nd comparative peace reigns up and down the line. The
rain of star-shells, always prodigal in the early evening, has died
down to a mere drizzle. Working and fatigue parties, which have been
busy since darkness set in at five o'clock,--rebuilding parapets,
repairing wire, carrying up rations, and patrolling debatable
areas,--have ceased their labours, and are sleeping heavily until the
coming of the wintry dawn shall rouse them, grimy and shivering, to
another day's unpleasantness.

Private Hans Dumpkopf, on sentry duty in the Boche firing-trench,
gazes mechanically over the parapet; but the night is so dark and the
wind so high that it is difficult to see and quite impossible to hear
anything. He shelters himself beside a traverse, and waits patiently
for his relief. It begins to rain, and Hans, after cautiously
reconnoitring the other side of the traverse, to guard against
prowling sergeants, sidles a few yards to his right beneath the
friendly cover of an improvised roof of corrugated iron sheeting, laid
across the trench from parapet to parados. It is quite dry here, and
comparatively warm. Hans closes his eyes for a moment, and heaves a
gentle sigh.

Next moment there comes a rush of feet in the darkness, followed by a
metallic clang, as of hobnailed boots on metal. Hans, lying prostrate
and half-stunned beneath the galvanised iron sheeting, which,
dislodged from its former position by the impact of a heavy body
descending from above, now forms part of the flooring of the trench,
is suddenly aware that this same trench is full of men--rough,
uncultured men, clad in short petticoats and the skins of wild
animals, and armed with knobkerries. The Flying Matinee has begun, and
Hans Dumpkopf has got in by the early door.

Each of the performers--there are fifty of them all told--has his part
to play, and plays it with commendable aplomb. One, having disarmed
an unresisting prisoner, assists him over the parapet and escorts him
affectionately to his new home. Another clubs a recalcitrant foeman
over the head with a knobkerry, and having thus reduced him to a more
amenable frame of mind, hoists him over the parapet and drags him
after his "kamarad."

Other parties are told off to deal with the dug-outs. As a rule, the
occupants of these are too dazed to make any resistance,--to be quite
frank, the individual Boche in these days seems rather to welcome
captivity than otherwise,--and presently more of the "bag" are on