well,

Of faked and fabulous rumour;

And there, as we were bound to do,

We failed, because we loved the True,

And loathed the False as alien to

Our artless German humour.

"Red heels were much in evidence, both Lady D—— and Lady C—— affected them, and they were to be seen in other unexpected places."—Observer.

Certainly their use as ornaments in the small of the back surprised us a good deal.

THE CARP AT MIRAMEL.

[In the following article all actual names, personal, geographical and regimental, have been duly camouflaged.]

The carp that live in the moat of the Château de Miramel (in the zone of the armies in France) are of an age and ugliness incredible and of a superlative cynicism. One of them—local tradition pointed to a one-eyed old reprobate with a yellow face—is the richer these hundred years past by an English peeress's diamond ring.

From the bottom of the moat one world-war is like another, and none of them very different from peace. It is but a row of grinning red healthy faces over the coping and a shower of bread and biscuit.

When the nightmare of BONAPARTE was ended in the Autumn of 1815, the 22nd K.R. Lancers, commanded by an English peer, billeted themselves in and around the Château de Miramel. The English peer, finding time hang heavy on his hands, or my lady's letters proving insistent, sent for her to come out to him at Miramel. You could do that sort of homely thing in 1815.

So my lady comes to Miramel, and the very first day, as she leans out of window in the round tower, mishandles her diamond ring (gift of my lord) and drops it into the moat. Her host, the good Comte de Miramel, dredged and drained, but no trace of the diamond ring was ever found. But old Cyclops, the carp, grinned horribly.

In due course my lord and lady went home to the Isle of Fogs, and thence they sent their portraits to their host as a souvenir of their stay. Here indeed the portraits still hang, very graceful in the style of the period. And to the appreciative visitor Madame de Miramel (of to-day) shows a missive of thanks, written in indifferent bad French, in which my lady refers sorrowfully to "ma bague diamantée."

Once again the 22nd K.R. Lancers are billeted in Miramel. The other day I noticed on a worn stone pillar at the great door the following half-obliterated words:—

"ED. WYNN, pikeman of the dashing 22nd King's Ryol ridgemet of lanciers. Sept. 1815";

and freshly scratched above the inscription:—

The old carp seems to be right, and one war is very like another. There is no radical change in the orthography of the 22nd King's Royal Lancers, and some-one else's wall is still the medium for self-expression.

Old Cyclops must be throwing his mind back a hundred years or so. There is a rain of bread and biscuits into the moat and a ring of red grinning faces above the coping. Yesterday I threw a disused safety-razor blade over the old scoundrel's nose. And "Bless my soul!" he said, as he lazily bolted it, "there hasn't been such a year for minnows since 1815."

But Armageddon 1917 holds surprises even for those who live at the bottom of a moat. For very early this morning a bauble fell into the moat that Cyclops himself couldn't digest. The old cynic was found floating, scarred belly upwards, on the surface of the water.

The mess-waiter took charge of the post-mortem. Like the Duke of Plaza Toro, he "likes an interment" and rarely misses a last rite. A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in extracting an exhibit for the Court's inspection, which he unhesitatingly pronounced to be a diamond ring in an advanced state of decomposition.

The mess-cook, on the other hand, identified the relic as the stopping, recently mislaid, from one of his back teeth.

In any case there seems little room for doubt that a Hun airman has avenged the long-dead lady.

ENIGMA.

POLICEMAN (on duty at St. Stephen's). "STAND ASIDE, PLEASE."

MR. PUNCH. "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

POLICEMAN. "PARLIAMENT REASSEMBLING."

MR. PUNCH. "WHY?"

Ex-Bus-driver (in difficulties in the roadless zone). "'ERE'S OLE PICCADILLY UP AGIN—FAIR IN THE 'IGHTH OF THE SEASON."

THE MUD LARKS.

All the world has marvelled at "the irrepressible good humour" of old Atkins. Every distinguished tripper who comes Cook's-touring to the Front for a couple of days devotes at least a chapter of his resultant book to it. "How in thunder does Thomas do it?" they ask. "What the mischief does he find to laugh at?" Listen.

Years ago, when the well-known War was young, a great man sat in his sanctum exercising his grey matter. Ho said to himself, "There is a War on. Men, amounting to several, will be prised loose from comfortable surroundings and condemned to get on with it for the term of their unnatural lives. They will be shelled, gassed, mined and bombed, smothered in mud, worked to the bone, bored stiff and scared silly. Fatigues will be unending, rations short, rum diluted, reliefs late and leave nil. Their girls will forsake them for diamond-studded munitioneers. Their wives will write saying, 'Little Jimmie has the mumps; and what about the rent? You aren't spending all of five bob a week on yourself, are you?' This is but a tithe (or else a tittle) of the things that will occur to them, and their sunny natures will sour and sicken if something isn't done about it."

The great man sat up all night chewing penholders and pondering on the problem. The BIG IDEA came with the end of the eighth penholder.

He sprang to his feet, fires of inspiration flashing from his eyes, and boomed, "Let there be Funny Cuts!"—then went to bed. Next morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen