I drift into a nightmare of Two Hundred elusive cabbages which I am endeavouring to plant in my new allotment, where a harsh fate forces me to dig and dig and DIG, and, as a natural consequence, also to ache and ache and ACHE.

PHASE II.

I can stand up with assistance from the bed-post and totter feebly to an arm-chair by the fire, where I sit in a dressing-gown and weep.  What for?  I couldn’t say, except that it seems a fit and proper thing to do.

I am still of opinion that I am not long for this world, and my favourite occupation at present is counting up the number of wreaths that I might justifiably expect to have sent to my funeral.  I don’t tell my nurse, who would immediately try to “cheer me up” by talking to me or giving me a magazine to look at.  And I would much rather count wreaths.  The Smiths probably would not be able to afford one....

My thoughts are distracted by the sudden apparition of a little meal.  I begin to take an interest in these little meals, which are of such frequent occurrence that I am reduced to tears again, this time at the thought of the extra expense I am causing.  And all for nothing.  Why don’t they save the money for wreaths?

The doctor comes while I am swallowing my egg, miserably yet with a certain gusto, and I dry my eyes hastily as I hear him bounding up the stairs.

“Hullo,” he calls out before he is well through the door, “how are we to-day, eh?  Beginning to sit up and take notice?  I think we’ll change your medicine.”

“I think,” I remark resignedly, “that it will be best for someone to dig a hole and bury me.”

“Jolly good idea,” he agrees heartily.  “In fact why not do it to all of us?  Please the Germans so too.  But it can’t be done, you know—­there’s a shortage of grave-diggers.”

Heartless brute!

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Regimental Sergeant-Major (to lady driver of motor ambulance).  “I SEE YOU’VE GOT STRIPES.  HAVE YOU GOT A SERGEANT-MAJOR?”

Corporal Maud Evans. “HAVE WE GOT A SERGEANT-MAJOR?  I SHOULD THINK WE HAVE—­THE CAT!”]

* * * * *

    “By fixing five potatoless days hope is entertained that supplies,
    which are scent, will be left to poor people who most require them.”—­
    Daily Chronicle.

This explains the remark of the Irishman who protested that it was weeks since he had tasted even “the smell of a potato.”

* * * * *

    “It will take years to cleanse the AEgean stables.”—­Civil and Military
    Gazette.

Still, M. VENEZELOS has made a good beginning with Samos, Lemnos and several other ’osses.

* * * * *

From the report of a prohibition meeting at Peebles:—­

    “A pleasant and most enjoyable addendum was a series of lantern slides
    depicting the havoc wrought by the Huns in Belgium.”—­Peebleshire
    Advertiser.