* * * * * In aid of the Arts Fund for the relief of the many members of the artistic professions who are in distress owing to the War, a _Matinee_ under the patronage of QUEEN ALEXANDRA will be given at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 3 o'clock. Mr. THOMAS BEECHAM will produce Bach's _Phoebus and Pan_, and Mr. GRANVILLE BARKER will produce _Philip the King_, a new play by Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD. _Mr. Punch_ very heartily commends the cause to his readers. * * * * * Illustration: _Huntsman._ "BLANKETY-BLANK THAT BLOOMIN' KAISER! I WISH MY 'OUNDS 'AD 'IM!" _Farmer._ "WHAT'S 'E BIN DOIN' TO YOU NOW, JACK?" _Huntsman._ "DOIN'? JUST LOOK AT THE 'OSSES 'E'S LEFT US TO RIDE!" * * * * * NOTES BY A WAR-DOG. Now I don't want to snarl at the Cause--whatever it may be--but it isn't all beef-bones and country walks by any means. I first became aware of it about the same time the Dachshund at the corner house began to declare he was an Aberdeen Terrier. From that time on I scented something wrong, though could never quite dig it out. For one thing, the parrot began to practise a new phrase about "Down with the KAI...!" and also "_Veeve_" the something or other. Then Mabel--who does absurd things but has to be tolerated because she waits upon me--started tying coloured ribbons in my hair, and later sticking little flags in my collar; but I put a stop to that. A week ago things came to a head, and don't look like improving. For the last five years my daily life has been brightened in manner following. We live next door to a railway station and a pastry-cook's. Every morning Mabel gives me a round hard thing she calls a penny, and very slippery to hold in one's mouth. I carry the penny to the pastry-cook's. The girl takes it and gives me a currant biscuit in exchange. Sometimes there are people in the shop, and then I gaze upon them meltingly. If they are the right sort, they melt--according to their means; usually it's pastry. The rest of the day I spend loafing about the station _and_ the pastry-cook's. Now all that is changed. Last Thursday Mabel took me to a Committee, a place full of typewriters and ladies; and I was registered--so they said; Mabel being given a sheet of paper all over scribble, and a wooden box with "War Relief Fund" on it. "On Monday, dear," said Mabel, "you begin." I have begun. Would you believe it? I had to wear that beastly box tied to my collar! Retrievers, I know, are used to that sort of thing; but I'm a Collie. All that day I hung about on my old beat, and every now and then somebody gushed and called me silly names, and dropped a penny into my box. Conceive the hideous mockery of my position! By four o'clock there was I sitting outside that confectioner's, wearing enough pennies to buy the shop out, and yet not a Bath bun to the good!