Even Mr. SMILLIE would admit that that ought to constitute an absolute title.

* * * * *

MORE IMPENDING APOLOGIES.

From a bookseller’s advertisement: 

    “NEW FICTION.

    Reason and Belief—­By Sir Oliver Lodge.

    Man and the Universe—­By Sir Oliver Lodge.

    The Great Crusade—­By Right Hon. D.

    Lloyd George.”—­Canadian Paper.

* * * * *

“It was essential for Great Britain that France should emerge from this war strong and able to defend herself.  The recognition of this fact explains the change of British policy at Pars during the Wonference of Peace.”—­The Times.

We like the new title for the victors’ conclave, but do not care so much for the unusual spelling of the French capital, though it may have been adopted in deference to American prejudices.

* * * * *

“DIAMOND-CUT-DIAMOND.”

This is to warn all honest men to beware of No. 007 Field Company, R.E., known to its victims as “Chaucer’s Gang,” the most conscienceless crew of body-snatchers and common thieves in all the B.E.F.

I am myself no fastidious precisian, being in a Labour Company, but there are limits—­or should be.  My own particular grouch against them started at Ripilly-sur-Somme.  They, being skilled Royal Engineers, were clearing undergrowth and putting up huts in Ripilly woods for a division due to arrive, and my scorned rabble were unloading the huts in sections from barges at Ripilly canal wharf and loading them on to lorries for transport to the woods.  Chaucer and his Royal Engineers were living on the spot—­Ardennes waving o’er them her green leaves and so forth—­and we were in rest billets (loud roars of raucous laughter) in Ripilly village, the least sanitary spot in the whole war zone.

Chaucer wouldn’t let us stay with him in the huts—­said the Chief Engineer was very keen on men living next their work.  But between Ripilly and the canal wharf was an ideal spot.  The chalk downs sloped steeply to the river, and halfway down was a bit of a level plateau just the size for a couple of huts.  South aspect; good fishing and bathing; a home from home.  The woods hid it from view above and the roadside poplars from below.  It was a truly desirable building site.

We had a hurdle-maker in our company, so I gave him a brace of light-duty men as apprentices and they built a little hut of wattle and daub.  It had a nice rural appearance and was warm, but it leaked in wet weather, and the more I thought of Chaucer lying dry under his felt roofs the worse I felt about it.  So I had a chat with my sergeant at the wharf, and the long and short of it was that two walls and one roof got delivered by mistake at the desirable building-site.

We worked late that night, and next day had thirty men in residence, with one end of the long hut partitioned off for Simmonds, my subaltern, and myself.