the
Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as
we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad.
Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three million
tins of sardines; so that's all right as far as it goes; but, if
there's any weakness in the victualling department, I shall be the
first to leave the colours.

They're making one huge mistake. The dogs are called out too. You know
what German dogs are--sausage-food, we call them. Of course they'll be
cut up and give the show away. But, if they're in the first line with
us behind them, they'll have to fight somebody.

Albrecht is in the Royal Blacks (Empress's own). Max has joined the 3rd
Tabbies, and I've got a command in the 10th Tortoiseshells.

Your one and only
PUSS IN PRUSSIANS.

P.S.--It's a joke with the Tabby regiments that they've got their
stripes already.

* * * * *

"Ste. Menehould is 32 miles due west of Verdun. Montfaucon is 18
miles north-east of Ste. Menehould and a dozen miles north-west of
Verdun."--_Manchester Guardian._

The War has changed many things; among them the triangle's old habit of
having two of its sides together greater than the third. But there;
"necessity," as the IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR says, "knows no law."

* * * * *

Illustration: _Humorist (to Cinema Commissionaire)._ "NOW VEN, WILHELM,
GIVE US ONE OR TWO GOOSE-STEPS!"

* * * * *

THE WATCH DOGS.

IV.

Dear Charles,--Half-a-dozen officers of _the_ battalion, including your
own pet terrier, have got cut off from the main body, but are all alive
and well, as you shall hear. We have come down from our war to our peace
station in order to gather together the few hundred recruits who have
been enrolled to bring up the brigade to its proper establishment, and
fill the places of those luckless fellows whose flesh was too weak for
Imperial service, however willing their spirit might have been. I must
say I was more sorry for the "medically unfit" than I have ever been for
anyone in this hard world, when we took affectionate leave of them.

The recruit is an excellent fellow, whose only fault is that he didn't
start before. Now and then he is a plutocrat, as I have found to my
cost. It was my first job to prearrange the lodging of two hundred of
them in t