Various

“ Choose one that is occupied, any one you fancy, and empty it."
At this point he interpolated an offensive expression with which I was not familiar before I joined the army, but I overlooked that also.
"You think it is impossible, but you are wrong," I told him. "This scheme is bound to succeed. All you have to do is to haunt the house. You do not eject the tenant yourself. You conjure up a ghost to do it for you." ”

“ An ordinary ghost will do."
"But, my dear good fool, how in Hades or out of it can I produce a ghost?"
"Easily. By suggestion. That is the secret. This is an age of suggestion. Doctors are curing patients by suggestion. Politicians hypnotise the public by suggestion. And you can frighten the present occupants out of your chosen home by suggestion. No real ghost is required. Having selected the house you pay a call and lay ground-bait, so to speak. You tell the tenant you are interested in the place because you happen to know that at one time it was haunted. ”

“ Yes, incredible though it may sound, this man, who for years has been content to dwell in a dug-out or consort with creeping things in the confines of a canvas tent, and even on occasion make his bed beneath the starry dome of heaven, with nothing in between, has now developed a craving for a residence built of bricks and mortar. ”

“ HENRY ARTHUR JONES said that if any branch of art could effect social transformations it was the drama. Personally he looked upon the stage as only one degree less powerful than the Senate and vastly more serious than the Church. Its first duty was to instruct, elevate and reform; to amuse was never its true function. Hence, if the dramatists of the country cared to take up the task of remedying the servant shortage, the matter would be quickly settled. But only, added the speaker with extreme gravity, if the authors of the pernicious rubbish known as revue were first gagged and bound. ”

“ What is more, he expects the house-agents to find it for him, and, since he considers the whole thing from the purely personal point of view, their excuses for failing to do so are of no avail. The fact that half a million other people want houses is nothing to him. He ignores it. He believes that the house-agentry of the country has hatched a gigantic conspiracy to keep him, Higgins, out of a home. ”

“ Now I regard this as serious. I have ever been a stickler for discipline, and consequently I dislike it when men pass by—not, like the Levite, on the other side—but close to me without so much as a click of the eyeballs. ”

“ THE NEXT WAR.
["As the result of a conference called by the War Office it has been decided to wage a war of annihilation against the warble-fly. It is hoped that by means of concerted action through the country this pestilent insect, so injurious to the hides of horses and cattle, may be completely stamped out."—Daily Paper.]
The warble-fly, the warble-fly
Is absolutely doomed to die. ”

“ Persuaded that their too-brief holidays will be entirely absorbed in attending to the Americans, the bed-makers urge with some justice that they too are entitled to enjoy the beautiful things of this enchanting world quite as much as miners and railway-men. ”

“ That is not necessary. He will hurt himself. Keep out of his way until he has finished with himself, and then fly back here. It is easy."
It seemed the best way; indeed the only way. Gaspard Volauvent could never get to the rendezvous alone, and it would be fatal to his honour if Jacques arrived there and found nobody to meet him. Reluctantly Blanchaille agreed.
At the appointed hour Gaspard put his head cautiously out of his bedroom window and gazed up into the heavens. He saw two aeroplanes straight above him. At the thought that he might have been in one of them he shuddered violently. ”

“ REX BEACH is one of the few prolific writers whose stories increase in power as they increase in number, and this though they are essentially novels of action rather than novels of thought. Of his latest effort, The Winds of Chance (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) , one may say that there is not a tedious page in it. The scene is laid in Yukon, a very vortex of life and colour and excitement in fiction, whatever it may seem to the actual inhabitants. The true hero of the story, Napoleon Doret, the French voyageur, wins his heart's desire in the end and we breathe a sigh of relief. ”

“ Here he tells us very plainly that the War has brought home to us the fact that, if we are to make good our losses in the ranks of the young and the fit, we have got to give our children a better chance of living healthy, wholesome lives. ”

“ Surely the wife who receives the wrong husband can get some sort of redress from the War Office.
All the main-line railways are to be electrified, Sir ERIC GEDDES told the House of Commons. Meanwhile he has successfully electrified all the old buffers.
A number of women are doing good work as mates on Medway sailing barges. The denial of the report that one of them recently looked at a Wapping policeman for five minutes on end without once repeating herself may be ascribed to professional jealousy. ”

“ We understand that meetings of their Association are being held, and that the University authorities are faced by a situation which is rapidly passing beyond their control. Bed-makers are amongst the most loyal members of the community, but they feel, as a prominent member of the profession put it, that "the last camel breaks the straw's back," and they are determined to uphold their immemorial rights.
We have thought it our duty therefore to interview the celebrated Mrs. Bloggins, the doyenne of the Corps of Bed-makers of Trinity College. ”

“ DEAR SIR,—After a most exhaustive search we have found and send herewith what we believe to be your picture, though it does not quite answer to your description. It is, however, the only one of which we do not appear to have any record.
Our Mr. Langford seems likely to be abroad for some months, so unless you will accept this picture in settlement of the matter we do not see any present way out of the difficulty.
Confident that, if it is not yours, it is at least just as good, we trust that you will agree to cry quits. ”

“ The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged the use of the English language in the Egyptian Courts, but all we could hear of the sotto voce conversation between him and his interrogator was that "er—er—language—er—had—been—er—er—misunderstood." ”

“ They met, poured wine over each other and parted. After another month the need of a further stimulant was felt. They met again, and agreed to insult each other weekly.
On the last day of his training Gaspard spoke seriously to his instructor.
"You see that I make nothing of it," he said. "My thoughts are ever with the stomach that I leave behind. Not once have I been in a position to take control. How then can I fight? ”

“ In view of the theory developed by the Ministry of Reconstruction's Sub-Committee on Organisation and Conditions of Domestic Service, that "the attitude adopted by the Press and the Stage is usually an unfortunate one, as servants are frequently represented as comic or flippant characters, and are held up to ridicule," a meeting of our leading dramatists was hastily convened last evening by Lady HEADFORT (who, it will be remembered, is all for calling her maids "Home-birds") to engage their sympathetic co-operation in aid of mistresses, housekeepers and employers generally. ”

“ We used to adjourn to the billiard-room after dinner, but gave it up because it was necessary to stop play at half-past ten in order to be in bed by midnight. Signals is worried because he has not enough line left to reach Battalions, all available supplies having been used up in connecting the General's room with various parts of the Schloss. We are continually late for dinner owing to errors in judging the distances from one room to another. Our once happy family has dissolved into silent morose individuals, for we have grown strange and distant to one another. ”

“ Concrete ships, says a Government official, can be made in moulds. But of course you must not forget to grease the tin.
A Sinn Feiner, arriving home in Crossgar, Co. Down, last week, had a very hearty welcome. Thirteen spectators and seven policemen were injured.
Many members of the Bar are greatly afraid that some learned judge will ask, "What is the Jazz-step?" before the question has really been settled by the dancers themselves.
The young lady who, on receiving a proposal of marriage over the telephone last week, replied, "Yes, who's speaking?" ”

“ Bloggins, speaking with deep emotion, "you may well call 'em Americans, for I've never bin so troubled about anythink before. Some people seem to git the notion into their 'eads that bed-makers do no work. Why we're arst to slave from mornin' till night, and our pay is paltry. ”

“ The strange case of the halibut and the cormorant, recently reported in the daily Press, has brought us a budget of interesting letters, from which we select the following as agreeable evidence of the return of normal conditions in the fish-story-telling industry:—
Gullane, N.B.
Dear Sir,—One of the most striking results of the War has been its effect on the mentality of birds and animals and even fishes. ”

“ He urges the need of more outdoor education and as many open-air camps as possible, and shows that, if we are to carry out such a scheme as he lays in detail before us, scoutmasters and still more scoutmasters are wanted. With reason he complains that none of these good fellows is paid one halfpenny, and that nearly all of them are young men who have to get a living. ”

“ I have just thought of a bad one."
Love—on Leave (PEARSON) is the sufficiently expressive title that Miss JESSIE POPE has chosen for a small book of little courtship tales. You never saw a volume of its size, more packed with love, which is shown leaping walls, laughing at locksmiths and generally making the world go round in its proverbial fashion. The pace of the revolutions may be found a little disconcerting. ”

“ Tuesday, March 18th.—GILBERT'S fanciful description of the "most susceptible Chancellor" is justified by the way in which the present occupant of the Woolsack and his predecessors vie with one another in the endeavour to secure the favour of the fair sex. Today it was Lord HALDANE'S turn to oblige, and he brought in a Bill to enable Scotswomen to become Advocates and Law Agents. ”