ioning a
hen-coop out of two or three soap-boxes. Both he and the cherub ceased
activities when I hailed and approached; and I stopped to dinner.
Dalrymple told me he rather fancied he could wangle me a bungalow.

"I know the agent chap," he said, as we sampled a very pleasant glass
of port. "Of course they want to keep it fairly dark or we should be
swamped. I have taken a lot of trouble myself, you know, and am just
starting gardening lectures at our club."

So he went on--the house, his new roses, the hens, the jam his wife
made, the idea he had for a winter garden in the interests of his
wife's mother, who could then take the air in her Bath-chair.

"But," I said, "you want to sweep everything away. You aim at sending
villages like this to pot--your own word, you remember. And then there
are the Jugo-Slavs--"

Dalrymple winked and handed me the cigars.

I fancy he is a fraud.

* * * * *

"AEROPLANE FLIGHT TO INDIA.

"PREPARATIONS FOR DECEPTION IN DELHI."--_Englishman_
(_Calcutta_).

But the aviators, in order that there might be no doubt about their
_bona fides_, wisely landed at Karachi.

* * * * *

MY SERGEANT-MAJOR-DOMO.

When WILSON has abolished War
And grim Bellona claims no more
The greatest of her sons,
What job has Peace to offer thee
That shall fulfil thy destiny,
O Sergeant-Major Buns?

Shall thy great voice, at whose behests
Trembled a hundred martial breasts,
Be heard without a smile
Urging astonished Cingalese
To tap the tapering rubber trees
Upon their distant isle?

Shall thy dread presence clothed in tweed
Be seen, O Buns, without the meed
Of some regretful sigh,
Fresh from the triumphs of the trench
Upon the Opposition Bench
Begging the SPEAKER'S eye?

Nay, rather let thy mighty mind
At length its true vocation find
In the domestic sphere;
The trivial round, the common task
Shall furnish all thou needst to ask--
There shalt thou earn thy beer.

Yes, thou shalt play a worthy role,
Thou great unconquerable soul,
Within my humble flat;
For when thy voice shall thunder, "Where
Is master's cream?" what maid shall dare
Invoke the mystic cat?

And what or volatile Miss Gripps?
The weekly notice on her lips
Shall wither at thy look.
And still one triumph waits for thee--
And, oh! may I be there to see--