ed 'over there,' but of what people were saying and feeling at
home"; while _The Morning Post_ remarked: "Here Mr. Punch is the nation,
deftly wielding the weapon of ridicule that has helped to kill so many
enemy tyrants."

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* * * * *

[Illustration: THE LAST STRAW.

THE CAMEL DRIVER. "NOW, WHICH HUMP HAD THIS BETTER GO ON?"

THE CAMEL. "IT'S ALL THE SAME TO ME. IT'S BOUND TO BREAK MY BACK
ANYHOW."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Josh (who has just purchased stamp)._ "WOULD YER
MIND A-STICKIN' OF IT ON FOR ME, MISSIE? OI BAIN'T NO SCHOLARD."]

* * * * *

UNAUTHENTIC IMPRESSIONS.

III.--SIR ERIC GEDDES.

Which is boyhood's commonest ambition, to run away to sea or to be
something on a railway line? And how few, when they are grown up, find
that they have realised either of these desires! The present Minister
of Transport has freely confessed to his intimates that more than once,
when he was floating paper-boats in his bath or climbing a tree in the
garden to look out for icebergs from the crow's-nest, he felt in his
child's heart that water was the ultimate quest, the adventure, the
gleam. And yet for many a long year railways entranced and enslaved him.
Often he would sit for hours, forgetful of the griddle cakes rapidly
being burnt to a cinder, and gaze at the puffs of steam coming from the
spout of the kettle or the quick vibrations of its lid, planning in his
mind some greater and better engine that should be known perhaps as The
Snorting Eric, and be enshrined in glass on Darlington platform.

Once, when he had bought a small model stationary engine and the
methylated spirit lamp had by some acc