More of this, if you can bear it, in my next. Yours ever, ONE OF THE _PUNCH_ BRIGADE. * * * * * [Illustration: _British Tommy_ (_returning to trench in which he has lately been fighting, now temporarily occupied by the enemy_). "EXCUSE ME--ANY OF YOU BLIGHTERS SEEN MY PIPE?"] * * * * * "BEHIND THE GREAT WESTERN BATTLE LINE." _Daily Chronicle._ We always thought the Great Western claimed to be the Holiday Line. * * * * * OVERHEARD EVERYWHERE. I. "How are yours getting on?" "Oh, all right." "How many rooms do you give them?" "A sitting-room and two bedrooms." "I wish we could. We have no spare sitting-room. They have meals with you, I suppose?" "Lunch and dinner, yes." "Do they know any English?" "Devil a word." "Do you know any French?" "Precious little. But Norah does--some. I say, what does 'chin-chin' mean?" "'Chin-chin'? Isn't that what some fellows say before they drink?" "Well, it can't be that. Madame says it at intervals all the time her husband is talking." "Oh, you mean 'Tiens, tiens,' don't you?" "Perhaps. What does it mean, anyway?" "It's just an exclamation like 'Really' or 'Just think of that!'" "Thank Heaven I know! You've taken a terrible load off my mind." "Do they eat much?" "Well, I should call their appetites healthy." "Same with ours. But it's all right. I shouldn't mind if they ate twice as much." II. "Do yours do anything?" "Monsieur is an artist. Madame mends lace beautifully." "What does he paint?" "Well, he hasn't painted anything yet, but he says he's an artist. He looks like one. He goes to the National Gallery." "Why don't you ask him to paint one of the children?" "My dear, they're terrified of him! They won't come into the room." III. "Are you having an easy time with yours?" "Moderate. Only Jack behaves so badly. After every meal Monsieur always begins a long speech about their indebtedness to us and all the rest of it, and Jack will walk out in the middle." "What do you talk about?" "Well, for the most part about the terrible privations before they got away. But now and then they will tell _risqué_ stories. More than _risqué_--really shocking. Jack does his best to get them off it, but he never succeeds. They seem to think we expect it." "Oh, ours aren't a bit like that. The trouble with ours is that they hate going out. They sit tight indoors from morning to night." "Can't you lure them out?" "Well, I tell them what a wonderful place the British Museum is; but it's no use." IV.