By the way, whilst we are on the subject, who is this MILLS?  The illustrated papers have shown us THE MAN WHO WON THE WAR, the thousand-and-one sole and only inventors of Tinribs the Tank; their prattle-pages are crammed daily with portraits of war-worn flag-sellers, heroic O.B.E.’s, and so on; but what of our other benefactors, the names of whom are far more familiar to the average Atkins than are those of the Twelve Apostles or his own Generals?  I confess, to a great desire to behold the features of Mr. MILLS, the bombster (I picture him a benevolent-looking old gentleman with a flowing white beard), Mr. STOKES of the gun, Mrs. AYRTON of the gas-fan, and Messrs. ARMSTRONG and NISSEN, the hutters.  Can no enterprising picture-paper supply the want?

But to return to ourselves.  With the exception of the faithful Celestial, the land is empty of human interest.  The roads that once rumbled unceasingly with wheels and swarmed with merry men now run bare under a sad sky.  The deepway side drains, in which our lorries used to play at submarines, now harbour nothing more exciting than tadpoles.  We are hard-pressed to find mischief for our idle hands to do.

Sherlock the Sleuth keeps himself in fair fettle by prowling round the countryside and trying to restrain the aborigines from pinching what little British material they have not already pinched.  Yesterday he came upon a fatigue party of Gauls staggering down a by-way under the shell of an Armstrong hut.  He whooped and gave chase.  The Gauls, sighting the A.P.M. brassard, promptly dumped the hut and dived through a wire fence.  Sherlock hitched his horse to a post and followed afoot, snorting fire and brimstone.  They led him at a smart trot over four acres of boggy plough, through a brambly plantation, two prickly hedges and a richly-perfumed drain and went to ground inextricably in some mine buildings.  He returned, blown, battered and baffled, to the starting-point, to find that some third party had in the meantime removed the Armstrong hut—­also his horse.

Ronald, our only remaining Red Hat, saves his soul from boredom by keeping all the H.Q. departments open and conducting, on his own, a brisk correspondence between them.  As there are about thirty of these and he conducts them all himself it will be understood that this entails a certain amount of movement on his part.

Bob, the Camp Commandant, spends his time trying to square his returns and interviewing Violet.  Violet is a middle-aged gentleman who came to us from some Labour unit and refuses to leave.  He has an enormous head, a walrus moustache, a hairy nose, and feet which flap as they walk.  His metier is to keep the place tidy and the incinerator fires burning.  He prowls about at night, accompanied by a large ginger tom-cat, harpooning loose scraps of paper.  Any dust he meets he deals with on the blotting-paper principle, by rolling in it and absorbing it.  When his clothes are so stiff with dirt that they