e iron glove
Should meet us here in Kent or Surrey,
Its clasp might soften into love;
We might despatch him with a grey grin,
And all the German Scribes would vow
"Our bugbear is the Montenegrin;
We do not hate the English now."

But better still to cool his dudgeon
Where week by week our nobler sons
Have proved Britannia's no curmudgeon
By salvoes of applauding guns;
To save him toil without his landing,
To meet him with more warm advance,
And help to share that "understanding"
He has with Russia and with France.

EVOE.

* * * * *

THE LAST LINE.

IV.

We progress. The days when the whole art of war consisted of "On the
left, form platoons.... On the _left_, blanket," are over. Skirmishing,
signalling, musketry, Swedish drill--a variety of entertainment is now
open to us; there is even a class for buglers. To give you an idea of
the Corps at work, I offer you a picture of James and myself semaphoring
to each other.

James is in the middle distance, a couple of flags draped over his
person. I am going to send him a message. I signal to him that I am
about to begin; he waves back that he is ready. Now then....

My mind becomes a complete blank. I find that I have absolutely nothing
to say to James.

"Go on," says my instructor.

"Yes, but what?" I ask. All desire to interchange thought with James has
left me.

"Anything. Ask him, if a herring and a half costs three ha'pence, how
much----"

"Yes, but that's too long. It would take me at least a week, and by that
time the herring would be censored. No, I've got it."

It has occurred to me suddenly that it would annoy James if I reminded
him of his professional life. He looks so military in his puttees and
khaki shirt.

"_Do--you--want--a--nice--mortgage?_" I signal.

James takes it up to "nice," and then breaks down. The "m-o" he reads as
"s-w" (an easy mistake to make), and he imagines that I am offering him
a nice sword--a fitting offer to one of his martial appearance. When the
third letter turns out to be not the "o" which he expected, he loses his
head and signals "Repeat."

I give it him again slowly. He reads the first five letters as s-w-r-t-g
and assumes this time that I am offering him a nice town in Poland. It
is five minutes before we get the mortgage properly established, and by
then James is utterly disgusted.

He is now going to send a message to me. Ther