various contributors

“ It is possible that a penalty of three days in a dark cell awaits the transgressor. We do not know, and we do not enquire. In that deadliest hour beyond the dawn, when the street lamps splutter out and the ruthless morning light reveals us to one another unwashed, unshaven and horribly all-nighty in appearance, it is indeed a grateful relief to sit down on the wooden Windsor chair and wait the six o'clock of release in blankness of mind. ”

“ They are known as the Oil Wharves, the Generating Station, and the Sewage Station. A wise decree from Scotland Yard leaves us uncertain up to the very last moment of each evening as to which will be our allotted beat. A gambling element is thus provided to stimulate us.
The Oil Wharves gloom on a cul-de-sac of nocturnal emptiness. Scarcely does a human footstep come to rouse the petroleum-sluggish echoes. A padding pussy makes a note of cheery liveliness in the lukewarm monotony of the night-watch. ”

“ What's this Belgium, anyway, and how in thunder does she come to stand out agin the great German army? And why are the Germans knocking Belgium to flinders and shooting her citizens? Ain't the Germans Christians? Ain't their soldiers generous and their officers merciful? Well then, it kinder puzzles me to see the way they're getting to work. It's no wonder the Belgian is set agin them. They're a little lot, them Belgians are, and it's a queer thing, ain't it, that they should make all this trouble? ”

“ Our hands creep towards the truncheons concealed in our trouser-legs. The Hour has struck, and England expects...!
Alas, he is only a belated cyclist, reputable and harmless. We console ourselves with visions of 1915, when we hope to be mobilised, packed off to the Continent in motor-'buses, and assigned to beats in Berlin (possibly renamed Berlinogradville City) , while the Congress are rearranging the map of Europe. ”

“ In this neighbourhood, we are informed, it is etiquette to blow a police-whistle only when someone is being "done in."
We were also informed, in discreet whispers, that the "Guv'nor" of the Station "had it in for us." His grievance was this: that while a rival show across the river had been accorded a military picket by the War Office, he had been fobbed off with a mere guard of Special Constables. To date of writing his wrath still smoulders.
Our hours of duty are filled with dulness, but we live in hopes. ”

“ Our only alien is poor old Miss Schmidt, who has taught music for thirty years. We all try to be lenient and nice to her at my work-parties, which are widely attended. James calls them a mixture of Dorcas and Bellona —ask Harry to explain. The boys are helping to make saddle-pads for the horses at the front. They try each pad on our old Dobbin and are wild for him to go on service at once; but James has just decided that a Vicar's pony's place is in the last line of the Reserves. ”

“ We learn from The Daily Call that, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, Bâle is the richest city in Europe. The Swiss, we fancy, will scarcely thank our contemporary for drawing attention to this fact in view of the well-known cupidity of a certain neighbour of theirs. ”

“ When the War broke out we wrote to the War Office, offering to mobilise Humphrey. Already he could do "Eyes right, eyes front." But the loss of his talk was against him. Rejected by the medical authorities as unfit, he returned to the music-stool and waited for a job. It was at this moment that Bingo joined the establishment.
Here we say good-bye to Jumphrey for the present; Bingo claims our attention. Bingo arrived as an absurd little black tub of puppiness, warranted (by a pedigree as long as your arm) to grow into a Pekinese. It was Celia's idea to call him Bingo ”

“ We congratulate Elizabeth on escaping from "her German Garden."
⁂
"Few people," says The Witney Gazette, "are familiar with the history and resources of Belgium." How true this is may be seen from our contemporary's next statement:—" A large section of its population consists of a race known as the Walloons, the ancient descendants of the Belgians."
⁂
"Father," asked the actor's little son, "why does the Kaiser wear a helmet with an eagle on the top of it?" "To show that he's 'got the bird,'" replied the brilliant Thespian. ”

“ To know a person who has a relation at the Front is to be immeasurably promoted socially, and most of the conversations which one overhears in trains and elsewhere have some such opening as this: "A friend of my brother's has seen a Belgian..." ”

“ One's fountain-pen becomes quickly clogged amid the conditions of warfare, for the dust blows freely over the plains across which the troops have marched. For comfort in writing there is nothing like an indelible pencil, and paper whose surface is slightly rough. The quantity of ink carried among the stores of a modern army is negligible. And I believe it is a fact that in the whole of the equipment of the British Forces in France there is not a single roll-top desk! ”

“ I found a Chinese town called "Ning-po," which strikes me as very much like "Bing-go," and Celia found another one called "Yung-Ping," which might just as well be "Yung-Bing," the obvious name of Bingo's heir when he has one. These facts being communicated to Bingo, his nose immediately began to go back a little and his tub to develop something of a waist. But what finally decided him was a discovery of mine made only yesterday. There is a Japanese province called Bingo. Japanese, not Chinese, it is true ”

“ There is a supreme interest for us at the present moment in this study of the man whose dignified attitude towards Germany during the Moroccan crisis, and support of the entente with ourselves, has gone far to alter England's traditional policy in European affairs. ”

“ In any case conceive one's pride in realising suddenly that one has been called after a province and not after a poodle. It has determined Bingo unalterably to grow up in the right way.
You have Bingo now definitely a Pekinese. That being so, I may refer to his ancestors, always an object of veneration among these Easterns. I speak of (hats off, please!) Ch. Goodwood Lo.
Of course you know (I didn't myself till last week) that "Ch." stands for "Champion." On the male side Champion Goodwood Lo is Bingo's great-great-grandfather. On the female side the same animal is Bingo's great-grandfather. ”

“ The Generating Station, we are given to understand, does some magic with electricity. That is not our concern. We are there to pace up and down outside its walls, and watch for the man with the bomb. It has the advantage of being a bulky building; therefore a long beat. Up to midnight it looks over to a blank wall which forms a London lovers' lane. We speculate on the progress of courtship. The Generating Station is not odorous, and therefore is accounted the picked beat by the æsthetes among us. ”

“ James did not think my remark in the best possible taste, and said as much.
Then he looked up from the map he had been studying with a glad cry. "Do you know, I think it will be all right after all," he said; "I've been working it out, and I think it more than possible that we shall by January be guarding lines of communication somewhere not so very far from the Swiss frontier. I can get three weeks' leave, join the party at Spitzeheider, and at the end rejoin our gallant troops in the field."
"The Swiss won't much care for your marching into their country armed to the teeth," I said. ”

“ Kaiser, it's no good. My father was a German, and he knew your lot, and he used to tell me all he know. He had to quit Prussia pretty quick after 1848—that's the year your great-uncle had to take off his hat to the citizens of Berlin, and your venerable grandfather had to pay a visit to England, German air not being good for his health. I know all that there is to be known about you. ”

“ I said, "he leaves my house at once."
"My poodle," said Celia, "was a lovely dog."
(Of course she was only a child then. She wouldn't know.)
"The point is this," I said firmly, "our puppy is meant for a Pekinese—the pedigree says so. From the look of it will be touch and go whether he pulls it off. To call him by the name of a late poodle may just be the deciding factor. Now I hate poodles; I hate pet dogs. A Pekinese is not a pet dog; he is an undersized lion. Our puppy may grow into a small lion, or a mastiff, or anything like that; but I will not have him a poodle. ”

“ Maurice's father-in-law, who hates and wishes to humiliate him, finds his opportunity when a turn of the party wheel throws the Minister out of office and into poverty. Her father thereupon allows Mrs. Sangster fifteen hundred a year for household expenses on condition that Maurice, who is scraping a bare hundred by his pen, shall not learn of this help till the old man's selected moment for abasing him. An intelligent woman who read the tale objected that no man, even a journalist, could long remain ignorant that he was spending fifteen hundred pounds more than he earned. ”

“ You and your blamed professors and soldiers, you've all been spoiling for war these ten years past, and now that you've got it you're out to tell the Americans that the other fellows drove you into it. ”

“ Once again a knock sounded upon the cell door, and with the utmost sang-froid he drew the key from his pocket and unlocked it. The honorary secretary of Germany entered, preceded by three cripples and a Mother-Superior.
"I am ready," declared Bertram, calm but pale, "and resigned to my fate."
"I am happy to say," said the secretary, "that I am unable to accept your resignation. We recognise the fact that you are only a spy, and therefore cannot strictly be said to be bearing arms against us. We have therefore to apologise for having arrested you ”

“ It is fathers, brothers, cousins, sons, uncles and nephews at the Front who count.
Anyone who can refer to a real relation at the Front is just now conversationally on velvet, while, if a letter from this relation can be produced and read, everyone else must give way. Sydney Smiths, Theodore Hooks, Richard Porsons, Thomas Babington Macaulays even, would be three-a-penny to-day as against one obscure individual who happened to have a brother in the trenches and a letter in his hand-writing. ”

“ From Germany and the Next War:—
"We shall now consider how the tactical value of... the screening service can be improved by organisation, equipment and training."
Von Bernhardi seems to have overlooked the fact that a portion of the "screening service" was living under the Belgian Government.
"Whilst Germany is a large customer of England in other directions, it is not in hardware and ironmongery. ”

“ It does not matter what the stories are about, the fact remains that an opening gambit which thme months ago would stamp a man as a triple bore now holds everyone breathless. In short, relations at last have come to their own. ”

“ The tale is told in a detached and purposely elusive way that adds much to its effect, chiefly as it is felt by one Armstrong, a stranger who comes to stay with the Mortons at a time when their very unpleasant family habit was due to manifest itself. "You cannot move about the house without feeling that the thing has nearly broken through." ”

“ Yet in times of peace he is one of those men who seldom leave home in the morning without carefully brushing their clothes. It should be borne in mind by the reader that the conditions of the battlefield of modern times have little in common with those of life in our University towns. ”

“ Uphill all the way to our place, it is, an' Pleeeeman 'e fair lost is wind. Pleeceman 'e look very fierce—'tis the uniform as does it, you don't deceive me. Pleeceman 'e says, 'That's right, my fine fellow; you sit at 'ome in your easy-chair,' 'e says, snoring o' nights on your feather bed, while the brave chaps as is gone to the front lie on planks o' wood an' eat their soup without so much as a spoon, for the sake o' them who won't bestir theirselves though the trumpet calls."" ”

“ Bertram thanked him, and commenced to trace them upon his spare vest.
"Don't bother to do that," said the General. "Take this set of duplicates. The disposition of our forces is clearly marked in red ink, and their numerical strength certified by a chartered accountant. The only detail omitted is the number of women and children that will be placed in the firing-line. Today's bag has not yet been reported."
An aide-de-camp galloped into the tent, flung himself from his exhausted mule and saluted. ”

“ Pleeceman'll play that game once too ften for the good o' 'is 'ealth."
"Pleeceman, I reckon, would 'ave been real proud if 'e could 'ave got a fine young chap like you to fight for King George."
"Pleeceman 'e says to me—when 'e come up to our place all 'urry-scurry to see after me goin' forth again the enemy—'e says, 'A man as is a man 'as got to put 'is 'and to the plough now an' save 'is country, while yet there is time.'"
"Pleeceman 'e talks wild when 'e's excited." ”