Nish is a town of little more than 20,000 inhabitants; about the size of Taunton or Hereford--smaller than Woking or Dartford. Working on a basis of comparative populations, the Emperor would have to repeat without more delay his bravery at Nish in 150 towns of the same size before he could convince his people that he is even now on the point of fulfilling his first rash promises to them of the rapid overthrow of his foes. Pursuing the same calculation, he is bound to multiply his present glories 350 times before he can count securely on spending a night as conquering hero in Buckingham Palace. Even the Kaiser must know in his heart that woefully, from his own and his people’s point of view, did he overestimate his strength at the outset. For the time he contents himself with the backwater of Nish for the scene of his oratory of conquest. His vainglorious words may well prove in their environment the prelude of a compulsory confession of failure, which is likely to come at a far briefer interval than the eighteen months which separate the imaginary hope of Paris from the slender substance of Nish. SIDNEY LEE [Illustration: THE TRIALS OF A COURT PAINTER “I commenced this as the entry into Paris, but I must finish it as the entry into Nish.”] The Fire Fiend Among the many inventions which German ingenuity and science have devised for the effective conduct of this war, and for the elevation of Germany to supremacy in the world, the most repellent in general estimation has been the use of fire; but this commends itself with peculiar zest to Mephistopheles, who here sits on a chair beside the telephone and calls up the Prussian Palace at Potsdam. He cannot restrain his admiration and delight at this new invention. It is entirely to his heart. He sits with one leg rested on the knee of the other; and you will notice that the foot of this leg, with its carefully careless drawing, suggests a cloven hoof, while the scanty hair, by its arrangement, gives the effect of a pair of horns: even in this figure, an ornament of high-class society, there linger the signs of the half-bestial figure of Satan. The face is wholly the countenance of the devil, conceived as the man of society, who has moved amid the luxury of the most fashionable circles, where his wit and cynicism have made him popular.