Various

“ Did the happy mother announce the event to the world in the usual way?"
"Yes, she screamed and cackled for about a quarter-of-an-hour, and Frederick came along and seized the subject of her rejoicing. You're going to have it to-night, boiled, instead of soup and fish."
"Isn't that splendid?" I said. "At this rate we shall soon be self-supporting, and then we can snap our fingers at Lord DEVONPORT."
"I never snap my fingers," she said. "No well-brought-up hen-keeper ever does. Besides, it's our duty to help the Government all we can, so that Lord DEVONPORT may have so much more to play with." ”

“ I know that most hens are called Buff Orpingtons, and that they never lay any eggs unless you put a china egg in their nest just to coax them along and rouse their ambition. Francesca, have you put a china egg where our Buff Orpingtons can see it?"
"Frederick is looking after these domestic details. He seems to think that if he goes to the hen-house every ten minutes or so the laying of eggs will be promoted. Won't you go round with him next time?"
"No," I said, "I've never seen a hen lay an egg yet, and I'm not going to begin at my time of life. ”

“ 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 said. "He doesn't strike me as being that kind of man at all."
"I daresay he plays in his off-hours."
"A man like that," I said, "hasn't any off-hours. He's chin-deep in his work."
"Anyhow," she said, "I should like him to know that we're pulling up the herbaceous border and planting it with potatoes, and that we've started keeping hens, and that we've already got one egg, and that when the time comes we shall not lack for chicken, roast or boiled." ”

“ A hen while being sold at a Red Cross sale at Horsham laid an egg which fetched 35s. In the best hen circles, where steady silent work is being done, there is a growing tendency to frown upon these isolated acts of ostentatious patriotism. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ We all know the man with a grievance and avoid him. But there is another man with a grievance whom I rather like, and this is his story. I must, of course, let him tell it in the first-person-singular, because otherwise what is the use of having a grievance at all? The first-person-singular narrative form is the grievance's compensation. ”

“ Generalissimo JOFFRE, on the other hand, he found to be a decent most capable man, without fuss and flummery, doing a distasteful job of work singularly well. There is some particularly interesting matter about aeroplane work, and the writer betrays a keen distress lest the cavalry notions of the soldiers of the old school should make them put their trust in the horsemen rather than the airmen in the break-through. As for "tanks," he offers the alternative of organised world control or a new warfare of mammoth landships, to which the devastation of this War will be merely sketchy ”

“ 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.) ”

“ The persistence with which a little knot of Members below the Gangway advances the proposition that all Germany is longing to make an honourable peace, and that it is only the insatiate ambition of the Allies which stands in the way, would be pathetic if it were not mischievous. ”

“ The farmer is to have a guaranteed minimum price for his produce, the agricultural labourer is to be raised to comparative affluence by a minimum wage of 25s. a week, and the rest of us are to go without most of our imported luxuries and a good many necessities. ”

“ Friday, February 23rd.—Owing to a variety of causes, we are short of tonnage, and unless we manage to grow more and consume less we shall before very long be within reach of the gaunt finger of Famine. ”

“ He said how much he had enjoyed the speeches and how much he hoped that they would bear good fruit; and indeed he felt confident of that, because 'we 'ere in the East End are plain straight-forward folk, who like plain straight-forward talk, and we would rather listen to the honest 'omely sailors who 'ave been talking to us this evening, than any fine Oxford gentleman.'"
That is the story of my friend with a grievance. And yet, now I come to think about it again, and his manner of telling it, I'm not sure I ought not rather to call him a man with a triumph. ”

“ No German submarine, says ADMIRAL VON CAPELLE, has been lost since the beginning of the submarine war. This assurance has been received with the liveliest satisfaction by several U-boat commanders who have been in the awkward predicament of not knowing whether they were officially missing.
Captain BOY ED is stated to have returned to the United States disguised. Not on this occasion, we may assume, as an officer and a gentleman. ”

“ Austrian tobacconists are now prohibited from selling more than one cigar a day to a customer. To conserve the supply still further it is proposed to compel the tobacconist to offer each customer the alternative of nuts. ”

“ The representatives of thirty leading American railways have agreed virtually to an embargo on eastern shipments of freight for export until the present congestion on the eastern sideboard is relieved."—Evening Standard.
This is all very well for the Americans, but what we are concerned about is the depletion of our own sideboard. ”

“ The staff of the new Pensions Minister, it is announced, will be over two thousand. It is still hoped, however, that there may be a small surplus which can be devoted to the needs of disabled soldiers.
Several men have been arrested in Dresden for passing counterfeit food tickets. The defence will presumably be that it wasn't real food.
The Royal Engineers are advertising for seamen for the Inland Water Transport Section. The Chief Transport Officer, we understand, has already hoisted his bargee. ”

“ 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 ... ”

“ The advertiser should wire to KAISER, Potsdam.
"During the night an enemy raiding party in the neighbourhood of Gueudecourt was driven off by our baggage before reaching our line."—Continental Daily Mail.
There is no end to our warlike inventions. First the Tanks, and now the Trunks.
"The Tigris, immediately above Kut, runs South-East for about four miles. Then there is a sharp bend, and its course is almost due South for about the same distance. Then against the stream it goes due North for about the same distance."—Glasgow Citizen. ”

“ We are told so many things that don't matter, such as the enormous number of Ministers in the new Government, which was formed, if I remember rightly, as a protest against too large a Cabinet; such as the colossal genius of each and every performer in Mr. ”