And that, I suppose, is the end of her, except that she may continue to be remembered by one or two who served aboard her in the days of the Auxiliary Patrol—­remembered as a gallant little ship that served her country in its hour of need, and did not hold that hour the limit of her service.  Well played, King George!

* * * * *

    “THE DRINKWATER TRAGEDY.”—­Heading in “New York Times."

This comes from dry America, but it is not the wail of a “Wet”; merely the heading of an article on Abraham Lincoln.

* * * * *

“Wales has its Ulster just as Ireland had, and it was a question whether Wales was going to be conquered by the industrial area of Cardiff and the district, or whether the industrial area was going to conquer Wales.”—­Western Mail.

We shall put our money on “the industrial area.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  A POPULAR REAPPEARANCE.

MR. ASQUITH (the Veteran Scots Impersonator) sings:—­

  “I LOVE A LASSIE,
  ANITHER LOWLAN’ LASSIE.”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Officer. “WELL, PETERS, HOW DID YOU GET ON?”

Steward (who has asked for special leave).  “NOTHIN’ DOIN’, SIR.  THE SKIPPER ’E SEZ TO ME, ’E SEZ, ’IT’LL COST THE COUNTRY FOUR-AN’-SEVENPENCE TO SEND YOU ‘OME, AN’ AS THE NAVY ’AS GOT TO ECONOMISE YOU’LL DO TO BEGIN ON,’ ’E SEZ.”]

* * * * *

A LIMPET OF WAR.

(With the British Army in France.)

The day on which that fine old crusted warrior, Major Slingswivel, quits the hospitable confines of Nullepart Camp will be the signal that the British Army in France has completed its work, even to the labelling and despatching of the last bundle of assorted howitzers.  A British army in France without Major Slingswivel would be unthinkable.  It is confidently asserted that Nullepart Camp was built round him when he landed in ’14, and that he has only emerged from it on annual visits to his tailor for the purpose of affixing an additional chevron and having another inch let into his tunic.  Latest reports state that he is still going strong, and indenting for ice-cream freezers in anticipation of a hot summer.

But for an unforgivable error of tact I might have stood by the old brontosaurus to the bitter end.  One evening he and I were listening to a concert given by the “Fluffy Furbelows” in the camp Nissen Coliseum, and a Miss Gwennie Gwillis was expressing an ardent desire to get back to Alabama and dear ole Mammy and Dad, not to speak of the rooster and the lil melon-patch way down by the swamp.  The prospect as painted by her was so alluring that by the end of the first verse all the troops were infected with trans-Atlantic yearnings and voiced them in a manner that would have made an emigration agent rub his hands and start chartering transport right away.  She had an enticing twinkle which lighted on the Major a few times, so that I wasn’t surprised when the second chorus found him roaring out that he too was going to take a long lease of a shack down Alabama way.