outh and the searing tongue.

Sir Christopher Tomling has been ravished from the Argentine, where,
after all, he was but preparing trade-routes for hostile peoples, and
now adorns the forefront of Penfentenyou's Advisory Board. This was an
unforeseen extra, as was Jimmy's gratis full-length--(it will be in this
year's Academy) of Penfentenyou, who has returned to his own place.

Now and again, from afar off, between the slam and bump of his shifting
scenery, the glare of his manipulated limelight, and the controlled
rolling of his thunder-drums, I catch his voice, lifted in encouragement
and advice to his fellow-countrymen. He is quite sound on Ties of
Sentiment, and--alone of Colonial Statesmen ventures to talk of the Ties
of Common Funk.

Herein I have my reward.

THE PUZZLER

The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do,
And can logically predicate his finish by his start:
But the English--ah, the English!--they are quite a race apart.

Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and rare;
They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;
But the straw that they were tickled with--the chaff that
they were fed with--
They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head
with.

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,
They arrive at their conclusions--largely inarticulate.
Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none;
But sometimes, in a smoking-room, one learns why things were
done.

In telegraphic sentences, half swallowed at the ends,
They hint a matter's inwardness--and there the matter ends.
And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,
The English--ah, the English!--don't say anything at all!

LITTLE FOXES

A TALE OF THE GIHON HUNT

A fox came out of his earth on the banks of the Great River Gihon,
which waters Ethiopia. He saw a white man riding through the dry
dhurra-stalks, and, that his destiny might be fulfilled, barked at him.

The rider drew rein among the villagers round his stirrup.

"What," said he, "is that?"

"That," said the Sheikh of the village, "is a fox, O Excellency Our
Governor."

"It is not, then, a jackal?"

"No jackal, but Abu Hussein the father of cunning."

"Also," the white man spoke half aloud, "I am Mudir of this Province."

"It is true," they cried. "Ya, Saart el Mudir" (O Excellen