nfided to us in the young hours of one morning, he had his
doubts as to the divinity of the KAISER, and was not quite convinced
that RICHARD STRAUSS had composed the music of the spheres.

He was a bad Hun (which probably accounted for his presence at the
uttermost, hottermost edge of the ALL-HIGHEST'S dominions), but a good
fellow. Anyhow, we liked him, Frobisher and I; liked his bull-mouthed
laughter, his drinking songs and full-blooded anecdotes, and, on the
occasions of his frequent visits, put our boredom from us, pretended
to be on the most affectionate terms, and even laughed uproariously
at each other's funny stories. Up at M'Vini, in the long long-ago,
the gleam of pyjamas amongst the loquats, and "'Ere gomes ze Sherman
invasion!" booming through the bush, became a signal for general
good-will.

In the fulness of time Otto went home on leave, and, shortly
afterwards, the world blew up.

And now I have met him again, a sodden, muddy, bloody, shrunken,
saddened Otto, limping through a snowstorm in the custody of a
Canadian Corporal. He was the survivor of a rear-guard, the Canuck
explained, and had "scrapped like a bag of wild-cats" until knocked
out by a rifle butt. As for Otto himself, he hadn't much to say; he
looked old, cold, sick and infinitely disgusted. He had always been a
poor Hun.

Only once did he show a gleam of his ancient form of those old hot,
happy, pyjama days on the Equator.

A rabble of prisoners--Jaegers, Grenadiers, Uhlans, what-nots--came
trudging down the road, an unshorn, dishevelled herd of cut-throats,
propelled by a brace of diminutive kilties, who paused occasionally to
treat them to snatches of flings and to hoot triumphantly.

Otto regarded his fallen compatriots with disgusted lack-lustre eyes,
then turning to me with a ghost of his old smile, "'Ere gomes ze
Sherman invasion," said he.

* * * * *

CAUTIONARY TALES FOR THE ARMY.

II.

(_Second-Lieutenant Humphrey Spence, who was slightly wounded through
a lack of a proper sense of the rights of rank._)

Second-Lieutenant Humphrey Spence
Had no idea of precedence;
To him his Colonel was no more
Than any other messroom bore;
And he would try to make a pal
Not merely of a General,
But even a horrified non-com
He'd greet with "Tiddly-om-pom-pom!"
Although in other ways quite nice,
He was perverted by this vice.
For instance, once he had to tea
A private in the