* * * * *

[Illustration:  LEAVES FROM A SPECIAL’S REMINISCENCES OF THE GREAT WAR.

Small Girl (on morning after air-raid). “HI, MISTER, ’E BROKE THAT WINDER!”]

* * * * *

    “STAGE-STRUCK NOVELISTS.

    “LILLAH MCCARTHY AS EXECUTIONER.”—­Sunday Paper.

Well, they can’t say they haven’t had a fair warning.

* * * * *

    “Scotsmen the world over possess to a remarkable degree the
    spirit of clamishness.”—­Times of India.

A good many of them have certainly made the world their oyster.

* * * * *

    “OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

    “BOOT RACE TO BE ROWED THIS YEAR AT HENLEY REGATTA.”—­Daily
    Paper.

A very suitable venue for the contest, which, we presume, will be conducted in pairs.

* * * * *

    “——­CATTLE MARKET.

    “Messrs. ——­ beg to announce that they will hold their usual
    Sale of Fat and Store Stock at above.

    “Present Entries include: 

    “80 Pairs Men’s, Women’s and Children’s New Boots, assorted
    sizes.”—­Provincial Paper.

These, of course, will be entered with the calves.

* * * * *

TO A MARCH BROWN, SWALLOWED ALIVE.

  Rash insect with your jaunty air
    The troubled stream serenely riding,
  How guessed you not that Death was there
    Nor feared the hungry trout in hiding? 
  Did instinct, friend of helpless things,
  Not bid you rise and use your wings?

  Alas, the widening ripple showed
    Around the spot which lately bore you,
  And down you went the deadly road
    Where many a fly has gone before you,
  One victim more to swell the pride
  Of golden tum and spotted side.

  Yet know (if any ghost of you
    Or delicate spirit’s left to know it)
  That I’ve a fly which never flew
    (Your likeness) and the skill to throw it;
  And I that saw the fatal rise
  Marked where a fat half-pounder lies.

  Thither will I with reel and rod
    And cure his taste for dainty dishes
  By favour of whatever god
    Decides the destiny of fishes;
  And that were vengeance passing sweet—­
  Your captor on your counterfeit!

* * * * *

DAISY.

He was always called Daisy.  We hated the name, but the christening “just happened” with the suddenness of influenza or an earthquake.  Percy was the culprit, for he knocked all our pre-arranged plans for a name on the head by his passion for what he calls “apt quotation.”  When he (Daisy) emerged from his basket we saw that, like NELSON, he was blind of an eye.  Percy, immediately inspired, quoted from WORDSWORTH’S Ode to the Daisy, “A little Cyclops with one eye”—­and the result was inevitable.  Daisy resented the name from the first, for at the very font, so to speak, he drew blood from us both, and then, utterly indifferent to our feelings, settled himself on the top of an empty beer barrel and there performed his evening ablutions.