us to Mr. McCallum Scott.  He is seriously perturbed about the shortage of sausage-skins and, in spite of the bland assurance of Mr. Harcourt that supplies are ample, is alleged to be planning a fresh campaign with the assistance of Mr. Hogge.  Another shortage has given rise to no anxiety, but rather the reverse.  In a police court it was recently stated that there are no longer any tramps in England.  Evidently the appeal of that stirring old song, “Tramp! tramp! tramp! the boys are marching,” has not been without its effect.

[Illustration:  CONJURER (unconscious of the approach of hostile aircraft):  “Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want you to watch me closely.”]

Yet another endurable shortage is reported from the seaside, where an old sailor on the local sea front has been lamenting the spiritual starvation brought about by the war.  “Why,” he said, “for the first time for twenty years we ain’t got no performing fleas down here.”  And performers, when they do come, are not always successful in riveting the attention of their audience.

August, 1916.

The third year of the War opens well for the Allies; so well that the Kaiser has again issued a statement denying that he is responsible for it.  The Big Push on the Somme goes on steadily, thanks to fine leadership, the steadfast heroism of the New Armies, and the loyal co-operation of the munition-workers at home, who have deferred their holiday rather than hamper their brothers in the trenches by a lessened output.

Here one fact may suffice as a sample.  The weekly consumption of high explosives by the Army is now between eleven and twelve thousand times as much as it was in September, 1914.  Yet when a lieutenant is asked to state what it is really like being along with the B.E.F. when it is in its pushful mood, he sedulously eschews heroics, and will not commit himself to saying more than that it’s all right—­that he doesn’t think there is any cause for anxiety.  “We seem to have ceased to have sensations out here.  It is a matter of business; the only question is how long is it going to take to complete.”  So, too, with the Tommies.  “Wonderful,” declares the man in the ranks to persistent seekers after thrilling descriptions of war.  “You never see the like.  Across in them trenches there was real soda-water in bottles.”  To return to our lieutenant, he “simply can’t help being a little sorry for the Boche now that his wild oats are coming home to roost.”  Even his poetic friends, formerly soulful and precious, take this restrained view.  The Attributes of the Enemy are thus summed up by one trench bard: 

  If Boches laughed and Huns were gents,
  They’d own their share of continents;
  There’d be no fuss, and, what is more,
  There wouldn’t even be a war. 
  Whereas the end of all this tosh
  Can only be there’ll be no Boche.

[Illustration:  THE BIG PUSH

MUNITION WORKER:  “Well, I’m not taking a holiday myself just yet, but I’m sending these kids of mine for a little trip on the Continent.”]