ed to pick up as many souvenirs in the way of rolls
of barbed wire, dud bombs and blind crumps as he can stagger away with.
By this means the country will be cleared of its explosive matter and I
shall be able to spend my declining years in Park Lane, or, anyway,
Tooting.

Our Albert Edward has not been making any plans as to his future lately,
but just now it looks very much as if his future will be spent in gaol.
It happened this way. He had been up forward doing some O. Pipping.
While he was there he made friends with a battery and persuaded the poor
fools into doing some shooting under his direction. He says it is great
fun sitting up in your O. Pip, a pipe in your teeth, a telescope clapped
to your blind eye, removing any parts of the landscape that you take a
dislike to.

"I don't care for that tree at A 29.b.5.8"," you say to the telephone.
"It's altogether too crooked (or too straight). Off with its head!" and,
hey presto! the offending herb is not. Or, "That hill at C 39.d.7.4" is
quite absurd; it's ridiculously lop-sided. I think we'll have a valley
there instead." And lo! the absurd excrescence goes west in a puff of
smoke.

Our Albert Edward spent a most enjoyable week altering the geography of
Europe to suit his taste. Then one morning he made a trifling error of
about thirty degrees and some few thousand yards and removed the wrong
village.

"One village looks very much like another, and what are a few thousand
yards this way or that in a war of world-wide dimensions? Gentlemen, let
us not be trivial," said our Albert Edward to the red-hatted people who
came weeping to his O. Pip. Nevertheless some unpleasantness resulted,
and our Albert Edward came home to shelter in the bosom of us, his
family.

The unpleasantness spread, for twenty-four hours later came a chit for
our Albert Edward, saying if he had nothing better to do would he drop
in and swoop yarns with the General at noon that day? Our Albert Edward
made his will, pulled on his parade boots, drank half a bottle of brandy
neat, kissed us farewell and rode off to his doom. As he passed the
borders of the camp The O'Murphy uncorked himself from a drain, and,
seeing his boon-companion faring forth a-horse, abandoned the rat-strafe
and trotted after him.

A word or two explaining The O'Murphy. Two years ago we were camped at
one end of a certain damp dark gully up north. Thither came a party of
big marines and a small Irish terrier, bringing wit