"Up-ended the waste-paper basket on him," he panted, dusting his knees with a handkerchief. "And now, me lad, what now, eh?" "Fetch a dog, Sir," answered Albert Edward, mindful of his friend The O'Murphy. The General sneered, "Dog be blowed! What's the matter with the old-fashioned cat? I've got a plain tabby with me that has written standard works on ratting." He lifted up his voice and bawled to his orderly to bring one Pussums. "Had the old tabby for years, me lad," he continued; "brought it from home--carry it round with me everywhere; and I don't have any rat troubles. Orderly! "Fellers come out here with St. Bernard dogs, shot-guns, poison, bear-traps and fishing-nets and never get a wink of sleep for the rats, while one common cat like my old Pussums would----Oh, where is that confounded feller?" He strode to the door and flung it open, admitting, not an orderly but The O'Murphy, who nodded pleasantly to him and trotted across the room, tail twinkling, love-light shining in his eyes, and deposited at Albert Edward's feet his offering, a large dead tabby cat. Albert Edward remembers no more. He had swooned. PATLANDER. * * * * * [Illustration: FORCE OF HABIT. _Farmer_. "IF YOU'VE FINISHED PLOUGHIN' THIS 'ERE FIELD WHAT'RE YOU DOIN' SCRATCHIN' ABOUT WITH THAT STICK?" _C3 War-worker_ (_formerly humorous artist_). "OH, JUST SIGNING MY NAME."] * * * * * [Illustration: _Tommy_ (_reporting himself to Sergeant after search for lost bayonet_). "AH'VE FOUND ME BAGGINET." _Sergeant_. "WHERE WAS IT?" _Tommy_. "ON THE TOP O' MA GOON."] * * * * * NOT WISELY BUT TOO WELL. CHAPTER I. "I wish you would speak to Cook yourself about it," said my wife rather nervously. "The whole thing depends upon her, and everyone says the chief difficulty is to get one's servants into line." "It seems hardly my department," said I. "No," my wife admitted, "but I believe it would _impress_ her. She is not in the least impressed by me." I saw at once I should have to do it; you can't run away from a thing like that without impairing your position as the head of the house. But I dreaded it. I have always been afraid of her, and I knew that if she began to argue I should be expected to take what my wife calls a firm line, and that is always most uncomfortable. I wanted to have her up to my study, so that I should have the moral support of encyclopaedias and things that she doesn't understand; but my wife was convinced that I ought to mark the importance of the occasion by presenting myself in the kitchen. I hadn't been down that stair for months and months. All this happened weeks ago, when the DEVONPORT rations were proposed....