" And the pathetic appeal
of the smart fashionable for lump sugar, on the ground that her darling
Fido cannot be expected to catch a spoonful of Demerara from the end of his
nose, leaves the grocer cold. A dairyman charged with selling
unsatisfactory milk has explained to the Bench that his cows were suffering
from shell-shock. He himself is now suffering from shell-out-shock. At
Ramsgate a shopkeeper has exhibited a notice in his window announcing that
"better days are in store." What most people want is butter days.
[Illustration:
ORDERLY SERGEANT: "Lights out, there."
VOICE FROM THE HUT: "It's the moon, Sergint."
ORDERLY SERGEANT: "I don't give a d--- what it is. Put it out!"]
The disquieting activities of the "giddy Gotha" involve drastic enforcement
of the lighting orders, and the moon is still an object of suspicion.
Pessimists and those critics who are never content unless each day brings a
spectacular success, seem to have taken for their motto: "It's not what I
mean, but what I say, that matters." But the moods of the non-combatant are
truly chameleonic. Civilians summoned to the War Office pass from
confidence to abasement, and from abasement to megalomania in the space of
half an hour.
Turkey, it appears, has sent an urgent appeal to Berlin for funds. The
disaster to the _Goeben_ can be endured, since the Sultan can now
declare a foreshore claim, and do a little salvage profiteering; but
Palestine is another matter.
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