M. But you have had the Hohenzollern Order presented to you and the All-Highest has written you with his own gracious hand a letter.

Von B.-H. Verbosa et grandis epistola venit a Capreis. As for the Hohenzollern Order I don’t care a snap of the fingers for it.  Nor will you when your time comes.

M. I hope that will not be for many years.

Von B.-H. For your sake I hope your time may be short.  In any case I must thank you most warmly for your tactful condolences.

* * * * *

THE REST-RUMOUR.

  I know not in what rodent-haunted caverns
    By what rough tongues the tale was first expressed,
  By choking fires or in the whispering taverns
    With wine and omelette lovingly caressed,
      Or what tired soul, o’erladen with a lump
      Of bombs and bags which someone had to hump,
      Flung down his load indignant at the Dump
    And, cursing, cried, “It’s time we had a rest!”

  And so, maybe, began it.  Some sly runner,
    Half-hearing, half-imagining, no doubt,
  Caught up the word and gave it to a gunner,
    And he, embroidering, ’twas noised about
      From lip to lip in many a trench’s press
      Where working parties struggled to progress
      Or else go back, but both without success,
    “Officer says Division’s going out.”

  It found the Front.  It came up with the rations;
    The Corporals carried it from hole to hole;
  And scouts behaved in strange polemic fashions
    On what they thought would be their last patrol;
      While Fritz, of course, from whom few things are hid,
      Had the romance as soon as any did,
      And said, thank William, he would soon be rid
    Of yon condemned disturbers of his soul.

  Nor were there few confirming little trifles,
    For James, rejoining from the Base, had scann’d
  Strange waiting infantry with brand-new rifles,
    In backward areas, but close at hand;
      And some had marked the D.A.Q.M.G. 
      Approaching Railhead in the dusk, and he
      (Who, as a fact, was simply on the spree)
    Had gone, of course, to view the Promised Land.

  And what a land!  Who had not heard its promise? 
    A land of quietude and no grenades,
  Soft beds for officers, fair barns for Tommies,
    And rich estaminets and gracious maids,
      And half-an-hour from Abbeville by the train
      A land of rivulets and golden grain
      (Where it would be impossible to train
    And even difficult to have parades)!

  Then it appeared the groom of General Harrison
    Had news denied to ordinary men,
  How the Brigade was going home to garrison
    A restful corner of the Lincoln fen;
      But weeks have passed and we are as we were;
      And possibly, when Peace is in the air
      And these dear myths have died of sheer despair,
    They may come true—­but not, I think, till then.