But best, when day’s first glimmerings break
    Through curtains half withdrawn,
  To lie and smell it, scarce awake,
    In some great farm at dawn;
  Cocks crow, the milkmaid clanks the pails,
    The housemaid bangs the stairs;
  And BACON suddenly assails
    The nostrils unawares.

  Noses of varied width and height
    Doth kindly Heaven bestow,
  And choice of smells for our delight,
    That all some joy may know;
  Noses and smells for all the race
    That on this earth do dwell,
  And for a final act of grace
    The astounding bacon smell.

But the War has its drawbacks, and owing to its unexpected prolongation there is a rumour that Mr. H.G.  Wells will readjust his ideas on the subject quarterly instead of twice a week as before.

July, 1918.

“France’s Day” was held on July 14 under the auspices of the British Red Cross Committee.  But this has been France’s month, the month in which the miracle of the first battle of the Marne has been equalled by the second, and the Germans have been hurled back across the fatal river by the tremendous counterstroke of General Foch.

[Illustration:  HUN TO HUN

ATTILA (to Little Willie):  “Speaking as one barbarian to another, I don’t recommend the neighbourhood.  I found it a bit unhealthy myself.”

(Attila’s victorious progress across Gaul was finally checked on the plains of Chalons.)]

[Illustration:  VERY MUCH UP

A Champagne Counter-Offensive]

On the 15th the Germans launched their great offensive.  On the 20th they recrossed the Marne, and are now entitled to complain that General Foch not only took over the French and British armies, but has recently started taking over a good part of the German army.  The neighbourhood has never been a healthy one for the Huns since the days of Attila.

Fritz has crossed the Marne and recrossed it—­according to plan—­and is already on the way to the Aisne.  The battle of the rivers has begun again, but on new lines.  Yet this amazing turn of the tide has been taken very quietly in France and England.  The Allies have rung no joy-bells; they are content with doing their best to give Germany no occasion for further indulgence in that form of jubilation.  And Germany is meeting them more than half way, their authorities having ordered a supplementary requisition of those church-bells which were exempted when the first confiscation was made.  “At this heavy hour,” said von Kuehlmann to the Reichstag, “none of us fully realise what we owe to the German Emperor.”  That was a month ago; the realisation of their indebtedness has since advanced by leaps and bounds.  There are now 1,000,000 Americans in France.  But the Kaiser and his War-lords are still passing their victims through the fire to the Pan-German Moloch, and threatening to send German generals to teach the Austrian Army