three years ago, I ever conceived a glorious future in which my autograph might be of value to the more promiscuous collectors, that conception has now been shattered. Three years in the Army has absolutely spoilt the market. Even were I revered in the year 2,000 A.D. as SHAKSPEARE is revered now, my half-million autographs, scattered so lavishly on charge-sheets, passes, chits, requisitions, indents and applications would keep the price at a dead level of about ten a penny. No, I have had enough of writing in the Army and I never want to sign my own name again. "Yours sincerely, HERBERT ASQUITH," "Faithfully yours, J. JELLICOE"—these by all means; but not my own.

However, I wrote a letter the other day; it was to the bank. It informed them that I had arrived in London for a time and should be troubling them again shortly, London being to all appearances an expensive place. It also called attention to my new address—a small furnished flat in which Celia and I can just turn round if we do it separately. When it was written, there came the question of posting it. I was all for waiting till the next morning, but Celia explained that there was actually a letter-box on our own floor, twenty yards down the passage. I took the letter along and dropped it into the slit.

Then a wonderful thing happened. It went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—FLOP.

I listened intently, hoping for more ... but that was all. Deeply disappointed that it was over, but absolutely thrilled with my discovery, I hurried back to Celia.

"Any letters you want posted?" I said in an off-hand way.

"No, thank you," she said.

"Have you written any while we've been here?"

"I don't think I've had anything to write."

"I think," I said reproachfully, "it's quite time you wrote to your—your bank or your mother or somebody."

She looked at me and seemed to be struggling for words.

"I know exactly what you're going to say," I said, "but don't say it; write a little letter instead."

"Well, as a matter of fact I must just write a note to the laundress."

"To the laundress," I said. "Of course, just a note."

When it was written I insisted on her coming with me to post it. With great generosity I allowed her to place it in the slit. A delightful thing happened. It went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty- flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—FLOP.

Right down to the letter-box in the hall. Two flipperties a floor. (A simple calculation shows that we are perched on the fifth floor. I am glad now that we live so high. It must be very dull to be on the fourth floor with only eight flipperties, unbearable to be on the first with only two.)

"O-oh! How fas-cinating!" said Celia.

"Now don't you think you ought to write to your mother?"

"Oh, I must."

She wrote. We posted it. It went

Flipperty-flipperty——However, you know all about that now.

Since this great discovery of mine, life has been a more pleasurable business. We feel now that there are romantic possibilities about letters setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter go flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty ... and behold! there is no FLOP ... and still it goes on—flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—growing fainter in the distance ... until it arrives at some wonderland of its own. One day it must happen so. For we cannot listen always for that FLOP, and hear it always; nothing in this world is as inevitable as that. One day we shall look at each other with awe in our faces and say, "But it's still flipperting!" and from that time forward the Hill of Campden will be a place holy and enchanted. Perhaps on Midsummer Eve—

At any rate I am sure that it is the only way in which to post a letter to Father Christmas.

Well, what I want to say is this: if I have been a bad correspondent in the past I am a good one now; and Celia, who was always a good one, is a better one. It takes at least ten letters a day to satisfy us, and we prefer to catch ten different posts. With the ten in your hand together there is always a temptation to waste them in one wild rush of flipperties, all catching each other up. It would be a great moment, but I do not think we can afford it yet; we must wait until we get even more practised at letter-writing. And even then I am doubtful; for it might be that, lost in the confusion of that one wild rush, the magic letter would start on its way—flipperty-flipperty—to the never-land, and we should forever have missed it.

So, friends, acquaintances, yes, and even strangers. I beg you now to give me another chance. I will answer your letters, how gladly. I still think that NAPOLEON (or CANUTE or the younger PLINY—one of the pre-Raphaelites) took a perfectly correct view of his correspondence ... but then he Never had a letter-box which went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—FLOP.

A.A.M.

The H.D. and Q. Department.

"Major-General F.G. Bond is gazetted Director of Quartering at the War Office."

Pacifists beware!

"DIRTY WORK
AT
DOWNING STREET.

BY
HORATIO BOTTOMLEY."

John Bull.

They shouldn't have let him in.

Officer. "WHY WERE YOU NOT AT ROLL-CALL LAST NIGHT?"

Defaulter. "WELL, SIR, WITH THIS 'ERE CAMP CAMOUFLAGED SO MUCH, I COULDN'T FIND MY WAY OUT OF THE CANTEEN."

COUNTER TACTICS.

About a year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher with the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide over the remaining months of winter. After the preliminary discussion of atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle of garments was spread about for my inspection. I viewed it dispassionately. Then, discarding the little vesties of warm-blooded youth and the double-width vestums of rheumatic old age, I chose several commonplace woollen affairs and was preparing to leave when my hosier and haberdasher leaned across the counter and whispered in my ear.

"If I may advise you, Sir, you would be wise to make a large selection of these articles. We do not expect to replace them."

He glanced cautiously at an elderly gentleman who was stirring up a box of ties, then, lowering his voice another semitone, added, "The mills are now being used exclusively for Government work." He insinuated the death-sentence effect very cleverly, and at that moment, coming to his support, as it were, the old gentleman tottered up, seized upon two garments and carried them off from under my very fingers. As he went out a middle-aged lady entered and made straight for the residue upon the counter. A feeling of panic came upon me. "Right you are," I exclaimed hurriedly, "I'll take the lot." As a matter of fact she only wanted a pair of gloves for her nephew in France.

A few days later, still having the wool shortage in mind, I approached my hosier and haberdasher on the subject of shirts. For a second or two he looked thoughtfully at the toe of his boot. Then coming suddenly to a decision he