Jones minimus couldn’t get over it.  To think that Jimmy’s bloodhound had actually made up the War Loan to 15s. 6d., and caught a German spy at the same time, with nothing more to work with than a pig!  Of course Jimmy knew how old Faithful had done it, but then he knew what a really prize bloodhound is capable of.  It was the simultaneous equations, of course.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Newcomer (to veteran sanitary orderly).  “ARE YOU THE REG’LAR GARD’NER, OR JUST IN FOR THE DAY?”]

* * * * *

    “Scheinboden, who is very well known as a partisan of the
    ‘Mailed Fish.’”—­Manchester Evening News.

The very man for a submarine campaign.

* * * * *

“The main goal for which our troops went was the Oppy switch line, a hastily constructed main goal for which our troops went was the Oppy switch line, a hastily constructed trench system by which the Germans have extended their Hindenburg line northwards.”—­Sunday Paper.

Some of our contemporary’s own lines seem also to have been rather hastily constructed.

* * * * *

NATIONAL SERVICE;

OR, THE SINGLE EYE.

  Good Jones, who saw his duty plain,
  Resolved he would not live in vain;
  He bought some land and made a start,
  He gave up literature and art,
  He studied books on what to grow,
  He studied Mr. PROTHERO;
  He worked from early dawn till ten,
  Then went to town like other men,
  And in his office he would stand
  Expatiating on the land. 
  Prom five again he worked till eight,
  Although it made his dinner late;
  He could not tear himself away,
  He could not leave his native clay. 
  At last, his energy all spent,
  He put his tools away and went,
  Took off his suit of muddy tan,
  Became a clean and cultured man,
  And settled firmly down to dine. 
  On fish and fowl and meat and wine
  And bread as much as he might need;
  And while he dined he used to read
  What PROTHERO had said last night,
  And felt that he was doing right. 
  He didn’t notice food was short;
  He quite forgot Lord DEVONPORT.

* * * * *

THE TWO CONSTABLES.

It happened one evening when my wife was staying away with her mother, in the dark months of last winter, when we were without servants, and I was glad to have received an invitation from my neighbour Jones to dinner.

He and his wife welcomed me warmly, and their rather unintelligent maid had just brought in the saddle of mutton—­a great weakness of mine—­when we heard a firm knock on the hall door.  She returned to say that someone wanted to speak to Mr. Brown immediately.  “Who is it?” I demanded.  “I don’t know, Sir,” said the girl, “but he looks like a policeman.”