head. I must take it to him."

In the nick of time.

"Darling!"

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING YOUNG.

Office-Boy engaging a suitable Employer.

NEWS FROM KIEL.

(By our Naval Expert.)

An interesting little item of news in the daily papers of last Wednesday may have escaped notice. It appears that the German Liners which have been laid up in New York harbour for the last eighteen months have discovered that their magnetic deviation has been affected. This is the explanation of the recent movement in the harbour, when all the German ships were turned round so as to readjust their compasses.

The special significance of this information is to be found by taking it in conjunction with the recent puzzling reports of movements of the German High Seas Fleet. It will be remembered that the Fleet was represented in an enemy official report (with the customary exaggeration) as sweeping out into the North Sea. That was not readily believed, but it was generally felt that there must be something in it, especially as all manner of rumours of naval activity kept coming through from Scandinavia about the same time.

Our naval experts in this country were quite at a loss, but to-day the riddle is solved. What was happening was that the High Seas Fleet was turning round.

I have had the good fortune to fall in with a neutral traveller—of the usual high standing and impartial sympathies—who has supplied a few details. It seems that great excitement prevailed at this scene of unwonted bustle and activity. The operation was carried out under favourable weather conditions practically without a hitch, the casualties being quite negligible, and the moral of the men, in spite of their long period of enforced coma, being absolutely unshaken. One and all have now cheerfully accepted the disconcerting changes involved in the new orientation, and window-boxes have been generally shifted to the sunny side.

Still, the sacrifice was well meant.

THE GOLDEN VALLEY.

(Herefordshire.)

A GERMAN HOLIDAY.

Child. "PLEASE, SIR, WHAT IS THIS HOLIDAY FOR?"
Official. "BECAUSE OUR ZEPPELINS HAVE CONQUERED ENGLAND."
Child. "HAVE THEY BROUGHT US BACK ANY BREAD?"
Official. "DON'T ASK SILLY QUESTIONS. WAVE YOUR FLAG."

AT THE FRONT.

There is one matter I have hitherto not touched on, because it has not hitherto touched on me, and that is Courses.

The ideal course works like this. You are sitting up to the ears in mud under a brisk howitzer, trench mortar and rifle grenade fire, when a respectful signaller crawls round a traverse, remarking, "Message, Sir."

You take the chit from him languidly, wondering whether you have earned a court-martial by omitting to report on the trench sleeping-suits which someone in the Rearward Services has omitted to forward, and you read, still languidly at first; then you get up and whoop, throw your primus stove into the air and proceed to dance on the parapet, if your trench has one. Then you settle down and read your message again to see if it still runs, "You are detailed to attend three months' Staff work course at Boulogne, commencing to-morrow. A car will be at the dump for you to-night. A month's leave on completion, of course."

But all courses are not like this; all you can say is that some are less unlike it than others. I was sitting in a warm billet about twelve noon having breakfast on the first day out of trenches when the blow fell on me. I was to report about two days ago at a School of Instruction some two hundred yards away. I gathered that the course had started without me. I set some leisurely inquiries in train, in the hope that it might be over before I joined up. I also asked the Adjutant whether I couldn't have it put off till next time in trenches, or have it debited to me as half a machine-gun course payable on demand, or exchange it for a guinea-pig or a canary, or do anything consistent with the honour of an officer to stave it off. For to tell the truth, like all people who know nothing and have known it for a long time, I cherish a deeply-rooted objection to being instructed.

Unfortunately the Adjutant is one of those weak fellows who always tell you that they are mere