of Nations, he considered the matter for some
minutes and then said, "It is a fine notion. We might all be the happier
if it came."

My time being now up he bowed me to the door and the interview was over.
The knob was of brass and had been, recently polished.

His last words were, "Mind the step."

* * * * *

[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTION; A NEW YEAR'S TASK.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Bore_. "I HAVE BEEN MAKING A VERY INTERESTING
CALCULATION. NOW, JUST HAVE A GUESS. IF ALL THE WOUND-STRIPES WERE
PLACED END TO END HOW FAR DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD REACH?"

_Weary Wounded._ "DUNNO, GUV'NOR. STEP IT OUT AND SHOW US."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Officer (to whom private has given three ardent
love-letters, addressed to different persons, to censor)._ "WELL, WHAT
ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" _Private._ "'SCUSE ME, SIR, BUT I JUST WANTED TO
SEE YOU DIDN'T MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT THE ENVELOPES."]

* * * * *

THE ANTI-PICADORS.

A conference of subscribers and contributors to the correspondence
columns of _The Times_ was held at Caxton Hall on Saturday last, to
discuss the situation created in the issue of December 21st by the
printing of the interview with President WILSON in larger type than
had ever been used previously in the body of the paper. Amongst those
present were "Scrutator," "Bis Dat Qui Cito Dat," "Judex," "Vindex,"
"Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat," "Rusticus Expectans," "Old Etonian," "Anxious
Parent," "Anti-Jacobin," "Puzzled," "Octogenarian," "Quousque Tandem,"
and "The Thin End of the Wedge."

The Chair was taken by a "Subscriber of Fifty Years' Standing," who
prefaced his remarks by observing that neither he nor any of those
present was animated by the faintest antagonism to President WILSON.
Their gratitude to him for his services in the War was so great that,
in the abstract, they could have no objection to his being accorded the
distinction of the largest possible type, so long as proper distinction
was made typographically between the remarks of the PRESIDENT and the
comments of the interviewer--as for example that Mr. WILSON's bedroom
is "strictly First Empire," or that "there seems to be some kind of
competition between the upper and the lower halves of his features,"
or that his "grey lounge suit" was "well cut into his body." But there
ought to be some harmony between the size