“Please do not send me a cake this term, or it will go to the Red Cross
    Soldiers.”

* * * * *

    “MANAGERESS wanted immediately, small Blouse Factory, Harrogate; able
    to cut out and control girls.”—­Harrogate Advertiser.

She will need to be careful.  A girl who has been cut out is apt to be uncontrollable.

* * * * *

HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.

(The German KAISER and a wounded Belgian Officer, a Prisoner.)

The Kaiser. So, then, you are still in arms against me, still persisting in your insane desire for battle and bloodshed?  Will nothing content you?  Must you compel us to continue in our enmity when by a word peace might be established between us, and Belgium might take her place at the side of Germany as a sister-nation striving with us to promote the cause of true civilisation?

The Belgian. It is useless, Sir, to say such things to any Belgian.

The Kaiser. Why useless?  Do you not wish that death and ruin and misery should cease?

The Belgian. Certainly we do.  No one more ardently than the Belgians, for it was not we who desired war or began the contest.  But when you talk of stopping we must remind you that it was by your deliberate choice that war was treacherously forced on us.  What could we do except defend ourselves against the dastardly blow that you aimed at our life?  And after that it was not by us that Louvain was destroyed, that old men and women and children were ruthlessly massacred.  Do you think such scenes can be wiped out of the memory of a nation, so that her men shall turn round and kiss the bloodstained hand that has tried to throttle them?  Surely you expect too much.

The Kaiser. You speak too freely.  Remember in whose presence you are.

The Belgian. There is not much fear that I shall forget.  I am in the presence of one who has desired at all costs to concentrate on himself the gaze of the world, caring nothing as to the means by which he accomplished his object.  This man, for he is, after all, only a poor human creature prone to anger, suspicion and foolish jealousy—­this man has always gone about arrogating to himself the attributes of a god, calling upon his own people to worship him, and on all other peoples to be humble before him.  Stung by his own restless vanity and the servile applause of those who are ever ready to prostrate themselves before an Emperor, he has rushed hither and thither seeking to make others the mere foils of his splendour and his wisdom, making mischief wherever he went and striving to irritate and depress his neighbours.  This man in peace was a bad neighbour, and in war a base and treacherous foe, sanctioning by his enthusiastic approval such deeds as the meanest villain would have contemplated with shame.

The Kaiser. This is too much.  I gave you leave to speak, but not to revile me.  You must not forget that you are in my power.