* * * * *

[Illustration: EPILOGUE]

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH AS PROPAGANDIST.

I don't know what decided him to do it. I think he must have been
a little fed up with our silly British way (rather attractive, all
the same) of assuming that the whole world is bound to recognise
the justice of our point of view without the use of propaganda to
stimulate its intelligence.

Or else he had read somewhere that the Bolsheviks had been flooding
the Hun trenches with Socialist literature and that the German
Headquarters Staff had protested against this kind of thing as being
contrary to etiquette, and he thought he couldn't go far wrong if he
did something that was contrary to Bosch etiquette.

Anyhow he started off in his Bouverie biplane to distribute a million
or so leaflets of his own composition over the whole expanse of the
Fatherland. It has been my privilege to read a sample which he handed
to me just before leaving earth. It runs as follows:--

"GERMANS--Your Kaiser has taken good care that his Press should keep
you in ignorance of the feelings with which your nation is regarded
by the civilized world. I am therefore about to oblige you with a few
home-truths.