sleep-walking into strange lines and getting themselves abhorred, or the field guns were on the job and the mess had the jumps. If Hans, the Hun, had not been the perfect little gentleman he is, and had dropped a shell anywhere near us (instead of assiduously spraying a distant ridge where nobody ever was, is, or will be) our mess would have been with Tyre and Sidon; but Hans never forgot himself for a moment; it was our own side we distrusted. The Heavies, for instance. The Heavies warped themselves laboriously into position behind our hill, disguised themselves as gooseberry bushes, and gave an impression of the crack of doom at 2 A.M. one snowy morning.

Our mess immediately broke out into St. Vitus's dance, and William piped all hands on deck.

The Skipper, picturesquely clad in boots (gum, high) and a goat's skin, flung himself on the east wing, and became an animated buttress. Albert Edward climbed aloft and sat on the tin lid, which was opening and shutting at every pore. Mactavish put his shoulder to the south wall to keep it from working round to the north. I clung to the pantry, which was coming adrift from its parent stem, while William ran about everywhere, giving advice and falling over things. The mess passed rapidly through every style of architecture, from a Chinese pagoda to a Swiss châlet, and was on the point of confusing itself with a Spanish castle when the Heavies switched off their hate and went to bed. And not a second too soon. Another moment and I should have dropped the pantry, Albert Edward would have been sea-sick, and the Skipper would have let the east wing go west.

We pushed the mess back into shape, and went inside it for a peg of something and a consultation. Next evening William called on the Heavies' commander and decoyed him up to dine. We regaled him with wassail and gramophone and explained the situation to him. The Lord of the Heavies, a charming fellow, nearly burst into tears when he heard of the ill he had unwittingly done us, and was led home by William at 1.30 A.M., swearing to withdraw his infernal machines, or beat them into ploughshares, the very next day. The very next night our mess, without any sort of preliminary warning, lost its balance, sat down with a crash, and lay littered about a quarter of an acre of ground. We all turned out and miserably surveyed the ruins. What had done it? We couldn't guess. The field guns had gone to bye-bye, the Heavies had gone elsewhere. Hans, the Hun, couldn't have made a mistake and shelled us? Never! It was a mystery; so we all lifted up our voices and wailed for William. He was Mess President; it was his fault, of course.

At that moment William hove out of the night, driving his tent before him by bashing it with a mallet.

According to William there was one, "Sunny Jim," a morbid transport mule, inside the tent, providing the motive power. "Sunny Jim" had always been something of a somnambulist, and this time he had sleep-walked clean through our mess and on into William's tent, where the mallet woke him up. He was then making the best of his way home to lines again, expedited by William and the mallet.

So now we are messless; now we crouch shivering in tents and talk lovingly of the good old times beneath our good old tin roof-tree, of the wonderful view of the mud we used to get from our window, and of the homely tune our shell-boxes used to perform as they jostled together of a stormy night.

And sometimes, as we crouch shivering in our tents, we hear a strange sound stealing up-hill from the lines. It is the mules laughing.

SONGS OF FOOD PRODUCTION.

I.

"MATRIMONY.—Two young, respectable fellows wish to meet two respectable young girls, between the ages of 20 and 30, view above.—T.S.R. and E.C.P., Clematis P.O., Paradise."—Melbourne Argus.

If marriages are made in heaven these respectable young fellows have selected a really promising postal address.

"Nine petty officers were landed from the damaged German destroyer V69 and brought to the Willem Barrentz Hotel, Ymuiden, to-night. My correspondent engaged them in conversation at a late hour. After some Dutch Bock beer they rapidly recovered their spirits and began to sing Luther's well-known hymn, 'Ein Feste Bung.'"—Provincial Paper.

Very appropriate too, but wouldn't a loose "Bung" have pleased them even better?

A PLAIN DUTY.

"WELL, GOODBYE, OLD CHAP, AND GOOD LUCK! I'M GOING IN HERE TO DO MY BIT, THE BEST WAY I CAN. THE MORE EVERYBODY SCRAPES TOGETHER FOR THE WAR LOAN, THE SOONER YOU'LL BE BACK FROM THE TRENCHES."

"STICK TO HIM—STICK TO HIM!"

"I'LL STICK TO HIM, SIR. BUT WHICH ONE DO YOU MEAN?"

LETTERS FROM MACEDONIA.

IV.

MY DEAR JERRY,—I am writing this from my position on top of a small hill, while my devoted band of followers sits round me and waits for me to speak. I always sit here, because if I wanted to go somewhere else I should have to climb down this hill and then up another one. I hate hills. So does the devoted band.

Behind another little hill a hundred yards away we believe there lurks an army corps of Bulgars, but we are afraid to look and see. Instead, we fix and unfix bayonets every ten minutes and make martial noises. This, we hope, affects the enemy's moral, and having your moral affected every ten minutes is no joke, I can tell you.

The spirit of our troops remains excellent. You can see that this is true from the fact that my joke still works. Every night for the last three months, while administering quinine to my army, I have exhorted them not to be greedy and not to take too much. They still laugh heartily, nay uproariously. We are a wonderful nation.

Our chief source of combined instruction and amusement is still the antheap beside us, and in this connection, Jeremiah, I must introduce to you Herbert, a young officer in the ant A.S.C.

When we first knew Herbert (or "'Erb" as he was known in those days), he was an impudent and pushful private. When his corps were engaged in removing the larger pieces of straw out of their hole in the hill, many a time I have seen him staggering manfully