The _chef d'orchestre_ said he would, and did so. Next Sunday evening, as the concert drew to a close, the band flung into the _Marseillaise_, and the subalterns of all nations kept to attention. They stood to attention through "God Save the King," through the national anthems of Russia, Italy, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Montenegro and Monte Carlo, all our brave Allies. Then the _chef d'orchestre_ suddenly sprang upon a stool and waved above his head the stripes and stars of our newest brave Ally, while the band crashed into the opening strains of "When de midnight choo-choo starts for Alabam." It speaks volumes for the discipline of the allied armies that their young subalterns stood to attention even through that. PATLANDER. * * * * * [Illustration: _Sailor_ (_rebuking pessimist_). "O' COURSE SOME O' THEM U-BOATS GETS AWAY. WOT D'YER THINK WE 'UNT 'EM WITH? FILTERS?"] * * * * * THE GENTLEST ART. Private Elijah Tiddy looked at his watch. There was still half-an-hour to the great moment for which the battalion had waited so long. Most of the men had decided to fill up the time by eating, drinking or sleeping, but Private Tiddy had two other passions in life--one was his wife, and the other the gentle art of letter-writing. At all possible and impossible moments Private Tiddy wrote letters home. To some men this would have been an impossible moment--not so to Tiddy, who, if he hadn't been first a plumber and then a soldier, would have made an inimitable journalist. So he sat down as best he could with all that he carried, and extracted a letter-case from an inside pocket. It was a recent gift from the minister of his parish, who knew and shared Tiddy's weakness for the pen, and it filled his soul with joy. He fingered the thin sheets of writing-paper lovingly, as a musician touches the strings, and thoughtfully sucked the indelible pencil which Mrs. Tiddy had bought for him as a parting present when she said good-bye to him at the bookstall. "Dearest Wife," he began. Then at a shout he hastily drew in his feet as a man dashed past him with a heavy burden. "I nearly got it in the neck a minute ago," he wrote, "but I'm all right, and this is a fine place if it wasn't for the noise. They never seem to stop screeching and the smoke is fair awful, and as soon as you think everything is quiet another comes. I am quite alone at this minute, but don't you go for to worry; they'll be back soon and then perhaps I'll get a bit of something. It's pretty hard where I am sitting and I can't write you much of a letter, what with the cramp in my legs and the noise and wondering how soon the Sergeant will come and tell us to move up nearer our part of the line. I can see some of the line, not our bit, from where I am sitting. It's shining just lovely in the sun.