"Now," I suggested as we left the drapery department, "you've got as much as you can carry." Unfortunately it was impossible to relieve her of the parcels as I had all my work cut out to manipulate those confounded crutches.

"There's only the toy department," returned Pamela, leading the way with her armful of packages. "I do hope you're not frightfully tired." Of course it seemed ridiculous, but I had not been out of hospital many days, and as yet I had not grown used to stumping about in this manner.

"Do you happen," asked Pamela at the counter, "to have such a thing as a box of broken soldiers?"

The young woman looked astonished and even a little hurt, but offered, with condescension, to inquire.

"Do you want them for Dick?" I asked, Dick being Pamela's youngest brother.

"For Dick and Alice," said Pamela. Alice was her sister, younger still.

"Why shouldn't I buy them a box of whole ones?"

"That wouldn't answer the purpose. They have three large boxes already," answered Pamela, as a young man appeared in a frock coat, with a silver badge on the right lapel, "For Services Rendered." In his hand was a dusty cardboard box, and in the box lay five damaged leaden soldiers, up-to-date soldiers in khaki; two without heads, two armless, one who had lost both legs.

"Those will do splendidly," said Pamela, and the young man with the silver badge obligingly put the soldiers into my tunic pocket. It seemed to be understood that they and I had been knocked out in the same campaign.

"Why," I asked on the way home in the taxi, "did you want the soldiers to be broken?"

"I—I didn't," murmured Pamela, with a sigh.

"Why did Dick?" I persisted.

"The children are so dreadfully realistic now-a-days. You see, Father objected to his breaking heads and arms off his new ones. Dick was quite rebellious. He wanted to know what he was to do for wounded; and Alice was more disappointed still."

"I should have thought it was too painful a notion for her," I suggested.

"Oh!" cried Pamela, with a laugh, "Alice is a Red Cross nurse, you know. She's made a hospital out of a Noah's Ark. She only thinks of healing them."

"All the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again," I said.

"Poor old boy!" whispered Pamela.

"I wonder whether broken soldiers have an interest for you as well," I remarked ... and Dick and Alice were completely forgotten until they met us clamorously in the hall.

"Did you get any, Pam?" cried Dick.

"Only five," was the answer, as I took the small paper parcel from my pocket and handed it over.

"Is that all?" demanded Alice.

"There's one more," I said.

"Is that for me?" cried Alice; but Pamela shook her head and smiled very nicely as she took my arm.

"No, that's for me," she said.

A TRAGEDY OF THE SEA.

The night was a very dark one, for a cold damp fog hung over the Channel. The few lights we carried reflected in-board only, and, leaning over the rail, it was with difficulty that I could distinguish the dark waters washing below. Shore-ward I could see nothing, though I knew that a good-sized town lay there.

I had soon had enough of the inclement night. Keeping my feet with some difficulty upon the wet boards, I groped my way to a door and, pushing it open, entered.

A strange scene met my gaze. A spruce man in the uniform of a naval officer was seated at a table. Before him stood a tall well-set-up young seaman. His dishevelled head was hatless, but otherwise he looked trim, and his garments fitted him better than a seaman's garments generally do. On each side of him stood an armed guard.

"Have you anything to say for yourself?" asked the officer sternly.

"No, Sir, only that I am innocent," answered the man. He held his head high, almost defiantly. I could not but admire his courageous bearing, and yet there was an air of unreality about the whole thing. I felt almost as if I were dreaming it, but I knew that this was not a dream.

"The evidence against you is overwhelming," said the officer. "I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. The sentence will be carried out at dawn. Remove the prisoner."

The seaman took a step forward. For a moment he seemed to be struggling with himself, anxious to speak, yet forcing himself to silence. Then he bowed his head, and, turning, placed himself between the guards and was marched away.

The officer sighed. "It's a bad business," he said. "He's the best man I ever had on my ship."

He was speaking to himself, and again I had that strange sense of unreality, as indeed I well might, for this was the Third Act of True to the Death, a melodrama in the pavilion at the end of the pier.

THE RETORT CELESTIAL.

[China has threatened to break off relations with the German Government on account of its barbarity. It will be recalled that the KAISER once designed an allegorical picture entitled "The Yellow Peril."]

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER.

Grocer. "A LITTLE SUGAR WITH MY TART, PLEASE."

Waitress (late grocer's assistant). "CERTAINLY, SIR, IF YOU WILL ALSO TAKE MUSTARD, PEPPER, SALT, YORKSHIRE RELISH AND SALAD DRESSING."

WEATHER-VANES.

It was 2 A.M. The mosquitoes were singing their nightly chorus, and the situation reports were coming in from the battalions in the line. With his hair sizzling in the flame of the candle, the Brigade Orderly Officer who was on duty for the night tried to decipher the feathery scrawl on the pink form.

"Situation normal A-A-A wind moderate N.E.," it read.

"Great Scott!" said the O.O. "North-East!" (Hun gas waits upon a wind with East in it). "Give me the message book."

Laboriously he wrote out warnings to the battalions and machine gun sections, etc., under the Brigade's control. Then he turned to the next message.

"Situation normal A-A-A wind light S.W."

"South-West?" said the O.O. blankly, viewing his now useless handiwork. "Which way is the wind then?"

The orderly went out to see, and returned presently with a moistened forefinger and the information that it was "blowing acrossways, leastways it seemed like it." The O.O. got out of his little wire bed, searched in his pyjamas for the North Star, and, finally deciding that if there was any wind at all (which was doubtful) it was due South, reported it as such. The responsibility incurred kept him awake for some time, but when the Brigade on the right flank reported a totally different wind he concluded there must be a whirlwind in the line, and, putting up a barrage of bad language, went to sleep.

In due course the matter came to the ears of the Staff Captain, who broached the subject at breakfast as the General was probing his second poached egg.

"This," said the General, who is rather given to the vernacular, "is the limit. A North-South-East-West report is preposterous. Something must be done. Haven't we got a weather-vane of our own? Pass the marmalade, will you?"

Four people reached hastily for the delicacy, and the O.O. feeling out of it passed the milk for no reason. (Generals really get a very good time. People have been known to pass things to them unasked.)

"What about those two vanes in our last headquarters, Sir?" said the Staff Captain