The little ape from Punt sits there beside
    TAHUTMES and HATSHEPSU on their throne,
  Dissembling courteously his inward pride
    When the great men of Egypt, one by one,
  Their oiled and shaven heads before him bend,
  And thinking, “I was born unto this end;
    I am the King they honour.  It is well.”

* * * * *

THE CLINCHOPHONE.

    ["WANTED.—­Loud gramophone (second-hand) for reprisals.”—­Advt.
    in “The Times."]

It is just to meet such pressing demands as this that the Gramophobia Company have introduced their remarkable instrument or weapon, described as The Clinchophone.  No home is complete without it.

It is supplied with little oil bath, B.S.A. fittings and kick start.

A child can set it in motion, but nothing on earth will stop it until its object is achieved and there is peace with honour.

Installed in a neighbourhood bristling with pianos, amateur singers, gramophones, and other grind boxes it saves its cost in doctors’ bills.

It is fatal at fifty yards, and there has been nothing like it since the “Tanks.”  It can do almost everything except stop before its time.

Read the following testimonials:—­

“GENTLEMEN,—­While the grand piano next door was playing last evening I pressed the button of The Clinchophone.  The piano immediately sat back on its haunches, gibbered and then fell on the player.”

    “DEAR SIR,—­At the first trial of my new Clinchophone my
    neighbour’s gramophone rushed out of the house and has not been
    heard of since.”

“SAVED” says:  “Last night the basso profondo two doors away started singing, ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.’  He sang two bars and then crawled round to my house on his hands and knees and collapsed on the doorstep with the word ‘Kamerad!’ on his lips.”

* * * * *

OUR STYLISTS.

    “The look from his eyes, the ashen colour of his face, the passion
    in his voice, mute though it was, frightened and bewildered
    her.”—­Story in “Home Notes."

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “DEARIE ME, NOW, I SHOULDN’T HA’ THOUGHT THEY GIVES YOU ENOUGH MONEY IN THE ARMY TO FILL ALL THEM THERE LITTLE PURSES.”]

* * * * *

PATROLS.

The Scout Officer soliloquises:—­

  The lights begin to leap along the lines,
    Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out;
  A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines;
    I wish to Heaven that I was not a Scout!

  Time was (in Dorsetshire) I loved the trade;
    Far other is this battle in the waste,
  Wherein, each night, though not of course afraid,
    I wriggle round with ill-concealed distaste,