Into amateur armchair strategists.

It has raised the lowly and humbled the wise

And forced us in dozens of ways to revise

The hasty opinions we formed of our neighbours

In view of their lives and deaths and labours.

It has cured many freaks of their futile hobbies,

It has made us acquainted with female bobbies.

It has very largely emptied the ranks

Of the valetudinarian cranks,

By turning their minds to larger questions

Than their own insides or their poor digestions.

It has changed a First Lord into a Colonel,

Then into a scribe on a Sunday-journal,

With the possible hope, when scribbling palls,

Of doing his hit at the Music Halls.

It has proved the means of BIRRELL'S confounding

And given Lord WIMBORNE a chance of re-bounding.

But—quite the most wonderful thing of all

The things that astonish, amaze or appal—

As though a jelly turned suddenly rigid,

It has made "TAY PAY" grow suddenly frigid!

When rivers flow backwards to their founts

And tailors refuse to send in accounts;

When some benevolent millionaire

Makes me his sole and untrammelled heir;

When President WILSON finds no more

Obscurity in "the roots of the War";

When Mr. PONSONBY stops belittling

His country and WELLS abandons Britling:

When the Ethiopian changes his hue

To a vivid pink or a Reckitty blue—

In fine, when the Earth has lost its solidity,

Then I shall believe in "TAY PAY'S" frigidity.

Duration of the War.

"If the bid does not come early in 19717 the evidences of Germany's clamorous needs are strangely false."—Evening Paper.

Are we downhearted? No!

Extract from Army Orders in the Field:—

"When Sections 3 and 4 have opened rapid fire, and the bullets have had time to reach the enemy, but not before, Sections 1 and 2 move up into line with No. 3 and 4."

Aren't the Staff wonderful? They think of everything.

SNOWING HIM UNDER.

A FORECAST OF THE NEW BRITISH WAR LOAN.

Possible Purchaser. "WHAT SORT OF DOG IS HE?"

Dog-Fancier. "'IM, LIDY? 'E'S A LITTLE PEDIGREE DAWG, 'E IS. AN' THIS IS 'IS MOTHER ON THE LEAD—QUITE ANOTHER TYPE O' DAWG, BUT ALSO A PEDIGREE."

PETHERTON AND THE PLURALIST.

"Hello!" I said, "a note from Petherton. What can my charming neighbour want now?"

The letter ran as follows:—

SIR,—I find that George, the young man I employ as house-boy, has become friendly with one of your maids, and I shall he glad if you will co-operate with me so far as is possible in trying to prevent their meeting, as I do not think it desirable that there should be further communication between our households than is, unfortunately, necessary.

I should not have troubled to write to you had it not been that George strongly resented my interference with his private affairs when I remonstrated with him just now on the matter. Servants are so deplorably independent in these times, and men as useful as George are so difficult to obtain, that I do not care to open the subject with him again.