* * * * *

From “German Official":—­

    “With the use of numerous tanks and aeroplanes, flying at a low
    altitude, the English infantry soon after advanced to the attack
    on this front.”—­Evening Paper.

Now that the enemy has given away the secret of our new weapon the CENSOR might let us know more of our flying Tanks.

* * * * *

    “Prisoner then seized her round the throat with both hands and
    hit her on the head with a steel case-opener.”—­Daily Paper.

Which, presumably, he carried in his teeth.

* * * * *

THE SUNFLOWER.

“Have you,” said Francesca, “seen our sunflowers lately?”

“Yes,” I said, “I’ve kept an eye on them occasionally.  It’s a bit difficult, by the way, not to see them, isn’t it?”

“Well,” she said, “perhaps they are rather striking.”

“Striking!” I said.  “I never heard a more inadequate word.  I call them simply overwhelming—­the steam-rollers of the vegetable world.  Look at their great yellow open faces.”

“I never,” said Francesca, “saw a steam-roller with a face.  You’re mixing your metaphors.”

“And,” I said, “I shall go on mixing them as long as you grow sunflowers.  It’s the very least a man can do by way of protest.”

“I don’t know why you should want to protest.  The seed makes very good chicken-food.”

“Yes, I know,” I said, “that’s what you always said.”

“And I bet,” she said, “you’ve repeated it.  When you’ve met the tame Generals and Colonels at your club, and they’ve boasted to you about their potatoes, I know you’ve countered them with the story of how you’ve turned the whole of your lawn into a bed of sunflowers calculated to drive the most obstinate hen into laying two eggs a day, rain or shine.”

“I admit,” I said, “that I may have mentioned the matter casually, but I never thought the things were going to be like this.  When I first knew them and talked about them they were tender little shoots of green just modestly showing above the ground, and now they’re a forest primeval.  The murmuring pines and the hemlock aren’t in it with this impenetrable jungle liberally blotched with yellow, this so-called sunflower patch.”

“What would you call it,” she said, “if you didn’t call it sunflower?”

“I should call it a beast of prey,” I said.  “A sunflower seems to me to be more like a tiger than anything else.”

“It was a steam-roller about a minute ago.”

“Yes,” I said, “it was—­a tigerish steam-roller.”

“How interesting,” she said.  “I have not met one quite like that.”

“That,” I said, “is because your eye isn’t properly poetical.  It’s blocked with chicken-food and other utilitarian objects.”

“I must,” she said, “consult an oculist.  Perhaps he will give me glasses which will unblock my eye and make me see tigers in the garden.”