smile like a jade Buddha. It said "H.M.S. Hedgehog" round his cap, but when I ventured to remark that I once in peace-time saw and visited that vessel he observed with indifference that "cap-ribbons was nothin' to go by these days; point o' fact, he never see that there ship in his puff." Otherwise they maintained that deep and significant silence which we have learned to associate with our Navy.

The Tommies, however, were in very talkative vein. "Now," I thought, "I shall doubtless hear some real soldiers' stories of the War, even as the newspaper men hear them and reproduce them in the daily prints: the crash of the artillery, the wild excitement of battle—in short, the Real Thing...."

A momentous question had evidently been under discussion when they entered the train, and as soon as they were settled in their seats they resumed it.

"Wot I want to know is," said the largest of the three, a big man with a very square face and blue eyes,—"wot I want to know is—is that there feller to go walkin' about naked?" The last word was pronounced as a monosyllable.

He set his fists squarely on his knees and glared around him with a challenging expression.

"No, it's agin the law," said a small man with a very hoarse voice.

"Course it is," rejoined the other. "Well, wot's the feller to do? That's wot I ast you. If 'e walks about naked, well, 'e gets took up for bein' naked; if 'e doesn't, why, 'e gets 'ad for not returnin' 'is uniform."

He looked round again and decided to take the rest of us into consultation.

"This 'ere's 'ow it stands—see? 'Ere's a feller got the mitten along o' not bein' able to march, through gettin' shot in the leg. 'E goes 'ome pendin' 'is discharge, an' o' course e' walks about in 'is uniform. Then 'e gets 'is discharge, an' they tells 'im to return 'is kar-kee an' small kit——"

"An' small kit?" burst out the third member of the party indignantly—a sprightly youth with a very short tunic and a pert expression. "Do they want you to return your small kit when you get the mitten? Watch me returnin' mine, that's all!"

"You'll 'ave to," said the voice of Discipline.

"'Ave to, I don't think!" said the rebel ironically; "I couldn't if I'd lorst it."

"I ain't got no small kit, any 'ow," said the small and husky one; "I put my 'aversack down when we was diggin' one of our chaps out of a Jack Johnson 'ole, and some bloomin' blighter pinched it! Now that's a thing as I don't 'old with. Rotten, I call it. I wouldn't say nothing about it, mind you, if I was dead; I like to 'ave something as belonged to a comrade, myself, an' I know as 'e'd feel the same, seein' as 'e couldn't want it 'imself. But, if you take a feller's things w'en 'e's alive, why, you don't know 'ow bad 'e might want 'em some day."

"Corporal 'e ses to me, las' kit inspection," broke in the fresh-faced youth, disregarding this nice point of ethics, "'W'ere's your tooth-brush?' 'e ses. 'Where you won't find it,' I ses. ''Oo're you talkin' to?' 'e ses. 'Dunno,' I ses; 'the ticket's fell off!... Wot d'yer call yourself, any'ow,' I ses, 'you an' yer stripe?' I ses. 'Funny bundle,' I ses, 'that's what I call you!'"

"Well, I don't see wot a feller's got to do," said the propounder of the problem, returning to the charge. "Granted as 'e can't walk about naked; granted as 'e 'asn't got a suit o' civvies of 'is own—wot is 'e to do?"

"'Ang on to 'is kar-kee" said the hoarse-voiced man. The setter-down of corporals retired within himself, probably to compose some humorous repartee.

The warrant officer came out of Freckles and suggested writing a letter.

"'E 'as done. 'E's wrote an' told 'em 'as 'e can't send 'is kar-kee back until 'e gets a suit o' Martin 'Enry's or thirty bob in loo of same. An' all as they done was to write again an' demand 'is uniform at once."

The warrant officer sighed and opined that orders were orders.

"Yes, but 'e 'd 'ave to carry 'em to the Post Office naked, wouldn't 'e? An' 'ow about goin' to buy new ones? That's if 'e 'd drawed 'is pay, which 'e 'asn't. Unreasonable, that's wot I calls it."

"'Asn't 'e got no civvies at all?" said the small man, beginning to look sceptical. "'Asn't 'e got no one as 'd lend 'im a soot? Anyways, 'e could get some one to post 'em for 'im, an' then stop in bed till 'is others come."

"'E's a very lonely feller," said the champion of the unclad; "'e lives in lodgin's, an 'e 'asn't got no friends. If 'e 'adn't got no clothes for to fetch 'is pay in, wot then?"

A gloomy silence, a silence fraught with the inevitability of destiny, settled on the party.

The warrant officer, who had been pretending to resume Freckles, presently looked up and suggested that he could go in his uniform to a tailor, explain the position and obtain clothes on credit.

The originator of the problem thought hard for a minute.

"'E isn't a man as I'd care to trust myself," he said rather unexpectedly, "an' I don't think no one else would neither."

It was at this point that the man from H.M.S. Hedgehog (or, to be precise, H.M.S. Something Else) fell into the conversation suddenly, like a bomb.

"'E wouldn't be naked," he said earnestly; "'e'd 'ave 'is shirt."

This was a staggerer. One of those great simple truths sometimes overlooked by more abstruse thinkers. But the owner of the problem made one more stand.

"'Oo'd walk about in a shirt?" he said scornfully.

"Me," said the large seaman, "time I was torpedoed...."

He didn't say another word; but the problem was irretrievably lost. There had been something magnificently daring about the idea of a man walking about like a lost cherub; partly clothed, nobody cared very much what became of him.

Besides, we all wanted to hear Admiralty secrets. We sat there in respectful silence while the train rattled on its way; but the large seaman only went on smiling peacefully to himself, as if he were ruminating in immense satisfaction upon unprecedented bags of submarines.

"The architect for the new building left nothing out that would at all hamper the comfort of those who make this hotel their stopping place."—New Zealand Paper.

We know that architect.

"The Severn was moored in a position 1,000 miles closer to the enemy than on July 6, which made her fire much more effective." Natal Mercury.

We can well believe this.

ANOTHER INDISPENSABLE.

Chief of Village Fire Brigade. "We're all ready. Is steam up?"

Engineer (temporary). "If you want steam in this engine you'll have to get Thompson 'ome from France to show me 'ow to light the bloomin' fire."

TO MY COLD.