Recruiting Sergeant. "Want to join the Cavalry, do you? Know anything about horses?"
Applicant. "Wot—me? Three winners and a second yesterday! Lumme, Guv'nor! Wot do you think?"
THE RECRUITING PROBLEM SOLVED.
The recruiting problem would surely be solved easily if Lord Kitchener would send for Captain Desmond, V.C., and his legions from Lahore. It will be remembered that in a polo tournament at that military station Captain Desmond and his team reached the final after "they had fought their way, inch by inch, through eight-and-twenty matches." (Ch. XVI., Captain Desmond, V.C., by Maud Diver.) If we generously assume that the hero's team played in the only tie in the first round the rest being byes—we arrive at the result that there were 268,435,457 teams or 1,073,741,828 men playing. Might not just a small percentage of these, if brought over to France, decide the issue at once in favour of the Allies? Some of the four or five billion ponies might also be utilised for remounts and for transport. Nor should the committee which successfully managed this tournament be lost sight of. They showed a power of organisation which could scarcely fail to be of use now at the War Office.
"Rosa pulled off her hat as she spoke, throwing it carelessly on the bed, and she laughed nosily."—Ottawa Citizen.
This is generally supposed to be an American habit.