* * * * *

A School for statesmen.

[The Hamburger Fremdenblatt, in an article on our Ambassador at Petrograd, ascribes his success as a diplomat to his passion for golf—­ “if one can speak of passion in connection with this cold game of meadow billiards.”  “The conditions,” it goes on to say, “in which this rather tiresome game is played do really produce the qualities necessary for any statesmanlike or diplomatic work....  Silent, tough, resigned, unbroken ... the good golfer walks round his field, keeps his eye on the ball and steers for his goal....  Sir George Buchanan walked round the whole golf field of Europe for years until at last he was able in Petrograd to hurl the ball into the goal.”]

  Oft have I wondered as my weapon’s edge
    Disintegrated solid chunks of greenery,
  Or as my pillule flew the bounding hedge
    Into outlying sections of the scenery,
      What moral value might accrue
      From billiards played beneath the blue.

  Little I fancied when I topped the sphere
    And on its candour left a coarse impression,
  Or in the bed of some revolting mere
    Mislaid three virgin globes in swift succession,
      That I was learning how to grip
      The rudiments of statesmanship.

  Yet so it was.  I schooled myself to gaze
    Upon the object with a firmly glued eye,
  And, though I moved by strange and devious ways,
    To keep in view the goal, or finis ludi,
      And ever let my language be
      The language of diplomacy.

  Thus Balfour learned the politician’s game,
    And thus Lloyd George was trained to be a Premier;
  Thence many a leader who has leapt to fame
    Got self-control, grew harder, tougher, phlegmier,
      Reared in the virtues which prevail
      At Walton Heath and Sunningdale.

  Golf being then the source of so much good,
    I own my conscience suffers certain wrenches
  Recalling how the links of Chorley Wood
    Have seen me on the Sabbath carving trenches,
      Where Tommies might be taught to pitch
      The deadly bomb from ditch to ditch.

  For I reflect that my intruding spade,
    That blocked the foursome and debarred the single,
  May well have cheeked some statesman yet unmade,
    Some budding Hogge, some mute inglorious Pringle;
      And that is why my shovel shrinks
      From excavating other links.

O.S.

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“In reply to your valued inquiry, we enclose illustration of Dining Tables of Oak seating fourteen people with round legs and twelve people with square legs, with prices attached.  Hoping to have your order.”—­ The Huntly Express.

Mr. Punch is now engaged upon an exhaustive examination of the extremities of his staff before deciding whether to replace his existing Round Table.