[Illustration: _Servant (on hearing air-raid warning)._ "I SHALL STAND
HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 'ALL, MUM, SO THAT IF A BOMB COMES IN AT THE
FRONT-DOOR WE CAN GO OUT AT THE BACK."]

* * * * *

PLAYING THE GAME.

After we had finally arranged the cricket match--Convalescents
_versus_ the Village--for the benefit of the Serbian Relief Fund, we
remembered that early in the year the cricket-field had been selected
for the site of the village potato-patch, and my favourite end of the
pitch--the one without the cross-furrow--was now in full blossom.

As the cricket-field is the only level piece of ground in the
district, the cricket committee began to lose its grip upon the
situation, and were only saved from ignominious failure by the
enterprise of the British Army, in this case represented by
Sergeant-Major Kippy, D.C.M., who was recovering in the best of
spirits from his third blighty one.

"'Ow about the Colonel's back gardin?" he suggested. "There's a lovely
bit o' turf there."

We remembered the perfect and spacious lawn, scarcely less level than
a billiard-table, and, even with the Colonel busy on the East Coast,
the committee were unanimously adverse to the suggestion. But Kippy,
born within hail of a Kentish cricket-field, was not to be denied,
and, after all, one cannot haggle about a mere garden with someone who