course! You _always_ start with hairpins. And this,"
indicating a narrow oblong, "why, this must be that silver tray
someone's always leaving her hairpins lying about on. Now for the
hair-brushes--two of those--" (unerringly symmetrical)--"then the
comb--" (equipped with most effective sand-teeth)--"then a powder-box?
Well, a very little one----"

As fast as he thought of them, fresh articles (or their symbols) came
into being. There was no pause. "The shoe-horn, the button-hook, oh! and
a clothes-brush----"

Immediately following the last hair of the clothes-brush a rectangle put
in an appearance around these assorted objects.

"Mummy's dressing-table," asserted Master Dick authoritatively.

"Sound man! What else do we want?"

The children suggested alternately and in chorus the completion of the
plan. An armchair with cushions incredibly soft, a fire-place pokered
and tonged, a wardrobe (disproportionately enormous), two colossal
hat-boxes, and detail after detail, with finally the door, the key-hole
and the key.

* * * * *

The little hamlet somewhere in France had been shelled spasmodically for
months. Possibly there was something faintly familiar in the seated
figure of that Captain of Engineers that caught my eye; one did not
often come across Captains of Engineers sitting on _debris_ in the
village street. He squatted on a pile of granular masonry before a
rudely prepared space surrounded by three small ragged children gazing
round-eyed at something he was drawing with half a Nilgiri cane in the
powdered rubble. I paused to look, and there arose before me the picture
of a man with a boy and girl on a bygone day in happy England.

"On commence avec le sel," he was explaining as he indicated the shape
of a salt-cellar. "Eh b'en, apres ca quat' assiettes, des couteaux, des
fourchettes----" All the appurtenances of a homely table were quickly
put in. "Et puis la table, n'est-ce pas? Et surtout faut pas oublier
quelqu'chose a manger, eh, Jeanne?"

"Non, monsieur." But the little girl was busy pointing to where a small
brown bird pecked fruitlessly in the dust. "Regardez, donc, le p'tit
oiseau; il n'a pas mange, c'lui la."

"Y a pas grande chose a manger; les Boches, vous savez, ont passe par
ici," added one of the two boys quite impersonally.

The Captain of Engineers continued quickly, "Maintenant il faut mettre
le--" he paused for the word--"le--table-cloth." The children