he had in the last; but the House generally seemed to agree with Mr. Adamson, the Labour leader, who, before changing horses again, wanted to be sure that he was going to get a better team.  A week later, on the day on which the Prince of Wales took his seat in the Lords, Lord Derby endeavoured to explain why the Government had parted with Sir William Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial Staff, and replaced him by General Wilson.  It is hard to say whether the Peers were convinced.  Simultaneously in the House of Commons the Prime Minister was engaged in the same task, but with greater success.  Mr. Lloyd George has no equal in the art of persuading an audience to share his faith in himself.  How far our military chiefs approved the recent decision of the Versailles Conference is not known.  But everyone applauds the patriotic self-effacement of Sir William Robertson in silently accepting the Eastern Command at home.

In Parliament the question of food has been discussed in both Houses with the greatest gusto.  Throughout the country it is the chief topic of conversation.

[Illustration:  SECRET DIPLOMACY

WIFE:  “George, there are two strange men digging up the garden.”

GEORGE:  “It’s all right, dear.  A brainy idea of mine to get the garden dug up.  I wrote an anonymous letter to the Food Controller and told him there was a large box of food buried there.”

WIFE:  “Heavens!  But there is!”]

To the ordinary queues we now have to add processions of conscientious disgorgers patriotically evading prosecution.  The problem “Is tea a food or is it not?” convulses our Courts, and the axioms of Euclid call for revision as follows: 

“Parallel lines are those which in a queue, if only produced far enough, never mean meat.”

“If there be two queues outside two different butchers’ shops, and the length and the breadth of one queue be equal to the length and breadth of the other queue, each to each, but the supplies in one shop are greater than the supplies in the other shop, then the persons in the one queue will get more meat than those in the other queue, which is absurd, and Rhondda ought to see about it.”

All the same, Lord Rhondda is a stout fellow who goes on his way with an imperviousness to criticism—­criticism that is often selfish and contemptible—­which augurs well for his ultimate success in the most thankless of all jobs.

[Illustration: 

INDIGNANT WAR-WORKER:  “And she actually asked me if I didn’t think I might be doing something!  Me?  And I haven’t missed a charity matinee for the last three months.”]

Food at the front is another matter, and Mr. Punch is glad to print the tribute of one of his war-poets to the “Cookers”: 

  The Company Cook is no great fighter,
    And there’s never a medal for him to wear,
  Though he camps in the shell-swept waste, poor blighter,
    And many a cook has “copped it” there;
  But the boys go over on beans and bacon,
    And Tommy is best when Tommy has dined,
  So here’s to the Cookers, the plucky old Cookers,
    And the sooty old Cooks that waddle behind.