n
by making you vain! Oh dear! I wish to-day was to-morrow.

Your MELISSA.

* * * * *

THE LAST-STRAW.

I don't agree with grousing, and I trust I shall escape any
Desire to pick a quarrel with an egg at fivepence ha'penny;
I'm quite prepared to recognise that no persuasive charm'll aid
In getting from a grocer either cheese or jam or marmalade;
I brave the brackish bacon and refrain from ever uttering
Complaints about the margarine that on my bread I'm buttering;
I'm not unduly bored with CHARLIE CHAPLIN on the cinema
And view serenely miners agitating for their minima;
I sit with resignation in a study stark and shivery,
Desiderating coal with little hope of its delivery;
I realise that getting into tram or tube's improbable
And pardon profiteers for robbing ev'ryone that's robable;
I don't mind cleaning doorsteps in the view of all ignoble eyes
(Now Mary, my domestic, has decided to demobilise);
Though life is like a poker that you've handled at the vivid end
And all my wretched companies have ceased to pay a dividend--
All these and other worries, though they're very near the limit, I
Maintain that I can face with philosophic equanimity;
But, when I by my family and fond and fussy friends am asked
To trot about in public with my features influenza-masked,
My sense of humour wrings from me (or possibly a lack of it)
The protest of the camel at the straw that breaks the back of it.

* * * * *

RECONSTRUCTION IN LONDON.

Extract from a recent novel:--

"She sat at her desk and, without any palpable hesitation,
wrote to Stanley asking him to meet her within an hour by
the bridge over the Serpentine in St. James's Park."

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE MAKING OF HISTORY.

1915. THE PURCHASE OF THE SOUVENIR.

1920. "THAT'S A SOUVENIR OF MY JOB AT HAVRE--

1925. --OF MY SERVICE IN FRANCE--

1930. --OF MY ACTIVE SERVICE--

1935. --OF MY FIGHTING DAYS

1940. GOT THAT IN THE BIG PUSH

1945. --FIERCE FIGHTING IT WAS--

1950. --DESPERATE FIGHTING.

1955. --HACKED MY WAY THROUGH--

1960. --RIGHT UP TO THEIR GENERAL--

1965. --CUT HIS HEAD OFF--

1970. --_THAT_ WAS ON IT!"]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Infatuated Little Boy_. "I WISH YOU CAME TO OUR
CHURCH. WHY DON'T YOU?"

_Little Girl_. "MOTHER SAYS IT'S TOO HIGH.