For once Mr. BILLING expressed a widely-held opinion when he questioned the propriety, in present circumstances, of holding the LORD MAYOR’S Banquet.  Mr. BONAR LAW’S solemn assurance that he only accepted the invitation on the distinct understanding that the feast would fall completely within the FOOD CONTROLLER’S regulations, was not altogether convincing.  Members were anxious to know the exact dimensions that Lord RHONDDA has laid down for the turtle-ration.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Onlooker (at a Company exhibition, to the better man).  “HERE, LAAD, NOT SO MOOCH OF IT.  WE’M SHORT O’ SOJERS IN OUR COOMPANY, DOAN’T THEE FORGET!”]

* * * * *

GILBERT.

We are all very fond of Gilbert.  There are, however, one or two things about him which even his best friends will admit make it hard for us at times to remember how much we really love him.  Sometimes he seems almost too good to be true.  Yet I have known wet horrible days in the trenches when the sight of him coming smiling down the line, exuding efficiency and enthusiasm at every pore, has made his fellow-officers positively dislike him.

For, alas, he is one of those dear overzealous fellows whom in moments of depression we stigmatise as “hearty.”  He has even been known to be hearty at breakfast; to come trampling into the dug-out with that blinking old smile on his face, expressing immense satisfaction with life in general at the top of a peculiarly robust voice; to tread on his captain’s toes and slap his next-door neighbour heartily on the back, and then to explain to a swearing and choking audience how splendidly he has slept, and what a topping day it is going to be.

Never has Gilbert been known to spend a bad night; he is one of those fortunate animals who can go to sleep standing and at five minutes’ notice, and start snoring at once.  If you try to sleep anywhere near him, you dream of finding yourself in Covent Garden station, trying to board endless trains which roar through without stopping—­that’s the kind of snore it is.

And now it is time I told my story.

It happened many years ago, when the War was young and the Bosch comparatively aggressive; when our big guns fired once every other Sunday and we lived precarious lives in holes in the ground.  Our Brigadier, a conscientious soldier of the old school, was dodging round our line of trenches, and had just reached the sector allotted to my company, which was also Gilbert’s, when the distant buzz that generally means an aeroplane overhead made itself distinctly heard.

“Can you spot him?” said the General to his Brigade-major; “one of theirs, I suppose?”

Now it is as much as a Brigade-Major’s job is worth to confess ignorance at such a crisis.  So, after sweeping the skies fruitlessly with his glasses and listening intelligently to the steady drone, he said, “Yes!” with as much conviction as possible.