bun.

Now and again the Bosch birds come over disguised as clouds and spit
mouthfuls of red-hot tracer-bullets at it, and then the observers hop
out. One of them "hopped out" into my horse-lines last week. That is
to say his parachute caught in a tree and he hung swinging, like a
giant pendulum, over my horses' backs until we lifted him down. He
came into "_Mon Repos_" to have bits of tree picked out of him. This
was the sixth plunge overboard he had done in ten days, he told us.
Sometimes he plunged into the most embarrassing situations. On one
occasion he dropped clean through a bivouac roof into a hot bath
containing a Lieutenant-Colonel, who punched him with a sponge and
threw soap at him. On another he came fluttering down from the blue
into the midst of a labour company of Chinese coolies, who immediately
fell on their faces, worshipping him as some heavenly being, and later
cut off all his buttons as holy relics. An eventful life.

PATLANDER.

* * * * *

A PRECOCIOUS INFANT.

"Will any kind lady adopt nice healthy baby girl, 6 weeks old,
good parentage; seen London."--_Times_.

* * * * *

"The King has given L100 to the Victoria Station free buffet
for sailors and soldiers."--_The Times_.

In the days of RICHARD I. it was a commoner who furnished the King in
this respect. _Vide_ Sir WALTER SCOTT'S _Ivanhoe_, vol. ii., chap.
9: "Truly, friend," said the Friar, clenching his huge fist, "I will
bestow a buffet on thee."

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Prisoner_ (_on his dignity_). "BUT YOU VOS NOT KNOW
VOT I AM. I AM A SERGEANT-MAJOR IN DER PRUSSIAN GUARD."

_Tommy_. "WELL, WOT ABAHT IT? I'M A PRIVATE IN THE WEST KENTS."]

* * * * *

RHYMES OF THE TIMES.

There was an old man with otitis
Who was told it was chronic arthritis;
On the sixth operation,
Without hesitation
They said that he died of phlebitis.

A school just assembled for Prep.
Were warned of an imminent Zepp,
But they said, "What a lark!
Now we're all in the dark
So we shan't have to learn any Rep."

Mr. BREX, with the forename of TWELLS,
Against all the bishops rebels,
And so fiercely upbraids
Their remarks on air-raids
That he rouses the envy of WELLS.

The American miracle, FORD,
By pacificists once was adored;
Now their fury he raises