[Illustration: _Rearguard Officer of Demobilization (collecting
stragglers on route-march)._ "WHAT THE DOOCE ARE YOU?" Straggler._
"I'M WOT T' MULES BROKE AWAY FROM."_]

* * * * *

THE PATRIOT'S REWARD.

Narcissus, in that fateful hour
When Britain's belt was tightly buckled
Against the prowling U-boat's power,
Thou earnest to us newly suckled;
And oh! if interest ties the knot
That binds us to our fellow-creatures,
Be sure we loved thee on the spot,
My pigling with the pensive features.

No niggard hand it was that found
Thy punctual fare, nor short the measure
Of garbage brought from miles around
And meal that cost its weight in treasure;
But ever as the U-boat u'd
And lunch grew relatively lighter
We filled thee up with wholesome food
And watched thy tensile skin grow tighter.

Artless as is the wanton faun
And agile as the Hooluck gibbon,
The children "walked" thee on the lawn,