One of the most practical is a boot-cleaning set in strong pigskin with gold clasps, including, very ingeniously, a bottle of patent-leather reviver. Another pigskin, indispensable at the Front, holds a complete tea-set. It resembles the old tea-basket, but weighs at least five ounces less (no small matter on the march, I am told) and is more compact. With such a gift as this, no officer need ever again go without tea in the trenches. Messrs. Slimmer and Bang are to be congratulated. Anything more charming than the Service card-cases at Messrs. Slosson and Kay's I have never seen. One side is intended for paper notes, of which every officer at the Front is in constant need; the other half is reserved for his visiting-cards, which it is _de rigueur_, I am told, to leave on the enemy after every visit to their trenches. Some officers go so far as to place their cards on the point of their bayonet--a characteristic British touch. Messrs. Slosson and Kay also have charming combinations of drinking-flask and ear-syringe in all the more precious metals, and field-glasses studded with diamonds. For home use the same firm has a most delightful Special Constable's gold-mounted truncheon, which unscrews for liquid refreshment, of which our S. C.'s are often in need. Messrs. Kyte and Kyte have a really dinky little Game Book especially prepared for the War and as a Christmas gift. It differs at first sight very little from the ordinary game book of an English shoot, but on examination we find that the game is of larger size. The divisions include all ranks of the German army, so that an exact analysis of one's bag can be kept. Messrs. Kyte and Kyte also make a Service Fountain Pen which not only acts as a pen but also as a clinical thermometer and pipe-cleaner. It has furthermore an attachment for removing stones from horses' feet. Made in gold, it is a most becoming Yuletide gift. * * * * * Illustration: "AND WHAT CAN I GET FOR YOU, SIR?" "I'M LOOKING FOR MY FATHER. HAS HE BEEN IN HERE? HE'S AN OLD MAN 'BOUT THIRTY-SEBEN." * * * * * A CREDIBILITY INDEX. "This Poland business is still rather hard to follow," said my wife plaintively, after consulting the latest newspaper map pinned over the mantelpiece, "and I know it's tremendously important. I wish they wouldn't keep fighting in small villages that aren't marked; and really beyond the bare fact that both armies repeatedly surround one another simultaneously it is not at all easy to gather just what they are at." "The whole thing would be as clear as day," said my sister-in-law, who likes to be regarded as an authority on land operations--I am myself our Naval Expert--"if only one knew what to believe. Have the Germans occupied Przsczwow or have they not?"