ed with its curious
stock, I saw Monsieur Joseph, with shirt-sleeves rolled up, gravely
handing a stick of chocolate to a child, and taking its sou in return.
In the diminutive kitchen behind sat a little white-haired old lady with
such a look of content on her face as I have rarely seen.

Then suddenly I found myself back again in the London restaurant.

"Yes," I said to the waiter, "it is possible, as you say, that Monsieur
Joseph heard of something better in France."

And raising my glass I drank a silent toast.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE TUBER'S REPARTEE.

GERMAN PIRATE. "GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND!"

BRITISH POTATO. "TUBER UeBER ALLES!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Crowd_. "WOULD YER LIKE TO GO TO HORSPITAL?"--"SHALL I
GET YER A DROP OF BRANDY?"--"DID YER SLIP ON THE BANANA-PEEL?" "DID YER
FALL?"--"ARE YER HURT, SIR?"--"SHALL I FETCH A DOCTOR?"--"IS THAT YOUR
HAT, SIR?"

_Ex-Cabinet Minister_. "THE ANSWERS TO ONE, TWO, FIVE AND SIX ARE IN THE
NEGATIVE; TO THREE, FOUR AND SEVEN IN THE AFFIRMATIVE."]

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

You have all seen it in the latest V.C. list--"The Reverend Paul Grayne,
Chaplain to the Forces, for conspicuous bravery and gallant example in
the face of desperate circumstances."

You have all pictured him, the beau-ideal of muscular Christian, the
Fighting Parson, eighteen hands high, terrific in wind and limb, with a
golden mane and a Greek profile; a Pekinese in the drawing-room, a
bull-dog in the arena; a soupcon of Saint FRANCIS with a dash of JOHN L.
SULLIVAN--and all that.

But we who have met heroes know that they are very seldom of the type
which achieves the immortality of the picture post-card.

The stalwart with pearly teeth, lilac eyes and curly lashes is C3 at
Lloyd's (Sir FRANCIS), and may be heard twice daily at the Frivolity
singing, "My Goo-goo Girl from Honolulu" to entranced flappers; while
the lad who has Fritzie D. Hun backed on the ropes, clinching for time,
is usually gifted with bow legs, freckles, a dented proboscis and a
coiffure after the manner of a wire-haired terrier.

The Reverend Paul Grayne, V.C., sometime curate of Thorpington Parva, in
the county of Hampshire, was no exception to this rule. AEsthetically he
was a blot on the landscape; among all the heroes I have met I never saw
anything less heroically moulded.

He stood about five feet nought