up, I would so reflect my life in my writings that no experience however trifling should be without its recording paragraph. I would tell all. And I am proud to say I have kept that vow. I have not even concealed from my readers the names of the hotels I have stayed in, and if I have liked the watering-places I have resisted every temptation not to say so. Odd how childish aspirations can be fulfilled!

Tommy. "Hold hard, young feller. You shouldn't butt in like that—plenty of room behind."

His Girl. "Leave him alone, Harry. He thinks it's a recruiting office."

"A Young Country Girl, 18, wishes a situation as Housemaid or Betweenmaid; never out before; wages not objected to."

Irish Times.

Very nice of her to be so accommodating.

"Col. J. W. Wray and Mrs. Wray entertained the recruiting staff, numbering £21, to tea at Brett's Hall, Guildford, on Thursday."

Provincial Paper.

Sterling fellows, evidently.

"Us have had a letter from our Jarge. He've killed three Germans!"

"I bain't zurprised! Lor'! How that boy did love a bit o' rattin', or anything to do with vermin!"

THE FLYING MAN.

Journalistic Candour.

Heading to the Stop-Press column of a Provincial Paper:—

"LATEST RAW NEWS."

"Motorcycle. Give £25 (maximum) and exquisite diamond ring (engagement broken off)."—Motor Cycling.

No sidecar required.

"Maeterlinck, the great Austrian statesman, looked with suspicion on all kinds of suggestions of reform or agitation."

Provincial Paper.

So unlike Metternich, the famous Belgian bee-farmer.

"Young Baby—Wanted, homely woman to take charge of duration of war."

Wood Green Sentinel.

If she will only finish it satisfactorily—the War, we mean, not the baby—we don't mind how homely she is.

Under the heading of "Horses, Harness, &c.":—

"Offer, cheap—Horse Chestnuts, 6 to 8 feet; Scotch, 2 to 3 feet; Spruce, about 2 feet; also Privet, Lilacs, Laurels, etc."

Irish Times.

We are quite glad to see this old joke in harness again.

"Tourists are permitted to carry cameras and use them as long as they do not attempt to take fortresses."

Russian Year Book.

These 4.7 cameras are deadly things for siege work.

"Quite the tit-bit of the evening was the little interlude in the duet from 'Faust' taken by Mr. H—— as Faust and Mr. B—— P—— as Mephistopheles. 'His Satanic Majesty' sings—

"'What is your will? At once tell me.

Are you afraid?'"

Accrington Observer.

Is this "My dear Tino" under another name?

THE BATTLE OF JOBEY.

January, 1916, will ever be remembered as the eventful month in which the oldest men in England turned aside from all their other pursuits and disregarded the state of Europe in order to take part in the Battle of Jobey. Their battle-ground was the columns of The Times, and no one was too proud or venerable to fight. Peers, bishops, deans, statesmen, baronets, knights—all rushed in, and still no one quite knows the result. How many Jobeys were there? we still ask ourselves. Did anyone really know the first Jobey, or was there only an ancestral Jobey back in the days of Edward VI.? How old was the dynasty? Was Jobey Levi? Was Jobey Powell? Was Jobey short and fat? Was Jobey tall and thin? What did Jobey sell? What did Jobey do?

To begin with, what was the casus belli? No one can remember. But some old Etonian, reminiscing, had the effrontery to believe that the Jobey to whom, in his anecdotage, he referred, who sold oranges at the gate or blew up footballs or performed other jobicular functions, was the only Jobey. That was enough. Instantly in poured other infuriated old Etonians, also in anecdotage, to pit their memories against his. Everything was forgotten in the struggle: the Kaiser's illness, Sir Ian Hamilton's despatch, the Compulsion Bill, the Quakers and their consciences, the deficiencies of the Blockade. Nothing existed but Jobey.

All the letters, however, were not printed, and some of those that escaped The Times have fallen into our own hand. We give one or two:—

Sir,—Your Correspondents are wrong. Jobey was a fat red man, with a purple nose and a wooden leg.

I am, Yours faithfully, Nestor.

Sir,—My recollection of Jobey is exact. He was a fat man with a hook instead of a left hand, and he stood at least six feet six inches high. No one could mistake him.

I am, Obediently yours,

Methuselah Parr.

Sir,—Jowett, though not an Etonian himself, was greatly interested in anecdotes of Jobey related to him by Etonian undergraduates in the "sixties," and on one occasion, when he was the guest of the