But while we repudiate the implication of American responsibility we think it well to be absolutely on the safe side; so we suggest that it would be a friendly act, and consonant with the new spirit of alliance, if she would kindly keep the Panama Canal plugged for the next few weeks. One would like to make sure of hearing the cuckoo in Victory Year. * * * * * "Only ninety-two pigs came to Vienna's Easter market, of which ninety- four were allotted to hospitals."--_Daily Mail._ The two extra ones, it is understood, came from HINDENBURG'S "strategic reserve." * * * * * "It is expected that an official announcement will shortly be made of a scheme which will put practically the whole of the topmaking industry of Bradford at the disposal of the Government."--_Daily Telegraph._ That ought to make things hum. * * * * * "Napoleon was desolated were he left in the same room with a cat ... but he was not in the least afraid of being alone in the same room with Anne of Austria, whose claws were of a far more formidable capacity."-- _West Australian._ NAPOLEON'S intrepidity may have been due to his knowledge that ANNE of Austria died about a century before he was born. * * * * * [Illustration: "MY POOR REGINALD IS IN 'ORSPITAL WITH RHEUMATICS IN HIS LEGS. THE SCOTCH COSTUME, YOU KNOW."] * * * * * AT THE PLAY. "THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS." _Mrs. Dowey_ (actually a virgin spinster), felt herself out of it because she had no son at the Front to talk about. I gathered that it was not so much a case of unsatisfied yearning for motherhood, as that she wanted to hold her own with the other charwomen who were represented in the trenches. So she assumed the relationship of an anonymous _marraine_ towards a certain unknown namesake in the Black Watch, and made boastful pretence of having received letters from her son. Suddenly she is confronted with this _Private Dowey_, home on leave--a lonely soldier with no family ties. The joy that she had taken in her imagined sense of proprietorship is dashed by fear of exposure and of possible resentment on his part. At first he treats her intrusion almost brutally, but is soon mollified by the offer of food and other hospitality; and by the time his leave is up he has developed an almost filial regard for her. Their parting is as the parting of a tender-hearted mother and a rather unemotional son. The pathos of this scene, though designed and interpreted with a very sensitive restraint, was comparatively obvious--a commonplace, indeed, of these heart-rending days. There was a far more subtle and original note of pathos in the contrast between the brusque humour of the man's casual acceptance of the situation and the timorous, adoring, dog-like devotion of the woman. Here tears and laughter were never far apart.