of one another."

"Yes," I agreed. "And then in the evenings, when you've scrubbed the
steps and the woodwork and polished the brass and dusted the rooms and
cleaned the grate and cooked the meals and tidied the kitchen, and
I've inspected the gas-meter and fed the canary, or whatever it is a
he-care-taker does, we'll dress ourselves up and go and sit in the
ducal apartments and pretend we're 'quality.'"

"And impress our relations by asking them to dinner there," added
Phyllis. "I think it's a lovely idea. We don't seem to be going to
have much money, but we _shall_ see life. I'm beginning to be quite
glad I listened to you yesterday, after all."

* * * * *

=An Accommodating Creature.=

"A Respectable woman wants situation as dairymaid, laundress, or
fowl."

_Cork Constitution_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: =THE GREAT UNCONTROLLED.=

The Mutton. "I HEAR THEY WANT MORE OF US NOW THE MEATLESS DAYS ARE
OFF."

The Beef. "DON'T YOU WORRY. THANKS TO THE PROFITEERS, PEOPLE CAN'T
AFFORD TO EAT US."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FIRST POTATO-LEAF!]

* * * * *

=THE WATCH DOGS.=

LXI.

My Dear CHARLES,--Have I ever, in the course of these SECRET and
CONFIDENTIAL despatches, called your lordship's attention to the
existence, the very marked existence, of our Hubert, "the little
Captain," who, being out of the battle for the moment, relies upon
argument for argument's sake to keep up his circulation? It
has been said of him that he spends his office time in writing
superior letters to his subordinates and insubordinate letters to
his superiors; but that, I think, is over harsh. In any case, as
he has now run short of grievances, and the authorities of the
B.E.F. regard him as a joke and like him best when his little
temper is hot, his fights out here have for some time lacked
reality. I fancy that he was merely in search of a _casus belli_
when, being on leave in the U.K., he conceived the idea of a day's
extension and stepped round to the War Office to demand same as of
right.

But the War Office, Charles, is not as other places and War
Officers are not like the common sort. Hubert, arriving in his
best fighting trim, was at once ejected by the policeman at the
door. He underestimated the i