the man who winds our clocks,
With a strangely mixed assortment of collars, ties and socks.

And if I haven't parted from my dear old silk-faced friend
It isn't out of sentiment--all that is at an end--
It's simply that the highest bid, in cash paid promptly down,
I've had from any son of SHEM is only half-a-crown.

* * * * *

"The plots cultivated by the men who have learned in the best
school of all--experience--stand out clearly among the others.
There is no overcrowing on their land."--_Evening News_.

The truly great are always modest.

* * * * *

"Wanted, September and October, a comfortably Furnished
House; five bedrooms, in adjoining counties."--_East
Anglian Daily Times_.

It sounds a little detached.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE COUNTERBLAST.

KAISER. "HAD A GLORIOUS TIME ON THE EASTERN FRONT."

HINDENBURG. "A LITTLE LOUDER, ALL-LOUDEST. I CAN'T HEAR YOU FOR THESE
CURSED BRITISH GUNS IN THE WEST."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THROWING STONES AT THOSE BOYS?"

"IT'S ORL RIGHT, SIR. WE'RE LEARNIN' 'EM TO TAKE COVER FOR AIR
RAIDS."]

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

Out here the telephone exists largely as a vehicle for the _jeux
d'esprit_ of the Brass Lids. It is a one-way affair, working only from
the inside out, for if you have a trifle of repartee to impart to the
Brazen Ones the apparatus is either indefinitely engaged, or _Na poo_
(as the French say). If you are one of these bulldog lads and are
determined to make the thing talk from the outside in, you had better
migrate _chez_ Signals, taking your bed, blankets, beer, tobacco and
the unexpired portion of next week's ration, and camp at the telephone
orderly's elbow. After a day or two it will percolate through to the
varlet's intelligence that you are a desperate dog in urgent need of
something, and he will bestir himself, and mayhap in a further two or
three days' time he will wind a crank, pull some strings, and announce
that you are "on," and you will find yourself in animated conversation
with an inspector of cemeteries, a jam expert at the Base, or the
Dalai Lama. If you want to give back-chat to the Staff you had best
take it there by hand.

A friend of mine by name of Patrick once got the job of Temporary
Assistant Deputy