Beneath the heading “Bat” I find Bat Maker (brick) and Bat Maker (tennis).  Under which king, James?  Anyway, I hate a man who talks about a “tennis bat.”  He would probably call football shorts “knickers.”

I am favourably inclined towards Bathing Machine Attendant (why not Bathing Mechanic, for short?) What a grand affair to ride old Dobbin into the seething waves and pretend he was a sea-serpent!  Confidentially, there are lots of people to whose bathing-machines I would give an extra push when I had unlimbered their vehicles and turned Dobbin’s nose again towards the cliffs of Albion.

My pleasure in stirring things with a ladle nearly decided me to train as a Bean Boiler; but I fear the monotony.  Nothing but an endless succession of beans, with never a carrot to make a splash of colour nor an onion to scent the steamy air.  And, James, I have a friend who is known to all and sundry as “The Old Bean.”  Every bean I was called upon to boil would remind me of him, whom I would not boil for worlds.

Here is something extraordinarily attractive—­Black Pudding Maker.  You know black puddings.  I am told that when you stew them (do not eat them cold, I implore you!) they give off ambrosial perfumes, and that after tasting one you would never again touch peche Melba.  But as a Black Pudding Maker should I become nauseated?

Almost next door comes Blood Collector.  Wait while I question the Mess Cook ...  James, I cannot become a Black Pudding maker.  The Mess Cook tells me that Blood Collector and Black Pudding Maker are probably allied trades.  How dreadful!

How about Bobber? Does that mean that I should have to shear my wife’s silken tresses?  Cousin Phyllis has appeared with a tomboy’s shock of hair, and she says it “has only been bobbed.”  By a “bobber”?  I would like to wring his neck.  But if Bobber has something to do with those jolly little things that dance about on cotton machines (aren’t they called “bobbins"?) I will consider it.

I have not even finished the “B’s.”  A glance ahead and other enchanting vistas are revealed.  For instance, Desiccated Soup Maker, Filbert Grower and (simply) Retired.

This Schedule is splendid in its way, but why can’t they be honest?  They must know that lots of us in our great national army are in ordinary life just rogues and vagabonds.  The Schedule ignores such honest tradesmen.  How is a respectable tramp to know when his group is called for demobilisation if he is not even given a group?  What a nation of prigs and pretenders we are!

Yours ever, WILLIAM.

* * * * *

AUTRES TEMPS, AUTRES MOEURS.

  My baker gives me chunks of bread—­
  He used to throw them at my head;
  His manners, I rejoice to state,
  Have very much improved of late.