Various

“ Past Avion through the red-roofed town
There at our feet our white line runs;
Fresnoy's defences, smoking brown,
Shudder beneath our shattering guns;
Pop-pop!—and Archie's puffs have blurred
Some craft engaged to search the Bosch out—
I hold my breath until the bird
Signals a wash-out.
Scarce I believe the vision real,
That here for life and death they fight ”

“ However, I seem to have said the right thing, and it appears to have impressed Fortune very considerably, because—well, Charles, here I am.
Yet if there is justice in this world (and I subsist on the confident hope and belief that there is not) I know what the end of it must be. That confounded orderly, turned traitor, will one day search me out, however far I may have wandered from the battlefield meanwhile, and, saluting ironically, will hand me an envelope marked "Urgent, secret, confidential, personal, private." ”

“ My mind was working clearly and rapidly, as it always does in a crisis. When I had got them seated round the tea-table, "My dear friends," I said, "this isn't a Christmas party, but my wife couldn't help indulging in a little Christmas fun. She's just whispered to me that she's put a surprise in one of the cakes. I know her. It won't be an ordinary sort of surprise. I should advise you all to keep a sharp look-out. There's a pound" (it was worth a pound to save a hero's throat from being cut) "for the man who finds anything in his cake which hasn't any business to be there." ”

“ The contents will be a piece of news and some orders, and all that Fortune will have had to do with it will be to attach a forwarding slip, "Passed to you, please, for your information and necessary action." The news will be that for everyone else the War is over, and the infantry and the rest of them will take over forthwith my present circumstances, being free to revel in the trams and the mosquitoes and the nasty colds to their hearts' delight. ”

“ When I think of all that I have done for that man, the acts I have defended, the stupidities I have tried to convert into statesmanship, the tempers I have been the butt of, the childish insults I have had to tolerate, the theatricalities I have been compelled to treat as if they were the most glorious manifestations of Imperial splendour—when I think of all this and realise that he and I are both still alive, I marvel at such a spectacle of human endurance. ”

“ But the flexible tip was gone. I understood Emily's distraught condition. You can replace a diamond tiara; money won't buy a twenty-year-old cake-knife.
"Try and bear it, dear," I said.
Emily pointed to the table weighed down with Madeiras and rocks and almonds and sultanas and gingers. "It's inside one of them," she said.
For the moment I failed to grasp her meaning. She explained. "I've made six dozen. The knife was all right when I started; a little bent, nothing more. It was when I was mixing the last that I noticed the tip was missing." ”

“ The Colonel immediately strides round the table to where his command is clinging to the cushion, lifts the ball to convince himself that there is a spot on its surface, plants it back in a slightly more favourable position, and with one thrust of his cue projects it into open country. ”

“ But you know human nature as well as I do; I soon found myself saying what a hard life it was in an office, and how one missed the open-air life one had with one's regiment and the healthy appetite it gave one. Besides which, as I pointed out to Fortune, my solid worth wasn't being recognised as it should be. ”

“ When the Bosch is kept in a watertight compartment for a bit, he gets back to being more or less of a human being. His whole trouble's really through being surrounded by other Bosches. They get tellin' each other what a great nation they are, and how they was born to inherit the earth, and that it's only forestalling nature a bit to go and take it now, and so on—each going one better than the last. ”

“ The orders will be that for me the War is about to begin again in grim earnest, and that to-morrow at dawn I take over and defend till further notice, and against all the most noisy and loathsome inventions that man can devise, that sector of the trenches which extends from the Swiss frontier to the sea. ”

“ And I've got a nasty cold, and nobody loves me or cleans my buttons, and if I want to go anywhere there are no more motor cars and they make me pay a penny for the tram, and my wife doesn't think I'm a hero any longer, and little James is being taught to blush and look away and start another subject when anybody says "Dad-dad," and (if you can believe this) I've just been made to pay a franc-and-a-half for a tin of bully beef. ”

“ Sullivan of Wigley Street, the specialist, a clean-shaven big man, exactly like Mr. Blank here. Everyone has noticed the likeness."
"Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle has a beard," said the newcomer. "And he's a very old man by now. A great receptacle of miscellaneous learning. He showed me once his collection of coins and medals. He's got coins back to the Roman Emperors and stories about every one of them. His collection—"
"Yes, but—"
"—of idols is amazing. You never saw such comic figures as those natives worship. There's nothing he doesn't collect. He's got a mummy covered with blue beads. ”

“ This day the KING in Council decreed that the Royal House should forthwith abandon all German titles and be known henceforth as the House of Windsor. No one will be better pleased than Mr. SWIFT MACNEILL, who for months past has been unsparing in his efforts to purge the Upper House of enemy peers, and to-night had the satisfaction of seeing a Bill for that purpose read a second time. ”

“ Von B.-H. My worthy Michaelis, you really must have covered your eyes and stopped your ears ever since you were born, otherwise you could not possibly be so ignorant. Do you not know that if your great and beloved says a foolish thing or does an indiscreet one it will be your duty to shoulder the responsibility for it? And you can easily calculate yourself during how many hours of the day your back is likely to be without a burden of some sort. ”

“ Taking advantage of this the Colonel, with one glance of concentrated hate in the direction of his opponent, grapples with his choler, and by the time that his ball is returned under escort, has partially recovered himself. He is determined to show to his subalterns the value of coolness in an emergency. He places his ball with infinite care and walks round the table to examine the position from every point of view. His next move is to mark out elaborate angles with the assistance of chalk marks on the cushions. ”

“ If we are to believe all we read it will take a great deal to move this department.
"Cod liver oil," says a weekly paper, "is the secret of health." Smith minor sincerely regrets that our contemporary has not kept the secret.
The Vossische Zeitung, referring to the appointment of Dr. Michaelis, says "there is no chance of his clubbing together with the big industrialists and misguided agitators." So long however as they are clubbed separately we shall not grumble.
Waste-paper in Westminster, it is stated, has gone up from £2 10s. to £7 a ton. ”

“ Several persons intercepted by the operator in the course of a guttural conversation have been subsequently shown to have been talking Swiss.
A Pittsburg inventor is reported by Mr. MARCONI to have discovered a method of bottling light. If he can bottle anything lighter than the new Government ale his claim to be a wizard is established.
A safe weighing three hundredweight has been stolen from a branch post office in the Gray's Inn Road. It is believed that in the excitement caused by an air-raid alarm it was snatched up by a customer who mistook it for his hat. ”

“ During the War the Member for East Mayo has lost such authority in the House as he once possessed. Criticism on the conduct of the campaign from one who boasts that he has never stood upon a recruiting platform lacks sincerity. ”

“ During certain research work at the Record Office I came across incontrovertible evidence that we are in some way related through a Petherton in the early part of the eighteenth century (tempus GEORGE II.) being sufficiently far-seeing to contract a marriage with a Fordyce. This Petherton, by name Edward, lived at Kirkby Lonsdale, and his wife, Emily Jane Fordyce, at Dent, in the same district. ”

“ They keep on contaminatin' one another till what do you get? Why, me and you spending our old age a-teaching of 'em humility.
"Now, with these 'ere convicts it was another story. 'Stead o' keep talkin' about German culture and what rotters all the rest o' the world was, their heads had plenty o' time to cool while they picked their oakum or what not—resultin' in quite a fairly decent lot o' men, as I say. Yes, it's very interesting and instructive. I believe it's the solution of the question, 'How to cure the Bosch,' I do. ”

“ No one has gone so far as to suggest that the Roll of the House should be called in order to bring back the hon. Member to his Parliamentary duties. But considerable curiosity was aroused by his recent statement that he proposed to make one more appearance at Westminster before retiring permanently to Ireland to watch over the growth of the Sinn Fein Republic. ”

“ The Board of Agriculture point out that there is an abundant supply of kippers on the market at reasonable prices. This will come as a great boon to music-hall audiences, who find that the kippers used by comedians are getting rather frayed at the edges through constant wear. ”

“ When you're proposing a vote of thanks to a Duchess for openin' a bazaar, you bring it up. I've heard people before now take that kind of opportunity to bring something forward what they'd got on their chest. ”

“ Some o' these Peace blighters seem to think he's a little angel, basin' their opinion, I suppose, on something I must 'a' missed during my time out. On the other hand there's a tidy few thinks that one German left will spoil the earth. ”

“ THE EMPTY SEAT.MR. PUNCH DROPS A SILENT TEAR AT THE DEPARTURE OF ONE OF HIS BEST PUPPETS.
It might not be accurate to say that in the matter of beer the Irishman wants but little here below, but he certainly wants that little strong; and being, in spite of a popular impression to the contrary, a seriously-minded person, he resents any reduction of his gravity. ”

“ Punch begs to urge his kind friends to take their part in the great organised effort to raise a large sum for the benefit of our sailors and their families—R.N., R.N.R., R.N.V.R., trawlers and mine-sweepers. The nation owes them all a debt that can never be paid. ”