the booking office, past the Midland Station entrance, into City Square, along the front of the Queen's Hotel, to the top of yesterday."—Yorkshire Paper.

Better than the middle of next week, anyhow.

Voice. "IS THAT THE GREAT SOUTHERN RAILWAY?"

Flapper. "YES."

Voice. "ARE YOU THE PASSENGER DEPARTMENT?"

Flapper. "NO, I'M THE GOODS."

The Village Oracle. "YOU MARK MY WORDS—THESE 'ERE GERMANS 'LL DO US DOWN AT THIS FINISH. THEY'LL PAY THE BLOOMIN' SIX THOUSAND MILLIONS, OR WOTEVER IT IS, IN THREEPENNY BITS; AND THEN 'OO THE 'ELL'S GOING TO COUNT IT?"

"AS YOU WERE."

Chippo Munks is a regular time-serving soldier, as distinguished from the amateurs who only joined the Army for the sake of a war. His company conduct-sheet runs into volumes, and in peace-time they fix a special peg outside the orderly-room for him to hang his cap on. At present he systematically neglects the functions of billet-orderly at a Base town in France.

A month or two ago he came across Chris Jones.

"Fined fourteen days' pay," said Chippo; "an' cheap it was at the price. But the financial embarrassment thereby followin' puts me under the necessity of borrowing the loan of a five-spotter."

"How did it happen?" said Chris, playing for time.

"'Twas this way," said Chippo. "The other night I was walking down the Roo Roobray, thinking out ways of making you chaps more comfortable in the billet, as is my custom. Suddenly out of the gloom there looms a Red Indian in full war-paint.

"'Strange,' thinks I. 'Chinks an' Portugoose we expects here, likewise Annamites and Senegalese an' doughboys; but I never heard that the BUFFALO BILL aggregation had taken the war-path.'

"He passes, and a little Geisha comes tripping by. I rubs my eyes an' says, 'British Constitootian' correctly; but she was followed by a Gipsy King and a Welsh Witch. Then I sees a masked Toreador coming along, and I decides to arsk him all about it. The language question didn't worry me any. I can pitch the cuffer in any bat from Tamil to Arabic, an' the only chap I couldn't compree was a deaf-an'-dumb man who suffered from St. Vitus' Dance, which made 'im stutter with his fingers.

"'Hi, caballero,' says I, 'where's the bull-fight?'

"'It isn't a bull-fight, M'sieur,' he replies. 'It's Mi-Carême.'

"'If he's an Irishman,' I says, 'I never met him; but if it's a kind of pastry I'll try some.'

"Then he shows me a doorway through which they was all entering, and beside it was a big yellow poster which said, 'Mi-Carême. Grand Bal Costume. Cavaliers, 2 francs. Dames, 1 franc 50 centimes.'

"'I'd love to be a cavalier at two francs a time,' I remarks. 'Besides, I want to make the farther acquaintance of little Perfume of Pineapple Essence who passed by just now.'

"'It will be necessary to 'ave a costume, M'sieur,' says Don Rodrigo.

"'Trust me,' I answers with dignity; 'I've won diplomas as a fancy-dress architect.'

"I goes to my billet and investigates the personal effects of my colleagues. My choice fell on a Cameron kilt, a football jersey and a shrapnel helmet. These I puts into a bundle an' hikes back to the Hall of Dance.

"'May I ask what M'sieur represents?' said the doorkeeper as I paid my two francs.

"'I haven't started yet,' I answers asperiously. 'I assumes my costume as