The Colonel hastens to remark to the enthusiastic audience that this cannon only proves the possibilities of the noble game when accuracy is achieved.  It is calculated to improve their marksmanship, to teach them to grasp an opportunity, to apply their tactical training, and to render them cool in the hour of crisis.

Inspired by this truth he attempts to pull off an awkward losing hazard.  This effort is ruined by an appalling miscue which affects the new cloth.  The Colonel justly blames the chalk, removes the pet-dog of the battalion from his path with his foot, and makes for the scoring-board.  The volunteer marker inadvertently puts the Colonel’s modest score on to the large total of the Adjutant.

At this critical moment an orderly fortunately arrives with a note from the Brigade office.  The Colonel secures the missive, tears the envelope to shreds, runs his eye over the trivial contents, and curses the War.  He then assumes an air of enormous importance, excuses himself, and stamps out into the night.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Ancient Heroine.  “IT’S BEEN A TRYIN’ TIME FOR ME, MRS. BLOGGS.  MY SAVIN’S-BANK BOOK WAS UP IN LUNNON ALL THROUGH THE AIR-RAID.”]

* * * * *

“It may be the bravery of ignorance that induces us to take this point of view, but the locality excuses ignorance to some extent, and the bravery still exists:  Ovid has a line that might be learnt with advantage by our readers—­

    “‘Falliker augurio, spes bona saepe sus.’”—­Nigerian Pioneer.

We do not recall this line in OVID; but the locality is notoriously unfavourable to Latin quotation.  As HORACE says, Hic Niger est; hunc tu, Romane, caveto.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Officer.  “WANT A NEW MESS-TIN, DO YOU?  WHERE’S YOUR OLD ONE?”

Private.  “I HAVEN’T GOT IT, SIR.” Officer. “WHY NOT?”

Private.  “PLEASE, SIR, THERE’S A CHATEAU ON TOP OF IT, SIR.”]

* * * * *

DR. SULLIVAN.

It had been decided that there never was such a resemblance as is to be traced between my homely features and those of a visitor to the same hotel last year—­Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street.  This had become an established fact irrefutable like a proposition of Euclid and one of my new friends, who was also a friend of the Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street who had so satisfyingly and minutely anticipated my countenance, made it the staple of his conversation.  “Isn’t Mr. Blank,” he would say to this and that habitue of the smoking-room as they dropped in from the neighbouring farms at night, “the very image of Dr. Sullivan of Wigley Street, who was here last year?” And they would subject my physiognomy to a searching study and agree that I was.  Perhaps the nose—­a little bigger, don’t you think? or a shade of dissimilarity between the chins (he having, I suppose, only two, confound him!), but taking it all round the likeness was extraordinary.