For he provides his own peculiar terrors, His own pet penalties, his special scores; He little recks your mere strategic errors, He marks unmoved the feeblest kind of fours; 'Tis naught to him how Private Thompson shoots, Only he must not wear civilian boots; And all the officers may act like brutes If they commit no sin against the Stores. Then, like the octopus, that all day dallies In loathly caverns, loving not the sun, Till prying trespassers provoke his sallies, He waddles forth and gives the culprit one; Unrolls, like tentacles, by fold and pleat, Some hoary form, some long-forgot receipt, And stamps the fellow liar, thief and cheat-- There is no argument; the man is done. And evermore, however slight the caper, His name, his credit in the Stores is black; If he but supplicate for emery-paper, Or seek small articles his soldiers lack, He will be lucky if they fail to look His record up in some avenging book, And say, "I thought as much--the man who took A bar of soap and never brought it back." Be careful, then, and court the man's compassion; Note how the gods, in old Olympian years, Would woo Hephaestus's, that used to fashion Stout shields and suchlike for his godly peers; How upstart deities, who feared not Zeus And gave Poseidon something like abuse, Approached him sweetly and were quite profuse, Lest he be cross and serve them out no spears. Nor in the trenches should your tact diminish, For there, still stern with casual issue notes, _He_ will determine when the food must finish, And stint his rum to undeserving throats; And what if in some struggle he should say, "Look here, this battle can't go on to-day; You'll get no hand-grenades, no S.A.A., Till Simpson signs for all those overcoats"? * * * * * Mormonism in England? "A Minister's Wives' Meeting will be held at Whitefield's, Tottenham Court Road." * * * * * FROM THE FRONT. "Hurrah!" I said, "I've got a letter from the Front." "Well done!" said Francesca. "Who's it from?" "From Walter. It's not a very long one." "That doesn't matter a bit. The great thing is to have one from the Front, even if it's only to thank you for a pair of socks." "Mine's better than that," I said. "It runs into nearly two pages." "Yes," she said, "but it doesn't tell you much, now does it?" "No, to tell you the truth it doesn't. They're under an honourable obligation, you know, not to reveal things." "Poor boys! It isn't much a Second-Lieutenant could reveal, is it. There's nothing said in your letter about Sir DOUGLAS HAIG having called Walter up to Headquarters----" "You mustn't say Headquarters; you must say G.H.Q. if you want to impress people."