War and faced the Hun. Randle thought of the Hun only as a possible wrecker of his career, therefore as a foe of mankind. John hardly thought of the Hun except in the course of coming into contact with him, and then he used his bayonet with careless zeal.

Randle steeled himself against the rough edges of soldiering. He allowed neither the curses of corporals nor the familiarities of second-lieutenants to affect his dreams of the future. Always, even sotto voce in the last five minutes before going over the top, he kept before John his vision splendid.

It was thoir luck to remain together and unhurt. Then arrived the great day when the Hun confessed defeat. Randle vainly awaited a sign from the Commander-in-Chief.

There came, however, a moment when No. 12 Platoon was paraded at the Company Orderly-room. Particulars were to be taken before filling up demobilisation forms. Men were to be grouped, on paper, according to the nation's demand for their return to civil life.

Randle Janvers Binderbeck knew this was der Tag. Magnanimously he overlooked the delay and felt that HAIG might, after all, have an excuse. John Hodge remained placid. He had long ago classed Randle's goadings with heavies and machine-guns, as unavoidable incidents of warfare.

Randle and John were called into the orderly-room together. By an obvious error John was first summoned to the table.

"Well, Hodge," said the Company Sergeant-Major, "what's your job in civil life?"

"I dunno as I got any special job," said John. "I just sort o' helped on the farm."

"You must have a group," said the C.S.M. "What did you mostly do before the War?"

"S' far as that do go," said John, "I were mostly a bird-scarer."

"'Bird-scarer,'" said the C.S.M. "I know there's a heading for that somewhere. Agricultural, ain't it? 'Bird-scarer.' Ah, here we are. 'Group 1.' You'll be one of the first for release."

The Company Clerk noted the fact, and the C.S.M. called "Next man."

Randle Janvers Binderbeck stepped forward.

"What's your job, Binderbeck?" said the C.S.M.

(To ask Lord NORTHCLIFFE, "Do you sell newspapers'\?" To ask BOSWELL, "Have you heard of a man named JOHNSON?" TO ask HENRY VIII, "Were you ever married?")

The futility of the question flabbergasted Randle.

"Come on, man," said the C.S.M.

Randle made an effort. "Journalist," he said.

"'Journalist,'" said the C.S.M., "'Journalist.' Yes, I thought so. 'Group 41.' You've got a long way to go, my lad. You 'd have done better if you was a bird-scarer, like Hodge. Them's the boys the nation wants—Group 1 boys. You sticks in the Army for another six months' fatigue. Next man."

That was all.

John Hodge is now soberly awaiting demobilisation, and will not have to wait long.

Randle Janvers Binderbeck is secretly consoling himself by writing the most denunciatory articles. They will never be published, but they afford an alternative to cocaine.

He feels that he can never again consent to sway public opinion as the west wind, etc., in the interests of a nation which rates him forty groups lower than an animated scarecrow.

It is the nation's own fault, Randle is blameless.

A Noisy Salute.

From a review of The Remembered Kiss, in The Westminster Gazette:—

"It would be doing Miss Ayres an injustice to suppose that there is only one kiss to remember in the whole of her novel, but the one which gives its title is bestowed by a young and handsome burglar, and received by a girl who mistook the noise he was making for a thunders torm."

As TENNYSON says in The Day-Dream: "O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!"

Father (bringing son home from party). "WELL, OLD CHAP, WERE THERE PLENTY OF LITTLE GIRLS FOR YOU TO DANCE WITH?"

Son (rather proud of himself). "OH, THESE WERE SOME KIDS ABOUT, BUT I DANCED WITH A GIRL OF SIXTEEN—AND, BY JOVE, SHE LOOKED IT."

FREAKS OF FOOD-CONTROL.

"On one side was the naval guard of honour—splendid men from the ships of the Dover Patrol—and on the other side a military guard from the Garrison with the band of the Buffs waiting to play President Wilson into England with 'The tar-spangled Banner.'"—Provincial Paper.

A pretty compliment to the naval escort.

THE MUD LARKS.

Our Mr. MacTavish is a man with a past. He is now a cavalry subaltern and he was once a sailor. As a soldier at sea is never anything but an object of derision to sailors, correspondingly the mere idea of a sailor on horseback causes the utmost merriment among soldiers.

"Sailors on horseback!"—the very words bring visions of apoplectic mariners careering madly across sands, three to a horse, every limb in convulsion. Why, it's one of the world's stock jokes.

The pathetic part of it is that, obeying the law of opposites, the saddle has an irresistible and fatal attraction for the poor chaps. They take to it on every possible and impossible occasion. You can see them playing alleged polo at Malta, riding each other off at right angles and employing their sticks as grappling irons. You can see them over from the Rock whooping after Spanish foxes, bestriding their steeds anywhere but in the appointed place.

As every proper farmer's boy has long, long thoughts of magic oceans, spice isles and clipper ships, so I will warrant every normal Naval officer dreams of a little place in the grass counties, a stableful of long-tails and immortal runs with the Quorn and Pytchley.

It was thus with our Mr. MacTavish, anyhow. A stern parent and a strong-armed crammer projected him into the Navy, and in the Navy he remained for years bucketing about the salt seas in light and wobbly cruisers, enforcing intricate Bait Laws off Newfoundland in mid-winter, or playing hide-and-seek with elusive dhows on the Equator in midsummer, but always with a vision of that little place in his mind's eye.

His opportunity arrived with the demise of the stern parent and the acquisition of a comfortable legacy. MacTavish sent in his papers and stepped ashore for good. He discovered the haven of his heart's desire in the neighbourhood of Melton, purchased a pig and a cow (which turned out to be a bullock) to give the little place a homely air, engaged a terrier for ratting and intercourse, and with the assistance of some sympathetic dealers was assembling as comprehensive a collection of curbs, spavins, sprung tendons, pin-toes, herring-guts, ewe-necks, cow-hocks and capped elbows as could be found between the Tweed and Tamar, when—Mynheer W. HOHENZOLLERN (as he is to-day) went