Question-time, and try to render PLATO'S
_Republic_ into Erse, or grow potatoes;
Or if our novelists wrote cheerful books,
Instead of joining those superfluous cooks
Who spoil our daily journalistic broth
By lashing it into a fiery froth.

Counsels of sheer perfection, you will say,
In times when ev'ry mad dog has his day,
Yet none the less inviting as the theme
Of a millennial visionary's dream.

And as for Duchesses turned tweeny-maids
Or following other unobtrusive trades
There's nothing very wonderful or new
Or difficult to credit in the view;
For DICKENS--whom I never fail to bless
For solace in these days of storm and stress--
Found his best slavey in _The Marchioness_.

* * * * *

WHO INVENTED THE NAME "SAMMIES"?

"They are 'Sammies' now, and the name probably will stick
along with 'Tommy,' 'poilu' and 'Fritz.' ... The christening
was one of those spontaneous affairs, coming nobody knows
how."--_Kansas City Star_.

Mr. Punch, ever reluctant to take credit to himself, feels
nevertheless bound to say that the suggestion of the name "Sammies"
for our American Allies appeared in his columns as long ago as June
13th. On page 384 of that issue (after quoting _The Daily News_ as
having said, "We shall want a name for the American 'Tommies' when
they come; but do not call them 'Yankees'; they none of them like it")
he wrote: "As a term of distinction and endearment, Mr. Punch suggests
'Sammies'--after their uncle."

* * * * *

"London.-- ---- House. Bed, breakfast 4s., per week 24s. 6d.
No other meals at present."

This should encourage the FOOD-CONTROLLER.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Transport Officer_. "CONFOUND IT, MAN! WHAT ARE YOU
DOING? DON'T TEASE THE ANIMALS!"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)

HANSI, the Alsatian caricaturist and patriot, who escaped a few months
before the War, after being condemned by the German courts to fifteen
months' imprisonment for playing off an innocent little joke on four
German officers, and did his share of fighting with the French in the
early part of the War, is the darling of the Boulevards. They adore
his supreme skill in thrusting the irritating lancet of his humour
into bulging excrescences on the flank of that monstrous pachyderm