To-day I left my downy lair An hour before my wont; But do I consequently wear An unctuous smile? I don't. If with the early lark's ascent I soared from out my bed, it Is to an Act of Parliament That I must give the credit. When I escape, in butter's dearth, The fault of waxing fat, Calmly I view my modest girth And take no praise for that; Not mine the glory when my soul Abjures its ruling passion; 'Tis his, the lord of Food-control, Who fixed my sugar-ration. Hampered by regulations for The chastisement of crime-- Arson and theft and marrying more Than one wife at a time-- I like to feel some sins there be For which the law can't hurt you, In whose regard your heart is free To follow vice or virtue. Of one temptation I rejoice Especially to think, That leaves me loose to take my choice-- My reference is to DRINK; Here, where as yet no rules apply By Pussyfeet dictated, The merit's mine whenever I Am not inebriated. O. S. * * * * * THE PERSONAL ELEMENT AT A MOTOR SHOW. Not to be outdone by Olympia we have just held a motor show in our provincial Town Hall. What though the motoring magazines, obese with the rich diet of advertisement, grew no fatter in its honour, it was at least the most successful social function we have known since the War began. The Town Hall externally was magnificent with flags by day and coloured lamps by night, and within was a blaze of bunting and greenstuff. The band of the Free Shepherds played popular music, and the luncheon and tea rooms were the scene of most delightful little gatherings. Besides all this, quite a number of cars were to be found amongst the decorations. Nearly every demobilised officer in the county seems to have taken up an agency for a car or two, and bought himself spats on the strength of a prospective fortune. Jimmy Wrigley and I are amongst them. Wrigley in the Great War was M.T., R.A.S.C., and knows so much about cars that he can tell the make of lamps from the track of the tyres; while I was a cavalryman and know so little that I judge Jimmy's cleverness only by other people's incredulity. On our stand at the show we exhibited two cars, which, as I carefully learned beforehand from the book of the words, were a Byng-Beatty and a Tanglefoot, these being the cars for which we are what they call concessionaires. (The _bat_ is tricky, but one picks it up loafing about garages.) As a rule Jimmy and I do the correspondence between us--Jimmy contributing the technique and I the punctuation; but for the three days of the show his cousin Sheila volunteered to preside at a dainty little table and make jottings of our orders. Sheila is always ornamental, and as we had the stand draped to tone with her hair, and she wore a dress which harmonized like soft music with the pale heliotrope of the Tanglefoot's body-work, our display was a magnet from the word "Go."