O Month, before your final moon is set, Much may have happened--anything, in fact; More than in any March that I have met (Last year excepted) fearful nerves are racked; Anarchy does with Russia what it likes; Paris is put conundrums very knotty; And here in England, with its talk of strikes, Men, like your own March hares, seem going dotty. Blow, then, with all your gales and clear our skies! We did not win that War the other day To please the Huns or gladden TROTSKY'S eyes By fighting, kin with kin, this futile way; Blow--not too hard, of course--I should not care To inconvenience Mr. WILSON on his voyage-- But just enough to clean the germy air And usher in the universal Joy-Age. O.S. * * * * * GOOD-BYE TO THE AUXILIARY PATROL. II.--THE SHIP'S COMPANY. Demobilisation in the Navy, whatever it may be in the Army, is a simple affair. You are first sent for by the Master-at-Arms, who glares, thrusts papers into your trembling hand and ejects you violently in the direction of the Demobilising Office. Here they regard you curiously, stifle a yawn, languidly inspect your papers and send you to the Paymaster, who, after wandering disconsolately round the Pay Office, exclaiming pathetically, "I say, hasn't _anyone_ seen that Mixed Muster book? It must be _somewhere_, you know," returns you without thanks to the D.O., where they tell you to call again in three days' time. On returning you are provided with a P.I.O. and numerous necessary papers, requested to sign a few dozen forms, overwhelmed with an unexpected _largesse_ of pay and sent forth on that twenty-eight days' leave from which no traveller returns. There's nothing in it at all; the whole thing only lasts four days. They do it by a system, I believe. As we assembled on board for the last time, awaiting our railway warrants, there were some moving spectacles. The Mate and the Second-Engineer were bidding each other affectionate and tearful farewells behind the winch. "You won't quite forget me, Bill, will yer?" I heard the Second exclaim brokenly, but the only reply was a strangled sob. The Steward, seated on his kit-bag, was murmuring a snatch of song that asserted the rather personal fact that "our gel's a big plump lass." He is an oyster-dredger in civil life and is eagerly looking forward to experiencing once more the delicate thrills and excitement of this hazardous sport. Jones, our Signaller, who recently wrote a poem which opened with the lines, "I for one will be surprised When we are demobilised," was struggling painfully to insert a pair of boots into a recalcitrant kit-bag, and exhibited an expression of dogged determination rather than the astonishment he had predicted. The Trimmer was heard complaining mournfully that when he left the Patrol Office for the last time they never said good-bye. He seemed to feel this keenly.