Various

“ He cannot whistle while brushing his teeth, but he brushes his teeth as a man might wash down a cab in a large yard with plenty of room.
The moment it is over he whistles again. Then he does deep breathing at the door of the dug-out. (Aeroplanes passing overhead have had narrow escapes from being dragged into the dug-out by sheer power of suction, when David deep-breathes.) Then he does muscle exercises. He crooks his finger and from behind you see a muscle like a mushroom get up suddenly in the small of his back, run up his spine and hit him under the left ear. ”

“ The Fladworths are charming hosts, but they have a weakness—a passion for intellectual games, serious variants, for the most part, on "Consequences," and a most trying ordeal for persons who cannot spell or are ignorant of history or general information. Moreover, to add to the strain, Fladworth is always inventing new games, "so that all may start fair." This happened on the occasion of my last visit, when he introduced the company to "Experiences." Every one, having contributed sixpence to the pool, was expected to describe the most interesting or exciting event in his or her life. ”

“ Meanwhile he is whistling, and his batman is making sparks fly out of the buttons, which he cleans with glass-paper and gun-cotton just outside the door.
At eight, when I get carefully out of bed, David is beginning to don his shirt. At nine we move together towards breakfast.
I am training David to say "Rah! Rah!" against the day when he and General ROOSEVELT meet in a communication trench. I am sure they will take to each other at once.
Basil. "MOTHER, I THINK SATAN MUST BE ABOUT."
Mother. "WHY, DEAR?"
Basil. "ISN'T IT SATAN THAT MAKES VERY GOOD PEOPLE FEEL BAD?" ”

“ SCENE.—Exterior of Battalion Headquarters Dug-out.
Leader of Chorus. Ho! friends, a stranger cometh; by his dress
Some nobleman of leisure, I should guess;
Come, let us seem to labour, lest he strafe;
A soldier ever eye-washes the Staff.
Chorus start work, singing.
Brighter than the queenly rose,
Brighter than the setting sun,
Brighter than old Ginger's nose
The raiment of the gilded one. ”

“ He begins to make little noises. He purrs and coughs and scratches his chin, and very gradually the air of the dug-out begins to vibrate with life. It is like Peer Gynt—the "Morning" thing on the gramophone, you know; he clinks a toothbrush against a mug, he pours out water. It is all gradual, crescendo; and meanwhile I am awakening. At 7 A.M., not being a perfect artist, he generally has to drop something; but by that time I am only pretending to be asleep, and I growl at him, ask him why he didn't call me an hour ago, and then fall asleep again. ”

“ Meanwhile our bearers were collecting the enemy's dead and finishing off his wounded. Away to the left Sir Percy and half-a-dozen more were gathered round what I took to be the Heather Redoubt, and every now and then a little white puff of smoke broke from the ground.
"What's the idea?" I asked over the telephone. "Rabbit warren," answered Sir Percy. "Bombing 'em out. I always bomb 'em out. Smithson uses gas—poor sportsman, Smithson." ”

“ So far as this last aim is concerned the German Government appears to agree with the Allies, for it has just suppressed Herr HARDEN's journal.
DAVID.
The War brought about no more awful clash of personalities than when it threw David and myself into the same dug-out. Myself, I am the normal man—the man who wishes he were dead when he is called in the morning and who swears at his servant (1) for calling him; (2) for not calling him. My batman has learnt, after three years of war, to subdue feet which were intended by nature to be thunderous. ”

“ A woman told the Lambeth magistrate that her husband had not spoken to her for six weeks. It is a great tribute to the humanity of our magistrates that the poorer people should go to them with their joys as well as their sorrows. ”

“ A quarter of an hour later he was called to the phone once more and the familiar bleat of Jimmy tickled his ear. "Excuse me, Sir—whose mother?"
On the other hand the great Brass Hat is human and makes a slip, a clerical error, now and again sufficient to expose his flank. And then the humble fighting-man can draw his drop of blood if he is quick about it. To this same long-suffering Jimmy was vouchsafed the heaven-sent opportunity, and he leapt at it. ”

“ There's a stall close by," and off they started.
"Don't let them see everything," the prudent mother called out, having some acquaintance with the physical trend of the moment in postcard humour, which has lost nothing in the general moral enfranchisement brought about by the War, one of the most notable achievements of which is the death and burial of Mrs. Grundy.
"Go on!" said the boy, with all the laughing scorn of youth. "We've seen them all already."
"You can't keep kids from seeing things nowadays," said the father sententiously. ”

“ The War, as we have just been reminded by an impressive memorial service, has made deep gaps in the ranks of English journalists, and the loss of JOHN F. MACDONALD'S quick eyes, happy choice of words, and intensely human apprehensions was far from being the least.
Whether you enjoy The House in Marylebone (DUCKWORTH) will depend entirely upon your taste for the society of a number of hardworking but sentimental "business girls." ”

“ So I gave away my topper to the man who winds our clocks,
With a strangely mixed assortment of collars, ties and socks.
And if I haven't parted from my dear old silk-faced friend
It isn't out of sentiment—all that is at an end—
It's simply that the highest bid, in cash paid promptly down,
I've had from any son of SHEM is only half-a-crown.
"The plots cultivated by the men who have learned in the best school of all—experience—stand out clearly among the others. There is no overcrowing on their land."—Evening News.
The truly great are always modest. ”

“ In the present volume, touching only incidentally on his journeyings and still less on politics, he has tried to satisfy the thousand-and-one questioners who, one imagines, have been plaguing him not a little lately as to those intimate details that really count in the life of a nation. ”

“ Thither also repair all the young subalterns, also for the purpose of hearing the music.
At the end of every performance the national anthems of all our brave Allies are played, each brave Ally standing rigidly to attention the while, in compliment to the others. As we have a lot of brave Allies these days, all with long national war-whoops, this becomes somewhat of a strain. ”

“ They never seem to stop screeching and the smoke is fair awful, and as soon as you think everything is quiet another comes. I am quite alone at this minute, but don't you go for to worry; they'll be back soon and then perhaps I'll get a bit of something. It's pretty hard where I am sitting and I can't write you much of a letter, what with the cramp in my legs and the noise and wondering how soon the Sergeant will come and tell us to move up nearer our part of the line. I can see some of the line, not our bit, from where I am sitting. It's shining just lovely in the sun. ”

“ Young women still live in houses in the Marylebone Road; they still proclaim republics of hardworking celibacy, and fall briskly in love with the first eligible bachelor; but their vocations and their citizenship have both (Hoch der KAISER!) grown out of all knowledge. So that charming writer, Mrs. CLIFFORD, must forgive me if I could find only an historical interest, and no very robust one at that, in her amiable retrospect.
AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE have certainly been well advised about their sub-title to The Black Office and other Chapters of Romance (MURRAY) . ”

“ The idea of sending such a thing to Tilly!"
"But she is an old maid," said the girl.
"Of course she is," said the father. "That's the mischief."
"Well, there's rather a good one where a wife is going through her husband's trousers and saying, 'Brightbourne's the place for change,'" said the girl. "Would that suit?"
"Of course not," snapped her father.
"Or the one where the bed is full of fleas?" the boy suggested.
"No jokes about fleas," said the father sternly. "No, you must change those for something else. Don't be funny at all with either your Uncle or Aunt. We can't run any risks. ”

“ As he seemed to be roaming about France with the object of getting NAPOLEON out of the way by any means available, I am not certain that he was playing the game, even when we remember that the rules of it were lax enough at the beginning of the nineteenth century. But we are not asked to weigh carefully the merits of character. It is just a romance of incident, in which a hot pace is set at the start and kept up to the finish. In short you get a good run for your money, and that is all about it.
THE THEORIST.
From a review of a novel:—
"Joan is pretty, and Stewart Austen ... ”

“ He tells us for instance how the Russians do business and keep out the cold; how many of the women you could call pretty, and how much mutton a Kirghiz can eat. Though some of this is not new, yet the book has, as a whole, a most vivid freshness, and, if in the end the main effect is to make one content to live out of Russia, that is a tribute to the writer's frankness. ”

“ At 10.30 the firing will stop and you will make your way to the assembly trenches, where bombs will be served out. At 10.35 the entire force will advance in open order. No prisoners will be taken."
My personal instructions were to hold my position with two men. Hastily lighting a cigarette and adjusting my map-case, I was standing-to, when the telephone bell tinkled. "Hello," said Sir Percy's voice, "all ready? The planes are out." I glanced up at the two 500 h.p. Liddell and Scott monoplanes, which circled high up over the moor. "What do they report?" ”

“ But Joey's pipsqueak shirker fiancé, Hilary, was altogether too foolish a travesty of a man ever to have gained her hand or, having gained it, to have held it against any real male in or out of khaki. ”

“ A workman in a Northern shell factory has been fined five pounds for having his trousers fastened on with iron nails. Why he abandoned the usual North Country method of having them riveted on him was not explained.
Charlie Chaplin, says a message from Chicago, has not joined the U.S. Army. He excuses himself on the ground that Mr. Pemberton-Billing, who is much funnier, is not in khaki. ”

“ At the least one is able to rejoice in his final verdict of unqualified enthusiasm for his hosts, since he found not merely acquaintances ready to welcome the popular English, but true and trustworthy friends in all classes of the community. ”

“ Cruises on the Thames and Medway estuaries will only be permitted on condition that the owners of pleasure craft agree to increase the nation's food supply by catching fish. Merely feeding them will not do. ”

“ It may be right to turn out aliens, but is not this rather hard on the miniature Swiss Governess?
From an auctioneer's advertisement: "Grandfather Clocks, and other Arms and Armour."—Manchester Guardian.
In these days even our oldest clocks are expected to strike for their country.
"Herr Harden says:—
"'The aim of our enemies is—
Democracy;
The right of nations to self-government ”

“ Beside it, "The Smile on the Portrait," the tale of a jealous husband who becomes a maniac, is almost soothing. They had clearly their little worries even a century ago. The CASTLES, as everybody knows, have always had the trick of adventurous fiction; The Black Office, etc., proves that their hands have lost nothing of their cunning.
One has heard so often of works of "absorbing interest" that appeared at "the psychological moment" that one feels a bit squeamish about applying these phrases even to such a book as Mr. ”

“ Members noted with satisfaction the buoyancy of his step and the firmness of his chin. If looks go for anything the Navy in his hands will not relax the bull-dog grip upon the enemy that it has maintained these three years. ”