Colonel Commanding the Battalion (just arrived on scene).  No water!  Well, of course there isn’t!  Hasn’t the War Office ordered it to be turned off at night, spite of my protests?  Tell the Fire-Brigade men to get water wherever they can!

    [Water eventually got in roads several hundred yards from
    burning building.

Non-Com.  Officer (directing two soldiers, who have gallantly rescued a couple of children that have been burning and suffocating under roof).  Yes, take ’em off to the hospital!  Poor little creatures—­not much hope for them, I’m afraid! (To Colonel.) A bad business, Sir!

Colonel.  Would have been worse if the men hadn’t behaved so well, and turned themselves into amateur firemen.  No thanks to the War Office that there aren’t twenty-two deaths, instead of two.  Why, only six months ago, I warned ’em that the place was “unfit for human habitation,” and a regular death-trap in case of fire, with only one narrow wooden staircase to the whole block.  I wrote that, “if a fire occurred at night, there must be many deaths.”  Yet nothing has been done.

Non-Com.  Officer.  Shocking!  There’s a talk that the place had been condemned by the War Office.

Colonel.  Condemned, but not pulled down!  I wonder who’ll be condemned at the Inquest.  Shouldn’t be surprised if it were the War-Office Authorities themselves!

    [And so they have been—­and quite right too.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  GENERAL PUNCH’S IMPROVED MAGAZINE RIFLE.

1.  A Hatchet (to pull out and fix inside); 2.  A Spear (ditto); 3,4,5.  Compartments with handles, to be used as Portmanteau; 6.  Shirt Collars and Evening Tie; 7.  A Pipe; 8.  Tobacco; 9.  Cigarette Case; 10.  Sandwich Case, Potted Meats, Biscuits, &c.; 11.  A Self Air-Loading Bullet Mechanism; 12.  Gladstone Bag; 13.  Portable Bath and Hammock; 14.  Cooking Stove; 15.  Cooking Utensils; 16.  A Telescope; 17.  A Walking Stick; 18.  An Umbrella; 19.  A Billiard Cue; 20.  A Scent Bottle.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE PARLIAMENTARY MEET IN A NOVEMBER FOG.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE COUNTRY HOUSE.

(WHAT OUR ARCHITECT HAS TO PUT UP WITH.)

Fair Client.  “I WANT IT TO BE NICE AND BARONIAL, QUEEN ANNE AND ELIZABETHAN, AND ALL THAT; KIND OF QUAINT AND NUREMBERGY, YOU KNOW—­REGULAR OLD ENGLISH, WITH FRENCH WINDOWS OPENING TO THE LAWN, AND VENETIAN BLINDS, AND SORT OF SWISS BALCONIES, AND A LOGGIA.  BUT I’M SURE YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”]

* * * * *

THE MODERN HERO;

OR, HOW TO DISCOURAGE CRIME.