“It must be the wrong house,” said Sister, and without pausing an instant in our centrifugal career we rushed round the complete circle and disappeared through the gate as suddenly as we had come.  As we passed the house I had a fleeting glimpse of an old, hard-featured and furious female face glaring at us from one of the windows.

On the road we stopped the car so as to regain some measure of gravity before presenting ourselves at our real destination—­next house—­but were still rather hysterical when we arrived.

“You’ll hear more of this,” said our hostess, when we had reported our raid.  “Old Miss Mendip lives there—­a regular tartar; all kinds of views; writes to the papers.”

* * * * *

In a subsequent issue of the local weekly we found the following:—­

    To the Editor of “The Inshot Times, Great and Little
    Budford Chronicle and Home Counties Advertiser.”

SIR,—­Even in war-time, when one cannot call our souls our own, we may surely expect the privacy of individuals and the rights of property to receive some respect.  An Englishman’s home is still his castle, though the debased morals and decayed manners of modern Society (?) seem to blind its members to the fact.

I wish to give publicity in your pages to a disgraceful outrage of which I have been made the victim.  On Tuesday last I was rudely awakened from my afternoon rest by the sound of a large motor-car.  As I did not expect visitors I proceeded to the window in order to discover to what the intrusion might be due.  What was my astonishment to discover that the vehicle contained a party of four perfect strangers.  Three of them, I regret to state, were wounded officers; they were being driven by one of the modern games-playing cigarette-smoking young women to whom the old-fashioned word “lady” seems so singularly inapplicable.  Their sole object in entering appeared to be the perpetration of a senseless practical joke, for after careering round my garden at a pace which I can only describe as unwomanly, they went off by the way they had come.

My gardener, who witnessed the incident, tells me that on reaching the road they stopped the vehicle and celebrated the success of their inane efforts by shrieking with that unrestrained mirth which jars so painfully on refined ears.

Can nothing be done?

I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,

LYDIA MENDIP.

Manor Lodge, Little Budford.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Orderly Officer.  “HOW MANY HORSES ARE HERE, PICKET?”

Picket (a little fed-up).  “ER—­HORSE LINE, ’SHUN!  FROM THE RIGHT—­NUMBER!!”]

* * * * *

THE FOOD SHORTAGE IN GERMANY.

    “While the horse doeuvres were being served, the Kaiser, etc.”