We record with deep regret the death from pneumonia of Captain Harry Neville Gittins, R.G.A., on Active Service.  He was a member of the Territorials before the outbreak of war, and, after serving two years at home, went out to France in August of last year.  His light-hearted contributions to Punch will be greatly missed.

* * * * *

The Hohenzollern Prospect.

Reflections of the Heir-apparent.

  When I’ve surveyed with half-shut eyes,
    Over the winking Champagne wine,
  What I shall do when Father dies
    And hands me down his right divine,
  Often I’ve said that, when in God’s
    Good time he goes, I mean to show ’em
  How scorpions sting in place of rods,
    Taking my cue from Rehoboam.

  But now with Liberty on the loose,
    And All the Russias capped in red,
  And Demos hustling like the deuce,
    And Tsardom’s day as good as dead—­
  When on the Dynasty they dance
    And with the Imperial Orb play hockey,
  I feel that little WILLIE’S chance
    Looks, at the moment, rather rocky.

  Not that the Teuton’s stolid wits
    Are built to plan so rude a plot;
  Somehow I cannot picture Fritz
    Careering as a sansculotte;
  Schooled to obedience, hand and heart,
    I can imagine nothing odder
  Than such behaviour on the part
    Of inoffensive cannon fodder.

  And yet one never really knows. 
    You cannot feed his massive trunk
  On fairy tales of beaten foes
    Or HINDENBURG’S “victorious” bunk;
  And if his rations run too short
    Through this accursed British blockade
  Even the worm may turn and sport
    A revolutionary cockade.

  Well, at the worst, I have my loot;
    And if, in search of healthier air,
  We Hohenzollerns do a scoot,
    There’s wine and women everywhere;
  And, for myself, I frankly own
    A taste for privacy; I should rather
  Not face the high light on a throne—­
    But O my poor, my poor old Father!

O.S.

* * * * *

The Mud larks.

The French are a great people; the more I see of them the more I admire them, and I have been seeing a lot of them lately.

I seem to have spent the last week eating six-course dinners in cellars with grizzled sky-blue colonels, endeavouring to reply to their charming compliments in a mixture of Gaelic and Cornelius Nepos.  I myself had no intention of babbling these jargons; it is the fault of my tongue, which takes charge on these occasions, and seems to be under the impression that, when it is talking to a foreigner, any foreign language will do.