Strange at first as it appears,
He had overlooked his ears;
But it's not so queer, perhaps,
When you ask, "Have hens got flaps?"

Silence! You'd have heard a pin
Fall upon the deck within,
Till the Bloke was heard to shout,
"Stick it, Sir! We'll get you out!"

Everybody had a go--
Chief, Commander, P.M.O.,
Padre, Carpenter and Stoker,
Using engine-grease and poker,
Hawser, marlin-spike and soap,
Till at length they gave up hope,
For, in spite of all they did,
Edwin fitted like a lid.

Suddenly upon the scene
Came a German submarine.
Then a flash, a roar, a groan;
"We are sinking like a stone!"
Cried the Bloke with angry frown;
"Can we leave poor Peck to drown?
Really, this is _too_ absurd;"
Then a miracle occurred.

As the cold green waters roll
Round poor Edwin in his hole,
Are the watchers wrong in thinking
That the Captain's neck is shrinking?
As she took her final list on,
Sighing, "uedor men aeriston!"
Long-enduring Captain Peck
Gracefully withdrew his neck,
Poked it out again and spoke
To the sorrow-stricken Bloke:
"Nothing more that we can do?
No? Then sound the 'Sove kee poo!'"

Need I tell how Captain Peck
Was the last to leave the wreck,
How the good ship perished, or
How he brought them safe to shore,
Landing, after all his men,
Clucking softly like a hen?

* * * * *

Up-to date quotation for foot-sore Londoners: "Et Tube, brute!"

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

One reads a lot nowadays about the "slavery" of various habits (drug,
drink, bigamy, etc.) and loud is the outcry. But there is yet another
bondage, just as binding and far more widespread, which nobody ever
seems to mention, namely, the drill habit. Drill the young soldier up
in the way he should go and for ever after his body will spring to the
word of command, whether his soul approves or no.

Once upon a time two men turned up in a railway construction camp deep
in the Rhodesian bush. They were a silent, furtive, friendless pair,
dwelling apart, and nobody could discover whence they came, whither
they were bound, or, in fact, anything about them. It was generally
conceded that they had some horrid secret to bury (camp optimists
voted for "murder") and left it at that. Time went by and so did the
rail-head, leaving the two mysteries behind as permanent-way gangers.
Solitude seem