they've all got to say something
about my youth, and the heritage of peace that the 1917 conscripts won
for me. They talk as if I had been busy with a feeding-bottle instead
of compressing my silly face in a box-respirator."

His dilemma is a very painful one for a man so sensitive and at the
same time so enamoured of stockbroking. Hard as the renunciation will
be, I really believe he will end by turning his back on the Exchange
for ever and taking a regular commission, though I try to persuade
him that if he will only brave the horrors of peace as he braved the
horrors of war he will win through in the end and grow out of his
face.

* * * * *

PROMOTION.

"Ex-Batman wanted as General in private house."--_Times_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: AN IRRESISTIBLE CLAIM.

ROUMANIA. "I HOPE, WHILE THEY'RE FEEDING THEIR STARVING ENEMIES, THEY
WON'T FORGET THEIR STARVING FRIENDS."]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

[Illustration: _Duke of Venice (the Lord Chancellor), to Portia_. "YOU
ARE WELCOME: TAKE YOUR PLACE."--_Merchant of Venice, Act IV. Sc. 1. _]

* * * * *

_Monday, March 10th_.--Sir JAMES AGG-GARDNER asked two questions
dealing with the distribution of poisons. By a singular
coincidence--or was it design?--the hon. baronet was himself, as
Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, accused by Mr. BOTTOMLEY of having
purveyed poison in the shape of stale fish to sundry Members of the
House, thereby causing them serious internal disturbance. Happily he
was able to show that the charge was entirely baseless.

Scots legal terminology always puzzles me. The "peremptory diets"
which Mr. MACQUISTEN urged upon the attention of the SECRETARY OF THE
TREASURY as a remedy for the grievances of Glasgow's financiers are
not, as you might suppose, a synonym for forcible feeding; nor have
they anything to do with the substitutes for "parritch" to which, as
I gathered from Mr. STURROCK, the people of Scotland are being obliged
to resort owing to the high price of oatmeal.

Members rubbed their eyes a little when they heard Colonel AMERY
declare that the general policy of the Government regarding Imperial
Preference had been "clearly defined" and in the ensuing debate Sir
DONALD MACLEAN declared that, on the contrary, their whole fiscal
policy was "wrop in mystery."

The veil was lifted to some extent