Do you know the sensation, so hard to explain,
  Of living a former existence again,
  With never a clue to the why or the when? 
  Well, the drifters and trawlers were feeling it then,
  And the sea chuckled deep as it washed to and fro
  On the hulls of the battleships up in the Flow.

  The Old Navy waited, the Old Navy swore,
  While battleships costing two millions and more
  Reviewed the position from starboard to port: 
  “It’s small craft again, but we’re terribly short;
  Let us pray for the Empire whose sun never sets;”
  Then the fishing fleet pensively hauled in its nets.

  And rolling with laughter, at varying speeds
  The New Navy sped to the Old Navy’s needs;
  Unblushingly paintless, by units or lots,
  Came drifters and trawlers and whalers and yachts;
  And, heedless of Discipline Acts, I’ve been told,
  The New Navy cheerfully winked at the Old.

  Without any pride but the pride of its race,
  The New Navy took its historical place
  In warfare on quite unconventional lines
  As hunting sea vermin or sweeping for mines,
  Till the sea would agree when a battleship swore
  That surely they’d helped an Old Navy before.

  Through Summer and Autumn, through Winter and Spring
  The Old Navy patiently guarded the ring. 
  The while the Auxiliaries out on the blue
  Were making the most of the flag that they flew,
  And a cruiser would call to her sister, astern,
  “Precocious as ever, they’ve nothing to learn!”

  The Old Navy stretched as they got under way
  To take the Surrender that fell on a Day,
  And the drifters and trawlers looked on from afar
  At the cruisers and battleships winning the War,
  And, cheering the conquest with ev’ry good wish,
  Prepared to go back to their nets and their fish.

  But scarce had the fishing fleet time to turn round
  When there fell on their ears a remarkable sound,
  And some who were present have given their word
  That the roll of DRAKE’S drum through the squadrons was heard;
  Resulted a sequel as strange as it’s true,
  The Old Navy solemnly winked at the New.

  The moral is simple but worthy of note
  Whenever the spirit of DRAKE is afloat,
  There’s only one Navy when foes come to grips,
  And nobody knows it so well as the ships,
  And so when the small craft are blessed by the Board,
  Demurely they murmur:  “New Navy?  Oh, Lord!”

* * * * *

OUR BEAUTY COLUMN.

(LATEST STYLE.)

We four are such friends, Estelle, Rosalie, Beryl and I. If we weren’t could we sit round and say the things to each other that we do?  I ask you.

It’s quite a small flat we have, just the one room, but it’s so convenient.  There’s a chemist’s next door, so it’s no walk to get everything we require.