A doom descends upon this house, I fear;
That was the only bottle left us here.

_Enter_ Herald.

_Herald_. The Colonel comes. Let no ill-omened word
Escape the barrier of your teeth. I heard
Men say his temper's in an awful state;
Therefore beware lest some untoward fate
Befall you; and--I do not think I'll wait.

_Enter_ Colonel.

_He sees empty whisky-bottle, looks at Staff Officer, and--_

[_Here the fragment leaves off._

* * * * *

"Turnouts. Odd colour miniature pony, 36in. high, used to
children, coming 5 years, and Swiss governess and brown
harness; can be seen any time, a miniature lot; L25."--_The
Bazaar, Exchange and Mart_.

It may be right to turn out aliens, but is not this rather hard on the
miniature Swiss Governess?

* * * * *

From an auctioneer's advertisement: "Grandfather Clocks, and
other Arms and Armour."--_Manchester Guardian_.

In these days even our oldest clocks are expected to strike for their
country.

* * * * *

"Herr Harden says:--

"'The aim of our enemies is--
Democracy;
The right of nations to self-government;
An honest, and not merely a specious, diminution of arguments.'"
--_Provincial Paper_.

So far as this last aim is concerned the German Government appears
to agree with the Allies, for it has just suppressed Herr HARDEN's
journal.

* * * * *

DAVID.

The War brought about no more awful clash of personalities than when
it threw David and myself into the same dug-out. Myself, I am the
normal man--the man who wishes he were dead when he is called in the
morning and who swears at his servant (1) for calling him; (2) for not
calling him. My batman has learnt, after three years of war, to subdue
feet which were intended by nature to be thunderous. His method of
calling me is the result of careful training. If I am to wake at 7
A.M. he flings himself flat on his face outside my dug-out at 6 A.M.
and wriggles snake-like towards my boots. He extracts these painlessly
from under last night's salvage dump of tin-hats, gas-masks and
deflated underclothes, noses out my jacket, detects my Sam Browne, and
in awful silence bears these to the outer air, where he emits, like a
whale, the breath which he has been holding for the last ten minutes.
And meanwhile I sleep.

At 6.55 A.M. he brin