"Damsons are very cheap this year. I am jamming an extra quantity. Do you think pots of jam could be safely sent to the chaplains at the front? Kiss the dear baby for me. Excuse a longer letter, but I am quite worn out with handing hot meat pies to the Russian troops passing through here. Ever your affectionate Aunt, MILLICENT BLOOMER." Not "meat pies," mark you, but "hot meat pies." Somehow that little touch won my absolute belief. Now we come to the solemn statement of Wiggins' brother-in-law. He is, according to Wiggins, a patriot of the finest type--only prevented from going to the front by the claims of business, a family of nine, and a certain superfluity of adipose tissue. "When guarding a railway bridge as a special constable a troop train stopped through an engine breakdown. Numbers of finely built men in fur coats descended on to the line. Two of them came to me and, making signs of thirst, said, 'Vodka, vodka.' They embraced me warmly after I had offered them my pocket-flask, and then, shouting 'Berlin,' rejoined the train." I could quite believe that. Any brother-in-law of Wiggins would have a pocket-flask. Yet the Press Bureau solemnly asserts that no Russian troops have passed through this country. I have now no faith in anyone's uncles, aunts nor yet brothers-in-law. I believe nothing. Is there a KAISER? Is there a War? Or is the whole thing a malignant invention of LLOYD GEORGE to save a tottering Government? But then again--(most terrible of all doubts)--is there a LLOYD GEORGE? * * * * * MORE SPIRITUOUS HOSPITALITY. From a German pamphlet quoted by the _Ipswich Evening Star_:-- "With German energy we are determined to win, and we invite Italians to gin with us?" * * * * * THE SILVERN TONGUE. It was his vest-slip which chained my eye. Spats and the lesser niceties are common among the altruists who strive to set us to rights just by the Marble Arch, but a vest-slip was a new note. His voice was like his hair, in that it was thin, undecided, not really assertive enough to be impressive ... Ah, now I had the range of him. "You may call 'im a beneffercent despot. I _don't_. You may 'ave a tiste for aristocrercy, plootocrercy, ortocrercy. I _'aven't_. You may prefer to 'ave a iron-shod 'eel ground on your fices. _I don't._ "There was a professor at Kimebridge, some years ago, who said to me, when I 'come-up,' as they say, after tikin' my degree, 'My boy,' 'e says, 'when you git out into the world, when you desert these 'ere cloistered 'alls, these shidy lawns, these venerable cryp's, never you eat no dirt! Not for nobody, my boy! Remember your ol' collidge, think of your _awmer-miter_, think of 'istoric Trinity 'All, an' the pelloocid Isis, and never eat no dirt!'