I thanked Mr. WELLS for his courtesy and staggered dizzily back to Bouverie Street.

* * * * *

On “How to Dig,” from a recently-published military manual:—­

“To dig well one must dig often.  Any series of complex co-ordinated movements can be performed with the greatest economy of effort only when they have become semi-reflex; and for this to happen the correlated series of nervous impulses must be linked up by higher development of the brain cells.”

A spade is useful, too.

* * * * *

    “I did not hear yesterday of the insufficiency of bread supplied at
    Restaurants being made up by cakes and guns brought from home.”—­Irish
    Paper.

We have heard, however, of an insufficiency of alcoholic refreshment being made up by a “pocket-pistol.”

* * * * *

“After all, the custom of marrying only into Royal houses came to us from Germany, and dates from the Hanoverians....  The case of Henry VIII. is well known.  Four of his wives were plain Englishwomen....”—­ Sunday Herald.

Not so plain, however, as the German one, ANNE OF CLEVES.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  CANNON-FODDER—­AND AFTER.

KAISER (to 1917 Recruit).  “AND DON’T FORGET THAT YOUR KAISER WILL FIND A
USE FOR YOU—­ALIVE OR DEAD.”

[At the enemy’s “Establishment for the Utilisation of Corpses” the dead bodies of German soldiers are treated chemically, the chief commercial products being lubricant oils and pigs’ food.]]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Aunt. “THIS IS A TERRIBLE WAR.  ALL OF US MUST GO WITHOUT SOMETHING.”

R.F.C.  Officer. “WELL, I TRY TO BE BRAVE ABOUT IT, AUNT.  BUT THIS ZEPPELIN SHORTAGE HITS ME VERY HARD.”]

* * * * *

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

I.

Lewis Gun Officer.—...  So let me repeat and impress upon you, men, that the rifle is an effete weapon—­extinct as the—­what-you-call-it bird.  It played its part, a good part, in the South African War, but we who observed what the machine gun did then and foretold its immense development [he was just nine years old at that time] knew that the rifle would soon be in the museums along with the bows and arrows.  Pay attention, Private Jones.  The Lewis Gun, the weapon of opportunity, is a platoon in itself. I don’t know what the Government want to worry about men for.  The Germans don’t fill up their front trenches with a lot of soldiers to be killed with shrapnel.  No, a machine gun every twenty or thirty yards is quite enough to hold any defensive line.  So just bear these things in mind; and don’t forget what we have learnt to-day.  All right.  Nine o’clock to-morrow.