Too soon the Staff, to spoil our tiny slumbers,
Or, as they said, to certify our skill,
Sent us a screed, all signs and magic numbers,
And what it signified is mystery still. 
We flung them back a message yet more mazy
To say we weren’t unravelling their own,
And marked it urgent, and designed
That it should reach them while they dined. 
All night they toiled, till half the crowd were crazy
And bade us breathe its burthen o’er the ’phone.
* * * * *
But now they want it back—­and it is missing!
And shall one patriot heart withhold a throb? 
For four high officers have been here, hissing,
And plainly panicky about their job. 
I know they think some dark, deluded bandit
Has gone and given it to KAISER BILL. 
But though I’m grieved the General’s cross,
I have no qualms about the loss—­
If clever men like us can’t understand it,
I don’t suppose the Wilhelmstrasse will!

A. P. H.

* * * * *

SPREAD OF THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT.

    “I, J.A.H.  De la Bere, of Woolsevy Rectory, Morchard Bishop,
    Devon, desire to Alter my Surname to De la Fontaine.”—­Times.

* * * * *

    “WANTED

    “end August in Swiss family (2 persons) living in villa near
    Lausanne

    “NURSERY’S MAID

    “able to saw, iron attend at table and take entire care of
    healthy baby 19 months old Good English accent serious
    references.” La Tribune de Lausanne.

We are glad to hear that the baby has a good English accent; he will be able to employ it with effect when the Nursery’s Maid begins to saw and iron him.

* * * * *

“In the cases in which the surgeon his obliged to vast empty a bone so that offers then itself difficulties therapeuticals not little because of pus and consequenty becauses of impossibility of transplantations, plastics, plombages ecc., the A. propose to go on the bone with specials inesions, not on the surface when the bone is most superficial, but from the surface in which are aboundings and easily cessible wet tissue, removing the margin of the bone’s cavity and mathing in mode as, by cause of repaidis process, this tissue by hemselves adhere to a ground of cavity and full it.”—­La Clinica Chirurgica.

That makes it perfectly clear.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  AVANTI, SAVOIA!]

* * * * *

A DAUGHTER OF THE BACK STEPPES.

(Russia may not yet be quite sufficiently herself to be the martial ally that we could desire, but she still continues to send us the most delightful fiction.  Mr. PUNCH is privileged in being able to offer his readers the opening of a new and fascinating story translated from the Russian of Ghastlilkoff.)