THE VERDICT OF DEMOCRACY.

  The nation’s memory, then, is not so short;
    It still recalls the fields we lately bled on;
  And when it had to choose the likeliest sort
    For clearing up the mess of Armageddon
      And making all things new,
  It chose the man whose courage saw it through.

  Hun-lovers, pledged to Peace (the German kind),
    And such as sported LENIN’S sanguine token,
  Appealed to Liberty to speak her mind,
    And Liberty has very frankly spoken,
      Strewing around her polls
  The remnants of their ungummed aureoles.

  In Amerongen there is grief to-day;
    I seem to hear the martyr of Potsdam say,
  “Alas for SNOWDEN, gone the downward way,
    And O my poor, my poor beloved RAMSAY;
      I much regret the rout
  That washed this couple absolutely out!”

  Dreadfully, too, the heart of TROTSKY bleeds,
    To match the stain upon his reeking sabre,
  Which is the blood of Russia, when he reads
    How BARNES, the champion knight of loyal Labour,
      Downed in the Lowland lists
  MACLEAN, the Red Hope of the Bolshevists.

  But here is jubilation in the air
    And matter made to build the jocund rhyme on,
  Though in our joyance some may fail to share,
    Like Mr. RUNCIMAN or Major SIMON,
      That hardened warrior, he
  Who won the Military O.B.E.

  Already dawns for us a golden age
    (Lo! with the loud “All Clear!” our paean mingles),
  An era when the OUTHWAITES cease to rage
    And there is respite from the prancing PRINGLES,
      And absence puts a curb
  On the reluctant lips of SAMUEL (HERB.).

  O.S.

* * * * *

HOW TO THROW OFF AN ARTICLE.

“Do you really write?” said Sylvia, gazing at me large-eyed with wonder.  I admitted as much.

“And do they print it just as you write it?”

“Well, their hired grammarians make a few trifling alterations to justify their existence.”

“And do they pay you quite a lot?”

“Sixpence a word.”

“Oo!  How wonderful!”

“But not for every word,” I added hastily, “only the really funny ones.”

“And they send it to you by cheques?”

“Rather.  I bought a couple of pairs of socks with the last story; even then I had something left over.”

“And how do you write the stories?”

“Oh, just get an idea and go right ahead.”

“How wonderful!  Do you just sit down and write it straight off?”

I just—­only just—­pulled myself up in time as I remembered that Sylvia was an enthusiast of twelve whose own efforts had already caused considerable comment in the literary circles described round the High School.  I felt this entitled her to some claim on my veracity.

“Sylvia,” I cried, “I shall have to make a confession.  All those stories you have been good enough to read and occasionally smile over are the result of a cold-blooded mechanical process—­and the help of a dictionary of synonyms.”