s there has been
no Christmas this year. Well, let us hope we shall have a real
old-fashioned one next year.

_New Year's Eve._
"The year is dying, _let him die_."

Them's my sentiments--"let him die." Despite the _nil nisi bonum_
sentiment, I can't find it in my heart to say (at this present time and
in my present humour) a good word for the dying year, his last days
having been ones to be remembered with--er--oblivion only, so to speak.
Since writing last, I have been flying high--that is to say, my
temperature has--having registered 104.4 (don't omit the point) for a
couple of days. I was rather proud of this, for, as you know, I didn't
swagger in here with a fever or anything like that. No, I simply and
quietly waited about a week, and then let them see what I could do
without any real effort. And that is the right way to do things.

Look at Kitchener. People out here have been saying: "Wait till
Kitchener is in command," and "Kitchener will do this and that." I
sincerely hope he will. Mick, our day orderly, has just told me that "to
hear people spake, ye'd think he cud brake eggs wid a hard
stick,"--which I believe is his sarcastic way of summing up hero
worship. I suggested most men could do that; whereupon Mick retorted:
"Ye don't know, they might miss 'em." You never catch Mick napping. I
only wish I could record the story of how he chucked the kits of "the
Hon. Goschen and a nephew of the Juke of Portland's" out of one of the
tents in 22 Ward, because they didn't choose the things which they
wanted kept out, and let him take the rest away to the store tent.
Needless to say, he was unaware at the time that he was entertaining
angels.

Kitchener visited the Hospital some time ago but I missed seeing him. I
was sleeping at the time, and was awakened by his voice inquiring how we
were, and turned round just in time to see a khaki mackintosh disappear
through the door. Of course, I had met him before. He turned me out of a
house at which the C.-in-C. and staff had luncheon the day we were
marching on Johannesburg. My luncheon on that occasion consisted of a
nibble at a small, raw potato.

[Illustration: Sick.

"Who said 'C.I.V.s'?"

(With apologies to the talented painter of "Who said 'Rah'?")]

PARODY 9800134.

(Only one verse.)

When you've said "the war is over," and "the end is now in sight,"
And you've welcomed home your valiant C.I.V.'s,
Ther