Up, Muse, and get your wings unfurled!
My rhymes at double speed must flow;
Now, from this hour, the astonished world
Must see my output daily grow.
And why? I want some coal--a ton or so.

Coal is my greatest need, the crest
And pinnacle of my desires;
And as I toil with feverish zest
'Twill be the dream of blazing fires
That spurs me to my labour and inspires.

I wonder if the miner too
Has visions in his dark abyss
Which urge him on to hack and hew
That he may so achieve the bliss
Of buying great and deathless songs (like this).

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.

Notice in a Canadian book-shop:--

"It often happens that you are unable to obtain just the book
you want. We specialise in this branch of book-selling."

* * * * *

"Observing a straw stack on fire opposite her house a woman
removed her baby from the bath and poured the bath water on to
the flames."--_Evening Paper._

What we admire is her presence of mind in first removing the baby.

* * * * *

"Mr. and Mrs. John ---- wish to return grateful thanks to all
who so kindly contributed to their late great loss by theft."

_Local Paper._

Always be polite to burglars. You never know when they may call again.

* * * * *

We understand that Smith minor, who in an examination paper wrote
_margot_, instead of _margo_, as the Latin for "the limit," has been
reprimanded severely by his master.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

_MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR_

Self-praise, it used to be held, is no recommendation; but that was
before the War. The War has altered so many things that it may have
altered this too, and self-praise be the best recommendation of all. Mr.
Punch hopes so, because he wants to indulge for the moment in extolling
one of his own products; he wishes, in short, to urge upon all his
readers the merits of "Mr. Punch's History of the Great War." Everything
is here, in very noteworthy synthesis; the tragedy and the comedy
inextricably mingled, as they must ever be, but as by more formal
historians they are not.

Such is Mr. Punch's opinion on Mr. Punch's own book, which is no formal
history of the War in the strict or scientific sense of the phrase; no
detailed record of nava