At any rate I am sure that it is the only way in which to post a letter to Father Christmas.

Well, what I want to say is this:  if I have been a bad correspondent in the past I am a good one now; and Celia, who was always a good one, is a better one.  It takes at least ten letters a day to satisfy us, and we prefer to catch ten different posts.  With the ten in your hand together there is always a temptation to waste them in one wild rush of flipperties, all catching each other up.  It would be a great moment, but I do not think we can afford it yet; we must wait until we get even more practised at letter-writing.  And even then I am doubtful; for it might be that, lost in the confusion of that one wild rush, the magic letter would start on its way—­flipperty-flipperty—­to the never-land, and we should forever have missed it.

So, friends, acquaintances, yes, and even strangers.  I beg you now to give me another chance.  I will answer your letters, how gladly.  I still think that NAPOLEON (or CANUTE or the younger PLINY—­one of the pre-Raphaelites) took a perfectly correct view of his correspondence ... but then he Never had a letter-box which went

Flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flip
perty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty—­FLOP.

A.A.M.

* * * * *

THE H.D.  AND Q. DEPARTMENT.

    “Major-General F.G.  Bond is gazetted Director of Quartering at the
    War Office.”

Pacifists beware!

* * * * *

    “DIRTY WORK AT DOWNING STREET.  BY HORATIO BOTTOMLEY.”

    John Bull.

They shouldn’t have let him in.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Officer. “WHY WERE YOU NOT AT ROLL-CALL LAST NIGHT?”

Defaulter. “WELL, SIR, WITH THIS ’ERE CAMP CAMOUFLAGED SO MUCH, I COULDN’T FIND MY WAY OUT OF THE CANTEEN.”]

COUNTER TACTICS.

About a year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher with the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide over the remaining months of winter.  After the preliminary discussion of atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle of garments was spread about for my inspection.  I viewed it dispassionately.  Then, discarding the little vesties of warm-blooded youth and the double-width vestums of rheumatic old age, I chose several commonplace woollen affairs and was preparing to leave when my hosier and haberdasher leaned across the counter and whispered in my ear.

“If I may advise you, Sir, you would be wise to make a large selection of these articles.  We do not expect to replace them.”