It seemed to me on that foggy frosty day, that to lie in a hammock in the shade, with the temperature about ninety, watching coolies work, would be the perfect form of labour. I congratulated Bilsden on having found his _métier_. Half-an-hour later I met Parkinson, another second-loot who had just shed his pip. "Well, what are you going to do now?" I asked. "I'm a bit dubious," he said. "Try tea-planting in Ceylon," I suggested. "Elephants, spicy breezes, swing in a hammock all day watching coolies. My dear boy, were I twenty years younger I should be inquiring about a berth on the next steamer." "Ah," said Parkinson, "of course Ceylon's all right, and I've a lot of pals going out there; but what about rubber-planting in the Malay Peninsula? They've got tigers there. That's rather a pull." I admitted the attraction of tigers to certain tastes, but not to mine. In my case the pull, I thought, might be on the tiger's side. Since these interviews I have been going the rounds of my military acquaintances and I find a general feeling in favour of Ceylon or the Malay Peninsula. Of course it's an excellent thing that they should take up the white man's burden and make the coolies work, only I'm in dread lest the overcrowding we suffer from in England may be extended to the Orient. Will there be enough plantations, coolies and big game to go round amongst our subalterns? I can see the Government introducing several Bills-- (1) For the extension of the Isle of Ceylon; (2) For the lengthening of the Malay Peninsula; (3) For the importation of five million coolies, estimated at the rate of five hundred coolies each, to give employment to ten thousand second-loots; (4) For the importation of elephants, tigers, lions, buffalo, hippopotami, giraffes and capercailzie. * * * * * AT PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE. [Mr. GEOFFREY DAWSON has resigned the Editorship of _The Times_, owing to a disagreement with Lord NORTHCLIFFE over matters of policy, and has been succeeded by Mr. H. WICKHAM STEED, formerly foreign editor.] "Once more upon the waters! Yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a Steed That knows his master." _Byron_, "_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_." * * * * * [Illustration: _Inspecting Officer_. "WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT NUT ON THIS LORRY?" _Driver_ (_ex-infantry_). "I AM, SIR."] * * * * * A CAREER. (_The Right Man in the Right Place_.) You should see our son James! You should just see our James! As bright as a button, as sharp as a knife! My wife says to me and I say to my wife, "You'll never have seen such a son in your life As our jammy son, James."