tting one of the green parrots on the end of the stick.

Jimmy knew the man who lived at the house, and who was having his
fortune told. He had come there to live a tired life, Jimmy says, and
when the War broke out he had put up a big flag-pole with a Union Jack
on it as his share.

Jimmy says the parrot had just got the man's fortune in its beak, when
Faithful took a standing jump from behind the woman at it. It was awful,
Jimmy says. The woman gave a scream and grabbed at the parrot, the man
grabbed at Faithful, and Faithful--well, Jimmy says he never knew quite
what Faithful did or how he did it, but he emerged with the man's
fortune sticking to the fly-paper.

Jimmy says bloodhounds are very sensitive and avoid a commotion; but the
man and the woman were not used to his side action in running and they
fell over one another.

Jimmy says it was a very funny fortune; it was in a special red envelope
and he couldn't understand it at first. You see it only contained the
names of some towns and villages, and Jimmy was just wishing that
Faithful would leave music and parrots and fly-papers and fortunes
alone, and catch German spies instead, when it all came to him because a
friend of his mother's lived at one of the villages and some Zeppelin
bombs had been dropped there.

The woman had given the man the names of the places where Zeppelin bombs
had fallen, and old Faithful had been tracking them down all the time.

Jimmy's head just buzzed with thoughts as he ran to the police-station.
They caught the man and the woman, and one of the policemen discovered
the flag-pole on the man's lawn, and it turned out to be part of a
wireless apparatus to send messages to Germany.

Jimmy says that, when the spies were nicely locked up and settled for
the night, one of the policemen got the parrot to tell Faithful's
fortune, and when they opened the envelope it said,

"Your face is your fortune."

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Subaltern._ "Well, what do you want?"

_Tommy_ (_formerly a cobbler_). "The Cap'n's 'orse wants soleing and
'eeling, Sir."]

* * * * *

A VERDICT REVISED.

Randolph the rash in cruel phrase defames
The "mediocrities with double names;"
But nowadays we find whole-hearted pleaders
Urging the claims of hyphenated leaders.

For what were Pemberton without the thrilling
Corollary and supplement of Billing?
While Billing by it