thus LLOYD GEORGE was trained to be a Premier;
Thence many a leader who has leapt to fame
Got self-control, grew harder, tougher, phlegmier,
Reared in the virtues which prevail
At Walton Heath and Sunningdale.

Golf being then the source of so much good,
I own my conscience suffers certain wrenches
Recalling how the links of Chorley Wood
Have seen me on the Sabbath carving trenches,
Where Tommies might be taught to pitch
The deadly bomb from ditch to ditch.

For I reflect that my intruding spade,
That blocked the foursome and debarred the single,
May well have cheeked some statesman yet unmade,
Some budding HOGGE, some mute inglorious PRINGLE;
And that is why my shovel shrinks
From excavating other links.

O.S.

* * * * *

"In reply to your valued inquiry, we enclose illustration of Dining
Tables of Oak seating fourteen people with round legs and twelve people
with square legs, with prices attached. Hoping to have your order."--
_The Huntly Express._

Mr. Punch is now engaged upon an exhaustive examination of the extremities
of his staff before deciding whether to replace his existing Round Table.

* * * * *

"BRITISH PRESS BACK HUN REARGUARDS."--_Newspaper headline._

Happily it is only a small section of the British Press that adopts this
unpatriotic attitude.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE on the FOOD CONTROLLER:--

"No man's pie is free'd
From his ambitious finger."--_Henry VIII., Act I. Scene I._

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

_(The GERMAN CROWN PRINCE and Marshal HINDENBURG)._

_Hindenburg._ So your Royal Highness proposes to leave us again?

_The Prince._Yes, Marshal, I'm going to leave you for a short time. I have
made arrangements which will render my absence from the Front as little
disadvantageous as may be possible. My orders have been carefully drawn up
so as to provide for every contingency, and I trust that nothing the enemy
can do will find my stout fellows unprepared, while I am devising fresh
triumphs for them in my temporary retirement.

_Hindenburg._ We shall all regret the absence of your Royal Highness from
those fields in which you have planted new proofs both of German courage
and of German intellectual superiority; but no doubt your Highness will be
all t