***

Newspapers have appeared again in Buenos Ayres.  No other troubles are anticipated.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “I’ve called to see if you could make A MINATURE of me.”]

* * * * *

America and Sinn Fein.

    [Being a Republican’s apology for the recent anti-British agitation
    in the States.]

  Oh, never let it mar the mutual love,
    That now unites us eye to eye,
  If, superficially, we seem to shove
    Our fingers in your Irish pie—­
  An action which, if you should so behave,
  Would make old Monroe wriggle in his grave.

  How loath we are by nature to intrude
    In things outside our own concern
  Is witnessed by the European feud
    In which we lately took a turn;
  Ere Wilson’s mind was fixed to see you through it,
  For years he wondered if he ought to do it.

  And, when for Ireland’s good we intervene
    In matters patently remote,
  You must not count our loyalty less keen—­
    We simply want the Irish vote;
  ’Tis an election stunt, this lion-baiting,
  Designed for local Kelts who need placating.

  So, when our Yankee delegates rehearse
    Their tale of Erin’s bitter woe,
  Of crimes, almost too bad to quote in Erse,
    Committed by the Saxon foe,
  Please understand why our apparent bias is
  In favour of these nimble Ananiases.

  And also why, for Ireland’s dear, dear sake
    (Meaning of course “Ourselves Alone"),
  A lot of us would gladly let her take
    Our Wilson for her very own,
  To worship, like a god inside a tin fane,
  As Woodrow one, First President of Sinn Fein.

  O. S.

* * * * *

Going to the bank.

She thought she had got a bargain.  It was only marked “20/-,” and would have been double the price at any of the West-end places.  So she whipped out her Japanese note-case, paid for it, and carried it off like a whirlwind lest the shopman should find he had made a mistake.

But it was she who had made a mistake, and she broke the news to me at breakfast on the following morning.

Two of her one-pound notes (or, to be exact, my one pound notes) must have stuck together.  She had paid the West-end price after all.

Then, instead of blaming her own carelessness, as I should have done, what must she do but attack Mr. Lloyd George?

“It’s all his fault, this horrid dirty paper-money...  Spreading infection wherever it goes!”

It devolved upon me to defend the Government, which I did with some heat, drawing forth another one-pound note casually, as though I were made of them, and flourishing it in my hand.