Yet famine might have hardened that proud breast,
Only that victory removed the threat;
And now, if e'er I venture to suggest
That it is time that some of them were ate,
That Maud is pivotal and costing pounds,
And how the garden is a mass of mounds,
She answers me, on military grounds,
"Peace is not come. We cannot eat them yet."

So I shall steal to yon allotment space
With a large bag of rabbits, and unseen
Demobilise them, and in that fair place
They all shall browse on cauliflower and bean;
There Smith will come on Saturday, and think
That it is shell-shock or disease or drink;
But Maud shall dwell for ever there and sink
A world of burrows in Laburnum Green. A.P.H.

* * * * *

SECRETS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE.

"The proceedings yesterday afternoon began punctually at three
o'clock. Lord Robert Cecil sat with the British delegates. M.
Léon Bourgeois sat among the French delegates."--_Manchester
Guardian_.

And not, as might have been thought, _vice versâ_.

* * * * *