_Festive Middy._ "Oh, I've just been taking a walk through the city,--and I _say_!--there _is_ an uncommonly good-looking lot o' girls about, and _no_ mistake!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A NASTY ONE. _Colonel Smithson (of the Poonah Marines)._ "By the way, my boy at Sandhurst hopes to get into your regiment some day." _Little Simpson (of the Royal Hussars Green)._ "Aw--I--aw hope your son is up to _our form!_" _Colonel Smithson._ "_Your form!_ Dash it, he's over four feet high, anyhow!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A CAUTION. _Old Gent (with difficulty)._ "Now really--Oh! this dis--graceful crowding--I'm--I'm positive my gun will go off!"] * * * * * [Illustration: CHEEK. _(The regiment is about to "march out" with twenty rounds of "blank cartridge.")_ _Sub-Lieutenant (of twenty-four hours' service)._ "Whereabouts is this pyrotechnic display of yours coming off, Colonel!!?"] * * * * * [Illustration: OVERHEARD AT PORTSMOUTH. _Jack._ "Well, Polly lass, if it's true as 'ow you're going to get spliced to Bill, all I 'opes is that he'll stick to you through thick and thin!" _Polly._ "Well, 'e _ought_ to, Jack. 'E works in a glue factory."] * * * * * [Illustration: "Awful bore, dear old chap. War offith won't have me, thimply becauth my eyethight ith tho doothed bad!"] * * * * * [Illustration: ARMS OF PRECISION _Volunteer Subaltern (as the enemy's scout continues to advance in spite of expenditure of much "blank" ammunition)._ "If that infernal yeoman comes any nearer, shy stones at him, some of you!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A FORLORN HOPE _Captain O'Dowd (of the firm of O'Dowd and Jones, stock-jobbers)._ "What'll I do now? It's beyond me jumpin' powers, an' if I wade I'll be wet to the waist." _(To Private Halloran, who in civil life is a stockbroker's clerk)._ "Here, Halloran, I want a carry over. You do it for me, an' I'll not forget it to you, me lad." _Private Halloran._ "Sorry I can't, Captain. You know carryin'-over day is not till the sixteenth, an' this is only the seventh!"] * * * * * A LAY OF THE UNION JACK (_By a patriotic Cockney_) Though I feel less at home on the bounding wave Than I do on the firm dry land, I can spin you a yarn of a right good craft That is true-British owned and manned. The winds may blow, and the storms may beat, And the hurricanes rage and roar, But "the ship I love" on her course will hold With the Union Jack at the fore.