in the Service!

_His Mother_. Well, I call it a shame for the Army to be fleeced for
_that_ thing. Are those creatures intended for mermaids, with their
tails curled round that glass ball, I wonder? [She sniffs.

_Her Daughter_. I expect it will be crystal, Mother.

_Her Mother_. Very likely, my dear, but--glass or crystal--_I_ see no
sense in it!

_Daughter_. Oh, it's absurd, of course--still, this figure isn't badly
done, is it supposed to represent St. GEORGE carrying the Dragon?
Because they've made the Dragon no bigger than a salmon!

_Mother_. Ah, well, I hope HER MAJESTY will be better pleased with it
than I am, that's all.

[After which they fall into ecstasies over an industrial
exhibit, consisting of a drain-pipe, cunningly encrusted with
fragments of regimental mess-china set in gilded cement.

Before a large mechanical clock, representing a fortress, which
is striking. Trumpets sound, detachments of wooden soldiers march
in and out of gateways, and parade the battlements, clicking, for
a considerable time.

_A Spectator_ (_with a keen sense of the fitness of things_).
What--all that for on'y 'alf-past five!