* * * * * [Illustration: _Stage Manager._"THE ELEPHANT'S PUTTING UP A VERY SPIRITED PERFORMANCE TO-NIGHT." _Carpenter_. "YESSIR. YOU SEE, THE NEW HIND-LEGS IS A DISCHARGED SOLDIER, AND THE FRONT LEGS is AN OUT-AND-OUT PACIFIST."] * * * * * Broody. "WHIST DRIVE.--A sitting of eggs was given by Mrs. ---- for the lady or gentleman sitting the greatest number of times consecutively."--_Worcester Daily Times._ * * * * * "In Captain ----'s boat all the men survived, although full of water."--_New Zealand Paper._ In the interests of temperance we protest against "although." * * * * * "RUSSIAN TROOPS MUTINY. Petrograd, Saturday. The Minister of War has given orders to disband the regiments, and to bring the officers and men responsible before a court-marital." _East Anglian Daily Times._ That's right. Let their wives talk to them. * * * * * [Illustration: "I'LL LEARN YER TO CALL ME 'LITTLE WILLIE.' MY FARVER DON'T ARF KNOW 'OW TO KILL GERMANS. AN' _I'LL SHOW YER WHERE HE GITS IT FROM!_"] * * * * * =OPEN WARFARE.= Men said, "At last! at last the open battle! Now shall we fight unfettered o'er the plain, No more in catacombs be cooped like cattle, Nor travel always in a devious drain!" They were in ecstasies. But I was damping; I like a trench, I have no lives to spare; And in those catacombs, however cramping, You did at least know vaguely where you were. Ah, happy days in deep well-ordered alleys, Where, after dining, probably with wine, One felt indifferent to hostile sallies, And with a pipe meandered round the line; You trudged along a trench until it ended; It led at least to some familiar spot; It might not be the place that you'd intended, But then you might as well be there as not. But what a wilderness we now inhabit Since this confounded "open" strife prevails! It may be good; I do not wish to crab it, But you should hear the language it entails, Should see this waste of wide uncharted craters Where it is vain to seek the companies, Seeing the shell-holes are as like as taters And no one knows where anybody is. Oft in the darkness, palpitant and blowing, Have I set out and lost the hang of things, And ever thought, "Where _can_ the guide be going?" But trusted long and rambled on in rings, For ever climbing up some miry summit, And halting there to curse the contrite guide, For ever then descending like a plummet Into a chasm on the other side.