We gather that the scene is laid in the thieves’ quarter.

* * * * *

To William at the back of the Galician front.

  Once more you follow in Bellona’s train,
    (Her train de luxe) in search of cheap reclame;
    Once more you flaunt your rearward oriflamme,
  A valiant eagle nosing out the slain.

  Not to the West, where Rupprecht stands at bay,
    Hard pushed with hounds of England at his throat,
    And WILLIE’S chance grows more and more remote
  Of breaking hearts along The Ladies’ Way;

  But to the East you go, for easier game,
    Where traitors to their faith desert the fight,
    And better men than yours are swept in flight
  By coward Anarchy that sells her shame.

  For here, by favour of your new allies,
    You’ll see recovered all you lost of late,
    When, tried in open combat, fair and straight,
  Your Huns were flattened out like swatted flies.

  Well, make the most of this so timely boom,
    For Russia yet may cut the cancer out—­
    Her heart is big enough—­and turn about
  Clean-limbed and strong and terrible as doom.

  But, though she fail us in the final test,
    Not there, not there, my child, the end shall be,
    But where, without your option, France and we
  Have made our own arrangements further West.

  O.S.

* * * * *

Dustbin.

He dropped in to tea, quite casually; forced an entry through the mud wall of our barn, in fact.  No, he wouldn’t sit down—­expected to be leaving in a few minutes; but he didn’t mind if he did have a sardine, and helped himself to the tinful.  Yes, a bit of bully, thanks, wouldn’t be amiss; and a nice piece of coal; cockchafers very good too when, as now, in season; and, for savoury, a little nibble with a yard of tarred string and an empty cardboard cigarette-box.  Thank you very much.

“Why, the little brute’s a perfect dustbin,” said my mate; and “Dustbin” the puppy was throughout his stay with us.

For six weeks did Dustbin—­attached for rations and discipline—­accompany us on our sanitary rounds; set us a fine example of indifference to shell fire, even to the extent of attempting to catch spent shrapnel as it fell; and proved the wettest of wet blankets to the “socials” of the local rats.  Then, as happens with sanitary inspectors in France, there arrived late one afternoon a despatch requesting the pleasure of my society—­in five hours’ time—­at a village some twenty kilos distant as the shell flies.  I found I should have fifteen minutes in which to pack, four hours for my journey, and forty-five minutes between the packing and the start in which to find a home for Dustbin.

“Take the little dorg off you?” said a Sergeant acquaintance in the D.A.C.  “I couldn’t, Corp’l.  Why, I don’t even know how I’m goin’ to take the foal yonder”—­he glared reproachfully at a placid Clydesdale mare and her tottering one-day-old; “and ‘ow I’m goin’ to take my posh breeches—­”