M’amie, would you like to hear the simply odious storyette of Somebody’s Cousin?  Well, so you shall.  Somebody is by way of being an intimate foe of mine, and Somebody’s Cousin has long been a thorn in the flesh and a shaking of the head to his people.  Before the War he belonged to the League for Taking Everything Lying Down, the Fellowship for Preventing People from Standing up against Foreign Aggression, and the Brotherhood for Giving up All Our Advantages to Aliens.  He was of military age, and when war came, after giving vent to some completely detestable sentiments, he crossed to the U.S. and naturalised himself there, constantly attacking the country that was unlucky enough to produce him.

[Illustration:  Recruit.  “EXCUSE ME, SIR, I FEEL GREATLY EXHAUSTED BY THIS EXERCISE.”

Instructor.  “DO YOU, DEARIE?  WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY AT?  KISS-IN-THE-RING?”]

When the U.S. came in, he shed his citizenship in a hurry, fled to South America, and naturalised himself in a republic that had sworn by all its gods to keep out of the War a tout prix.  This republic, however, changed its mind later and followed its big northern brother into the War, et voila!  Somebody’s Cousin was at a loose end again.  He afterwards naturalised himself in half-a-dozen small far-away nations that all finally came in, and then, cherie, he drifted down to the islands of the South Pacific (the favourite ocean of his sort!) and had himself made an Ollyoola. (The Ollyoolas are a tribe that has never in all its past history been known to go to war).  He was made an Ollyoola with all the native rites, dancing and shrieking and so on, and he wore the correct Ollyoola dress (a few shells and his hair trained on sticks to stand straight up).

And now comes the point of this storyette:  Only a few weeks after Somebody’s Cousin had become a full-blooded Ollyoola (I think that’s the proper phrase), the Ollyoolas suddenly fell out with the Patti-Tattis (on the next island) and went to war, for absolutely the first time, with a ferocity, my Daphne, that seems to have been saving up through all their centuries of peacefulness!

Nothing’s been heard since of Somebody’s Cousin!

  Ever thine,
  BLANCHE.

* * * * *

    “AIRMEN’S ORDEAL IN THE NORTH SEA.

    FIVE DAYS ON A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE.”

    Continental Daily Mail.

Rather a precarious perch.

* * * * *

    “‘GIB.’  SHELLS FALL IN MOROCCO.

MADRID.—­Near Algeciras 20 shells fell from the batteries of Gibraltar.  There were no victims, and no damage was caused.  The authorities at Gibraltar have given satisfactory explanations.”—­Evening Paper.

Still, we should like to know the nature of the explosive that blew Algeciras across the Straits.