What notion, then, of “gadget” and “stunt” is gained by the young subaltern of today as he joins his regiment and shakes down to the fundamental facts of life and death?  He finds himself harassed by no end of devilish enemy stunts, to stultify which a fatherly all-wise War Office has given him an infinity of gadgets.  For every stunt an appropriate countering gadget.  Does the foe strafe him with a gas-bombing stunt?  “Ha, ha!” laughs he, and dons that unlovely but priceless gadget, his box-respirator.  But by no means all gadgets have just one peculiar stunt to counter; such a definition would exclude, for instance, the height-gauge on a plane, which is emphatically, wholly and eternally a gadget of gadgets.  Moreover, gadgets are small things.  The airman’s “joystick” is a gadget; the tank is not.  Now are these views sound, Sir, or is it permissible, as one authority does, to describe persons as “gadgets”?

One final word.  A nervous subaltern recently appeared before his Adjutant and called the Wurzel-Flummery Electro-Dynamical Apparatus, Mark II., “this sky-plotter stunt.”  “Great Heavens!” gasped the Adjutant, “what is the Service coming to?  Stunt?  Gadget, man, gadget!” Three days later the hapless boy found himself desired to resign on the grounds of “gross ignorance of military terminology.”

I am, dear Mr. Punch,

Yours solemnly,

ARCHIBALD.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  TRIALS OF A CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER.

HAVING CAMOUFLAGED SOME COAST DEFENCES HE GOES TO SEA TO OBSERVE THE
EFFECT.]

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

(THE GERMAN KAISER, THE TSAR OF BULGARIA, AND THE SULTAN OF TURKEY.)

The Tsar.  You must admit that Sofia is a most agreeable place.  Where else could you find such genuine and overwhelming enthusiasm for the War and our alliance?

The Kaiser.  I don’t know.  It didn’t seem to me exactly violent; but then, of course, you know your people better than I do, and it may be—­

The Sultan.  Umph.

The Tsar.  I know just what you are going to say, MEHMED. You feel, as we do, that the voice of the People is the true guide for a ruler.  You feel that too, don’t you, WILHELM?

The Kaiser.  I have never hesitated to say so.  It is on such sentiments that the greatness of our Imperial House is based.

The Sultan.  Umph.

The Tsar.  There—­I knew you would agree with us.  You heard, WILHELM?  MEHMED agrees with us.

The Kaiser.  That is, of course, immensely gratifying.

The Tsar.  We will at once publish an announcement in all our newspapers.  It will declare that the three Sovereigns, after a perfectly frank interchange of views, found no subject on which there was even the shadow of a disagreement between them, and are resolved in the closest alliance to continue the War against the aggressive designs of the Entente Powers until a satisfactory peace is secured.  How does that suit you, WILHELM?