first few lines I was afraid that Mr. MASEFIELD had yielded to the temptation of delivering his speech in poetical prose of a faintly Biblical character, as thus:  “Friends, for a long time I did not know what to say to you in this my second speaking here.  I could fill a speech with thanks and praise—­thanks for the kindness and welcome which have met me up and down this land wherever I have gone, and praise for the great national effort which I have seen in so many places and felt everywhere.”  Mr. MASEFIELD however soon abandoned this manner and made the rest of his way in a good solid pedestrian style.  But he did not disdain to go so far in flattery of the Americans, his audience, as to use the word “gotten” for the past tense of the verb “to get.”

* * * * *

There can be few Irishmen who look at their England with such affectionate eyes as Lord DUNSANY. Tales of War (FISHER UNWIN) is full of this sweet theme.  The first of the tales is a fine story of the Daleswood men who, cut off from their supports and worried because there would be none left in their native village to carry on the Daleswood breed, were for sending out their youngest boy to surrender.  But, deciding that that wasn’t good Daleswood form, they (for their last hours, as they thought) fell to recalling the familiar beauties of their old home and to cutting in the Picardy chalk the roll of their names for remembrance.  You get it again, that calling-up of the home memories, when, in another marooned party, the Sargeant that was keeper begins with a vision of sausages and mashed and goes on to the birds and beasts and flowers and soft noises of English woods at night.  And in a half-dozen other sketches.  And it is good to find an Irishman and a poet to say things which stick on our embarrassed tongues.  Lord DUNSANY has a happy trick of compressing a great deal into a little space, and his vignettes, sketched in with a conscious art, should find a place on our shelves among the war records which our children are to read.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT.

War Profiteer.  “Stow that row, ’Orace.  ’Ow did I know yer wanted a toy?”]

* * * * *

    “When the wife of President Wilson was in London she spent
    hours shopping in Regent Street and other quaint sections of
    London.”—­Daily Gleaner.

Regent Street will be pleased.

* * * * *

“Captain Hayes, of the Olympic, in receiving a loving cut from Halifax citizens, described how the Olympic sank the U-boat 103, a few months ago.  The liner cut through the submarine without losing a single revolution of the propellers.”—­Australian Paper.

One good cut deserves another.

* * * * *

THE INFLUENZA-MASK.