"For me? Fancy my not seeing that before. Whatever can it be?" He fixed his spectacles again and began to read. "A commission, perhaps," I said humorously. "It _is_ a commission!" he cried excitedly. "To go to the Front and deliver Christmas presents to the troops! They've got hundreds of thousands all ready for them!" "And given in what spirit?" I smiled. "Ah, my boy! No doubt about the spirit of _that_." He slung his sack on to his shoulder and faced me--his old jolly self again. "This will be something like. I suppose I shall have the reindeer again for this. Did I ever tell you the joke--ah! so I did, so I did. Well, good night to you." He hurried out of the room chuckling to himself. I sat down in front of the fire again, but in a moment he was back. "Just thought of something very funny," he said, "Simply had to come back and tell you. The troops--hee-hee-hee--won't have any stockings to hang up, so--ha-ha-ha--they'll have to hang up their puttees! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" He passed through the door again, and his laughter came rolling down the passage. A. A. M. * * * * * Illustration: FOR ALL PERSONS. I KNIT. THOU KNITTEST. HE KNITS. WE KNIT. _YOU_ KNIT. THEY KNIT. * * * * * THE SUPPRESSED SUPERMAN. "What are you reading, Arthur?" I said. "NIETZSCHE," said Arthur. I sneezed in response. "Isn't that the chap," I said, "who's really responsible for the war?" "People like you think so," he said. "The reading of philosophy," I said, "was never in my line. Give me the exact sciences; EUCLID for me every time." "Hopelessly moth-eaten," said he. "Most of the schools have dropped him in favour of geometry." "Bah," I said, "a quibble. But tell me, wasn't it NIETZSCHE who taught the Germans to think they were supermen or whatever you call 'em?" "Contrary to the opinion of the man in the street," said Arthur, looking at me rather meaningly, "NIETZSCHE did not write merely for the benefit of German people, nor did he approve, I should say, of the German idea of culture. You've been reading the evening papers; you're a wallower, that's what you are." "I'm afraid," I said, "you also consider yourself a bit of a superman." "I admit," he said, "that I've gone a long way." "Towards Tipperary?" "Beyond you," he said, tapping the page of NIETZSCHE he was reading; "we're not on the same plane." "You can always get out and change," I said. "Such flippancy," said Arthur, "is unbecoming in a lance corporal. What you want is a course of philosophy." "What you want," I said, "is a course of musketry." Arthur, who, like me, is rising forty-six, is sound enough for home defence, but isn't in any Force yet. So, being a lance corporal in the "United Arts" myself, I feel I can throw advice of this sort at him freely.