didn't need to take his pipe out of his mouth in order to scratch his head, did he?

There is this to be said about being at war, you never know what is going to happen to you next. For the most part this is just as well. There is, however, a decent percentage of pleasant surprises, which is, I suppose, the only thing that makes the business tolerable. No orderly ever came up to the trenches, when I was in them, but he gave rise to the hope that he had orders for me to come out at once and command in chief. Some such orderly did arrive at last, but the instructions he gave me said nothing about taking over the B.E.F. Nevertheless orders were orders and I obeyed them and came out. Having a private conversation with Fortune on the way down the communication trench, I thanked her very sincerely for her kindness and said I was so grateful that I would never ask her for anything else.

But you know human nature as well as I do; I soon found myself saying what a hard life it was in an office, and how one missed the open-air life one had with one's regiment and the healthy appetite it gave one. Besides which, as I pointed out to Fortune, my solid worth wasn't being recognised as it should be. "I don't ask for favours," I told her. "All I ask is bare justice." Now, if I'd been Fortune, Charles, and a man had spoken to me like that, after all I'd done for him, I'd have had him marching up that communication trench again, with a full pack, at five o'clock in the very next forenoon.

But Fortune, ever kind and forgiving, did no such thing. She did remonstrate with me gently of nights, when the noise of the bombardments was particularly fierce and prolonged. "What about those poor fellows right up in front," she said, "who are sitting out in the wind and the rain and going through that?" "Yes," said I, "what about them? Can't you do something for them? Do you know that this is their fourth night of it in succession, and the only bit of change you've been able to give them was sleet instead of rain on the Sunday?" That used to put Fortune in the cart, and she'd try and work the conversation round to my own case again. But what with the wind and the noise and the downpour and the mud, I was too hot on the other subject, and I said that Fortune ought to be ashamed of herself, carrying on like that; and it was a disgraceful war and the police ought to stop it, and I'd a very good mind to write to the papers about it.

Then the next day would be fine and dry and warm, and it would be early closing for the Bosch artillery, and the infantry would go marching past my office window, whistling and singing and behaving as if the whole thing was a jolly old picnic; and who'd be an inkslinger in such weather? And Fortune, modestly intruding, would say to me casually, "I think I've arranged that rather well, don't you?"

"Ah, you've arranged something at last, have you?" I'd say, assuming that she must be thinking about me, and I'd open my official envelopes with an unusual interest, feeling practically sure that one of them must contain immediate orders for me—the one and only me—to proceed forthwith to England and reorganise the War Office, taking over a couple of six-cylinder cars and a furnished flat in St. James's for the purpose.

Poor old Fortune! what could she say next? She'd look at me, more in sorrow than in anger, and murmur, "Aren't you forgetting that this is a war and you are supposed to be fighting it?" Did I blush for shame? Not I. As bold as brass I'd look old Fortune straight in the face and, with righteous indignation, would say, "I know as well as you do, Ma'am, that it is a war; but there's no reason why it shouldn't be a just war." Thinking it out I have never been quite able to see what I meant by that, as applied to my own case. However, I seem to have said the right thing, and it appears to have impressed Fortune very considerably, because—well, Charles, here I am.

Yet if there is justice in this world (and I subsist on the confident hope and belief that there is not) I know what the end of it must be. That confounded orderly, turned traitor, will one day search me out, however far I may have wandered from the battlefield meanwhile, and, saluting ironically, will hand me an envelope marked "Urgent, secret, confidential, personal, private." The contents will be a piece of news and some orders, and all that Fortune will have had to do with it will be to attach a forwarding slip, "Passed to you, please, for your information and necessary action." The news will be that for everyone else the War is over, and the infantry and the rest of them will take over forthwith my present circumstances, being free to revel in the trams and the mosquitoes and the nasty colds to their hearts' delight. The orders will be that for me the War is about to begin again in grim earnest, and that to-morrow at dawn I take over and defend till further notice, and against all the most noisy and loathsome inventions that man can devise, that sector of the trenches which extends from the Swiss frontier to the sea.

When that day comes I shall be too busy (taking cover) to have leisure to write to you. Meanwhile I shall still be in touch with life from time to time and will pass on to you such scraps as come my way. Yours ever, Henry.

"The India Office goes to Mr. Montagu."—The Star.

Mahomet had to go to the Mountain, but Mr. Montagu is more fortunate.

Bill. "I dessay some women can do men's work. But they'll never git men's wages."

Joe (much married). "Wotchermean—never? They always 'ave!"

OUR MIGHTY PENMEN.

BY A LITERARY EXPERT.

The House of Boffin announces a revised edition of Mr. Elbert Pitts's Final Words on Religion, under the title of Antepenultimate Words on Religion. As Mr. Pitts observes in his arresting Preface, "Finality, in a time of upheaval, is a relative term, and I hope, at intervals of six months or so, to publish my penultimate, quasi-ultimate and paulo-post-ultimate views on the vital beliefs which underlie the fantastic superstructure of dogmatic theology." The new work will be illustrated with three portraits of the author by Mr. Marcellus Thom, taken at various stages of the composition of the work.

Mr. Pitts has also completed a new novel entitled The Bounder of Genius, and has kindly furnished us with a brief outline of its contents. The hero, who starts life as an artificial raspberry-pip maker and amasses a colossal fortune in the Argentine grain trade, marries a poor seamstress in his struggling days, but deserts her for a brilliant variety actress, who is in turn deposed by (1) the daughter of a dean, (2) the daughter of an earl, and (3) the daughter of a duke. Ultimately Jasper Dando, for that is his name, leads a crusade to Patagonia, where he establishes a new republic founded on Eugenics, China tea, and the Prohibition of the Classics. Mr. Pitts thinks it the finest thing he has done, and he is fortified in this conviction by the opinion of Mr. Stoot, the principal reader of the House of Boffin.

We are glad to hear that Mr. Hanley Potter will shortly issue, through the firm of Bloomer and Guppy, a selection from the reviews, notices and essays contributed by him to The Slagville Gazette. "They are interesting," says the author, "as the expression of a fresh and unbiassed mind, unfettered by any respect for established reputations or orthodox standards." The titles of some of the articles—"The Dulness of Dante," "The Sloppiness of Scott," "George Eliot as Pedant," "Jane Austen the