“I’m just off to do it,” I said.

R.C.L.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  SCENE:  A lonely road somewhere in France.

Diminutive Warrior (suddenly confronted with ferocious specimen of the local fauna).  “LUMME!  IF IT AIN’T THE REGIMENTAL COAT-OF-ARMS COME TO LIFE!”]

* * * * *

    “The Wady Ghuzzeh, or river of Gaza, a stream-bed which makes no large
    assertion on the map.  But it ‘just divides the desert from the sewn.’”
    —­Sunday Paper.

Being, as you might say, a mere thread.

* * * * *

Extracts from an article entitled “London Sights:  An Australian’s Impressions":—­

“When all is over and we are back where the coyote cries ... when the Rockies are looking down at us from their snowy heights, and the night-time silence steals across the fir-bordered foothills....”—­Sunday Times.

Yet what is all this to the longing of the Canadian for the nightly howl of the kangaroo and the song of the wombat flitting among the blue-gums in his native bush?

* * * * *

According to a French philosopher mankind is divided into two categories, Les Huns et les autres.

* * * * *

“Sydney, January 2.

    Concurrently with the inauguration of the new time schedule at 2 a.m.
    on Monday a violent earth tremor was experienced at Orange.  An
    accompanying noise lasted about a half minute.”—­Brisbane Courier.

Another family quarrel between [Greek:  Kronos] and [Greek:  Ge].

* * * * *

“Petrograd, Wednesday,

The Council of Workmen’s Delegates has issued an appeal to the proletariat, which contains the following striking passage:  We shall defend our liberty to the utmost against all attacks within and without.  The Russian revolution will not quail before the bayca fwyaa, mfwyawayqawyqa.”—­Dublin Evening Mail.

If that won’t frighten it nothing will.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “YOU WOULDN’T THINK IT TO LOOK AT ’IM, BUT WHEN I SAYS ‘’ANDS UP,’ ’E ANSWERS BACK IN PUFFICK ENGLISH, ’STEADY ON WITH YER BLINKIN’ TOOTHPICK,’ ’E SEZ, ‘AND I’LL COME QUIET.’”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)