Two months went by, during which the O. i/c Records made no further additions to our postbag.  There are mornings when your friends appear to have forgotten you, when a Levitical postman bangs your neighbour’s gate mockingly and forthwith crosses the street.  On such mornings our thoughts may have turned to Records with a certain yearning; but mainly we felt his care like the air about us, and had no need that it should materialise in idle correspondence.

At last my term of probation came to an end.  In response to a note from Records (with form for receipt) I returned my Transfer Certificate and received in its place my final Discharge Papers—­with a form for receipt.  At the same time I heard that the Commissioners were in earnest consultation as to the continuance of my pension.

Thus goodness and loving-kindness have followed me ever since I handed in the uniform.  To this day I am the subject of anxious consideration.  Not a week ago the early post brought me my character.  Imagine the incessant parental watchfulness of an authority which can testify concerning one two hundred and fifty thousandth of its charge that he is “a good soldier, willing and industrious, honest, sober, trustworthy and well-conducted.”  Think of the kindly interest which prompted the O. i/c Records to insert a form of receipt—­“to guard against impersonation.”  My character might have got into base hands; some unworthy person might have gone about professing to possess that willingness, that industry, that sobriety, that trustworthiness and that elegance of conduct which are mine alone; but the form of receipt would baffle him.  I cannot explain how, but Records knows.

What is yet in store for me the future bides; but this I know:  while England endures and Records continues to record, I shall not walk alone.

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[Illustration:  Lady farm-help, being shown her new duties, notices fowls having dust-bath. “DEAR ME!  I EXPECT THEY’LL WANT WASHING EVERY NIGHT BEFORE I PUT THEM TO ROOST. I’D NO IDEA FOWLS WERE SUCH DIRTY THINGS.”]

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[Illustration:  Aunty (wishing to be sympathetic).  “I’M GLAD TO HEAR YOU’VE GOT YOUR SEA-LEGS, JACK, AND I HOPE YOUR FRIEND IS GETTING ON EQUALLY WELL AND HAS GOT HIS TRENCH-FEET.”]

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PURE ENGLISH.

[A writer in The Daily Express has been discussing the questions where and by whom the purest English is spoken and written, and pronounces strongly in favour of East Anglia, FITZGERALD, BORROW and Mr. CONRAD.]

      Once more ’tis discussed
      What guides we should trust
  If we wish to write prose to perfection;
      Is it BORROW or “FITZ,”
      The Times or Tit Bits? 
  And how should we make our selection?

      Once on NEWMAN and FROUDE
      We were bidden to brood
  If we aimed at distinction and purity;
      And, when we escaped
      From their influence, aped
  GEORGE MEREDITH’S vivid obscurity.