o tea,
And said "Dear me!" and "Yes, I see"--
And she--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I know a fellow of twenty-three,
Who got a job with a fat M.P.--
(Not caring much for the Infantry.)
And he--thank God!--has the O.B.E.

I had a friend; a friend, and he
Just held the line for you and me,
And kept the Germans from the sea,
And died--without the O.B.E.
Thank God!
He died without the O.B.E.

ARMAGEDDON

The conversation had turned, as it always does in the smoking-rooms of
golf clubs, to the state of poor old England, and Porkins had summed the
matter up. He had marched round in ninety-seven that morning, followed by
a small child with an umbrella and an arsenal of weapons, and he felt in
form with himself.

"What England wants," he said, leaning back and puffing at his
cigar,--"what England wants is a war. (Another whisky and soda, waiter.)
We're getting flabby. All this pampering of the poor is playing the very
deuce with the country. A bit of a scrap with a foreign power would do us
all the good in the world." He disposed of his whisky at a draught.
"We're flabby," he repeated. "The lower classes seem to have no
sense of discipline nowadays. We want a war to brace us up."

* * * * *

It is well understood in Olympus that Porkins must not be disappointed.
What will happen to him in the next world I do not know, but it will be
something extremely humorous; in this world, however, he is to have all
that he wants. Accordingly the gods got to work.

In the little village of Ospovat, which is in the southeastern corner of
Ruritania, there lived a maiden called Maria Strultz, who was engaged to
marry Captain Tomsk.

"I fancy," said one of the gods, "that it might be rather funny if Maria
jilted the Captain. I have an idea that it would please Porkins."

"Whatever has Maria--" began a very young god, but he was immediately
suppressed.

"Really," said the other, "I should have thought it was sufficiently
obvious. You know what these mortals are." He looked round to them all.
"Is it agreed then?"

It was agreed.

So Maria Strultz jilted the Captain.

Now this, as you may imagine, annoyed Captain Tomsk. He commanded a
frontier fort on the boundary between Ruritania and Essenland, and his
chief amusement in a dull life was to play cards with the Essenland
captain, who commanded the fort on the other side of the river. When
Maria's letter came, he felt