Mr. PRINGLE was as much surprised as if he had been bitten by a rabbit, and wound up an unconvincing defence of himself with the remark that he would rather keep silence than say anything to exacerbate feeling. It is a pity that his friend Mr. HOGGE did not imitate this wise if rather tardy reticence. He gave Mr. LLOYD GEORGE the lie when he was describing how the disputes had interfered with the supply of guns urgently needed by the Army, and provoked the retort that, instead of encouraging the strikers by unfounded suggestions, he would be better employed if "with what credit is left to him" he went down to the Clyde and tried to get them to work. * * * * * [Illustration: _She._ "Good gracious! The Brown-Smiths!! I thought they were so poor." _He._ "Yes. But, you see, he's been supplying the Government with shells for quite a fortnight!"] * * * * * A LETTER TO THE FRONT. "Kin yer write a letter?" "More or less," I said. I did not rate myself with Madame DE STAEL nor with EDWARD FITZGERALD, but I forebore to mention these names because I thought that they would not be familiar to my questioner. If you happen to know Paradise Rents, Fulham, you will realise that neither Madame DE STAEL, nor FITZGERALD is much read there. Moreover, the type that addressed me had not the aspect of a literary man. He was a man of some seven years, maybe, in company with a younger man, perhaps of five. He was hatless, coatless, waistcoatless, but he had a pair of trousers, short in the leg, precariously held by one brace. That is the fashion in Paradise Rents. I had come upon these two young men about Fulham as they were staring with absorbed interest into the undertaker's shop advantageously situated for custom at the corner of the Rents and the main street. Certainly it was a pleasant window. Besides the legends and texts, the artificial wreaths and the pictures of tombs and tombstones, there was a number of model coffins in miniature. It was these that had fascinated the attention of the two young men. "I should like one o' them to ply with," said the elder covetously. "What would yer do with it, Bill?" the younger asked. "I'd put the old KAYSER in it, along wi' Farver." It is rude to laugh at other people's conversation, particularly if you have not been introduced to them, but I caught myself in an audible chuckle over this fine blend of patriotic and filial sentiment. Then I pulled myself but not in time; I had been detected. If you wish to know what it is to be stared at, you should interrupt, as I had, a conversation between two young men of about this age in Fulham or elsewhere. They stared in unison and in silence until the tension became unbearable, and one of them, the elder, whose name was Bill, relieved it with the above quest on, "Kin yer write a letter?" Perhaps my answer was a little modest. He regarded me doubtfully, then asked-- "'Ow soon kin yer write a letter?"