I interpose—­verbally.  “You’ll get everything stolen,” I say, “from your stall if you leave it.”

“I’ll leave you in charge.”

“I’m needed down my beat,” I reply, and stalk on instantly, leaving a sadly disillusioned man behind me.

I reach a queue outside a grocer’s shop.

“There now,” says a stout lady, “give ’er in charge.”

The queue all speak at once.

“She’s a ’oarder, she is.  Got ‘arf-a-pound o’ sugar already in ’er basket and only ’erself and ’er ’usband at ’ome, while I got five kids.”

A lady down the queue caps this with seven kids, and in the distance a lady in a fur cap claims ten, and is at once engaged by her neighbours in a bitter controversy as to whether three in France should count in sugar buying.

All the time the hoarder stands with nose in the air, the picture of lofty indifference.

Tact—­tact—­I remember the Inspector’s advice.

“Excuse me, Madam,” I say, “but in these times we all have to make sacrifices.  You already have sugar.  Some of your friends have none.  Under the circumstances—­”

Slowly the lady turns a withering eye on me.  “I’ll move nowhere no’ow for nobody.”

A lady in the background suggests that the female should be boiled in a sugar-sack.  A more humane person expresses the hope that she will be bombed that night.

“But, Madam, consider your friends,” I proceed.

“Don’t you call that lot my friends!  I’m ’ere fer a pound of marge, and get it I will if all the bloomin’ speshuls come ’oo ‘re doin’ reglar coppers outer jobs.”

Public opinion in the queue takes a sudden turn.  One lady remarks that these speshuls are that interfering.  Another alleges that she has no doubt I have sacks of sugar at home.

I remember the Inspector’s counsel about moving on, and move myself on.

There is one man in England who proclaims himself absolutely unfitted to fill the Food-Controller’s position.

I am that modest person.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Stage Manager."THE ELEPHANT’S PUTTING UP A VERY SPIRITED PERFORMANCE TO-NIGHT.”

Carpenter.  “YESSIR.  YOU SEE, THE NEW HIND-LEGS IS A DISCHARGED SOLDIER, AND THE FRONT LEGS is AN OUT-AND-OUT PACIFIST.”]

* * * * *

Broody.

    “WHIST DRIVE.—­A sitting of eggs was given by Mrs. ——­ for the
    lady or gentleman sitting the greatest number of times
    consecutively.”—­Worcester Daily Times.

* * * * *

    “In Captain ——­’s boat all the men survived, although full of
    water.”—­New Zealand Paper.

In the interests of temperance we protest against “although.”

* * * * *

    “RUSSIAN TROOPS MUTINY.

    Petrograd, Saturday.