"Wellington said that the battle of Waterloo was won upon the cricket fields of England. Later--decades later--the bronzed and lithe-limbed athletes of the island kingdom gazed in open-eyed bewilderment upon the flaming indictment of Kipling, 'The muddled oafs at the wicket; the flannelled fools at the gate,' and seeking vainly to follow the poet's logic." _New York Times._ Presented in this form it would baffle anybody. * * * * * [Illustration: BREAKFAST IN A FRONT TRENCH. _Tommy._ "THE BLOOMIN' DUG-OUT'S FLOODED OUT, THE BISCUIT'S WET, THE TEA'S COLD AND THERE AIN'T NOTHIN' TO WARM IT WITH." _Sergeant._ "OH, CHUCK IT! I DUNNO WHAT SOME OF YOU BLIGHTERS WOULD DO IF YOU 'AD TO ROUGH IT!"] * * * * * PETHERTON'S PARROT. Matters are getting worse between Petherton and myself; in fact if any friendship had ever existed between us I am afraid one would say that we are now in a state of complete estrangement, resulting from the invasion of my premises by his parrot, and the ensuing correspondence. My opening gambit was as follows:-- DEAR MR. PETHERTON,--My immediate object in addressing you is to ask whether by any chance you have lost a parrot, because a bird of that species flew through an open bedroom window of my house this morning without invitation or encouragement from us. I am inclined to think that the bird is yours, but have nothing but what I might term the synthetic process of reasoning for arriving at this conclusion. If you have lost anything of a parroty nature, and will write me a description of it, I will see whether it tallies with the bird in whose possession we are. I describe the situation in this way because it more truly expresses it than the converse would do. Yours faithfully, H. J. FORDYCE. Petherton countered with the following:-- SIR,--In reply to your absurdly worded letter I have lost a parrot, a grey one. I do not know why you should have inferred that the bird at your place belongs to me, unless you had already heard that mine is missing, in which case I should have thought the proper course would have been to return it. I suppose, however, that to a person of your nature such a simple procedure would have been impossible. The writing of unnecessary, stupid and rather annoying letters seems to be an obsession with you. I shall be obliged by your giving the bird to the bearer of this note. Yours truly, FREDERICK PETHERTON. The yeast of controversy was evidently beginning to work, and I kept it going with:--