* * * * * [Illustration:  A MISFIT.

Recruit.  “IT’S NO USE, GUV’NOR.  I ‘ATES AN’ DETESTS ‘ORSES, AN’ THEY FAIR LOATHES ME.  IT’S A HENGINE-DRIVER I AM—­NOT AN ’ORSE-DRIVER.”]

* * * * *

THE INVESTITURE.

  Be silent, guns! for Bernard is invested,
    And wheresoe’er the slaves of strife are found
  Let your grim offices be now arrested,
    Nor the hot rifle shoot another round,
        Nor the pale flarelights toss,
    But for a space all devilry be barred,
    While Mars hangs motionless in pleased regard
    And the hushed lines look West to Palace Yard,
  Where on his breast our KING has pinned the Cross.

  Oft in the Mess have we rehearsed that moment,
    In old French farms have staged the Royal Square,
  Or in cool caves by Germans made at Beaumont,
    Though there indeed we had no space to spare,
        So lifelike was it all,
    And when KING GEORGE (the Padre’s hard to beat
    In that great role), surrounded by his suite,
    Pinned on the cover of the potted meat,
  The very Hippodrome had seemed too small.

  Or we would act the homing of our Hector,
    Flushed up with pride beneath the ancestral fir,
  The cheering rustics and the sweet old Rector
    Welcoming back “our brave parishioner;”
        And since the lad was shy
    We made him get some simple phrases pat
    To thank them for the Presentation Bat,
    While Maud stood near (the Adjutant did that),
  So overcome that she could only sigh.

  Ah!  Bernard, say our pageants were not wasted,
    Not vain the Adjutant’s laborious blush! 
  Was it to Maud this glowing morn you hasted
    With yonder bauble in its bed of plush—­
        Or was it that Miss Blake? 
    Say not you faced, with ill-concealed dismay,
    Your thronging townsmen and had nought to say,
    Or from your KING stepped tremblingly away
  With someone else’s Order by mistake!

  Surely you shamed us not! for all that splendour
    Can scarce have been more moving to the heart
  Than our glad rites, the Princess not so tender
    As was myself, who always took that part;
        I cannot think the KING,
    Nor gorgeous Lords, nor Officers of State,
    Nor seedy people peering through the gate,
    Felt half so proud or so affectionate
  As those far friends when we arranged the thing.

  A.P.H.

* * * * *

DISCONCERTING NEWS FOR THE KAISER.

Woman to Vicar:  “Please Sir will you write to our George in France? ’is number is a ’undred and eleven million four thousand and six.”

* * * * *

“The inmates of buses have changed, too.  All classes travel side by side, the perspiring flower girl, with her heavy basket of roses, the charwoman clutching her morning purchase of fish, the daintily dressed lady going out to dinner, &c.”—­The Daily Chronicle.

A very early dinner, apparently; perhaps with the charwoman.