Nor can I hope to get behind the mask
      That shrouds from me their human cares and graces. 
    “Is your name William?” I shall want to ask,
      And burn to know if this one bets on races,
      Or that one has a pretty taste in braces,
    Or if a third, who only says, “Just so,”
    Beneath his tunic has a heart aglow
  With treasured words of praise dropped by his golfing pro.

    We’ll part, we’ll part!  Nor with a soulful cry
      Will one strong human citadel surrender. 
    M.O.’s who dandle babes no less than I
      Will leave me cold; M.O.’s who have a tender
      Passion for my own type of sock-suspender
    Won’t utter it.  Though on my heaving breast
    They lean their heads, they’ll lean them uncaressed;
  We’ll part, nor overstep the auscultation test.

* * * * *

    “AMERICA’S BLOCKADE.

    By David G. Pinkney, the well-known chip-owner.”—­Evening News.

A chip of the old blockade.

* * * * *

    “Businesses suitable for ex-soldiers:  generals and others; taking
    £40 wkly, price £35.  Call or stamp.”—­The Daily Chronicle.

We can almost hear our Generals stamping.

* * * * *

    “It was an extremely difficult thing to effect a hit with
    anti-aircraft guns.  A ‘ricohetting’ pheasant was nothing
    to it.”—­The Globe.

We take this remarkable bird to be a sort of bouncing “rocketer.”

* * * * *

Extract from a testimonial sent to a patent-medicine vendor:—­

    “If you remember I came to you three days after I was bitten
    by my cat on the recommendation of a lady friend.”—­Straits
    Times.

We think it was cowardly of the lady to employ an agent.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE BUSINESS OF THE MOMENT.

JOHN BULL.  “I’VE LEARNED HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR ZEPP BROTHER, AND NOW
I’M GOING TO ATTEND TO YOU.”]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, July 9th.—­With the sound of Saturday’s bombs still in their ears Members came down to the House prepared to make things very uncomfortable for Ministers.  Woe betide them if they could not explain satisfactorily, first, why the raiders had been able to get to London at all, and, secondly, why they had been allowed to depart almost unscathed.  In this atmosphere the usual badinage of Question-time passed almost unnoticed.  Mr. BALFOUR gave a neat summary of Germany’s propagandist methods.  “In Russia, where autocracy has been abolished, it declares that we are secretly fostering reaction; in Spain, where there is a constitutional monarchy, it proclaims that we are aiming at revolution.  Both statements are untrue; both are absurd.”