Seated in a distant clearing. 
  He remarked the natives cheering,
  And, directed by the din,
  Saw the plight his mates were in. 
  When he thought the time was ripe,
  Clad in little but his stripe
  ’Erbert charged....  The tribes in wonder
  Promptly bolted with the plunder.

  ’Erbert with averted head
  Quickly gathered every shred
  Of his late-lamented kit,
  Saying, as he handed it
  To the Major, “I infer
  You have lost your breeches, Sir.”

  With his glasses in his hands
  On his deck the Captain stands,
  Watching with surprise and fear
  His detachment reappear—­
  First the Major, garbed in dirt
  And the tail of ’Erbert’s shirt;
  Then the Sergeant, better dressed
  In the sleeves of ’Erbert’s vest;
  Then the rest in fragments torn
  From the jumper he had worn. 
  Last comes ’Erbert, proud as NELSON,
  With a smile and nothing else on.

  Is it Fortune’s final stroke,
  Or the Skipper’s little joke? 
  As the ladder they ascend
  Comes the bugle “Make and Mend.”

* * * * *

    “A flotilla of Portuguese warships is actively maintaining the
    blockade between the mouth of the Volga and that of the Minho.”

    Daily Paper.

The report that the Bolshevists have borrowed a “Big Bertha” and are meditating a bombardment of Lisbon by way of reprisal is as yet unconfirmed.

* * * * *

“Mr. W.A.  Appleton, secretary of the Feedration of Trade Unions, declares that since the Armistice the federation ’has lost no opportunity of endeavouring to smash the controls that meant continued high prices (of food).”—­Evening Paper.

More power to the “Feedration” in its self-sacrificing campaign.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE GUEST WHO BROUGHT A BANJO.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “THERE’S A BIT OF A FINANCIAL CRISIS ON AT THE PRESENT MOMENT.  I BLEW INTO COX’S ON THE WAY HERE, ON THE OFF CHANCE, BUT—­NOTHING DOING!”

“I S’POSE YOUR OVERDRAFT BLEW YOU OUT AGAIN—­WHAT?”]

* * * * *

THE RIGHTS OF LABOUR.

(Extract from “The Times and Mail” of January 1st, 1925.)

A significant case was heard yesterday in the courts, when William Blogg, bricklayer’s labourer, recovered twenty-five pounds damages from James Buskin Carruthers, artist, for injury done to the plaintiff’s eight-cylinder car through defendant’s culpable negligence in allowing himself to be run over by it.

Plaintiff urged that he was a labouring-man, who worked eight hours a day.  The court was at once adjourned, while restoratives were applied to the Bench.

On the resumption of the proceedings it was explained that since the passing of the Two Hours Maximum Day Bill the supply of labour had been inadequate to meet the demands made upon it, and plaintiff had patriotically filled four posts, at the minimum rate of fifteen shillings an hour.  It was while he was hurrying from one sphere of activity to another that the collision occurred, resulting in injury to the plaintiff’s mud-guard and loss of valuable time.