And so, precariously, the matter rested till to-day, when the final blow fell from the War Office.  Herbert and I are to proceed to France together next Monday.  On that day, if I am ingenious and agile enough not to meet him before, we ought to be about all square; after that, as far as I can see, there will be an inevitable moment when Herbert will turn to me with, “I say, old fellow, you can’t let me have that ten bob you touched me for the other day, can you?  Hate to ask you, but I haven’t got a sou ...”  But I won’t—­no, I won’t.  I will let my imaginary debt mount up, I will let it increase even at the rate at which Herbert’s has decreased, but I will not pay it.  Herbert, of course, will always be kind to me about it, for he is a generous creature; and every time we go into action he will probably wring my hand and beg me not to worry about it any more.

“Old man,” he will be saying on the twenty-ninth occasion, “if I got done in, promise you won’t bother about that thousand pounds you owe me—­remember you’re to think of it as paid.”

I shall remember all right.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  N.C.O. “HERE!  JUST GRAB THE OOJAH AN’ DASH ROUND TO THE TIDDLEY-OM-POM FOR SOME UMPTY-POO!”

Private (ex-professor of languages) learns later that he was expected to fetch a bucket of coke from the stores.]

* * * * *

    “In a corn and meal merchant’s shop, where two or three cats are kept
    for business purposes, the cats may be seen feeding at will from the
    open sacks.”—­Spectator.

This lapse on pussy’s part goes rather against the grain.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Barber.  “MUCH OFF, SIR?”

War Economist.  “DURATION OF WAR.”]

* * * * *

POLITICAL NOTES.

BY OUR OWN PAIR OF LYNX.

There is unfortunately no truth in the rumour that, in order to provide billets for 5,000 new typists, and incidentally to win the War, the Government has commandeered the Houses of Parliament.

* * * * *

The problem of the housing of the traveller-classes when all the hotels of London have been taken over by the Government is now occupying both the waking and sleeping hours (such as they are) of the War Cabinet, and a special department of the Intelligence Department has been created to deal with it on the roof of No. 10 Downing Street.  It has not yet been decided whether all visitors to London should be sent back as soon as they arrive, or whether Sir JOSEPH LYONS should reap the sole benefit of their sojourn.

* * * * *

Although the proprietors of the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, Ealing, and the Grand Hotel Riche, Mile End, have offered the Government their premises, on the most advantageous terms to themselves, no arrangement has yet been effected.