"Dear wife, this isn't a bit like home, but it still makes me think of you at our station buying me that pencil and all, just as the train come in. I think of you all the time wherever I am, but the noise is something cruel, and here comes the Sergeant to tell us to prepare. I shan't have time to get a drink first; but it don't matter; I'd rather write to you than anything; and this pad what the minister gave me is fine. I keep it in my left breast pocket. Please tell him it hasn't stopped a bit of stuff yet, but I am sure it will soon. Remember me to everybody. Love and kisses from your Elijah." Mrs. Tiddy duly received the letter and shed proud tears at the thought of her husband, obviously on the eve of a great advance, or even lying out hungry and wounded in No Man's Land (she hovered between the alternatives), but still cheery and finding time and energy to write to his wife. It was only a too observant neighbour who discovered that the postmark was London, S.E. But even she has not yet decided whether Elijah Tiddy is of intention the biggest liar in the East Mudshires, or whether he only saw Waterloo Station with the eye of the literary man. * * * * * HISTORY PLAGIARIZES FROM FICTION. "Mr. Ginnell: Everybody in the House is excited but myself. Even you, Mr. Speaker, are excited."--_Parliamentary Debates_. "'It's my opinion, sir,' said Mr. Stiggins ... that this meeting is drunk, sir. Brother Tadger, sir ... _you_ are drunk, sir.'"--_Pickwick Papers_. * * * * * AN OLD SONG RESUNG. "O Ever since the world began There never was and never can Be such a very useful man As the railway porter." So ran the rhyme that in my youth I thought perhaps outstripped the truth, But now, when longer in the tooth, Freely I endorse it. In calling out a station's name He is undoubtedly to blame For failing, as a rule, to aim At clear enunciation; But, since the War, he hasn't struck Or downed his tools--I mean his truck-- And plays the game with patient pluck Like a sturdy Briton. He's often old and far from strong, But still he doesn't "make a song" About his lot, but jogs along Steadily and bravely. He doesn't greet with surly frowns Or naughty adjectives and nouns A tip of just a brace of "browns" Where he once got sixpence. But better far than any meed Of praise embodied in this screed Is ERIC GEDDES' boast that he'd Been a railway porter. * * * * * THE TOWER THAT PASSED IN THE NIGHT.