we need not have been there at all, except to
pay the bill.

Now it is no fun to me to deceive anyone but myself, and hence I shall
not go about with my arm in a sling and win sympathy and attention to
which I am not entitled; but I do appeal to all the young women to
have a little pity on some of us compulsory stay-at-homes. Nothing is
too good for our fighting men. I repeat it. But just a tiny spark of
animation might be retained in the feminine eye when it alights upon
an old friend who is debarred from taking arms. Just a spark,
otherwise we shall go into a melancholy decline.

* * * * *

Smart Work.

"Owner gone to the front, friend offers his Wolseley ... L165,
an extraordinary opportunity."--_Advt. in "Autocar."_

If we were not confident that we should be wrong in putting upon these
words the sinister interpretation which they invite, we shouldn't envy
the advertiser when the owner returns.

* * * * *

From verses in _Punch_, October 21st:--

"We have made progress near to Berry au Bac,
And on our right wing there is nothing new."

From the French official report, November 12th:--

"We have also made some progress around Berry au Bac."

And on the right wing there was nothing new.

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNRECORDED SCENES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE WAR.

PUBLIC SPEAKERS ATTEND A CLASS FOR THE PURPOSE OF LEARNING TO PRONOUNCE
CORRECTLY THE PHRASE: "WE SHALL NOT SHEATHE THE SWORD UNTIL, ETC., ETC."]

* * * * *

FAN.

Fan, the hunt terrier, runs with the pack,
A little white bitch with a patch on her back;
She runs with the pack as her ancestors ran--
We're an old-fashioned lot here and breed 'em like Fan;
Round of skull, harsh of coat, game and little and low,
The same as we bred sixty seasons ago.

So she's harder than nails, and she's nothing to learn
From her scarred little snout to her cropped little stern,
And she hops along gaily, in spite of her size,
With twenty-four couples of big badger-pyes:
'Tis slow, but 'tis sure is the old white and grey,
And 'twill sing to a fox for a whole winter day.

Last year at Rook's Rough, just as Ben put 'em in,
'Twas Fan found the rogue who was curled in the whin;
She pounced at his brush with a drive and a snap,
"_Yip-Yap_, boys," she told 'em, "I've fo