“‘If it doesn’t shake your nerve, skipper,’ said Laxey, ’I might mention that my score is 543.’

“‘You’d better give me the game, then,’ I answered.  ‘I’m but a modest 520.’

“’Not jolly likely.  You’ll take at least twenty to get out of that burrow.  Besides, I know Wilkins is rotten at figures, and I claim a recount.’

“An audit and scrutiny showed that we were both 537, and although Laxey held a distinct advantage in position I decided on a strenuous effort to halve the game.  I took a firm stance and the hockey stick and let drive for the hole with a tremendous pickaxe stroke.  Instantly there was a blinding flash and an explosion, and, when we had finished picking sand out of our ears and eyes and allayed the excitement of the Chinks, we discovered my ball comfortably nestling in the crump-hole.

“‘If assistance with derelict Mills bombs is allowed,’ said Laxey, ’we’ve halved.’

“‘On the contrary,’ I replied, ’as your ball is apparently missing I’ve won.’

“And, if you believe me, we couldn’t find Laxey’s ball anywhere, though we had seen it but a minute or two before.  So I claimed the ten francs; but I didn’t mention to Laxey that the following morning I was passing a group of the coolies and saw them with an object that looked suspiciously like Laxey’s ball, hammering it with a stick and trying to make it say Bang!”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Constable (to dreamy little foreigner).  “I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE BORN, TICH, BUT I’LL GIVE ODDS YOU’LL DIE IN ENGLAND.”]

* * * * *

    “Wanted, Second Housemaid of three, Scotchwoman preferred; willing to
    wait on table if required; comfortable situation.”—­Daily Paper.

Possibly; but we always prefer our servants to do their waiting on the floor.

* * * * *

HOME THOUGHTS FROM HIND.

1920.

  Back in the years of youth, a thoughtless thruster,
    I did adventure to the East and spurn
  My native land, and foolishly entrust her
    To other guardians pending my return;
  And now time bears me to the second lustre,
    And I am old and weary and I burn
  To freshen memories waxing somewhat vague;
  But men say, “Shun old England like the plague.”

  Lord knoweth Hind is not a place of pleasure
    Nor such a land as men forsake with tears;
  Lord knoweth how we venerate and treasure
    The English memory down the Indian years;
  Yet now the mail pours forth in flowing measure
    England’s un-Englishness, and in our ears
  Echo the words of men returned from leave,
  Describing Englands one can scarce believe.