Its soaring points aspired to pierce the skies,
And I was martial in my Delia's eyes.

Great store of gold I lavished. Yea, I went
To one that works in metals and I bought
A kind of dreadful iron instrument
With leathern straps, most wonderfully wrought,
And wore that horror nightly, well content
To bear such anguish for the prize I sought.
And all this patient toil was thrown away--
They stoned me for the KAISER yesterday!

* * * * *

At a time when every penny that can be spared is needed for the help of
our soldiers in the field and of our wounded, or to relieve the distress
of the Belgian refugees or our own sufferers from the War, a public
appeal is being made to the citizens of Newcastle-on-Tyne for
subscriptions to a fund for presenting a testimonial to their Lord
Mayor, on the ground that he has done his duty. We beg to offer our
respectful sympathy to the LORD MAYOR of Newcastle-on-Tyne.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Colonel of Swashbucklers._ "NAH THEN, SWANK! THE WIMMIN
CAN LOOK ARTER THEIRSELVES. YOU 'OP IT AND JINE YER REGIMENT."

* * * * *

A TOBACCO PLANT.

I had done the second hole (from the vegetable-marrow frame to the
mulberry-tree) in two, and was about to proceed to the third hole by the
potting-shed when I thought I would go in and convey the glad news to
Joan. I found her seated at the table in the breakfast-room with what
appeared to be a heap of tea spread out upon a newspaper in front of
her. Little slips of torn tissue-paper littered the floor, and on a
chair by her side were several empty cardboard boxes. The sight was so
novel that I forgot the object of my errand.

"What's all that tea for, and what are you doing with it?" I asked.

"It isn't tea; it's tobacco," Joan replied, "and I'm making cigarettes
for the soldiers at the front."

"Where on earth did you get that tobacco from, if it _is_ tobacco?" I
went on.

"Let me see now," mused Joan, pausing to lick a cigarette-paper--"was it
from the greengrocer's or the butcher's? Ah! I remember. It was from the
tobacconist's."

Joan gets like that sometimes, but I do not encourage her.

"But what made you choose this Hottentot stuff?" I enquired.

"The soldiers like it strong," Joan replied, "and this looked about the
strongest he'd got."

"What does it call itself?"

"It was anonymous when I