n: _Officer (to N.C.O. in charge of Chinese labour
party)_. "I SUPPOSE THESE CHINKS BLOW THEMSELVES UP SOMETIMES, DON'T
THEY?"

_Corporal_. "OH, NOTHING TO SPEAK OF, SIR--NOT NEAR AS MUCH AS THEY
USED TO."]

* * * * *

JOURNALISTIC ENTERPRISE.

"NEWS BY TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE.

"To-day is Pancake Day."--_Daily Mail_, March 4.

* * * * *

"HIGH-CLASS FISH DURING THE LENTEN SEASON.

"All kinds arrive daily direct from the coast, and prices the
maximum when possible."--_Advt. in Provincial Paper._

To judge by our own fishmonger, they always _are_ possible.

* * * * *

From the report of a prosecution for selling eggs above the controlled
price:

"Mr. ----, for the defence, contended that the lay mind could
assume that new-laid eggs laid by the vendor's fowls were not
within the scope of the Order."--_Birmingham Daily Post_.

In a poultry case the opinion of the "lay mind" should have been
conclusive, but the Bench decided otherwise.

* * * * *

"When is the State going to help mothers with large families? If
the cost of living has increased 100 per cent., then for eight
persons the increase is 800 per cent.

"How many mothers with eight in family have received an increase of
800 per cent. in their income since 1914?--W.W., London."--_Daily
Sketch_.

"W.W., London," should not be allowed to squander his gifts on the
daily Press. We want a statistician like this to tot up the German
indemnity.

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.

LXXX.

My Dear Charles,--You are a lawyer and you ought to know. Yet to
myself, when I compare my profits with those of the Government in this
deal, I seem a model of innocence.

Let me refresh your memory of the facts.

In the Spring of 1918 I was dispensing passports to deserving cases in
the name of His Majesty's Government. In the neutral country where I
was doing this there was a very wicked and a very plausible man, whom
we will call Mr. Abrahams (he has had so many surnames at one time and
another that a new one cannot do him any harm). Rate of exchange stood
at the figure of twenty local francs to the pound sterling, and, as
you would put it, other things were equal.

Mr. Abrahams was obsessed with a desire to see England, entirely for
its own sake. England