equally
responsible.

* * * * *

From the Orders of a Battalion in France:--

"The undermentioned N.C.O.'s and men will parade at 10.30
a.m., bringing with them their gas-helmets and the unexpired
portion of their rations."

It is surmised that this refers to the cheese-issue.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Basil_. "MUMMY, AREN'T WE EXCEEDING THE SPEED
RATION?"]

* * * * *

BULLINGTON.

It was in the high midsummer and the sun was shining strong,
And the lane was rather flinty and the lane was rather long,
When, up and down the gentle hills beside the stripling Test,
I chanced to come to Bullington and stayed a while to rest.

It was drowned in peace and quiet, as the river reeds were drowned
In the water clear as crystal, flowing by with scarce a sound;
And the air was like a posy with the sweet haymaking smells,
And the Roses and Sweet-Williams and Canterbury Bells.

Far away as some strange planet seemed the old world's dust and din,
And the trout in sun-warmed shallows hardly seemed to stir a fin,
And there's never a clock to tell you how the hurrying world goes on
In the little ivied steeple down in drowsy Bullington.

Small and sleepy there it nestled, seeming far from hastening Time,
As a teeny-tiny village in some quaint old nursery rhyme,
And a teeny-tiny river by a teeny-tiny weir
Sang a teeny-tiny ditty that I stayed a while to hear:--

"Oh the stream runs to the river and the river to the sea;
But the reedy banks of Bullington are good enough for me;
Oh the road runs to the highway and the highway o'er the down,
But it's just as good in Bullington as mighty London town."

Then high above an aeroplane in humming flight went by,
With the droning of its engines filling all the cloudless sky;
And like the booming of a knell across that perfect day
There came the guns' dull thunder from the ranges far away.

And, while I lay and listened, oh the river's sleepy tune
Seemed to change its rippling music, like the cuckoo's stave in June,
And the cannon's distant thunder and the engines' warlike drone
Seemed to mingle with its burthen in a solemn undertone:--

"Oh the stream runs to the river, and the river to the sea,
And there's war on land and water, and there's work for you and me;
And on many a field of glory there are gallant liv