But it is Fougasse's golf and cricket articles of which, as a rival practitioner, I should have complained most; in which, Plancus no longer consul, I delight most. Turn to page 31 and you will see all that is to be said on the subject of village cricket. How lucky these draughtsmen are! What a laborious business we others should have made of it! Would any of you have laughed at our wordy description of the fielder in a cloth cap to whom one can run a single? "But one gets in two for trousers tucked into socks"--"stretching it to three for a straw hat"--"and four for a black waistcoat." Each fielder as drawn here is a joy. Yet there is something more than that; we are not just laughing at them, for they are our friends. We look from one to the other of them, and gradually the smile becomes a little wistful. It was how many years ago? Now the printed page has vanished, and we see again the village green. Straw Hat was the postman. Not quite like that, however, for he wore the official trousers with it, but he moved slowly, being the postman and tired of it, and one ran three to him. Black Waistcoat was the dairy farmer; his the cows which had to be driven off the pitch on a Saturday morning; a mighty underhand bowler, bouncing terribly. Fougasse is wrong here, for his hands could stop anything, and one would never run four to him. I doubt if you would ever run four to a black waistcoat, their hands are so big. Slow in the return of course, but safe, safe. You may think that you have had enough of War Sketches, but you will be glad to see the historic "Gadgets" again, and perhaps even now "1914-1918" will give you a lump in the throat with your smile, and make you somehow a little more proud. It is so very much England. But, taking the drawings as a whole, I should say that the charm of their humour lies in the fact that they make the very jokes which we should have made for ourselves, if only we had realized that they were jokes. When Mr. Bateman gives us his brilliant life-study of the man who breathed on the glass in the British Museum, we realize that this is an inspiration far outside our range. "However did he think of it?" we say to ourselves in awe. When Mr. Morrow draws us "a little supper-party at the Borgias," we have to admit sadly that the comedy of a supper-party at the Borgias would never have occurred to _us_. But when Fougasse describes to us his feelings in the presence of the Wedding Detective, or the conversation of the Club Bore in the library, then we beam upon him delightedly. Why, it's absolutely true! We've noticed it ourselves a hundred times! As we were saying to Jones only yesterday----Alas we flatter ourselves. We saw the pebbles lying there, day after day, and there, for us, they would still be lying. But a humorist picks them up and holds them this way and that. The light shines upon them. See! They are precious stones. A. A. MILNE CONTENTS