No doubt you would provide far better "copy" To the industrious drivers of the quill If you were more emotional and sloppy, More richly dowered with journalistic skill; To make despatches blossom like the poppy You never have essayed and never will; In short, you couldn't earn a pound a week As a reporter on _The Daily Shriek_. Frugal in speech, yet more than once impelled To utter words of confidence and cheer, Whereat some dismal publicists rebelled As premature, ill-founded, insincere-- Words none the less triumphantly upheld By Victory's verdict, resonantly clear, Words that inspired misgiving in the foe Because you do not prophesy--you _know_; Steadfast and calm, unmoved by blame or praise, By local checks or Fortune's strange caprices, You dedicate laborious nights and days To shattering the Hun machine to pieces; And howsoe'er at times the battle sways The Army's trust in your command increases; Patient in preparation, swift in deed, We find in you the leader that we need. * * * * * "The temperature in Berlin yesterday was 131 degrees Centigrade, which is the highest temperature since 1848."--_Daily Dispatch._ Equal to about 268 degrees Fahr. and quite hot enough to keep the Imperial Potsdam boiling. * * * * * "A correspondent who knows a great deal about the coat trade says there is going to be great difficulty in obtaining coal during the coming winter."--_Torquay Times._ This will confirm the belief that the shortage of fuel is not unassociated with the vested interests. * * * * * "We, on the other hand, are just as much entitled, under any sane code of morals, to bombard Kerman towns as to shoot German soldiers on the field."--_The Globe._ We think, however, that the inhabitants of these Persian towns might reasonably object to such vicarious reprisals. * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)