As an officer at the front writes to a friend: "These
animals look so dreadfully competent, I am quite sure they can swim. Thus,
any day now, as you go to your business in the City, you may meet one of
them trundling up Ludgate Hill, looking like nothing on earth and not
behaving like a gentleman." As for the relations between the Allies in the
field the same correspondent contributes some enlightening details. The
French aren't English and the English aren't French, and difficulties are
bound to arise. The course of true love never did run smooth. Here it
started, as it generally does, with a rush; infatuation was succeeded by
friction, and that in turn by the orthodox aftermath of reconciliation.
"How do we stand now? We have settled down to one of those attachments
which have such an eternity before them in the future that they permit of
no gushing in the present." The War goes well on the Western Front, the
worst news being the report that the Kaiser has undertaken to refrain in
future from active participation in the conduct of military operations.
[Illustration:
THE SWEEPERS OF THE SEA.
MR. PUNCH: "Risky work, isn't it?"
TRAWLER SKIPPER: "That's why there's a hundred thousand of us doin' it."]
Peace reigns at Westminster, where legislators are agreeably conspicuous by
their absence. But other agencies are active.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119