the "bap" cottage at Hinksey was washed away by a flood a few years
ago, and the spot where it stood is no longer identifiable. But the
facts are as I have stated them.

Truly yours, Roland Phibson.

* * * * *

THE JUNIOR PARTNERS.

[Illustration: Ferdie. "THINGS SEEM TO BE AT A STANDSTILL IN MY
DEPARTMENT."

Sultan. "I ONLY WISH I COULD SAY THE SAME OF MINE."]

* * * * *

AT THE FRONT.

I wonder if the chap who first thought out this shell business realized
the extraordinary inconvenience it would cause to gentlemen at rest
during what the Photographic Press alludes to as "a lull in the
fighting."

Once upon a time billets were billets. You came into such, and
thereafter for a spell of days forgot about the War unless you got an
odd shell into the kitchen. But now--well, about noon on the first day's
rest, seventy odd batteries of our 12, 16, and 24 inch guns set about
their daily task of touching up a selected target, say a sap-head or
something new from Unter den Linden in spring barbed-wirings which has
been puzzling a patrol. This is all right in its way; but the Hun still
owns one or two guns opposite us. And by 12.5 all is unquiet on the
Western Front. This is all right in its way; but about 3 P.M. the Hun is
roused to the depths of his savage nature, and one wakes up to find
Hildebrand and Hoffelbuster, the two guns told off to attend to our
liberty area, scattering missiles far and wide, but mostly wide, and a
covey of aeroplanes bombing the local cabbageries. This again is all
right in its way, but in the meantime the mutual noise further up the
line has become so loud that Someone very far back and high up catches
the echo of it, and a bare hour later we receive the order to stand-to
at once, ready to move off twenty minutes ago.

Within three minutes of our first stand-to I was up with the company,
hastily but adequately mobilized with my servant's rifle, five smoke
helmets, (I took all I could see; this is _camaraderie_), a biscuit, the
Indispensable Military Pocket Book (8 in. by 10 in.), a revolver
(disqualified for military uses owing to absence of ammunition), Russian
Picture Tales, and a tooth-brush. I find a general opinion prevalent in
the company that "if Fritz knew _we_ was standing-to 'e'd pack in." Word
must have come through to Fritz somehow, for he shortly packs in--say
about 1 A.M.--and we follow suit after the news has