“I will.”

“Well, then, have you been asking Betty Willoughby to marry you, and has she said ’Yes’?”

I was amazed.  Was Woggles also among the soothsayers?  Because a few evenings earlier, with the help of a splendid full moon and one or two extenuating circumstances—­

“But this is black magic and wizardry,” I said.  “It’s a dead secret.  How on earth did you know?”

“Oh, I just guessed,” said Woggles.

* * * * *

THE MATRIMONIAL MARKET.

    “Young Girl Wanted, for Wife of Naval Officer.”—­Provincial
    Paper.

The Navy may be the Silent Service, but when it does speak it is very direct.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE EASTER OFFERING.

MR. LLOYD GEORGE (fresh from Paris). “I DON’T SAY IT’S A PERFECT
EGG; BUT PARTS OF IT, AS THE SAYING IS, ARE EXCELLENT.”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Colonel (back with his battalion from front lines—­to horsey and immaculate Railway Transport, Officer). “ENGINES A BIT FRISKY THIS MORNING?”]

* * * * *

PROPAGANDA IN THE BALKANS.

At the end of September last those whom we in Macedonia had come to regard as our deadly enemies became our would-be friends with a suddenness which was almost painful.  Kultur is a leavening influence, and our spurious local Hun in Bulgaria is every bit as frightful in war and as oily in defeat as the genuine article on the Rhine.

To escape this unfamiliar and rather overpowering atmosphere of friendliness our section of the Salonica Force immediately made for the nearest available enemy and found ourselves at a lonely spot on the Turkish frontier.  The name of the O.C.  Local Bulgars began with Boris, and he was a Candidat Offizier or Cadet, and acting Town Major.  As an earnest of good-will, he showed us photos of his home, before and after the most recent pogrom, and of his grandfather, a bandit with a flourishing practice in the Philippopolis district, much respected locally.

We took up our dispositions, and shortly all officers were engaged sorting out the suspicious characters arrested by the sentries.  It was in this way that I became acquainted with Serge Gotastitch the Serb.

When he was brought before me I sent for Aristides Papazaphiropoulos, our interpreter, and in the meantime delivered a short lecture to the Sergeant-Major, Quartermaster-Sergeant and Storeman on the inferiority of the Balkan peoples, with particular reference to the specimen before us, to whom, in view of the fact that he seemed a little below himself, I gave a tot of rum.  He eyed it with suspicion.

“What’s this?” he asked suddenly (in English).  “Whisky?”

I informed him that it was rum.

“That’s the goods,” he said, and drank it.  I then commenced interrogation.