stration: "NO, SIR, THEY WOULDN'T TAKE OUR FRED, 'COS THEY SAID
HE'D A-GOT BELLICOSE VEINS."

* * * * *

GREY GIBBONS.

With fingers too canny to bungle,
With footsteps too cunning to swerve,
They swing through the heights of the jungle,
These stalwarts of infinite nerve;
Blithe sailors who heed not the breezes
Which play round their riggings and spars,
Lithe gymnasts who live on trapezes
And parallel bars.

In ballrooms of plantain and mango
They scamper, they slither and slide
In the throes of a tropical tango,
In the grip of a Gibbony glide;
'Tis thus in these desolate spaces,
Away from humanity's ken,
They mimic the civilised races
And strive to be men.

As the grey little acrobats patter
O'er creepers of myriad shapes,
They mouth not the meaningless chatter
Of dull and demoralised apes;
But, proud of their portion as creatures
Who know not the stigma of tails,
They screw up their weather-worn features
And practise their scales.

And oft in this primitive Eden
When I study some antic that hints
At the physical fitness of Sweden,
The speed of American sprints,
I dream of the wreaths and the ribbons
Their prowess would certainly win,
If there weren't any war, and my gibbons
Could go to Berlin.

J. M. S.

* * * * *

MY FAVOURITE PAPER.

BY A VORACIOUS READER.

All day long I read the papers that keep this little island noisy and
tell us how we ought to be governed. I can't help it. I want to know the
latest, and reading the papers seems (more or less) the way to get at
it. The best way of all, of course, is to meet a man at a club or a
resident in a locality favoured by retired colonels; but, in default of
those advantages, one must buy the papers. And then of course it follows
that one reads far too many papers and gets one's head far too full of
war news. Still, what would you have? The war is so eminently first and
everything else nowhere that this is inevitable.

Outside suggestion has its share, too. Morning papers are a matter of
course. One reads one's regular morning papers and no others. But after
that the trouble begins with the evening paper placards, each with its
lure. How can one resist them? The progress of the Allies! The repulsing
of the enemy! The ten miles gained! The Russian advance! A German
cruise