t the thirteenth examination.]

_June_, 1917.

Within some eleven weeks of the Declaration of War by the U.S.A., the first
American troops have been landed in France. Even the Kaiser has begun to
abate his thrasonic tone, declaring that "it is not the Prussian way to
praise oneself," and that "it is now a matter of holding out, however long
it lasts."

But other events besides the arrival of the Americans have helped to bring
about this altered tone. The capture of Messines Ridge, after the biggest
bang in history, has given him something to think about. His
brother-in-law, Constantine of Greece, has at last thrown up the sponge and
abdicated. "Tino's" place of exile is not yet fixed. The odds seem to be on
Switzerland, but Mr. Punch recommends Denmark. There is no place like home:

Try some ancestral palace, well appointed;
For choice the one where Hamlet nursed his spite,
Who found the times had grown a bit disjointed
And he was not the man to put 'em right;
And there consult on that enchanted shore
The ghosts of Elsinore.

Brazil has also entered the War, and Germany is now able to shoot in almost
any direction without any appreciable risk of hitting a friend.

Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig gave the nation a birthday present on his
own birthday, in the shape of a dispatch which is as strong and straight as
himself:

Frugal in speech, yet more than once impelled
To utter words of confidence and cheer
Whereat some dismal publicists rebelled
As premature, ill-founded, insincere--
Words none the less triumphantly upheld
By Victory's verdict, resonantly clear,
Words that inspired misgiving in the foe
Because you do not prophesy--you _know_.

Steadfast and calm, unmoved by blame or praise,
By local checks or Fortune's strange caprices,
You dedicate laborious nights and days
To shattering the Hun machine to pieces;
And howsoe'er at times the battle sways
The Army's trust in your command increases;
Patient in preparation, swift in deed,
We find in you the leader that we need.

[Illustration: A WORD OF ILL OMEN

CROWN PRINCE (to Kaiser, drafting his next speech): "For Gott's sake,
father, be careful this time, and don't call the American Army
'contemptible.'"]

A new feature of the German armies are the special "storm-troops"; men
picked for their youth, vigour, and daring, and fortified by a specially
liberal diet for the carrying