The siege drags on, however, the days seeming to be an endless monotony in which there is absolutely nothing to sustain one's interest. Week by week we make a united and laborious attempt to whip our flagging energies into some activity. It is a hideous spectacle, but this Sunday celebration reveals how very trying has become the situation. The military authorities have been at their wits' end to find amusement for the garrison, and this effort has developed into a Sabbatarian charade in which we all assume an active co-operation, and try to think that we are having a very giddy and even gushing time. Colonel Baden-Powell, in this respect, makes an admirable stage-manager. Authors, scenic artists, stage hands, scene shifters, there are, of course, none; but in the middle of the week the Chief Staff Officer becomes the town crier, crying lustily, by means of proclamation, that, by the grace of God, upon the coming Sunday there will be a golf match or baby show, a concert or polo match, even some attempt at amateur theatricals. The Sunday respite is, however, immensely appreciated, and, indeed, it is a very welcome panacea to our siege-strung nerves. Where in England you people are saying, "Oh, bother Sunday," "How like a Sunday," we say, "Thank God it is Sunday," implying, for that day in seven, a period of absolute rest and no little contentment. We are warriors on Sunday: bold, bad, and brave. We have our horses out on Sunday and take a toss as elegantly as we take our neighbour's money at cards in the evening, when fortune favours. We drink, we accept one another's invitations to meals of unsurpassing heaviness; we even invite ourselves to one another's houses. We drink, we eat, we flirt, we live in every second of the hours which constitute the Sunday, and upon the passing of the day it is as though we had entered into another world. As midnight arrives, we hasten back to our trenches filled with the good things of the day, even with the zest to penetrate the mysteries of another week of siege. In the morning we stand-to-arms at four o'clock, not because there is any special purpose for doing so, but rather that we may satisfy ourselves that we are soldiers; and then the labour of the day begins, and for six more days we stand-to-arms and wonder when the devil the enemy are coming on. We are very brave then, and at times we take ourselves so seriously that into each breast there comes the spirit of the Commander-in-Chief. Then we criticise the war, talk fatuously of what we would do, struggle somewhat ingloriously with the archaic jargon of the army, until, if our speech betrays our ignorance, we, nevertheless, make a mighty lot of noise. Then we are satisfied, though doubtless each thinks the other somewhat of a fool.