Various

“ Nothing but an inherent respect for his cloth restrained Patrick from giving the Dicky Bird the spanking of his life. At 8 A.M. the Hun countered heavily and hove the Antrims out. Patrick retreated in good order, leading the Padre by an ear. The Antrims sat down, licked their cuts, puffed some of the Woodbines, then went back and pitchforked the Bosch in his tender spots. The Bosch collected fresh help and bobbed up again. Business continued brisk all day, and when night fell the Antrims were left masters of the position. ”

“ The Reverend Paul Grayne, V.C., sometime curate of Thorpington Parva, in the county of Hampshire, was no exception to this rule. Æsthetically he was a blot on the landscape; among all the heroes I have met I never saw anything less heroically moulded.
He stood about five feet nought and tipped the beam at seven stone nothing. He had a mild chinless face and his long beaky nose, round large spectacles, and trick of cocking his head sideways when conversing, gave him the appearance of an intelligent little dicky-bird. ”

“ I gather, without having had the advantage of cross-examining a French soldier, that an "as" is an obscure hero, one of the men, and they are by no means rare, who do wonderful things but do not get into the papers or receive medals or any mention in despatches. We all know that many of the finest deeds performed in war escape recognition. ”

“ He had an uneasy feeling that Peter would one day suddenly sicken of the war and that he would find himself in Paris or on the Riviera. We had an uneasy feeling that Peter would one day develop a curiosity as to the Bosch horse rations, and stroll across the line, and we should lose the Padre, a thing we could ill afford to do, for by this time [pg 21] he had taken us under his wing spiritually and bodily. On Sundays he would appear in our midst dragging a folding harmonium and hold Church Parade, leading the hymns in his twittering bird-like voice. ”

“ But if we saw a lot of the Padre it was the Antrims who looked upon him as their special property. They were line infantry, of the type which gets most of the work and none of the Press notices, a hard-bitten, unregenerate crowd, who cared not a whit whether Belgium bled or not, but loved fighting for its own sake and put their faith in bayonet and butt. ”

“ He is too old to fight. Yet who knows? Maybe he heard of something better out there...."
As the man spoke the gold-and-white walls of the restaurant faded, the clatter of plates and dishes died away, and I was back again in a tiny village shop in Picardy. Across the counter, packed with its curious stock, I saw Monsieur Joseph, with shirt-sleeves rolled up, gravely handing a stick of chocolate to a child, and taking its sou in return. In the diminutive kitchen behind sat a little white-haired old lady with such a look of content on her face as I have rarely seen. ”

“ A man staggered past him, blowing like a walrus. It was the Padre's batman, and he had his master tucked under one arm, in his underclothes, kicking feebly.
Patrick halted his men beyond the hill crest, and there the Colonel joined him, trotting on his stockinged feet. Other officers arrived, herding men. "They must have rushed the Ruts., Sir," Patrick panted; "must be after those guns just behind us." "They'll get 'em too," said the Colonel grimly. "We can't stop 'em," said the Senior Captain. ”

“ Indeed it might with more propriety have been called Marrion, since hers is not only the central figure in the plot, but emphatically the one over which Mrs. F. A. Steel has expended most care and affection. Moreover the untimely death of Marmaduke leaves Marrion to carry on the story for several chapters practically single-handed. I am bound to say, however, that at no stage did she get much help from her colleagues, all of whom—the gouty old father and his intriguing wife, the faithful servant, even debonair Marmaduke himself—bear a certain air of familiarity. ”

“ If I may borrow a metaphor from her own favourite theme, she is for ever dashing off on some alluring cross-scent. More important, fortunately, than this is the enjoyment which she clearly has in writing her stories and passes briskly on to the reader. There's a fine tang of the open-air about them, and a smell of saddle-leather, that many persons will consider well worth all the intricacies of your problem-novelists. ”

“ Steel has given us some exceedingly interesting pictures of a period that our novelists have, on the whole, unaccountably neglected.
The Experiments of Ganymede Bunn (HUTCHINSON) is like to command a wide audience. Its appeal will equally be to the lovers of Irish scenes, to those who affect stories about horses and hunting, and to the countless myriads who are fond of imagining what they would do with an unexpected legacy. ”

“ The next thing he remembers was the roof of his abode caving in with the weight of two men struggling violently. Patrick extricated himself somehow and rolled out into the grey dawn to find the sunken road filled with grey figures, in among the bivouacs and shell holes, stabbing at the sleeping Antrims. Here and there men were locked together, struggling tooth and claw ”

“ Others, as I say, may find this very gentle story of mild loves and two deserted wives a refreshing contrast to the truths, so much stranger and more lurid than any fiction, by which we are surrounded. ”

“ And wherever these Antrims went thither went the Padre also, his harmonium and his Woodbines. I have a story that, when they were in a certain part of the line where the trenches were only thirty yards apart (so close indeed that the opposing forces greeted each other by their first names and borrowed one another's wiring tools) , the Padre dragged the harmonium into the front line and held service there, and the Germans over the way joined lustily in the hymns. He kept the men of the Antrims going on canteen delicacies and their officers in a constant bubble of joy. ”

“ You'll get yourself in trouble again. Do you 'ear me, Sir?" But the Padre apparently did not hear him, for he plodded steadily on his way. The batman gave a sob of despair and broke into a double.
The Colonel sprang to his feet, "Hey, stop him, somebody! Those swine'll shoot him in a second—child murder!"
Two subalterns ran forward, followed by a trio of N.C.O.'s. All along the line men lifted their weary heads from the ground and saw the tiny figure on the ridge silhouetted against the red east. ”

“ Even those critics in the Commons who had declared that a civil servant should not take advantage of his position as a peer to make a personal explanation would, I think, have had no reason to complain of its character. ”

“ If you are a V A D you have to do as your told just like a soldier but Daddy says they don't do it always, and Mummy says its because they all know a better way than the other persons. But then they don't cost anything so the hospitle people don't mind much. If you do munisions or are a bus conductor you do get paid so you maynt talk so much or you would get sent away. If I dident have to go to scool I would love to be a bus conducter and go rides for nothing. ”

“ A Hero is a man you agmire teribly much or he can be in a book. It is rather dificult to say who is my favrit Hero. There are such a lot of them. Some are lord French genrel Maud King Albert and the VCs. When I was litle I use to think the man who fed the Lions at the zoo was the most bravest man in the wurld but that was ever so long ago before the War. ”

“ Joseph smiled. "I 'ave a surprise for M'sieur," he said—"yes, a great surprise. There are ten, fifteen years that I work in thees place, and in four more weeks le patron will retire and I become the proprietor. Oh, it is bee-utiful," he continued, clasping his hands rapturously, "to think that in so leetle time I, who came to London a poor waiter, shall be patron of one of its finest restaurants."
I offered him my warmest congratulations. If ever a man deserved success it was he, and it was good to see the look of pleasure on his face as I told him so. ”

“ It was stated that, although absolved from military obligations by reason of their occupation, there had been glaring neglect of responsibility, some men having lost three ships a week."—Western Morning News.
These mines are very tricky things.
THE AS.
The French, always so quick to give things names—and so liberal about it that, to the embarrassment and undoing of the unhappy foreigner, they sometimes invent fifty names for one thing—have added so many words to the vocabulary since August, 1914, that a glossary, and perhaps more than one, has been published to enshrine them. ”

“ The inscrutable one is responsible for all the murders. Only the merest accident, it seems, prevents him from disposing of the few fortunate characters who survive to the concluding chapters of the story. ”

“ The late increase in the tobacco duty is to be halved, so that the modest smoker may hope to fill his pipe for a penny less per ounce. This hope, of course, is dependent upon the decision of the all-powerful Trust. ”

“ War work is what wimmen do when their arnt enuff men. Or men do it too sometimes if they are rather old and weak and cant be soldiers, but it is mostly wimmen. Some war work you get paid for but some you don't. It just depens whether you are rich and do V A D or poor and do munisions and things. ”

“ Justice DARLING will agree that these things cannot be postponed too often.
"How can I distinguish poisonous from edible fungi?" asks a correspondent of The Daily Mail. The most satisfactory test is to look for them. If you find them they are likely to be poisonous. If they have been already gathered they were probably edible.
It is now admitted that the conscientious objectors undergoing sentence at Dartmoor are allowed to have week-ends occasionally. This concession, it appears, had to be granted as several of them threatened to leave the place. ”

“ As a side issue the blameless baronet had a little goose to wife, who went to Dampier's Maidenhead bungalow and fell into the river. Elaborate lies to explain quite simple situation to fool anxious to believe the worst. Moral: Never lie to save a little goose. ”

“ Over one thousand penny dreadfuls were found in the possession of a boy of sixteen who was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for theft. The commonplace nature of the sentence has disgusted the lad. ”

“ It might be said, though perhaps unkindly, that Miss COLE looks at life through such feminine eyes that all her characters, male and female, are types of perfect womanhood. In Denis Laurie, the gentle essayist and recluse, one might expect to find some feminine attributes ”

“ CHARLES CHAPLIN had signed a contract to serve in the British Army at 1s. 1d. a day is denied.
As an outcome of Baby Week the Anti-Comforter League has been formed. The suggestion that Mr. HOGGE, M.P., would make an admirable first President has not been followed up. ”

“ We hope the British piano will resist the temptation.
"Portobello's dressing boxes for lady bathers are practically ready. There are fifteen boxes at the Band Stand enclosure, very much resembling ballot boxes in size, shape, and material."—Edinburgh Evening Dispatch. ”