Now that the Reverend Henry is no longer permitted to play with coals in the drawing-room or make maps on the gravel he has found an outlet on the breakfast-table. But he is not allowed to start till after the meal is over, ever since he got down early one morning and had the whole place laid out in army corps and fortresses, with a horrid tangle of knives and forks, cruet-stands, rolls, egg-cups, plates and coffee-pots, at the point where the main action was going on in the centre. But he is not at all satisfied with the breakfast-table. He has to crowd things terribly close together at one end in order to have room for the Eastern theatre; and Posen (a toast-rack) keeps falling off the edge. * * * * * _The Kirkintilloch Herald_ describes the manoeuvres of a submarine thus:-- "Without its presence being detected, it approached within a few hundred yards of a German Dreadnought, at which it discharged two torpedoes. In order to escape attack the submarine was then obliged to sing." Suggested song: "Get out and Get under." * * * * * "We will overhaul the chassis ... if you let us undertake the work now. The War will probably be over by the time the Car is ready for use."--_Advt._ We cannot decide whether this is an example of Commercial pessimism or Military optimism. * * * * * Illustration: "MRS. SMITHERS, IF YOU ARE UNPATRIOTIC ENOUGH TO HOARD YOUR FOODSTUFF, THAT IS A MATTER FOR YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE; BUT PLEASE REMEMBER IN FUTURE NOT TO GIVE ME A HOARDED EGG FOR BREAKFAST." * * * * * THE PACIFICIST. The Pacificist was very worried about it all. In the first place it worried him (quite honestly) that his country should ever go to war at all. In the second place it vexed him profoundly that the war should be against an enemy whose pure-souled benevolence he himself had proclaimed and written about for years. Most of all, perhaps, was he secretly irritated that these untoward events should coincide with the beginning of his own annual holiday at Shrimpborough. A few mornings after war was declared, the conductor of the Shrimpborough orchestra (a genius of cosmopolitan extraction) rose nobly to the occasion. From his demeanour and a certain flurry amongst the musicians, the Pacificist, seated prominently in the two-penny chairs, had about three minutes' warning of what was coming, so that when the conductor swung round with uplifted baton, and the audience, thrilled but a little self-conscious, climbed to its collective feet as the band crashed into the opening bars of the _Marseillaise_, the Pacificist had already decided upon his conduct. He sat still, even for a few moments he feigned to be absorbed in his favourite newspaper, but almost immediately gave this up as unconvincing and remained staring straight before him.