If Mr. Punch may exert his privilege of turning abruptly to grave from gay, the claim may be allowed on behalf of the youngest generation, already remembered in the chronicle of last month. CHILDREN OF CONSOLATION By the red road of storm and stress Their fathers' footsteps trod, They come, a cloud of witnesses, The messengers of God. Cradled upon some radiant gleam, Like living hopes they lie, The rainbow beauty of a dream Against a stormy sky. Before the tears of love were dried, Or anguish comfort knew, The gates of home were opened wide To let the pilgrims through. Pledges of faith, divinely fair, From peaceful worlds above Against the onslaught of despair They hold the fort of love. [Illustration: THE CIVILIAN AND THE WAR OFFICE I am bidden to the War Office. I depart for it. I approach it. I enter. I am not observed. I am still not observed. I am observed. I am spoken to (and still live). I continue to be spoken to. I am spoken to quite nicely. I am shaken hands with. I take my leave.] _February, 1918_. "Watchman, what of the night?" The hours pass amid the clash of rumours and discordant voices--optimist, pessimist, pacificist. Only in the answer of the fighting man, who knows and says little, but is ready for anything, do we find the best remedy for impatience and misgiving: "Soldier, what of the night?" "Vainly ye question of me; I know not, I hear not nor see; The voice of the prophet is dumb Here in the heart of the fight. I count the hours on their way; I know not when morning shall come; Enough that I work for the day." The first Brest-Litovsk Treaty has been signed, followed in nine days by the German invasion of Russia, an apt comment on what an English paper, by a misprint which is really an inspiration, calls "the Brest Nogotiations."