* * * * *

    “To all anonymous correspondents who have recently written to me I have
    the honour to reply that they are all blackguards.”—­Advt. in
    Ceylon Paper.

Though we ourselves should have waived this honour we are in full sympathy with the writer.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “OH!  DO WEAR YOUR KHAKI TIE, DAD, OR ELSE NO ONE WILL KNOW YOU’RE A SOLDIER.”]

* * * * *

TRAVEL WITHOUT TRAINS.

    (Suggested by some recent remarks in “The Observer” on eccentric place
    names.)

  Now that the rise in railway fares
    (At which no patriot cavils)
  Has chained us elders to our chairs
    And circumscribed our travels,
  I love to play the festive game
    Of astral gravitation
  To any neighbourhood whose name
    Is fraught with fascination.

  I’ve never sampled in the flesh
    The varied charms of Bootle,
  But mentally I find them fresh
    And redolent of footle;
  And, though my steps to that resort
    I never up till now bent,
  Imagination can transport
    My spirit into Chowbent.

  Always alert upon the track
    Of rich and strange emotion,
  To Pudsey and to Wibsey Slack
    I pay my fond devotion;
  My heart is in the Highlands oft,
    Though age its glow enfeebles,
  And soars triumphantly aloft
    At the mere sound of Peebles.

  The nightingale in leafy June,
    I own, divinely warbles,
  But equal magic fills the tune-
    ful name of Scotia’s Gorbals;
  And if you ever should desire
    A subject to wax funny on,
  What theme more fitly can inspire
    The Muse than Ballybunnion?

  Some places on my astral rounds
    I’m strong upon tabooing,
  On anti-alcoholic grounds
    Grogport and Rum eschewing;
  But no such painful stigma robs
    Proud Potto of its lustre,
  Or rules out Crank and Smeeth and Stobs,
    A memorable cluster.

  The pictures rising in my brain
    Are strange; sometimes I muddle ’em,
  Confounding Pleck with Plodder Lane,
    Titley with Tillietudlem;
  In short, it’s not a game of skill,
    Else I should scarce essay at;
  But it is harmless, costs me nil;
    And nobody need play it.

  The plan is simple; choose a spot,
    Then focus with decision
  Your thoughts upon it till you’ve got
    A clear-cut mental vision;
  And though from fact it widely errs,
    Remember in conclusion
  Only the man of prose prefers
    Eyewitness to illusion.

* * * * *

FROM THE BACK OF THE FRONT.

Extract from a soldier’s letter:—­

    “DEAR MOTHER,—­I am thoroughly run down, and have grown so thin that
    when I get a pain in my middle I cannot tell whether it is a backache
    or a stomachache.”