FRITZ: "It is indeed. I have to learn all the names of _all_ the countries that misunderstand the All-Highest."] It is reported that ex-King Constantine is to receive £20,000 a year unemployment benefit, and Mr. Punch, in prophetic vein, pictures him as offering advice to his illustrious brother-in-law: Were it not wise, dear William, ere the day When Revolution goes for crowns and things, To cut your loss betimes and come this way And start a coterie of exiled Kings? In the words of a valued correspondent (a temporary captain suddenly summoned from the trenches to the Staff), "there is this to be said about being at war--you never know what is going to happen to you next." _August, 1917_. With the opening of the fourth year of the War Freedom renews her vow, fortified by the aid of the "Gigantic Daughter of the West," and undaunted by the collapse of our Eastern Ally, brought about by anarchy, German gold and the fraternisation of Russian and German soldiers. The Kaiser, making the most of this timely boon, has once more been following in Bellona's train (her _train de luxe_) in search of cheap _réclame_ on the Galician front, to witness the triumphs of his new Ally, Revolutionary Russia: But though she fail us in the final test, Not there, not there, my child, the end shall be, But where, without your option, France and we Have made our own arrangements in the West. [Illustration: RUSSIA'S DARK HOUR] It is another story on the Western Front, where the British are closing in on the wrecked remains of Lens, and the Crown Prince's chance of breaking hearts along "The Ladies' Way" grows more and more remote. [Illustration: THE OPTIMIST "If this is the right village, then we're all right. The instructions is clear--'Go past the post-office and sharp to the left afore you come to the church.'"] A recent resolution of the Reichstag has been welcomed by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald as the solemn pronouncement of a sovereign people, only requiring the endorsement of the British Government to produce an immediate and equitable peace. But not much was left of this pleasant theory after Mr. Asquith had dealt it a few sledge-hammer blows. "So far as we know," he said, "the influence of the Reichstag, not only upon the composition but upon the policy of the German Government, remains what it always has been--a practically negligible quantity." The Reminiscences of Mr. Gerard, the late German Ambassador in Berlin, are causing much perturbation in German Court circles. In one of his conversations with Mr. Gerard, the Kaiser told him "there is no longer any International Law." Little scraps of paper, Little drops of ink, Make the Kaiser caper And the Nations think.