The suggestion, even with war-time economy as an ideal before us, is not so mad as it sounds. Most of us smoke more cigarettes than we need, to an amount far exceeding the cost of six extra morning papers. The worst of it is that other people can never read a paper for us. Most people don't try; they put us off. If ever a La Rochefoucauld compiles the _sententiae_ of the breakfast-room he must include such apophthegms as these:-- Even the most determined opponent of journalism becomes alert and prehensile on the arrival of the paper. He is a poor master of a house who does not insist upon the first sight of the paper. He is a poor master of a house who, on being asked if there is any news of-day, replies in the affirmative. No papers require so much reading as those with "nothing in them." He is a poor citizen who could not edit a paper better than its editor. Into what La Rochefoucauld would say when he came to deal not with the readers of papers but with papers themselves, I cannot enter. That is a different and a vaster matter. But certainly he should include this _pensee_:-- He is a poor editor who does not know more than the PRIME MINISTER. * * * * * ABDUL: AN APPRECIATION. I heard the shriek of an approaching shell, something hit the ground beneath my feet, and I went sailing through the ether, to land softly on an iron hospital cot in a small white-walled room. There was no doubt that it was a most extraordinary happening. On the wall beside me was a temperature chart, on a table by my bed was a goolah of water, and in the air was that subtle Cairene smell. Yes, I was undoubtedly back in Cairo. Obviously I must have arrived by that shell. Then, as I was thinking it all out, appeared to me a vision in a long white galabieh. It smiled, or rather its mouth opened, and disclosed a row of teeth like hailstones on black garden mould. "Me Abdul," it said coyly; "gotter givit you one wash." I was washed in sections, and Abdul did it thoroughly. There came a halt after some more than usually strenuous scrubbing at my knees. Mutterings of "mushquais" (no good) and a wrinkled brow showed me that Abdul was puzzled. Then it dawned on me. I had been wearing shorts at Anzac, and Abdul was trying to wash the sunburn off my knees! By dint of bad French, worse Arabic, and much sign language I explained. Abdul went to the door and jodelled down the corridor, "Mo-haaaaamed, Achmed." Two other slaves of the wash-bowl appeared, and to them Abdul disclosed my mahogany knees with much the same air as the gentleman who tells one the fine points of the living skeleton on Hampstead Heath. They gazed in wonder. At last Achmed put his hand on my knee. "This called?" he asked. "Knee," I told him. "Yes," he said thoughtfully, "this neece--Arabic; this" (pointing to an unsunburnt part of my leg)--"Eengleesh."