n with members of the Press Mr. Ford said now
was the time for peace on the basis of the _status quo anti
bellum_."

_Scotch Paper._

He always spells it that way.

* * * * *

AN ILL-USED AUTHOR.

"I gather, Sir," remarked my fellow-traveller, after I had put away the
writing-block on which I had been jotting down the outline of an
article, "that you are a literary man, like myself?"

We were the only occupants of a compartment in a L. & N. W. R. carriage.
I had been too absorbed till then to notice his appearance, but I now
observed that he had rather unkempt hair, luminous eyes, and a soft hat.
"Oh, well," I admitted, "I write."

"But I take it that, whatever you write, it is not _poetry_," he said.
What led him to this inference I cannot say, but I had to confess that
it was correct.

"Still, even though you are not a Poet yourself, I hope," he said, "you
can feel some sympathy for one who has been so infamously treated as I
have."

I replied that I hoped so too.

"Then, Sir," said he, "I will tell you my unhappy story. At the
beginning of this War I was approached by certain Railway magnates who
shall be nameless. It appeared that they had realised, very rightly,
that their official notices were couched in too cold and formal a style
to reach the heart of their public. So they commissioned me to supply
what I may term the human touch. As a poet, I naturally felt that this
could only be effectively done through the medium of verse. Well, I rose
to the occasion, Sir; I produced some lines which, printed as they were
written, must infallibly have placed me at the head of all of my
contemporaries. But they were _not_ printed as they were written. In
proof of which I will trouble you to read very carefully the opening
paragraph of those 'Defence of the Realm Regulations' immediately above
your head ... Only the opening paragraph at present, please!"

I was somewhat surprised, but, thinking it best to humour him, I read
the first sentence, which was: "_In view of possible attack by hostile
aircraft, it is necessary that the blinds of all trains should be kept
down after sunset_," and gave him my opinion of it.

"Whether," he said, with some acerbity, "it is or is not as lucidly
expressed as you are pleased to consider, only the beginning of it is
mine. This is what I actually wrote:--

"'In view of possible attack
By hostile aircraft overhead,
'Tis necess