After twenty minutes of battle the Colonel’s area becomes positively draughty, and the sole survivors of his dashing but sanguinary counter-attack, the king and two pawns, have assumed the bored and callous air of a remnant that has fought too long and is called upon to fight again.  The Colonel has just unceremoniously pushed his sovereign to the rear with a flick of his nervous irritated little finger.  His opponent can obviously bring him to his knees in two moves.  Instead of which the Adjutant brazenly commences with massed bands and colours flying to execute a masterly tactical advance with the whole of his command—­cavalry, infantry, church and tanks, in order to achieve the destruction of the two bantam bodyguards.

This is not playing the game, and the Colonel fumes inwardly and frets outwardly.  In the intervals of pressing down the unlit tobacco in his pipe with an oscillating thumb, he alternately pokes his king out of the corner and pulls it back again; while his transparent impulse is to scrap the board, wreck the ante-room and run amok.  The Adjutant continues his innocent amusement until at last the pleasure wanes.  The two heroic pawns are carried decently off, and he apologetically whispers his suspicions of a checkmate to his commanding officer.

The Colonel brushes aside the Mess President’s tinder-lighter, shatters the mute triumph of the serried black ranks of the hostile forces with one superb elevation of the eyebrows, smashes three matches in quick succession, and proves that all the time his mind has been preoccupied with weightier matters by saying after the manner of all true War Lords, “Umph.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Tube Conductor.  “PASS FURTHER DOWN THE CAR, PLEASE!  PASS FURTHER DOWN THE CAR, PLEASE!! (In desperation) ANY LADY OR GENTLEMAN PRESENT KNOW THE GERMAN FOR ’PASS FURTHER DOWN THE CAR’?”]

* * * * *

Sweetness and Light.

  O MATTHEW ARNOLD! you were right: 
  We need more Sweetness and more Light;
  For till we break the brutal foe
  Our sugar’s short, our lights are low.

* * * * *

A LUCID EXPLANATION.

It was my task to collect from their relatives particulars as to the whereabouts of the wounded of our neighbourhood, for the purposes of our local report.  It wanted five minutes to twelve, the sacred dinner-hour of the British artisan, and one name remained upon my list, against which was a pencilled note, “Reported returning home.”  Did that mean that he was disabled?  And should I manage to gather the necessary information before the clock struck?

I knocked at the door, which was opened by a woman wearing a canvas apron with a very tight string, her head surmounted by hair-curlers and a cloth cap.

“Yes, thanking you kindly,” she replied in answer to my question, “me son ’as been wounded.  ’Eard of it from the War Office.  This war’s a shocking business.”