dress and had remembered
the business was in Bristol. But it was all right. It wasn't that
at all really. Pencil and squared paper are poor means of conveying
information at any time, and when the Adjutant had been assured that
the business was really "wholesale hardware," and not "wholesale
hardbake," as he had first read it, everything went swimmingly. The
C.O. signed it and off it went on its momentous journey. Cook began
to take a renewed interest in his platoon, and, having discovered the
recalcitrant one of No. 11 actually coming on parade with only the
front of the tip of his bayonet-scabbard polished, he took a fiendish
delight in seeing the criminal writhing under the brutal and savage
sentence of three days' C.B.

A week later he got a great surprise. His brother-partner turned
up with a draft of men and found himself posted to the battalion.
The brothers met, as only brothers can, with the words, "What the
deuce are you doing here?" Highly elated, Cook told him about the
application for business leave and gloated over his chances of being
home first, and on full pay too. His brother was intensely amused,
and they both laughed heartily, when he told us that he himself, while
waiting at the reception-camp with the draft, had put in much the same
kind of application, saying the same kind of things about Cook.

But when they realised that both applications would be forwarded to
the same Divisional Headquarters for consideration the joke lost some
of its savour. And when the Adjutant called them up and handed the
two returned applications _pinned together_ both brothers needed all
their qualities of toughness and rigidity which, as I understand, are
acquired in the wholesale hardware business.

L.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Shortsighted Traveller_. "IS THERE SOME DELAY ON THE
LINE, MY GOOD MAN?"

_Naval Officer_. "WHO THE ---- DO YOU THINK I AM, SIR?"

_Traveller_. "ER--N-NOT THE VICAR, ANYWAY."]

* * * * *

"HOMES FURNISHED COMPLETE."

"Oak bedstead, 3 ft. 6 in., with wife and Wool Mattress, new
condition, L5 10s. 0d. lot."--_Provincial Paper_,

"One Parsel Furnishing goods curtains, cushion covers, etc.,
Rs. 26; one bundle babies, Rs. 5.--Apply Mrs. ----."--_Ceylon
Independent_.

* * * * *

"Temporary Cook wants Hampshire."--_Morning Post_.

Really quite moderate. Some cooks no