And Walls unhesitatingly accepted the congratulations of his superior on his vigilance, and did not even blench when assured that his was the finest imitation ever heard of the lowing of an ox. Yours ever, ONE OF THE _PUNCH_ BRIGADE. * * * * * [Illustration: _Officer._ "DIDN'T I TELL YER 'E WAS NO GOOD? LOOK AT 'IM--PLAYIN' FOOTBALL WHEN US FELLERS IS DRILLIN'!"] * * * * * "The German resistance is formidable but the allies' artillery has forced the enemy to retire from some trenches abandinging prisoners, dead, and wounded."--_Buenos Aires Standard._ This gives the lie to the many stories of German callousness that we hear. * * * * * TURNS OF THE DAY. [_A fifteen-minutes' speech on affairs by a public man has been added to the programme of the Empire music-hall._] There is no truth that the late Viceroy of IRELAND is to appear at the Alhambra in a brief address, explaining why he chose the title of "Tara." All efforts to induce Mr. MASTERMAN to appear at the Holborn Empire next week in a burlesque of _The Seats of the Mighty_ have failed. Great pressure is being brought to bear upon Mr. BERNARD SHAW to induce him to add gaiety to the Palladium programme next week by a twenty-minutes' exposure of England's folly, hypocrisy, fatuity and crime, a subject on which he knows even more than is to be known. Up to the present moment Mr. H. G. WELLS has refused all offers to appear at the Palace in the song from _Patience_, "When I first put this uniform on." Any statement that Mr. EDMUND GOSSE is to appear at the Coliseum at every performance next week, in a little sketch entitled _Swinging the Censor_, is to be taken with salt. A similar incredulity should probably be adopted in regard to the alluring rumour that Mr. COMPTON MACKENZIE will also contribute at the same house a nightly telephonic sketch from Capri, "_What Tiberius thinks of 'Sinister Street.'_" Negotiations are still pending, though with little chance of success, between the management of the Hippodrome and Canon RAWNSLEY, with a view to his giving a brief address nightly on the subject "How to write a War sonnet in ten minutes." We have good reason to fear that, in spite of reiterated announcements of their engagement, Mr. MAX PEMBERTON and Mr. MAX BEERBOHM will not appear on Valentine's Day, and subsequently, at the Chiswick Empire in a topical War duologue as "The Two Max." * * * * * Omar Khayyam on the North Sea battle. They say the _Lion_ and the _Tiger_ sweep Where once the Huns shelled babies from the deep, And _Blücher_, that great cruiser--12-inch guns Roar o'er his head but cannot break his sleep. * * * * * YUSSUF. "Look here," exclaimed the latest subaltern, hurling himself at the remains of the breakfast, "those rotters have sent me a putrid sword!"