various contributors

“ That is the terror lurking by day and night for any man who dares to write a school-tale. On the other hand, although Miss Pope has fitted herself remarkably well into the skin of Jack Venables, who tells these stories but is not (thank goodness) the hero of most of them, she has not been able entirely to avoid what I must call Papal touches. For instance, I do not believe that a boy of Jack's age and character would use the word "feasible," and a special society would have to be started for the prevention of cruelty to any boy who ventured to talk of his "aunties." ”

“ Departing from the time-honoured custom of believing everything they see in print, the British people are learning in these times that one should only run the risk of believing printed news that has passed the Censor. ”

“ Neither the French, Russian, Belgian, nor British troops like the idea of fighting against the mere youths whom a paternal Kaiser is now sending in to the firing line, and a humane suggestion has been put forward for correcting this embarrassment. Would it not be possible, it is asked, to arrange Boys' Own Battles, in which the German little ones would be opposed by the young of the Allies? ”

“ To attack unexpectedly is the great thing.
"Don't be a funny ass," said Alfred, as I lifted myself out of the waste-paper basket.
How I got there I wasn't quite sure, but concluded that I had muffed the business with my left arm by not inserting it well above his elbow for the leverage.
"Sorry," I said; "the new handshake. Everybody's doing it."
"Are they?" said Alfred. "Well, I've been having some lessons in etiquette myself the last few days from a naval man I met down at Hythe. Seen the new embrace?" ”

“ But even with more modern weapons than these we are not very formidable as yet, and for some weeks we must rely on other methods of striking terror into the hearts of the enemy. Luckily we are acquiring an excellent substitute for lead. As an example of "frightfulness" nothing can exceed the appearance of one of our really mixed platoons lying on its backs and waving its legs in the air. ”

“ With K. K. at the War Office and Jack Fisher at the Admiralty British householder may sleep in his bed o' nights unafraid.
By another happy concatenation of circumstance Admiralty is represented in both Houses. With Winsome Winston in the Commons and Jack Fisher in the Lords, the Navy will have a good show. Only doubt is whether First Sea Lord will think it worth while to devote to Parliamentary duties the measure of time exacted from First Lord of Admiralty. Essentially a man of action, he has little patience with custom of talking round a matter. ”

“ When those modern wizards of the halls set themselves to a piece of bizarre juggling, say, with a string of pearls, a dumb-bell and a rose-petal, they do toss and catch—don't merely let everything just drop. Mr. Stephens will know what I mean without caring overmuch. There's something in it all the same. Anyway, there really are in The Demi-Gods delicate shy pearls and gleams of the authentic gold of the original Crock. And after all it wasn't written for middle-aged gentlemen of the Saxon tribe.
German spies taking lessons from conjurer in the art of concealing pigeons. ”

“ She never goes to music-halls. I would as soon expect to hear her speak of "featuring."
"A song scena," she went "the hero of which is the Kaiser; and I shall want half-a-dozen gentlemen to assist."
The busy fingers knitted away and the gold spectacles were fixed on us with bland benignity. Aunt Louisa writing a song scena and ordering a chorus, just like Mr. George Edwardes, was not the least of the miracles produced by this war. ”

“ Mackenzie has too strong a sense of atmosphere to allow him to treat squalor in a fashion that will be agreeable to the universe. Frankly, the over-nice will be prudent to take leave of Michael on the Oxford platform. The others, following to the end, will agree with me that he has placed his creator definitely at the head of the younger school of English fiction.
For me, the pleasure of travelling consists less in the sight of museums, cathedrals, picture galleries and landscapes, than in the study of the native man in the street and his peculiar ways. ”

“ For my part I vastly prefer the Irish, men, women and children, in Ireland to all or any of their relatives and friends elsewhere; for when they leave their island their humour runs to seed and loses that detachment and delicacy which constitute its unique charm. ”

“ There's risks everywhere, even with the quietest jobs. I knew a chap once as drove a goat-cart for children at the seaside, and one day when the wind was strong it blew off his hat, and he got to chasing it, and before he knew where he was he'd gone over the cliff. A careful man he was, too, but he hadn't reckoned up that particular chance when he put his savings into a goat and cart. You can't think of everything, even if you happen to be a Kaiser. I've heard, by the way, that you ain't paid so badly for your job of Kaisering ”

“ My Dear Sir,—I fully understand your views—in fact I am in cordial agreement with them. It would be quite fair to say of most young unmarried men that they could and should be spared. But this cannot be said of all young men. There is a small section of literary and other artists whose lives must continue to he immeasurably precious to the nation which has given them birth. ”

“ What'll he think if ye are not there to meet him? "So Micky didn't come," he'll say; "what's come over him?" he'll say. "Sure he's not the boy I thought he was," he'll say. Just that. And you there, Micky, ye divil, all the time. Ye'd have the laugh on him thin, Micky, so ye would.
"'"Begorra!" he'll say, looking round, "sure the whole of Ballymurky's here." And why not? Bedad 'tis not the first time that Ballymurky's been on the spree.
"'The Kaiser is ut, boys,' sez the Docthor. 'Arrah have done with ye,' sez he. ”

“ He carries no lens and no revolver. Flashes of psychological insight are more to him than a meticulous examination of the window-sill. When the motive is instantly transparent, why bother about the murderer's boots? ”

“ One night it's the Imperial and another it's the Cinema. Men are wanted to cheer the patriotic songs and to sing the chorus of "Tipperary." I help here. Then I spend my money freely—freely, I tell you. Any Tommy I meet can have a drink—half a dozen at my expense, and no return expected. ”

“ Mackenzie is an overlord of words, old and new, bending them to strange an unexpected uses, yet always avoiding affectation by the sheer vitality of his strength. As for th ematter of these first chapters, one might say that nothing whatever happens in them. They are an epic of adolescence wherein growth is the only movement. Events are for the second half of the volume. Here Michael has come down from Oxford, and has set himself to find and rescue by marriage the girl Lily, whom (you remember) he loved as a boy, and who has since drifted into the underworld. ”

“ In the circumstances it is perhaps fortunate for the reverend sleuth that he nearly always happens to be in either at the death or immediately after it, instead of being summoned a day or two later when the grotesque circumstances of the crime have baffled the panting ingenuity of Scotland Yard. ”

“ Arrah ye'll not know Ballymurky afther the Kaiser has done with it. Isn't it changing the name of the dear old place that he'll be afther?
"'First-class he'd be thravellin', no less, with the boots of him on the sate, and him without a ticket; and 'tis Rothenberg would be the name on the station, bad cess to him!
"'Rothenberg! d'ye hear that, Casey? And you a railway porther. Isn't Kitchener an Irishman, good luck to him, and isn't he lookin' for ye all to go? Isn't the Tsar of Russia himself goin' to Berlin, and won't he be lookin' for ye there, Micky? ”

“ Occasionally he will express his approval or disapproval by barking, but always in a thoroughly gentlemanly way. He is critical, but not captious; laudatory, but not fulsome. He makes allowances for the limitations of the camera. He usually cheers at what, I believe, are technically known as "the chases," and his hearty bark of approval is welcomed by the manager of the theatre and by the regular patrons. Indeed, I firmly believe that Boanerges attracts extra patronage to the Thursday matinées. He also enjoys lions and tigers, but not crocodiles or snakes. ”

“ Richard. "I must remember I'm the husband of an Englishwoman, and I'm not to come back without the Kaiser!"
AUNT LOUISA'S SONG SCENA.
Just as adversity sometimes brings out men's strongest characteristics, hitherto unsuspected, so can amateur theatricals lead to surprising discoveries of humour and resource. Everyone must have noticed it.
No one had ever credited Aunt Louisaa with any dramatic sense whatever. She is so gentle and so placid. She was always something of a knitter, and, like all essential knitters, given to sitting a little outside of life ”

“ There's another word, too, that some of your chaps have slung at us. They say we're a "mercenary" lot, meaning that we took up with soldiering just because we're paid to do it. Well, we are paid a shilling or two now and then, but don't you go and make no mistake; we don't stick it out in the trenches, with Black Marias playing bowls with us, and the machine-guns crackling at us and the snipers picking us off just because of getting a few shillings, which very often we don't get regular. ”

“ General James is hard pressed. The enemy is advancing in echelon against his left wing; cavalry beat themselves against the hollow square on his right; his centre has formed platoon after platoon unavailingly. Still the enemy comes on. ”

“ We're in for this job, ah, and we're going to see it through, too, because we think it's the right thing to do and because we wanted to do a turn of fighting. We ain't bloodthirsty, and I'm not going to say we shall be miserable when it's all over, but while it's going on we like it. ”

“ We Amurricans don't take no sides—we're ab-so-lootly nootral. We don' give a row o' beans which of you knocks the Kaiser out."
Making the Best of It.
"Now that supplies of German chemicals and drugs are not procurable, sufferers from nervous dyspepsia, etc., should give a trial to nervous dispepsia, etc." ”

“ A wounded Tommy in one of our London hospitals, on being asked, the other day, by a lady visitor what he thought of the French soldiers, replied that he very much admired the French Curaçaos.
⁂
When in Breslau, The Evening News tells us, the Kaiser promised that the Russian Army should be crushed. Fortunately in this case the undertaking was not even written on a scrap of paper.
⁂
"For thirty-two years," says the Vissische Zeitung, "Egypt has had to endure British rule." ”

“ On the whole, however, she has a fine understanding of boy-nature, and if there are some improbabilities in these ingenious stories, she is armed with the crushing retort that the chief characteristic of any properly equipped boy is his improbability.
Possibly owing to some personal disinclination towards violent bodily exertion on the part of his creator, Father Brown, the criminal investigator of Mr. G. K. Chesterton's fancy, is not a fellow of panther-like physique. ”

“ And the German Emperor is as bad,' sez he. 'It's Bairrlin or Ballymurky, boys, so it is,' sez he; 'just that.
"'Is ut have the Germans over here in Ballymurky ye would?' sez he. 'Sure 'tis not butthermilk and praties they'd be contint with, Doolan, me boy,' sez he; 'faith 'tis your pig they'd be afther atin. And 'tis not you the Kaiser would be decoratin' with an iron cross; 'tis more like a lick of his shtick ye'd be afther getting, Doolan—and the thrubble ye've taken with the rarin' of the crayther. ”

“ So I left the jiu-jitsu school at the end of the second lesson with a nodding acquaintance with some very pretty holds and a very firm determination to practise them on Alfred when he got back to the office next day from Birmingham.
*****
I suppose I ought to have persevered with my lessons a little longer, but I was losing my self-respect, and felt that nothing would help me to gain it better than to cause somebody else to do the falling for a bit. ”

“ The right hon. gentleman went on to say that so long as the people of this country permitted the present Government to remain in power, so long would this country be governed in a manner which could never win the approval of the Opposition.
[The above having been passed by the Censor may The accepted as correct.—Ed.]
The weather yesterday varied throughout the country. While in the extreme north it was warm and sunny, in the south snow fell. A violent hailstorm swept Battersea from end to end ”

“ You've stirred us up a bit with all your talk, but we've no grudge against your soldiers. We don't hate 'em. They're good fighting men, though I'm not saying that we ain't got one of your blokes the other day. ”

“ I understand that I am to be shot at dawn to-morrow. So, thank heaven, is Bluteisen.
THE DOCTHOR'S WAR SPEECH.
Martin Cassidy told it to me. He was there, and he saw the boys form fours when they marched to the station the next day. There were seventeen of them, and he said he'd never forget it.
"'Twas the Docthor's war speech that did ut," said Martin. "He had thim all in Micky's shebeen—sure they'd have been there annyhow—and the Docthor had volunteeerd himself; why not? ”

“ There was a crash as his left thumb met his left eye-ball, and Reginald was in hospital for a week.
The remarkable thing is that the other eleven, quite undismayed, went on practising the salute. That gives you some idea of our spirit.
A. A. M.
STRATEGIC DISEASE.
[Some of the German military authorities having explained that their retreat from Paris was due to the spread of cholera in that city, we may perhaps expect to have something like the following further "explanations" elsewhere.] ”