Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 6

or a landmark which had been carelessly removed by an H.E. shell. One of the most intransigeant of this kind whom I remember could always, however, be softened by souvenirs; a cast-off Uhlan's lance or the rifle of a Bosch sniper went far to console him for the barrenness of a patrol report. I feel sure he must have faded at Slough.
But it was in battle that their wild appetite for information was most amazingly displayed. At moments when nobody knew where anybody else was or whether the ground underneath him was likely to remain in that sector more than a few moments or be detached and transferred to another, they would send by telephone or by a runner wild messages for an exact résumé of the situation. It was at such times, I think, that some of those eminent war correspondents recently knighted would have done yeoman service in the front line. I can imagine them telephoning somewhat after this manner, in answer to the querulous voice:--
"All hell has broken loose in front of us. The earth shivers as if a volcano is beneath our feet. The pock-marked ridges in the distance are covered with the advancing waves of field-grey forms. Our boys are going up happily shouting and singing to the battle. Sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said about being in touch on the right. The brazen roar of the cannon is mingled with the intermittent rattle of innumerable machine guns. Eh, what? What?"
Yes, I think the Brigadiers would have liked that. But, alas, it could not be. And now they have gone, with their passion for questions, never to return, or never till the next A.C.I. cancels the last.
"And now no sacred staff shall break to blossom, No choral salutation lure to light,"
as SWINBURNE put it; or
"All the birds of the air fell a-sighin' and a-sobbin' When they heard of the death of poor Cock Robin,"
as No. 1 platoon of A Company used to sing. Ah, well.
EVOE.
* * * * *
A COUNTRY NIGHT PIECE.
THE darkness my footsteps were swathed in Is drenched with a luminous spray; For a chain's length the kerbstone is bathed in A spindrift of silvery grey; By the roadside is mistily glimmering A wall phosphorescent with pearls, All glancing and dancing and shimmering Like star-dust that swirls.
Where the high-road dips down to the dingle, A coppice in arabesque gleams Whose traceries melt and commingle, Like ghost trees in moon-fretted streams, As the tremulous glamour sweeps o'er it And skirts the inscrutable sky; Then, Fairyland flitting before it, The car flashes by.
* * * * *
Sport in Ireland.
"In a collision between his vehicle and a tramcar yesterday a passenger was injured and removed to hospital.
For other Sporting News see Page 6."
Irish Paper.
* * * * *
"----'S SIPPING AGENCY, LTD."
Le Réveil (Beyrouth).
A popular establishment, we feel confident.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MANNERS AND MODES.
PAVLOVITIS.
[It is announced that at a coming Charity Ball there will be a dance to the music of SAINT-S?ENS' Le Cygne. Our artist anticipates the moment of the Dying Swan's collapse.]]
* * * * *
[Illustration: Host (to friend who feels faint.) "NOW, WHAT YOU WANT IS A GOOD STIFF GLASS OF"--(suddenly remembering the Budget)--"SODA!"]
* * * * *
THE TAKING OF TIMOTHY.
TEA was over, a clearing was made of the articles of more fragile virtue, and Timothy, entering in state, was off-loaded from his nurse's arms into his mother's.
"Isn't he looking sweet to-day?" said Suzanne. "It's really time we had him photographed."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, why do people as a rule get photographed?"
"That," I said, "is a question I have often asked myself, but without finding a satisfactory answer. What do you propose to do with the copies?"
"There are dozens of people who'll be only too glad to have them. Aunt Caroline, for instance----"
"Aunt Caroline one day took me into her confidence and showed me what she called her scrap-heap. It was a big box full of photographs that had been presented to her from time to time, and she calculated that if she had had them all framed, as their donors had doubtless expected, it would have cost her some hundreds of pounds. While her back was turned I looked through the collection. Your photograph was there--and mine, Suzanne."
"Anyhow, we shall want one to keep ourselves. Think what a pleasure it will be to him when he grows up to see what he looked like as a tiny baby."
I called to mind an ancestral album belonging to my own family that I had carefully kept guarded from Suzanne precisely for the reason that it contained various presentments of myself at early ages in mirth-compelling garments and attitudes; but of course I could not now urge that chamber of horrors in opposition to her demand.
"Besides," she went on, "we needn't buy any