tells him.

He mutters a military oath against the D.A.D.H.C. Then his face
clears.

"Tigers?" he suggests hopefully.

"We might do a green tiger," she says reluctantly.

"With yellow stripes!" shouts the H.C.

"On a mauve background," says she, warming to it.

And so one division is disposed of. But it is not always so, of
course.

After a Hun counter-attack, for instance, the H.C. may gaze morosely
on his geometrical figures and throw off a little thing in triangles
and St. Andrew's crosses. Or when the moon is at the full you may
have a violet allotted to you as your symbol. One never knows. My
own divisional sign, for instance, is an iddy-umpty plain on a field
plainer. We vary the heraldry by ringing changes on the colours. On
our brigade arm-band it becomes an iddy-umpty gules on a field azure.
If I could be quite sure of the heraldic slang for puce I would tell
you what it is on our Army Corps arm-band. On a waggon it used to be
an iddy-umpty blank on a field muddy. But administrative genius has
changed all that. A routine order, the other day, ordered a pink
border to be painted round it, and this first simple essay of the
departed Morse goes now through the villages of France in a bed of
roses.

We wish sometimes that our conditions were changed as easily as our
signs.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Dugal._ "I DOOT, TAMMAS, THERE'S SOME INFORMEESHUN
THAT MAN LLOYD GEORGE HAS GOT THAT WE HAVENA GOT."]

* * * * *

ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.

"The Lord Provost will preside over the meeting at which Mr.
Churchill will speak in Dundee this afternoon.

Many thousands of people are leaving Dundee for their annual
holiday."--_Manchester Daily Dispatch_.

* * * * *

"Mr. Alderman Domoney, in remanding at the Guildhall to-day
two boys charged with theft, said he always liked to deal
leniently with boys so young and to give the ma fresh start
in life."--_Evening Paper_.

Not a word about the pa, you observe; yet we daresay he was