Various

“ My Dear Charles,—Have I ever, in the course of these Secret and Confidential despatches, called your lordship's attention to the existence, the very marked existence, of our Hubert, "the little Captain," who, being out of the battle for the moment, relies upon argument for argument's sake to keep up his circulation? ”

“ Even the head of the registry-office, a frigid thin-lipped lady of some fifty winters, with an unemotional cold-mutton eye, was betrayed, in speaking of Emily, into a momentary lapse from the studied English of her normal vocabulary.
"Madam," she said to my wife, "I have known many housemaids, but never one like this. She is, I assure you, Madam, absolutely it."
So we engaged her; and ere long I came to hate her with a hatred such as I trust I shall never again cherish for any human being. ”

“ Whether in real life anyone could have nursed a lifelong hatred as old Mason did (personally I cherish the belief that hatred is too evanescent an emotion for a life-tenancy of the human mind; but I may be wrong) ; whether he would have bribed a casual tramp to marry and torment the reputed daughter who was the object of his loathing, or whether Day and Helen herself would actually so have played into his hands, are all rather questionable problems. Far more real, human and moving is the wild passion of Helen for Martin, whom (again questionably as to truth) her enemies frighten away from her. ”

“ The style, very distinctive, shows poetic feeling and a rare and beautiful tenderness of thought, mingled with an acceptance of the brutality of life and war that is seen in the vivid descriptions of incidents that our own gentler writers would have left untold. ”

“ She jilted me for Jenks, and no sooner did she say the word to him than she talked him into enlisting too.... That's why I'm no good. Every time I remember I'm a soldier I think of her laughing at me, and I feel a fool.'
"'Well,' said I, 'she must be proud of you both, for you're the weariest, wonkiest pair of wash-outs I ever swore at.'
"I didn't send for Jenks; I could guess his excuse. He had obviously about as much spirit for fighting as Ruggles, and he was just hanging on and trying not to get hurt before the War stopped. ”

“ Pa Tridge would say. "It is not only better citizenship to do so, but it makes things easier for yourself in the long run."
"Always bear in mind," Ma Tridge would say, "that after one has married one's cook she ceases to cook." ”

“ Paul Lintier, the writer, had, it is clear, a gift for recording things seen with quite unusual sharpness of effect. His word-pictures of the mobilisation, the departure for the Front, and the fighting from the Marne to the Aisne (where he was wounded and sent home) carry one along with a suspense and interest and quite personal emotion that are a tribute to their artistry. His death (the short preface tells us that, having returned to the Front, he was killed in action in March, 1916) has certainly robbed France of one who should have made a notable figure in her literature. ”

“ Meanwhile it is cheering to know that quite a number of our fellows are getting home on the Hindenburg line.
"Walking canes for ladies with small round heads of ivory" are becoming increasingly popular, declared a contemporary. We ourselves would hesitate to lash the follies of smart Society in a manner quite so frank. ”

“ Yes, I have good hope that we shall now maintain ourselves for at least two days. Yes, if we are forced to retire we must say it is according to plan. No, I don't like it either, but what is to be done? Their guns are more numerous and heavier than ours, and weight of metal must tell. Will I hold the line? Yes, certainly, till your Majesty returns and graciously resumes the conversation. Oh, you didn't mean that line? You meant the Siegfried line, or the Wotan line, or the Hindenburg line? ”

“ The briefest and most helpful speech of the afternoon came from Sir Edward Carson, who, while declaring that he would never desert Ulster, nevertheless made it plain that Ulster on this occasion should take her place beside the rest of Ireland. Only Mr. Ginnell remained obdurate. In his ears the Convention sounds "the funeral dirge of the Home Rule Act."
Tuesday, May 22.—If you should happen to see of a Sabbath morning a stream of official motor-cars leaving London with freights of the brave and the fair you may be sure they are going on some National business. ”

“ Five rows of barbed wire, two of them electrified, would be but a poor substitute for the barriers of the W.O. Before you set foot on the staircase you have to produce a ticket, and it is supposed that the porter, who has the forms to be filled in, forfeits a day's pay every time he parts with one. Hubert, gradually losing confidence, wrote upon the form all he could think of about himself, and handed it to the porter, who received it with reluctance, read it with suspicion, and disappeared with a grunt. ”

“ In any case, as he has now run short of grievances, and the authorities of the B.E.F. regard him as a joke and like him best when his little temper is hot, his fights out here have for some time lacked reality. I fancy that he was merely in search of a casus belli when, being on leave in the U.K., he conceived the idea of a day's extension and stepped round to the War Office to demand same as of right.
But the War Office, Charles, is not as other places and War Officers are not like the common sort. Hubert, arriving in his best fighting trim, was at once ejected by the policeman at the door. ”

“ A man's a fool to risk breaking a heart to try to get a medal.'
"'Ay, that's the way you look at it,' said Ruggles, as red as beetroot. 'But I bet the Sergeant's glad she's changed her mind. I never knew your equal for a clammy coward, Jim, before she chucked you up.'
"Jenks began to look black. 'There were two of us, anyway,' he said.
"'P'r'aps there were,' Ruggles agreed cheerily. 'But what's the good of making a show of your soldiering unless there's someone at home looking on and caring?'"
INTENSIVE CULTURE FOR FLAT-DWELLERS. Sowing early mustard and cress on winter underclothing. ”

“ Are you there? No, he's gone (rings off) . (To himself) He is a queer Emperor who is able to make jokes while his soldiers are dying by thousands and thousands. It can't last like this—and as for the Hindenburg line, I'm perfectly tired to death of the words; and the thing itself doesn't exist.
The Telephone. Rr-rr-rr-rr.
The Marshal. What, again? This is too much—who are you? Who? Who? General Von Kluck? Impossible. General Von Kluck's dead. What—not dead? Anyhow, nobody's heard of him for months. If you're really General Von Kluck I'm afraid we must consider you to be dead. ”

“ This was clearly one of Hubert's most decisive victories. He had his day's extension solely in order to interview the politician at 6 P.M.; he was to [pg 349] interview the politician solely in order to obtain his day's extension. But Hubert insists morbidly that his was a moral defeat, amounting to utter suppression. He called upon the politician at 6 P.M. to thank him personally. Again he could get no further than the secretary, who, learning that Hubert's train would not depart at all that day, regretted that the politician would, on second thoughts, be out for a week. ”

“ How the War Office did without its afternoon tea in those barbarous days it is impossible to conjecture.
The forthcoming Irish Convention is to be held, it is stated, behind locked doors. Why not add a charming element of adventure to the affair by entrusting some thoroughly absent-minded person with the key? ”

“ Both the War Office and the Admiralty keep log-books, in which are faithfully entered—I quote Dr. Macnamara—"full particulars of each journey, the number and description of passengers carried and the amount of petrol consumed." Do not therefore jump to the hasty and erroneous conclusion that the gallant fellows and their charming companions are "joy-riding;" such a thing is unknown in Government circles.
The Home Secretary moved the second reading of the Representation of the People Bill with a suavity befitting a Cave of Harmony ”

“ To meet the paper shortage, Austrian editors have determined to economise by reducing the daily reports of victories.
Le Matin states that at a Grand Council of War sharp disagreement on the conduct of operations arose between the Kaiser and Hindenburg. The Marshal, we understand, insisted upon the right to organise his own defeats without any assistance from the All-highest-but-one.
A London dairyman has been heavily fined for selling water containing a large percentage of milk. ”

“ The father of a lad charged with embezzlement explained that since the boy was struck on the head with a cricket ball he could not keep a penny novel out of his hands. Speculation is now rife as to the nature of the accidents responsible for the passion that some people entertain for our more expensive fiction. ”

“ Ruggles got up first, and while he waited for Jenks he turned on his Little Tich smile. It worked; Jenks smiled too, and the rivals went off together like brothers.
"I said nothing, and forgot them again—clean forgot them, until, a week later, Jenks came to me in Number Seven with a yarn about a crater and a sniper, and might he go and perforate him.
"I had noticed the sniper myself, so I sent Jenks to chase a broom and picked my own men for this job that mattered. I'd no sooner done it than [pg 352] Ruggles marched up and asked to be made one of the party. ”

“ This done and the key lost, the world, and Surbury in particular, would be a happier place.
You cannot seriously suggest that any society for literary discussion could be formed here or elsewhere which should include yourself, and even so you must know that your being a member would prevent my joining it.
Has the call for National Service not reached your ears yet? You appear to have plenty of leisure time on your hands which might be better employed. ”

“ After some little discussion he got it, since the secretary, for all his caution, could see no harm in an unofficial note, addressed to no one in particular, and stating merely that Hubert wanted to see the politician and the politician was out till 6 P.M.
The little captain is one of those who state their grievances to themselves, when no other audience is available. ”

“ It is announced that four German War Correspondents have been decorated with the Iron Cross of the Second Class. We have always maintained that the War Correspondent, like his fighting brother, is not immune from the perils of warfare. ”

“ According to officials of the Food Ministry, "domestic pastry" may still be baked. The idea is that this kind of pastry tends to decrease the total number of food consumers.
Allied control officers have discovered fifteen hundred tons of potatoes hidden in Athens. The Salonika expedition is now felt to be justified.
A certain Kingston resident, when out walking, wears a white band on his hat, the with words, "Eat less bread. Do it now." Eyewitnesses report that the immediate rush of pedestrians to the tea-rooms to eat less bread is most gratifying. ”

“ Now that the shortage of starch supply will compel men to wear soft collars it is understood that Mr. George Bernard Shaw, who already wears them soft, proposes to give up collars altogether, so as not to be mistaken for an ordinary man. ”

“ We don't seem to be going to have much money, but we shall see life. I'm beginning to be quite glad I listened to you yesterday, after all."
An Accommodating Creature.
"A Respectable woman wants situation as dairymaid, laundress, or fowl." ”