"Not like to like, but like in difference."

"The Princess."

I have always misjudged Victorine—I admit it now with shame. While other girls have become engaged—and disengaged quite soon after—she has remained unattached and solitary. As I watched the disappointed suitors turn sadly away I put it down to pride and self-sufficiency, but I was wrong. I see now that she always had the situation well in hand.

As for Algernon, he is the sort of man who writes sonnets to lilies and butterflies and the rosy-fingered dawn—this last from hearsay as he really knows nothing about it. He is prematurely bald and suffers from the grossest form of astigmatism, and I thought that no woman would ever love him. I never dreamt that Victorine had even noticed he was there.

One day I heard that they were engaged. It was too hard for me to understand.

On the third morning I went to see her.

"Victorine," I said, "you have never loved before?"

"Never," she assented softly.

"Now, this man you have chosen—you do not care overmuch for lilies and butterflies and rosy-fingered dawns?"

"Not overmuch," she admitted sadly.

"Then what is it brings you together? What strange link of the spirit has been forged between you? To speak quite plainly, what do you see in him?"

"Yesterday we lunched together, and two days before that he got here in time for breakfast."

"And the engagement still holds?" I am no optimist.

"Before that we dined. Yes, I do not exaggerate. It was my suggestion. One sees so much unhappiness now-a-days, and I wished to be quite sure we were suited to one another."

"And you are convinced of the sincerity of the attachment?"

"Why, I feel for him as Mother does for the knife-and-boot boy, and Uncle Stephen for the charlady. We cannot be separated. It would be monstrous."

I ceased to be articulate. Victorine suddenly became radiant.

"We must always be together—at any rate for the duration of the War, you see. I eat under my meat and he is over. In flour and sugar—oh, how can I confess it?—I exceed. He is far, far below his ration. Apart we are failures; together we are perfect. We both saw it at once."

I realised suddenly the inevitability of this mutual bond.

"So marriage is the only thing?" I asked; but I was already conquered.

She assented with a regal air.

As I went away I saw a new and strange beauty in the problem of Food Shortage.

SONGS OF FOOD PRODUCTION.

IV.

The Farmer's Boy (New Style).

The Sex-Problem Again.

"FOR SALE.—A 3-year-old Holstein gentleman cow."—Canadian Paper.

"A Liverpool master carter told the Tribunal that the last 'substitute' sent him for one of his men backed a horse down a tip and landed him in an expense of £50."—Yorkshire Evening Post.

Many men have lost more by backing a horse on a tip.

A Bare Outlook.

"THINGS YOU HAVE GOT TO DO WITHOUT.
CLOTHES AND FOOD."—Daily Sketch.

This seems to bring the War even closer than the PREMIER intended.

MORE OR LESS.

The fleet of Dutch merchantmen which has been sunk by a waiting submarine sailed, it now appears, under a German guarantee of "relative security": and the incident has been received in Holland with a widespread outburst of relative acquiescence. Germany, in the little ingenious arrangements that she is so fond of making for the safety and comfort of her neighbours, is so often misunderstood. It should be obvious by this time that her attitude to International Law has always been one of approximate reverence. The shells with which she bombarded Rheims Cathedral were contingent shells, and the Lusitania was sunk by a relative torpedo.

Neutrals all over the world who are smarting just now under a fresh manifestation of Germany's respective goodwill should try to realise before they take any action what is the precise situation of our chief enemy. He has (relatively) won the War; he has (virtually) broken the resistance of the Allies; he has (conditionally) ample supplies for his people; in particular, he is (morally) rich in potatoes. His finances at first sight appear to be pretty heavily involved, but that will soon be adjusted by (hypothetical) indemnities; he has enormous (proportional) reserves of men; he has (theoretically) blockaded Great Britain, and his final victory is (controvertibly) at hand.

But his most impressive argument, which cannot fail to come home to hesitating Neutrals, is to be found in his latest exhibition of offensive power, namely, in his (putative) advance upon the Ancre.

Realism.

From a cinema announcement:—

"The management regret that 'The Lost Bridegroom' missed the boat on Sunday."—Guernsey Evening Express.

A Family Affair.

From an account of a "gift sale":

"Alderman —— advised the Committee to sell the donkey in the evening, when there would be a lot present."—Provincial Paper.

More Impending Apologies.

I.

"Mr. —— writes from New Cross:—'Sir,—I was pleased to see that you do not intend increasing the price of 'The Daily News,' and hope that you will not have to reconsider your decision. If necessary I, for one, would be quite content with four pages only."—Daily News.

II.

"The nurses who have a seven minutes' walk to their home quarters, have never had a rude word said to them, 'even,' she added, 'when they have had too much to drink.'"—Daily Province (Vancouver, B.C.).