It is not base ingratitude that blinds him
    To recognition of an ancient debt,
  But rather that the sight of these reminds him
    Of painful days which he would fain forget. 
  When life was one long round of guards and drills,
  Marches, patrols, fatigues and sick parades—­and pills.

  Yet hear me, maker of the potent pilule: 
    Although my days of soldiering are o’er,
  I’m fondly trusting that, when next I’m ill, you
    Come to my rescue as you came of yore;
  Meanwhile you’ll understand that I, for one,
  Refuse to buy your wares and eat them just for fun.

* * * * *

A DEAD HEAT.

    “In the high jump final, Landen (U.S.A.) was first with a jump of 6ft.
    4-1/2in.; Muller (U.S.A.) and E. Keleend (Sweeden) died for second
    place.”—­Provincial Paper.

* * * * *

“I heard Lord Rosebery say:  ‘Your little girl has got beautiful eyes.’  I repeated this upstairs with joy and excitement to the family, who ... said they thought it was true enough if my eyes had not been so close together.”—­Extract from Autobiography of Margot Asquith.

Her “I’s” are generally rather close together.

* * * * *

“The policy which should be adopted is first to take steps to prevent prices continuing to rise, and then to endeavour to reduce them until the purchasing power of the pound sterling is equal to the purchasing power of the dollar.”—­Financial Paper.

Judging by the New York exchange good progress has been made in this direction.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE “HOUSE"-BREAKER.

OVERTHROW OF THE PARLIAMENT OF DEMOCRACY; A DREAM OF THE “COUNCIL OF
ACTION.”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Mother. “YOUR COUSIN JIM HAS OFFERED TO TAKE YOU TO DINNER AND A THEATRE TO-NIGHT.  AREN’T YOU PLEASED?”

Daughter. “OH, IT’S ALL RIGHT, BUT HE LOOKS SO ROTTENLY RESPECTABLE.”]

* * * * *

GEORGE, JANE AND LENIN.

Now that Soviet rule in England is apparently so imminent it seems to me that we ought to consider a little more closely the application of its practical machinery.  The morning papers reach this village at three o’clock in the afternoon, so that nobody is in to read them, and when one comes back in the evening one is generally too lazy, but a couple of rather startling sentences about the coming Communist regime have recently caught my eye.

“The people of England, like the people of Russia,” runs the first, “will soon be working under the lash.”  And the second, so far as I remember, says, “Our rations will no doubt be reduced to half a herring and some boiled bird-seed, which is all the unhappy Russians are getting to eat.”