THE NEW ARM.
(On perceiving William in mufti again and carrying one.)
What is this implement of warfare, Bill?
What seed of fire within its entrails slumbers?
Does it unfold at all? Run through the drill,
Doing it first by numbers.
Not a grenade and not a parachute?
Some remnant rather of the ancient folly,
Some touch of times before the Big Dispute?
I have it now! A brolly.
Yes, and it opens outwards like a tent,
Guarding the sacred poll from skies injurious.
Up with it! Let us see your tops'ls bent.
How splendid! And how curious!
Do it again, Bill. I am better now;
Only at first, perhaps, I slightly trembled.
Press on the little clutch and show me how
The parts are reassembled.
To think men poked these things into the sky,
Fearing to face the storm's minutest particles,
Through four long hectic years, whilst you and I
Forgot there were such articles.
It brings the old times back to one again,
The grim-eyed crowd that faced the morning's dolours
Doing their very best to drip the rain
Down other people's collars;
The fond, fond pair beneath a single dome;
The fight to ride on Hammersmiths and Chelseas;
The rapture when you found on reaching home
Your gamp was someone else's.
O symbol of routine and office hours!
O emblem of the soft civilian status!
Shall I too deign to roof me from the showers
With such an apparatus?
Shall I consent to grasp within my hand
The sign of serfdom and to get the habit
Of marching like a mushroom down the Strand,
A mushroom on a rabbit?
Never. O hateful sight! And yet—and yet
I'm not so sure. This month has been a dry one;
June will most probably be beastly wet;
P'r'aps, after all, I'll buy one.
EVOE.
East is East.
"The Girl Guides are doing well.... Another guide was married this month to Corporal ——. We wish them all happiness."—Diocesan Magazine (India).
Corporal —— appears to be a specialist.
"There are persistent rumours of a plot to bring back the old régime and put either a Hohenzollern or a representative of some other Royal house on the Thorne of Germany."—Canadian Paper.
EX-KAISER (loq.): "No, thanks; I've had some."
"OXFORD FOR HOLIDAYS.—Most beautiful city in England. Good lodgings and boating. Two golf links and fishing."—Advt. in Provincial Paper.
We seem to remember, too, some mention of an educational establishment in connection with the place.
Our Helpful Contemporaries.
"There have been cases, we believe, in which the height of a person has increased after the person had reached mature age, but it has always been suspected that this was due to greater uprightness. A man who stoops always looks shorter than when he is standing quite upright. But no such explanation as this can be given for an apparent increase of the human head. If a head really requires a larger hat it must be because the head is larger."—Provincial Paper.
