When the contract was signed, witnessed and posted on its way to the other signatories there was a general sense of relief that Christmas would not be very different from usual after all. Henry growled a good deal. But we know our Reverend Henry: he will do his duty when the time comes. * * * * * "The Prince of Wales noticed a private in his own regiment, the Grenadier Guards, who is six feet inches in height. He is six feet inches in height."--_Scotsman._ It sounds silly, but the writer evidently means it. * * * * * Illustration: THE RULING PASSION. _Voice from below._ "FOR 'EAVEN'S SAKE, MUM, GET BACK. THE FIRE-ESCAPE WILL BE 'ERE IN FIVE MINUTES." _Endangered Female._ "Five minutes? Then throw me back my knitting." * * * * * THE WILLOW-PATTERN PLATE. A Philistine? Then you will smile At this old willow-pattern plate And junks of long-forgotten date That anchor off Pagoda Isle; At little pig-tailed simpering rakes Who kiss their hands (three miles away) To dainty beauties of Cathay Beside those un-foreshortened lakes. With hand on heart they smile and sue. Their topsy-turvy world, you say, Is out of all perspective? Nay, 'Tis we who look at life askew. Dreams lose their spell; hard facts we prize In our humdrum philosophy; But, could we change, who would not be A suitor for those azure eyes? Who would not sail with fairy freight Piloting some flat-bottomed barge-- A size too small, or else too large-- On this old willow-pattern plate? * * * * * "The 'Figaro' publishes a telegram from Petrograd which contradicts the German announcement that Lodz is occupied by the Kermans."--_Lancashire Evening Post._ And quite right too. * * * * * A MARNE FOOTNOTE. There was a battlefield, I was told, with a ruined village near it, about as far from Paris as Sevenoaks is from London, and I decided to see it. The preliminaries, they said, would be difficult, but only patience was needed--patience and one's papers all in order. It would be necessary to go to the War Bureau, opposite the Invalides.