Various

“ Myself, I don't consider Bo-Bo a bit the better for the Long-Ago treatment, and there's certainly a wild look in his eyes that wasn't there before!
M'amie, would you like to hear the simply odious storyette of Somebody's Cousin? Well, so you shall. Somebody is by way of being an intimate foe of mine, and Somebody's Cousin has long been a thorn in the flesh and a shaking of the head to his people. ”

“ In deciding to add to what one may call the fiction of Metropolitan Adventures, whereof The New Arabian Nights may be regarded as both the model and the prototype, the author of The London Nights of Belsize (Lane) has undertaken a task which is both easy and difficult—easy because a sophisticated style and a lively imagination are the only essential qualifications, and difficult because it involves competition with a perfect galaxy of distinguished authors. ”

“ You will hardly have traversed the passages of our underground railway system without being hurriedly aware in passing of a picture in reds and browns, representing a faun-like figure piping to an audience of three rather self-conscious rabbits. ”

“ I can only hope that the affair will never reach the ear of the new Food-Controller. The chief culprit was undoubtedly Joan minor—I only became an accomplice after the fact—and I can scarcely believe that even a Food-Controller could be very angry with Joan minor. For one thing she really is so very minor. And then there's her manner; in face of it severity, as I have found, is out of the question. Even Joan major, who has been known to rout our charlady in single combat, finds it irresistible. ”

“ Juno cut it in old-fashioned style with Portcullis's sword. While we were doing ourselves well with war-bread and margarine, boiled eggs and plenty of champagne, the Controller of Wedding Breakfasts blew in (it's a new post, and he's two hundred and fifty able-bodied young assistants) . He was curious to see what we were having, and cautioned us against throwing any rice after our bride and 'groom. "But how absurd, you ricky person!" chipped in Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, who, of course, is Juno's great-aunt. "We never throw rice at our wedding-people! ”

“ Into the self-contained little community of a provincial society, where to have once been young is to retain a courtesy title to perpetual youth, there arrives suddenly the genuine article, a boy and girl still in the springtime of life, by contrast with whom the preserved immaturity of Mr. Teddy and his partner, Miss Daisy, is shown for an artificial substitute. ”

“ But war changes many things besides Cabinets, and if the paper famine is to continue there will shortly be a totally novel kind of advertising to be seen, where dissuasion holds the highest place. For unless something happens those journals which have already done much to reduce circulation will have to do more and actually decry themselves. Such counsels as those which follow may before long meet the eyes, and, it is possible, influence the minds, of the great B.P.:—
The depreciation, you observe, is not always quite whole-heartedly done. ”

“ For many years—ever since the first piece of chalk was applied to the first wall and advertising began its bombastic career—the advertiser's tendency has been to commend his wares, if not to excess, at any rate with no want of generosity. ”

“ Captain Bathurst refuses to be a potato prophet.
It will be a thousand pities if Captain Bathurst should persist in leaving the department of the Food-Controller. If he could only keep down food-prices as effectively as he does irrelevant questioners he would be worth his weight in "Bradburys." His latest victim is Mr. Pennefather, who has developed a keen curiosity on the subject of potatoes. Did not the Government think that the high price would cause premature "lifting"? Were they aware that potatoes could be used for making rubber substitutes and cement ”

“ Public opinion in the queue takes a sudden turn. One lady remarks that these speshuls are that interfering. Another alleges that she has no doubt I have sacks of sugar at home.
I remember the Inspector's counsel about moving on, and move myself on.
There is one man in England who proclaims himself absolutely unfitted to fill the Food-Controller's position.
I am that modest person.
Stage Manager. "The elephant's putting up a very spirited performance to-night."
Carpenter. "Yessir. You see, the new hind-legs is a discharged soldier, and the front legs is an out-and-out pacifist." ”

“ He used to be at the head of the Department for Telling People What to Do, and he and his five hundred assistants were worked half dead; and now he's at the head of a still newer department, the one for Telling People What They're Not to Do, and, though he's eight hundred clerks to help him, Wee-Wee says the strain is too great for words. He goes to Whitehall at ten every day and comes back at three! And then he has the Long-Ago treatment that's being used so much now for war-frayed nerves. The idea is to get people as far away from the present as poss. ”

“ The faun, I imagine, stands for Rollo, the middle-aged lover of the country, into whose happy life other, more human, loves break with such devastation. What the rabbits mean is a more difficult problem. ”

“ A lady down the queue caps this with seven kids, and in the distance a lady in a fur cap claims ten, and is at once engaged by her neighbours in a bitter controversy as to whether three in France should count in sugar buying.
All the time the hoarder stands with nose in the air, the picture of lofty indifference. ”

“ So faithful is the author to this undertaking that he practically keeps his expert hanging about with the unenlightened crowd, while another character, in light-hearted amateur enthusiasm, does all the work. ”

“ Told to attack him before he felt sure of his own strength, the small boy would not have been sorry to wait a bit longer, but the pressure against Verdun and against the Russians had to be relieved, and so with steadily increasing skill and confidence the attack was made, and day after day fresh units proved themselves more than a match for the enemy. ”

“ Keating, having made the remarkable discovery that the War has injured the prosperity of Irish seaside resorts, demanded the restoration of excursion trains and season tickets. Mr. George Roberts stoutly supported the Irish Railway Executive Committee in its refusal to encourage pleasure-traffic. His decision received the involuntary support of Mr. MacVeagh, who attempted to back up his colleague by the singular argument that the existing trains in Ireland ran half-empty. ”

“ The 'maids had on Olga's latest in Allotment Wedding frocks, carried out in potato-brown charmeuse and cabbage-green chiffon; also they'd garden-hats, tied under the chin with ribbon-grass and with a big cluster of radishes at the left side, and each of them carried a bunch of small salad and a darling little crystal-and-silver watering-pot (Portcullis's gifts) . The Duke of Southlands gave his daughter away, and Juno insisted on his wearing a smock-frock and carrying a trowel, and just as the dear Bishop said, "Who giveth this woman?" ”

“ All at once another lady, who for some obscure reason is carrying a bucket, grips me by the arm.
"I'm goin' to 'ave the law on my side, I am," she declares emphatically, "an' then I'll smash 'is bloomin' fice in."
I am swayed towards a fruit-stall.
"Look at them," says the irate lady, holding out three potatoes. "Rotten—at thrippence a pound. My 'usband 'e'd 'ave set abaht me if I'd give 'im them for 'is dinner."
The fruiterer takes a lofty moral standard. "I sold yer them fer seed pertaters, I did. If yer 'usband eats them 'e's worse than a Un." ”

“ The Allotment expression, which is the correct one now, is a look of interest and expectation, because what one's planted is coming up. Some people rather spoil their Allotment expression by a puzzled look. ”

“ The Newport Market Army Training School, Greencoat Place, Westminster, which has for over fifty years been training homeless and destitute boys to become soldiers of the King, and has sent over two thousand into the Army, is in great need of funds. ”

“ His style is smooth and assured, and, though somewhat lacking in humour, his touch is light and pleasing. He begins well and interests us in his principal character so that we look forward with zest to the adventures of a personality which is everything that this sort of fiction requires. ”

“ Mopping-up parties will be detailed to deal with all dug-outs known to be occupied. Prisoners will not be taken, but undue roughness is to be discouraged as likely to bring discredit upon the service. ”

“ Yep!"
An old lady was recently fined two pounds for putting out crumbs for birds. Had the bread-crumbs been put outside, instead of inside, the birds, no offence, it seems, would have been committed. ”

“ But Sir F.E. Smith, like the Irishman who inquired, "Is this a private fight, or may anyone join in?" could not refrain from trailing his coat, and quickly found a doughty opponent in Mr. Hayes Fisher. The House so much enjoyed the unusual freedom of the fight that it would probably be going on still but for that spoil-sport, the Home Secretary, who begged Members to come to a decision. By 149 votes to 141 "P.R." was "down and out."
HEAVY WORK FOR THE BOUNDARY COMISSIONERS.
MR. Eugene Wason to be swept away. ”

“ The 9th Self-help Brigade will carry out a Raid upon Broadmead House, Broadmead Square, W., on the night of 12/13 August. 2. The Raid will be carried out by the Bill Sikes and Robin Hood Battalions. The Charlie Peace Bn. will be in close support, and the Dick Turpin Bn. in reserve. 3. The four sides of the house will be attacked simultaneously, the Bill Sikes Bn. attacking with one Coy. ”

“ Winston Churchill, M.P."; This sounds a little ungracious. Why "of course distant?" But perhaps the gifted novelist shares the opinion held by Lord Beresford of the politician who did not write The Crisis, but is always trying to make one.
From the account of a military wedding in The West London Press:—
"The bridegroom was wearing a simple draped gown of lavender-blue crepe georgette, with a mushroom-shaped hat in the same shade, wreathed with small coloured flowers and draped with a blue lace veil." ”