be rushed by the interventionists, and is giving his
detached consideration to the "concessions" of the German Government in
regard to submarine warfare. But three thousand miles of ocean no longer
keep America free from strife. The enemy is within her gates, plotting,
spying and bribing. The lesser neutrals in Europe find it harder to
dissemble their sympathies, but Ferdinand of Bulgaria maintains a vulpine
inscrutability.

[Illustration: THE UNSINKABLE TIRP

GERMAN CHANCELLOR: "Well, thank Heaven, that's the last of Tirpitz."

TIRPITZ (reappearing): "I don't think!"]

By way of a sidelight on what happens on the Western front, a wounded
officer sends a characteristic account of his experiences after "going over
the top" at 3 A.M. "The first remark, as distinct from a shout that I heard
after leaving our parapet, came from Private Henry, my most notorious
malefactor. As the first attempt at a wire entanglement in our new position
went heavenward ten seconds after its emplacement, and a big tree just to
our right collapsed suddenly like a dying pig, he turned round with a grin,
observing: 'Well, sir, we _do_ see a bit of life, if we _don't_
make money.' I never saw a man all day who hadn't a grin ready when you
passed, and a bit of a _riposte_ if you passed the time of day with
him." Our officers only think of their men, and the men of their officers.
In Gallipoli our soldiers have discovered a new method of annoying the
Turk:

We go and bathe, in shameless scores
Beneath his baleful een,
Disrobe, unscathed, on sacred shores
And wallow in between;
Nor does a soldier then assume
His university costume,
And though it makes the Faithful fume,
It makes the Faithless clean.

The return of the wounded to England is marked by strange incidents,
pathetic and humorous. Thus it has been reserved for an officer, reported
dead in the casualty list, to ring up his people on the telephone and
correct "this silly story about my being killed." And the cheerfulness of
the limbless men in blue is something wonderful. They "jest at scars," but
not because they "never felt a wound." It is a high privilege to entertain
these light-hearted heroes, one of whom recently presented his partner in a
lawn tennis match with a fragment of shell taken direct from his
"stummick." And the recipient rightly treasures it as a love-token.

Parliament has reassembled, the inquisitors returning (unhappily) like
giants refre