and that shame was intolerably increasing ... It
is undiscerning not to see that at a critical moment of extreme
tension they [the German Professors] allowed their passion to get
the better of them."

_The POET LAUREATE, in "The Times," October 27th, 1920_.

[The author of the following lines fears that he has failed to
do full justice to the metrical purity of the Master's
craftsmanship.]

Such people as lacked the leisure to peruse
My scripture, one-and-a-quarter columns long
In _The Times_, may like me, as having the gift of song,
To prosodise succinctly my private views.

Did I cry Shame! in November, 1918,
On those who never cried Shame! on the lords of hell?
Rather the shame is mine who delayed to clean
My soul of a wrong that grew intolerable.
What if our German colleagues, our brothers-in-lore,
Preached and approved for years the vilest of deeds?
Yet is there every excuse when the hot blood speeds;
We too were vexed and wanted our fellows' gore,
Saying rude things in a moment of extreme tension
Which in our calmer hours we should never mention.

Dons in their academic ignorance blind,
With passions like to our own as pea to pea,
Shall we await in them a change of mind?
Shall we require a repentant apology?
Or in a generous spasm anticipate
The regrets unspoken that, under the heavy stress
Of labour involved in planning new frightfulness,
They have been too busy, poor dears, to formulate?

Once I remarked that on German crimes would follow
"Perdition eternal"; Heaven would make this its care,
Nor need to be hustled, with plenty of time to spare.
Those words of mine I have a desire to swallow,
Finding, on further thought, which admits my offence,
That a few brief years of Coventry, of denied
Communion with Culture--used in the Oxford sense--
Are ample for getting our difference rectified.

What is a Laureate paid for, I ask _The Times_,
If not to recant in prose his patriot rhymes?
I stamp my foot on my wrath's last smouldering ember,
And for my motto I take "_Lest we remember_." O. S.

* * * * *

=THE SUPERFECTION LAUNDRY.=

I let myself into my flat to find a young woman sitting on one of
those comfortless chairs designed by upholsterers for persons of
second quality who are bidden to wait in the hall.

"You want to see me?" I inquired