“The scene is laid in an undergraduate’s rooms.  Ernest Junior and James Junior are discovered in neglige attitudes and the conversation proceeds something like this:—­

“Ernest Junior. What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.?

“James Junior. I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives being so terribly restricted.

“Ernest Junior. Why restricted?

“James Junior. Well, I wouldn’t say this to anybody else, but to tell you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or Italy.  You see my dear old father was in these countries during the first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he’d never stop talking.  If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I should hardly get away before next term begins.

“He gets a little confused too at times.  He told me the other day a long story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself captured a large number of Turks on the Somme.

“And it isn’t only that.  My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know.  And when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she’d begin about Rouen and Etaples.”

I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all funny.  And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if only I’d thought of it first.

* * * * *

“CHAR-A"-VARIA.

    [The Manchester Daily Dispatch gives a most distressing
    account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more
    rampant week by week among char-a-bancs trippers.]

  The patrons of the charabang
  Employ the most outrageous slang
  And talk with an appalling twang. 
  Their manners ape the wild orang;
  They do not care a single hang
  For sober folk on foot who gang,
  But as they roll, with jolt and clang,
  For parasang on parasang,
  They cause a vulgar Sturm und Drang. 
  They never heard of Andrew Lang,
  Or even Mr. William Strang;
  They are, I say it with a pang,
  A most intolerable gang;
  In fact I wish them at Penang
  Or on the banks of Yang-tse-Kiang—­
  Some folk who use the charabang.

* * * * *

    “Wanted, a good, clean General, for private.”—­Provincial
    Paper.

Discipline is going to the dogs.

* * * * *

POINTS OF VIEW.