_Bombing Officer._--Sit down. Smoke if you want to--and listen. My job is to teach you fellers all about what has turned out to be of the highest importance in this trench warfare, namely, bombs and grenades. This is a trench war; has been for three years. The nature of the fighting may alter, of course. We all hope it will. But we must think of _trenches_ at the moment. Now, the German is a clever feller, and he soon saw that you'd never kill off the enemy if you just sat down behind a parapet with a rifle in your hand. So he started inventing and developing these things. But we're catching him up. We've caught him up. Now, this is a Mills ... VI. _The Adjutant_ (_after two hours' extended order drill and attack practice_).--Just sit down. Close in a bit. Light your pipes if you wish. Let me tell you that the sort of work we've been doing this afternoon is the _only_ way we're ever going to finish off the Hun--absolutely. You can never win a war by squatting down in a hole and lookin' at the other fellow. No, open fighting--that's what the new armies have got to learn. I fear it's been badly neglected; but not in _this_ battalion. Now, with regard to the screen of skirmishers, I want ... VII. _Drill Sergeant._--On 'er left, form--squad. For--erd, by the ri.' Mark--time. For--erd. Wake up, Thomson; we don't want no blinkin' _dreamers_ in the Army. Pick up the step there, Number Three, fron' rank. 'Ep, ri'; 'ep, ri'; 'ep, ri. Sker-wad--'alt. Stan' still. 'Alt means 'alt. No movin' at all; just 'alt. Right--dress. Eyes--front. 'Swer. Eyes--front. Stanat--'ipe. 'Swer. Stanat--'ipe. Stan' easy. Now listen to me, me lads. The chiefest dooty of a soljer is O-bedience. Drill an' discipline is 'ow you gets that. Stop chewin, 'Arris. You'll be losin' your name again, me lad. Don't pay to lose your name twice--not in this regiment it don't. You'll learn a deal of other stuff 'ere; but take it from me it's the barrick-square work wot makes a soljer. Wot _is_ a soljer? Why, a _drilled_ man. 'Ow jer think I 'ave turned some 'undreds of blankety militiamen into the real thing? If a bloke can't stan' still on parade _I_ don't want to hear about his doin's on the range or 'ow he can chuck a Mills. Sker-wad-- 'shun. Dis--miss. 'Swer. No call to go salootin' me, Private McKenzie. I ain't an orficer--_yet_. Dis--miss. _Private Jones_ (_young and keen, and a trifle confused_).--Good 'evins, Bill; they carn't _all_ be bloomin' well right, can they? _Lance-Corporal Smith._--No, boy. It's the 'appy mejium we gets wiv 'em all, yer see. That's it--the happy mejium. * * * * * [Illustration: _Sentry._ "HALT! WHO GOES THERE?" _Officer._ "VISITING ROUNDS." _Sentry._ "ADVANCE ONE AND RECOGNISE YERSELF."] * * * * * THE NEW NOTE IN THEATRICAL ADVERTISING. (_The sort of thing we are now getting in the daily papers in place of the antique boastings of expenditure and magnificence._)