* *

A correspondent having observed in a morning paper the headline,
"Pomeranians Surrender!" sends us a suggested contents-bill for _The
Barking Gazette_:--

GREAT CAPTURE OF POMS!
PEKINESE BREAK OFF RELATIONS.
GREAT DANES NEUTRAL.
RAID BY TERRITORIAL FLYING CORPS
(SKY TERRIERS).
ROUT OF DALMATIANS.
FIELD-GREYHOUNDS DRIVEN OFF.

* * * * *

THE ADJUTANT ON LEAVE.

"Leave, I'm afraid," remarked the Adjutant, standing with his back to the
fire and hitching his bath towel more securely over his left shoulder, "can
only be granted now in special circumstances."

Flying being prevented for that afternoon by the weather conditions, we had
been playing hockey, and the Adjutant, who by virtue of seniority had just
had first go at the bathroom, was in a warm and expansive mood. The rest of
us sat about in his quarters awaiting our turns at a hot-water supply that
would certainly cease to have anything warming or expansive about it by the
time it reached the junior Second Lieutenant.

"The question is," said that dejected officer, fixing the Adjutant with a
watchful eye--"the question is, what are you going to regard as special
circumstances?"

"You state your circumstances to me officially to-morrow," said the
Adjutant cheerfully, "and I'll tell you quickly enough whether they're
special or not,"

"I suppose," suggested the Stunt Pilot, "that a wedding would be a pretty
special sort of circumstance, wouldn't it?"

"That depends," replied the Adjutant. "Are you thinking of getting married
yourself?"

The Stunt Pilot said that he hadn't been, but if there was any leave going
with it he might think of it.

"One's simply got to get leave _somehow_," he complained. "What about a
breach of promise case? Suppose I manage to get mixed up in a breach of
promise case, wouldn't that do?"

"That's no good," commented the Junior Officer gloomily. "You'd have to get
leave for something else first before you could manage it."

"And if you did," added the Adjutant severely, "you'd get leave for rather
longer than you bargained for."

"How about funerals?" put in the Equipment Officer hopefully. "Funerals are
a fairly sound stunt, aren't they?"

"Funerals," observed the Adjutant, "are played out. If you come to me
to-morrow and talk about dead uncles and things I shall have all sorts of
inquiries made that will surprise you. I've been had before by funerals.
When