***

The axe is being laid to the roots of our trees by the so-called weaker sex; and the proper way of toasting the new woodwoman is to sing, “For she’s a jolly good feller.”

* * * * *

The great sacrifice.

  Dark lies the way before us, O my sweet! 
    Never again, until the final trumpet
  Shall sound the Cease-fire, may our glances meet
    Over the Sally Lunn or crisp brown crumpet;
  Never again (the prospect makes my soul,
    Unnerved by going beefless once a week, ache)
  Shall you and I absorb the jammy roll
      Nor yet the toasted tea-cake.

  Never for us shall any fancy bread—­
    The food of vernal Love, and very tasty—­
  On lip and cheek its subtle savour shed,
    Blent with the lighter forms of Gallic pasty;
  Never shall any bun, for you and me,
    Impart to amorous talk a fresh momentum,
  Except its saccharine ingredients be
      Confined to ten per centum.

  The days of decorative art are done
    That made the toothsome biscuit more enticing
  (Even our wedding-cake when we are one
    Will be denuded of its outer icing);
  Yea, purest joy of all that we resign,
    A ban is laid upon the luscious tartlet
  By him who has for your sweet tooth and mine
      No mercy in his heartlet.

  And yet, if England, in her night of need,
    Debauched by pastry-cook and muffin-monger,
  Would have us curb our natural gift of greed
    And merely mitigate the pangs of hunger,
  Let us renounce life’s sweetness from to-day,
    And turn, for Hobson’s choice, to something higher;
  “Good-bye, Criterion!” let us bravely say,
      And “Farewell, Rumpelmeyer!”

O.S.

* * * * *

A proper proportion.

(An Interview with Mr. H.G.  WELLS).

I found the Sage, as I had expected, in his study at Omniscience Lodge.  There he sat in his new suit of Britlings, surrounded by novels and stories in Ms. dealing with every aspect of human affairs, sixty of the more important being specifically devoted to the War and the various ways in which it might conceivably terminate.  I modestly approached and presented myself.

“You have come,” he said with a courteous gesture, “to discover my views on the present conflict?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Ah,” he said; “which is it, then?  You can take your choice, you know.  All you have to do is to select the subject,” and he handed me a volume resembling Kelly’s Directory in size and colour, and entitled “Classified Catalogue of Subjects on which Opinions can be furnished at the Shortest Notice.”  I turned the pages breathlessly until I came to “Class V, Voter; sub-class P, Proportional Representation.”  “There,” I said, “is what I want,” and I pointed the place out to him.