We are billeted on a farm at the present moment.  The Skipper occupies the best bed; the rest of us are doing the al fresco touch in tents and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape.  We are on very intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk.  Every morning I awake to find half-a-dozen hens and their gentleman-friend roosting along my anatomy.  One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning.  William says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest bird, was merely paying rent for the roost.

The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache.  He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept.  The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since—­a moustache must be very ticklish to digest.

Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open, noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lower.  Turning round to investigate the cause of the phenomenon he beheld a gentle milch privily sucking it up behind, his back.  There was a strong flavour of Coal Tar soap in the cafe au lait to-day.

This morning at dawn I was aroused by a cold foot pawing at my face.  Blinking awake, I observed Albert Edward in rosy pyjamas capering beside my bed.  “Show a leg, quick,” he whispered.  “Rouse out, and Uncle will show boysey pretty picture.”

Brushing aside the coverlet of fowl I followed him tip-toe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he and MacTavish call “home.”

Albert Edward lifted a flap and signed me to peep within.  It was, as he had promised, a pretty picture.

At the foot of our MacTavish’s mattress, under a spare blanket lifted from that warrior in his sleep, lay a large pink pig.  Both were occupied in peaceful and stertorous repose.

“Heads of Angels, by Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS,” breathed Albert Edward in my ear.

PATLANDER.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Old Lady from the Country.  “I’VE ASKED FOUR PORTERS, AND THEY ALL TELL ME DIFFERENT.”

Porter.  “WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT, MISSUS, IF YER ASKS FOUR DIFFERENT PORTERS?”]

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.

    “1913 Touring Ford, in splendid condition, fitted with new coils,
    parafin vaporiser; has been little use.”—­Irish Times.

* * * * *

THE TWO LETTERS.

I had as usual two letters to write.  There are always two and often twenty, but this morning there were two only.  One was to my old friend, A., who had just gone into bankruptcy; the other was to my young friend, B., whose sporting efforts in France have won him very rapid promotion.  He was just bringing his new captain’s stars to England on a few days’ leave.

A. is a somewhat austere and melancholy man; B. is just as different as you can imagine.