about it every day

And every night he swore;

And, while a sense of discipline

Carried him on through thick and thin,

The mud, the shells, the cold, the din

Annoyed him more and more.

Anyhow, after bespattering the air of France and Flanders with a barrage of anathemas for the best part of a year, Private Thompson did something creditable in one of the pushes, and retired to a hospital in England, whence he emerged a few months later with a slight limp, a discharge certificate and a piece of coloured ribbon on his waistcoat. Having expressed his opinion on hospital life, he returned to his native town.

His first shock was when he was met at the station by the local band and conducted up the Station Road and down the beflagged High Street to the accompaniment of martial and patriotic strains. His second was when he was confronted at the steps of the Town Hall by the Mayor and an official gathering of the leading citizens, with an unofficial background of the led ones, and found himself the subject of speeches of adulation and welcome.

He was too dumbfounded to grasp all that was said, but he recovered his senses in time to hear the Mayor assuring his audience that it gave him great pleasure, indeed he might go so far as to say the very greatest pleasure, to welcome on behalf of their town one who had upheld with such distinction and bravery the reputation and honour of the community. And that, although he did not wish to keep them any longer, yet he must just add that he was going to ask Mr. Thompson then and there, while the remembrance of his terrible hardships was still fresh in his mind, to impart them to a phonograph, so that the archives of the town might not lack direct evidence of the experiences, if he might so express it, of her bravest citizen, and future generations might know something of the noble thoughts that surged in so gallant a breast in times of danger, and the fine and honourable words with which those thoughts had been uttered.

The Mayor's peroration annoyed Thompson; the cheers that followed it annoyed him still more, and the subsequent shower of congratulations and vigorous slaps on the back threatened to move him to reply in a speech which might have been unintelligible to the ladies present.

Fortunately the danger was averted. Before he could come into action a select committee of two, specially appointed for the purpose, had seized him by the arms and was conducting him up the steps of the Town Hall. The rapidity and the unexpected nature of the movement threw him out of gear, and he was forced to adopt an attitude of sullen silence during the progress of the little party across the Council Chamber and through a doorway leading into a small room.

This room was furnished only with a table and a chair. On the former stood a phonograph; into the latter the Committee deposited ex-Private Thompson and explained to him that he was desired to sit there and in his own words to recount into the trumpet of the machine his experiences at the Front. That becoming modesty, they added, which hitherto had sealed his lips should now be laid aside. Posterity must not be denied the edification of listening to a hero's story of his share in the Great War. The phonograph was then turned on and the disc began to revolve with a slight grating sound that set Thompson's teeth on edge. He was about to address a few remarks to the Committee when they tactfully withdrew, leaving him alone with the instrument.

For a few seconds he was silent. The machine rasped unchallenged through a dozen revolutions. Then he took a deep breath and, leaning forward, thrust his head into the yawning mouth of the trumpet.

His Worship has sampled the record. The session was a secret one, but the Town has been given to understand that the disc has been sealed up and put away for the use of posterity only.

"HERE, STICK YOUR HEAD DOWN, CHARLIE."

"WHAT—IS THERE AN ORDER COME ROUND ABOUT IT?"

Commercial Candour.

Letter recently received from a firm of drapers:—

"Madam,—With reference to your blue Silk Mackintosh, our manufacturers have given the garment in question a thorough testing, and find that it is absolutely waterproof. If you will wear it on a dry day, and then take it off and examine it you will see that our statement is correct.

Assuring you of our best services at all times,

We are, Madam,

Your obedient Servants,

—— & SONS, Ltd."

A DEAL WITH CHINA.

Fritz having killed the mule, it devolved upon the village Sanitary Inspector to see the carcass decently interred, and on application to the C.O. of the nearest Chinese labour camp. I presently secured the services of two beautiful old ivory carvings and a bronze statue, clad in blue quilted uniforms and wearing respectively, by way of head-dress, a towel turban, a straw hat and a coiffure like an early Victorian penwiper. It was the bronze gentleman—the owner of the noticeable coiffure—who at once really took charge of the working party.

He introduced himself to me as "Lurtee Lee" (his official number was thirty-three), informed me he could "speakel Engliss," and, having by this single utterance at once apparently proved his statement and exhausted his vocabulary, settled down into a rapt and silent adoration of my tunic buttons.

Before we had proceeded thirty yards he had offered me five francs (which he produced from the small of his back) for a single button. At the end of one hundred yards the price had risen to seven twenty-five, and arrived upon the scene of action the Celestial grave-digger made a further bid of eight francs, two Chinese coins (value unknown) and a tract in his native tongue. This being likewise met with a reluctant but unmistakable refusal, the work of excavation was commenced.

Now when three men are employed upon a pit some six feet square they obviously cannot all work at the same time in so confined a space. One man must in turn stand out and rest. His rest time may be spent in divers ways.

The elder of the two ivory carvings spent his breathing spells in philosophic reverie; the younger employed his leisure in rummaging on the neighbouring "dump" for empty tobacco tins, which he concealed about his person by a succession of feats of legerdemain (by the end of the morning I estimated him to be in possession of about thirty specimens). Lurtee Lee filled every moment of his off time in the manufacture of a quite beautiful pencilholder—his material an empty cartridge case, his tools a half-brick and a shoeing nail.

Slowly the morning wore on—so slowly, indeed, that at an early period I cast aside my tunic and with spade and pick endeavoured by assistance and example to incite my labourers to "put a jerk in it." Noon saw the deceased mule beneath a ton or so of clay, and Lurtee Lee, whether from gratitude or sheer camaraderie, gravely presented me with the now completed pencil-holder. No, not a sou would he accept; I was to take it as a gift.

At this moment a European N.C.O. from the Labour Camp came upon the scene and kindly offered to save me a journey by escorting Lurtee Lee and Company to quarters. They shuffled down the road, and I turned to put