OUR MODEST PUBLICISTS.

"I felt it to be my duty to say that and I said it; and, of
course, nobody took any notice."--_Mr. Robert Blatchford, in
"The Sunday Chronicle."_

* * * * *

"CHRISTIANA, Thursday.

Several hours' violent cannonading was heard in the Skagerack.

Norwegian torpedoes proceeded thither to investigate."--_Toowoomba
Chronicle_ (_Queensland_).

Intelligent creatures, they poke their noses into everything.

* * * * *

BEASTS ROYAL.

VI.

KING GEORGE'S DALMATIAN. A.D. 1823.

Yellow wheels and red wheels, and wheels that squeak and roar,
Big buttons, brown wigs, and many capes of buff ...
Someone's bound for Sussex, in a coach-and-four;
And, when the long whips crack,
Running at the back
Barks the swift Dalmatian, whose spots are seven-score.

White dust and grey dust, fleeting tree and tower,
Brass horns and copper horns, blowing loud and bluff ...
Someone's bound for Sussex, at eleven miles an hour;
And, when the long horns blow,
From the wheels below
Barks the swift Dalmatian, tongued like an apple-flower.

Big domes and little domes, donkey-carts that jog,
High stocks and low pumps and admirable snuff ...
Someone strolls at Brighton, not very much incog.;
And, panting on the grass,
In his collar bossed with brass,
Lies the swift Dalmatian, the KING's plum-pudding dog.

* * * * *

CAMOUFLAGE CONVERSATION.

It came as a shock to the Brigade Major that the brigade on his left
had omitted to let him know the time of their projected raid that
night. It came as a shock all the more because it was the General
himself who first noticed the omission, and it is a golden rule for
Brigade Majors that they should always be the first to think of
things.

"Ring 'em up and ask," said the General. "Don't, of course, mention
the word 'raid' on the telephone. Call it--um--ah, oh, call it
anything you like so long as they understand what you mean."

At times, to the casual eavesdropper, strange things must appear to
be going on in the British lines. It must be a matter of surprise, to
such a one, that the British troops can think it worth their while to
inform each other at midnight that "Two Emperors of Pongo have become
attached to Annie Laurie." Nor would it appear that any military
object would be served in passi