several times examined it and having heard, perhaps, most, if not all, the various theories concerning it. I have been here a good deal longer than you have, I believe, and cannot think that you know more of the subject than I.

Have you read Wycherley's treatise on the Eleanor Crosses? [I invented this monograph for the purpose of inducing Petherton to reload.] If not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the existence of a castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands, and where such shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and butter?

By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your seizième siècle rooster wants his tail remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about new plumage for him till after the War, though it seems like carrying patriotism to absurd lengths.

Yours sincerely,

HENRY J. FORDYCE.

I hope you will allow your letter to be published in The Gazette.

In reply to this Petherton discharged with:—

SIR,—I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.

Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries (1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not earlier than the fifteenth century.

Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I am not too sanguine,

I am, Yours faithfully,

FREDERICK PETHERTON.

My views are not for publication. I prefer not to be mixed up in such a symposium.

It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get heated, so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him on, and loosed off with:—

Dear Old Man,—What a historian you are! You have JOHN RICHARD GREEN beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of sight, and even the authoress of the immortal Little Arthur could not have placed EDDY I. with greater chronological exactitude. In fact there seems to be no subject on which you cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry that you will not join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it deprives the natives of a great treat.

But—there is a but, my dear Fred—I cannot admit your claim to superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have grown up with them as it were. Yours ever,

HARRY FORDYCE.

Sir (exploded Petherton),—What senseless drivel you write on the least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury relics or not, you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone that's left of that confounded ruin (probably only a simple market-cross) proclaims the date of its birth. Even the broken finial and the two crockets lying on the ground expose your ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!

Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.

I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the following:—

Dear Freddy,—I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed metaphors were designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did not write, and I do not remember saying that I had written, the letter to the paper which seems to have given you as much pleasure as it has given me. I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you have brought your Chesterfield battery into action has been so masterly that I, for one, can never regret that you were misinformed. I believe the particular letter to The Gazette was written by one of the staff, a native of the place, who probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and has felt a personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this new light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on history and archæology.

Yours ever, Harry.

How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!

But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been knocked out by this direct hit.

Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the appearance of a bomb-hole on the London Front). "You could have buried a horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"

Sugar Control

.

Thanks to the new sugar regulations we now expect half a pound of sugar per head per week instead of half a pound of sugar per head per-haps.

"HOGS STILL SOARING."

Headline in Canadian Paper.

The shortage of petrol seems to have driven them from the roads.

"Sir John Hare declares that there is no truth in the statement that he is saying '——' to the stage."—Bournemouth Echo.

Personally, we never believed that he would be guilty of such language.

"The only thing which will actually bring peace is an army of occupation standing on its own flat feet, either in Germany or on the German frontier."—Weekly Dispatch.

But why this preference for the flat-footed? Are not the hammer-toed to have a chance?

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

THE KAISER. "STOP! STOP! I'M TIRED."

DEATH. "I STARTED AT YOUR BIDDING; I STOP WHEN I CHOOSE."

Officer. "I SAY—LOOK HERE. I TOLD YOU TO GO TO PADDINGTON, AND YOU'RE GOING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION."

Taxi-Driver. "ORL RIGHT—ORL RIGHT! YOU'RE LUCKY TO GET A CAB AT ALL INSTEAD OF GRUMBLIN' ABAHT WHERE YER WANTS TER GO TO!"

THE NEW MRS. MARKHAM.

CONVERSATION ON CHAPTER LX.

Mary. I wish, Mamma, that there were not so many shocking stories in history.

Mrs. M. History is, indeed, a sad catalogue of human miseries, and one is glad to turn aside from the horrors of war to the amenities of private life. Shall I tell you something of the domestic habits of the English in the early twentieth century?

Mary. Oh do, Mamma; I shall like that very much.

Mrs. M. The nobility and the well-to-do classes no longer lived shut up in gloomy castles, but made a point of spending most of their time in public. They never took their meals at home, but habitually frequented large buildings called restaurants, fitted up with sumptuous and semi-Sultanic splendour. In these halls, while the guests sat at a number of tables, they were entertained by minstrels and singers. It was even said that they acquired the habit of eating and drinking in time to the music. They were waited upon for the most part by foreigners, who spoke broken English, and what with the babel of tongues, the din of the music and the constant popping of corks, for alcohol had not yet been prohibited, the scene beggared description.

Richard. Well, I am sure I would rather dine in our neat little dining-room, with our silent