ENT?"

_Flapper_. "NO, I'M THE GOODS."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _The Village Oracle._ "YOU MARK MY WORDS--THESE 'ERE
GERMANS 'LL DO US DOWN AT THIS FINISH. THEY'LL PAY THE BLOOMIN' SIX
THOUSAND MILLIONS, OR WOTEVER IT IS, IN THREEPENNY BITS; AND THEN 'OO
THE 'ELL'S GOING TO COUNT IT?"]

* * * * *

"AS YOU WERE."

A MEMORY OF MI-CAREME.

Chippo Munks is a regular time-serving soldier, as distinguished from
the amateurs who only joined the Army for the sake of a war. His company
conduct-sheet runs into volumes, and in peace-time they fix a special
peg outside the orderly-room for him to hang his cap on. At present he
systematically neglects the functions of billet-orderly at a Base town
in France.

A month or two ago he came across Chris Jones.

"Fined fourteen days' pay," said Chippo; "an' cheap it was at the price.
But the financial embarrassment thereby followin' puts me under the
necessity of borrowing the loan of a five-spotter."

"How did it happen?" said Chris, playing for time.

"'Twas this way," said Chippo. "The other night I was walking down the
Roo Roobray, thinking out ways of making you chaps more comfortable in
the billet, as is my custom. Suddenly out of the gloom there looms a Red
Indian in full war-paint.

"'Strange,' thinks I. 'Chinks an' Portugoose we expects here, likewise
Annamites and Senegalese an' doughboys; but I never heard that the
BUFFALO BILL aggregation had taken the war-path.'

"He passes, and a little Geisha comes tripping by. I rubs my eyes an'
says, 'British Constitootian' correctly; but she was followed by a Gipsy
King and a Welsh Witch. Then I sees a masked Toreador coming along, and
I decides to arsk him all about it. The language question didn't worry
me any. I can pitch the cuffer in any bat from Tamil to Arabic, an' the
only chap I couldn't compree was a deaf-an'-dumb man who suffered from
St. Vitus' Dance, which made 'im stutter with his fingers.

"'Hi, caballero,' says I, 'where's the bull-fight?'

"'It isn't a bull-fight, M'sieur,' he replies. 'It's Mi-Careme.'

"'If he's an Irishman,' I says, 'I never met him; but if it's a kind of
pastry I'll try some.'

"Then he shows me a doorway through which they was all entering, and
beside it was a big yellow poster which said, '_Mi-Careme. Grand Bal
Costume. Cavaliers, 2 francs. Dames, 1 franc 50 centimes.'_

"'I'd love to be a cavalier at two francs