MY DEAR JERRY,--I am writing this from my position on top of a small hill,
while my devoted band of followers sits round me and waits for me to speak.
I always sit here, because if I wanted to go somewhere else I should have
to climb down this hill and then up another one. I hate hills. So does the
devoted band.

Behind another little hill a hundred yards away we believe there lurks an
army corps of Bulgars, but we are afraid to look and see. Instead, we fix
and unfix bayonets every ten minutes and make martial noises. This, we
hope, affects the enemy's _moral_, and having your _moral_ affected every
ten minutes is no joke, I can tell you.

The spirit of our troops remains excellent. You can see that this is true
from the fact that my joke still works. Every night for the last three
months, while administering quinine to my army, I have exhorted them not to
be greedy and not to take too much. They still laugh heartily, nay
uproariously. We are a wonderful nation.

Our chief source of combined instruction and amusement is still the antheap
beside us, and in this connection, Jeremiah, I must introduce to you
Herbert, a young officer in the ant A.S.C.

When we first knew Herbert (or "'Erb" as he was known in those days), he
was an impudent and pushful private. When his corps were engaged in
removing the larger pieces of straw out of their hole in the hill, many a
time I have seen him staggering manfully towards the entrance with an
enormous piece on his slender shoulders, against the tide of his comrades;
for he never could resist the temptation to replace the really big stalks
in the hole. As he knocked against one and another the older ants would
step aside, lay down their loads, and expostulate with him, always ending