The Commanding Officer will bind up the Second-in-Command with a length of red tape, showing that no escape is possible from this form of entanglement.

The Adjutant will give an exhibition of paper manipulation, using various Army Forms for this purpose.

The Assistant-Adjutant will demonstrate how a morning’s work may be made of the changing of a pen-nib, while still creating an impression of devoted industry.

The Messing Officer will fry a fillet of sole by means of haybox cookery, and during the process will publicly skin a ration rabbit in such a way that not the slightest depreciation is caused in the value of 21/2d. attached to a rabbit-skin.

The Officer i/e Demobilisation will demobilise you while you wait (provided you can wait long enough).

The Quartermaster will make a model of Hampton Court Maze, illustrative of the intricacies of his department, taking care that his model appropriately differs from the original in having no means of exit.

The Medical Officer will demonstrate how the huge national accumulation of No. 9 pills may be adapted to civilian purposes by using the pill (a) as a fertiliser for the Officers’ tennis lawn, and (b) as a destroyer of the superfluous grass bordering thereon.

Company Commanders will collaborate in a display of standing on their own feet without the assistance of their respective Company Sergeant-Majors. (N.B.—­Absolute silence is requested during this very delicate performance.)

The Junior Subaltern will give an exhibition of stunt saluting.

* * * * *

TO MY DRESS SUIT.

  Old friend, well met!  I’ve longed for this reunion;
    You’ve been the lodestar of this storm-tossed ship
  In those long hours which poets call Communion
    With one’s own Soul, and common folk the Pip.

  The foe might rage, the Brigadier might bluster. 
    Was I down-hearted?  No!  My spirit soared
  And dreamt of you and me with blended lustre
    Gracing some well-spread and convivial board.

  And what if now you fit askew where erstwhile
    Fair lines bewrayed a figure not too svelte? 
  What if your shoulder-seams are like to burst, while
    A sad hiatus shows beneath the belt?

  As April fills the buds to shapely beauty,
    As cooks fill Robert with plum-cake and tea,
  So, it may be, a diet rich and fruity
    May fill the gap that sunders you from me.

  And if it fail, as I’m a, living sinner
    I’ll save you from the gaze of scornful eyes. 
  They say that Bolsheviks don’t dress for dinner;
    I’ll off to Petrograd and Bolshevize.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  The Mayor.  “THE CONTENTS OF THE PURSE WILL IN TIME INEVITABLY DISAPPEAR; BUT (laying his hand on the clock) HERE IS SOMETHING WHICH WILL NEVER GO.”]