eady for me in the morning."

"Very good, my lord," the orderly would answer.

* * * * *

Marmaduke sprang forward. The Hun's bomb, its pin withdrawn, was about
to explode. Coolly removing his costly gold-and-diamond tie-pin,
he thrust this substitute into the appointed place in the terrible
sizzling bomb, and stood back with a little smile. The next moment
his General stepped towards him and pinned to his breast the Victoria
Cross.

* * * * *

Colonel Blood belonged to the old school--irascible, even explosive,
but at bottom a heart of gold. Often after thrashing a subaltern with
his cane for some neglect of duty he would smile suddenly and invite
the offender to dine with him at the Regimental Mess as if nothing had
happened.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady_ (_asking for the third time_). "HAVE WE REACHED
NO. 234 YET?"

_Conductor._ "YES, MUM. HERE YOU ARE." [_Stops bus._]

_Lady._ "OH, I DIDN'T WANT TO GET OUT. I ONLY WANTED TO SHOW MY LITTLE
FIDO WHERE HE WAS BORN."]

* * * * *

A NEW DANGER.

"I don't know if you realise," said Ernest, "that since Army
signalling became fashionable a new danger confronts us."

"If you mean that an enthusiast might start semaphoring unexpectedly
in a confined space and get his neighbour in the eye, I may say that
I have thought of it," I answered. "But it isn't worth worrying very
much about. He wouldn't do it more than once."

"It isn't that," said Ernest. "It's something much more subtle and
insidious. It is the growing tendency in ordinary conversation to use
'Ack' for A, 'Beer' for B, 'Emma' for M, 'Esses' for S, 'Toe' for T,
etc. When you told me you were going to see your Aunt at 3 P.M., for
instance, you said '3 Pip Emma.' And it isn't as if you were at all
good at Semaphore or Morse either.

"Imagine," he continued, "the effect upon a congregation of the
announcement from the pulpit that the Reverend John Smith, Beer
Ack, will preach next Sunday. Or upon a meeting when told that Mr.
Carrington Ponk, J. Pip, will now speak. Think of Aunt Jane and all
her Societies," he went on gloomily. "Imagine her saying that she's
going to an Esses Pip G. meeting to-morrow. It's a dreadful thought.
It will extend to people's initials, too. The great T.P. will be Toe
Pip O'CONNOR. Something will have to be done about it."

"There's only one thing