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    “Linen collars at 3s. 6d. each sounds incredible.”—­Daily News.

A bit stiff, no doubt.

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[Illustration:  A DOWNING STREET MELODRAMA.

THE PREMIER.  “COME ON IN, BONAR; I LOVE THESE FANCY BLOOD-CURDLERS.  BEST
TONIC IN THE WORLD.”]

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[Illustration:  Disgusted Parent. “NAH THEN, ’ORACE, SET ABAHT ’IM!  ANYONE CAN SEE THE ’ORSE ’AS LOST ALL RESPECT FOR YER.”]

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SPORTING GOLF.

(With the British Army in France.)

“I noticed the old sapper instinct asserting itself in Mac when he tried to tunnel out of that bunker at the seventh,” said Denny after tea in the golf club-house.  “He’d have found some opportunities on a really sporting course like ours at Villers-Vereux.  Remember Villers, Ponting?”

“It wasn’t a golf links as I remember it,” said Ponting grimly.

“Bless you, I’m not speaking of those far-away days.  I’m talking of a month or two back, when I was there with a Chinese Salvage Company trying to clear up the mess you made.  Beastly quiet it was, too.  The only excitement was a playful habit the Chink had contracted of picking up a rusty rifle and a salvaged clip of cartridges, pointing the gun anywhere and pulling the trigger to make it say Bang! I often found myself doin’ the old B.E.F. tummy-wriggle when the Chinois was really happy.

“One Sunday—­a non-working day—­when all was drab and dreary and existence seemed a double-blank, my orderly mentioned that he had discovered some old ‘golfing bats’ in one of the hutments.  Evidently they were the remains of the spoils of a lightning foray on the Base.  A further search revealed a couple of elliptical balls, quite good in places.  So I tipped my cub, Laxey, out of his bunk and we proceeded to resurrect our pre-war form.  By-and-by we got adventurous, and Laxey challenged me to play him a match after lunch for ten francs a side.  The details required some arranging, as there were no greens or holes, but eventually we decided on a cross-country stroke competition, starting from the hut-door and finishing at a crump hole, map ref.:  B 26c, 08,35.

“We tossed for clubs, and as I won I picked a driver and a hockey stick, leaving Laxey a brassie and a putter head tied to a whangee cane that gave it plenty of whip.  Laxey was spot, and broke with a ten-yard drive.  Then I teed up and drove with a good follow-through action that carried me round several circles before I could stop.

“I did better the next time, and made my ball rather sorry that it had been making fun of me.  Laxey had a bad lie and, though he lofted his ball with the putter (as I said, the whangee did give it ’whip’), he didn’t clear the hutments.  After he had cannoned off the roof of a ‘Nissen’ into the cook-house I took my turn, and to my disgust pulled into a trench that formed part of our old support line.