* * * * *

    “LIFE’S LITTLE MARVELS.

    “A family of eight was stated to be living on L3 a week in the
    Bow County Court, and counsel said it was a marvel how they did
    it.”—­Bradford Daily Argus.

It is supposed that they take it in turns to sleep on the Bench.

* * * * *

“A Republic is derported to have been declared at Zagazig.  In Cairo stdikes have added to the difficulties of the public, the latest being one by the cabddivers.  Crowds ottempted to storm the Government printing works, but were dispersed by the military.”—­Daily Paper.

Not, however, until they had worked some havoc among the type.

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

I was motoring homewards across the old line.  A ghost-peopled dusk was crawling over the devastation and desolation that is Vimy, and in the distance the bare bones of St. Eloy loomed like a spectre skeleton against the frosty after-glow.  We hummed past Thelus cross-roads, dipped downhill and, hey presto! all of a sudden I was in China.  (No, not Neuville-St.-Vaast; China, China, place where they eat birds’-nests and puppy-dogs’ tails.) There were coolies from some salvage company all over the place, perched on heaps of broken masonry, squatting along the ditch side, banked ten-deep in the road—­tall villainous-looking devils, very intently watching something.  I pulled up, partly to avoid killing them and partly to see what it was all about.

It was an open-air theatre.  They had built it on the ruins of an estaminet, roofed it over with odds and ends of tin and tarpaulin, and the play was on.  There was the orchestra against the back-cloth, rendering selections from popular Pekin revues on the drum, cymbal and one-stringed fiddle.  There were the actors apparelled in the gorgeous costumes of old Cathay strutting mechanically through their parts, the female impersonators squeaking in shrill falsetto and putting in a lot of subtle fan-work.  And there was the ubiquitous property-man drifting in and out among the performers, setting his fantastic house in order.  We were actually within a mile of the Vimy Ridge, but we might have been away on the sunny side of Suez, deep within the mysterious heart of Canton City.

“Good as a three-ring circus, ain’t it?” said an English voice at my side; “most of their plays run on for nine months or so, but this particular show only lasts six weeks, the merest curtain-raiser.”

I turned towards the speaker and looked full upon the beak nose, cleft cheek and bristling red moustache of an old friend.  “Good Lord, The Beachcomber!” I breathed.  He started, peered at me and growled, “Captain Dawnay-Devenish, if it’s all the same to you, Mister blooming Lieutenant.”

* * * * *

In the year 1907 John Fanshawe Dawnay-Devenish arrived in a certain Far Eastern port, deck passenger aboard a Dutch tramp out of Batavia.  The Volendam mate accompanied him to the gang-plank, shaking a size eleven fist:  “Now yous, get, see?... an’ iv yous gome bag...!” He ground his horse-teeth and made unpleasant noises in his throat.