lead,

And how should I, who just write verses,

Hope to attract to my poor head

Their "Perishing Percies"?

HOW TO CURE THE BOSCH.

"Yes, I seen a good bit o' the Bosch, one way and another, before he got me in the leg," said Corporal Digweed. "Eighteen months I had with 'im spiteful, and four months with 'im tame. Meaning by that four months guarding German prisoners."

"And what do you think of him at the end of it?" I asked.

Digweed leant back with a heavily judicial air.

"Some o' these Peace blighters seem to think he's a little angel, basin' their opinion, I suppose, on something I must 'a' missed during my time out. On the other hand there's a tidy few thinks that one German left will spoil the earth. Now me, I holds they're both wrong. The second's nearer than what the first is, I don't deny. But a incident what occurred in that Prisoners' Camp set me thinking that you might make something o' Fritz yet, if you only had the time and the patience.

"We had a batch of prisoners come in what I saw at once was a different brand to the usual. There wasn't that—well, that distressin' lack o' humility that you mostly finds showin' itself after we've had them a week or two. There seemed about 'em almost a sort o' willingness to learn that put 'em in a class by themselves. I sez to the interpreter, 'There's something odd about that lot. You find out what it is;' which he does. And what do you think it was? They was convicts. All men in for a long term, what had served five years and more o' their sentences and was let out to fight.

"It seemed to me at first the rummiest thing that ever I see. But I've thought it over and thought it over, and now it's as clear as day. When the Bosch is kept in a watertight compartment for a bit, he gets back to being more or less of a human being. His whole trouble's really through being surrounded by other Bosches. They get tellin' each other what a great nation they are, and how they was born to inherit the earth, and that it's only forestalling nature a bit to go and take it now, and so on—each going one better than the last. They keep on contaminatin' one another till what do you get? Why, me and you spending our old age a-teaching of 'em humility.

"Now, with these 'ere convicts it was another story. 'Stead o' keep talkin' about German culture and what rotters all the rest o' the world was, their heads had plenty o' time to cool while they picked their oakum or what not—resultin' in quite a fairly decent lot o' men, as I say. Yes, it's very interesting and instructive. I believe it's the solution of the question, 'How to cure the Bosch,' I do. If you could keep 'em all apart from each other for five years you'd find they'd be quite different. I daresay they wouldn't mind it so much either."

"If I was a Bosch I should be thankful," I said. "But wouldn't there be difficulties about this segregation?"

Digweed waved them aside.

"There's always difficulties," he said. "But you mark my words, that's the thing to do. It would help it along, too, to give 'em the right sort of books and papers to read. Why, if you worked the thing properly, they might mostly be cured in two years or two and a half."

I shook my head. "There are some you'll never cure," I said.

"There'd be stubborn cases, I won't deny. And a few incurables, as you say. But the first thing to do is to advertise the idea. You make a speech about it, Sir. When you're proposing a vote of thanks to a Duchess for openin' a bazaar, you bring it up. I've heard people before now take that kind of opportunity to bring something forward what they'd got on their chest."

"I'm not likely to get a chance like that," I said; "but I'll see if I can write an article about it."

Whether Digweed will consider the article worthy of the subject I cannot say. Perhaps the Editor of Punch is less fastidious.

FOR OUR SAILORS.

The current week is "Navy Week," and Mr. Punch begs to urge his kind friends to take their part in the great organised effort to raise a large sum for the benefit of our sailors and their families—R.N., R.N.R., R.N.V.R., trawlers and mine-sweepers. The nation owes them all a debt that can never be paid. The fund is to be administered on the lines of King Edward's Hospital Fund. An All-American matinée will be given in this good cause at the Victoria Palace on Thursday, July 26th, and Trelawny of the Wells (with Miss IRENE VANBRUGH) at the New Theatre on Friday. Gifts for the fund may be addressed to Commodore Sir RICHARD WILLIAMS-BULKELEY, Bt., at the offices of "Navy Week," 5, Green Street, Leicester Square, W.C. 2.

THE SCRAPPER SCRAPPED.

Sergeant (to cadet). "SIT BACK, SIR! SIT BACK! THINK WOT A BLINKIN' FOOL YOU'D LOOK IF 'IS 'EAD WAS TO COME ORF!"

THE WATCH DOGS.

LXIII.

My dear Charles,—I never meant to give myself away; I meant to go on talking about the old War till the end, just as if I was taking a leading part in it, so that you should have still believed I was doing the bull-dog business with the best of them. But no, let me be honest and tell you that I have practically ceased to be a dog. The only painful connection I can boast of recently with the War is that, having cause to travel from place to place in this country, I was unhappy enough to strike six meatless days in succession, which gave me to think that even embusquing in France has its drawbacks. On the seventh day I was accused, by good people who know not Thomas, of being (1) a Russian, (2) an American, (3) a Belgian, and (4) an Irishman, which made me feel that these gaudy colours I have burst into are not so famous as I supposed; and on the eighth day I find myself insulted in twenty-seven places by an angry mosquito, whom in the small hours of the morning I had occasion to rap over the knuckles and turn out of my billet. And I've got a nasty cold, and nobody loves me or cleans my buttons, and if I want to go anywhere there are no more motor cars and they make me pay a penny for the tram, and my wife doesn't think I'm a hero any longer, and little James is being taught to blush and look away and start another subject when anybody says "Dad-dad," and (if you can believe this) I've just been made to pay a franc-and-a-half for a tin of bully beef.

But you don't sympathise, not a bit of it; why should you? I shouldn't if I were in your place. I should just cut off the supply of cigarettes and shaving-soap, stop wishing me good luck, and, with haughty contempt, say, "Call yourself a soldier!" Nevertheless, my friend, whatever I may be, I look extraordinarily magnificent, so much so that a short-sighted Major has taken his pipe out of his mouth as I have drawn near and has as good as saluted me. When he saw I was only a Captain (and a temporary Captain at that) he tried to cover his mistake; but he didn't deceive me; he