steel helmet, draped in sandbag material,
completed the costume. The field service cap was not being worn inside the
helmet.

* * * * *

NUMBER NINE.--The Army doctors, so it seems, do not fully understand the
delicate constitution of a friend of mine in the Blues, and sent him back
to duty after dosing him with medicine, though he is suffering from pain in
the foot. The medicine generally takes the form of a "Number Nine," the
pill that cures all ills; but last time he went on sick parade they were
out of stock, and he was given two "Number Fours" and a "Number One"
instead. Rough-and-ready pharmacy. What?

* * * * *

SPIRITED.--Met my old chum, Sir William ----, just back from the trenches.
Dear old Billy, what cigars he used to smoke in the good old days! He tells
me that when on a carrying fatigue the other night one of his men dropped
the earthenware receptacle which contains Tommy's greatest consolation in
this terrible war, and every drop of the precious liquid was spilt. Five
minutes later a Jack Johnson landed beside him and put things right. _It
gave him a rum jar_. Good, eh?

* * * * *

WHERE TO LUNCH.--I am just off to lunch with my old pal, the Hon. Adolphus
Lawrie-Carr, of the Motor Transport Section of the A.S.C. I have never seen
him look better than he does now, in hunting stock and field boots, crop
and spurs. He always gives one a first-class meal.

* * * * *

THE NEXT PUSH.--I had a most interesting conversation the other day with
Alphonse, late of the Saveloy. He is on the G.H.Q. Staff in a position of
high trust--something to do with the culinary arrangements, I believe--and
is, of course, in the know. From what he told me confidentially I can
assure all my countless readers that there will be fighting on the Western
Front during 1917, and, in the words of Mr. Hilary Bullox, "If it is not
prolonged until next year, the present year will certainly see the end of
the War." More I cannot divulge.

* * * * *

Our Cautious Contemporaries.

"What can be said with truth is that business in the New Loan for the
first two days is easily AZ per cent. better for new money than for the
same period on the occasion of the last loan."--_Evening Standard_.

* * * * *

"ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS.