[Illustration: THE HYPNOTIST.

BETHMANN-HOLLWEG: "KEEP LOOKING AT ME. YOU'RE WINNING THE WAR! YOU'RE
WINNING THE WAR! YOU'RE WINNING THE WAR!"]

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

Never have I seen a kiltie platoon wading through the cold porridge
of snow and slush of which our front used to be composed, but I have
said, with my French friend, "_Mon Dieu, les currents d'air!_" and
thank Fate that I belong to a race which reserves its national costume
for fancy-dress balls.

It is very well for MacAlpine of Ben Lomond, who has stalked his
haggis and devoured it raw, who beds down on thistles for preference
and grows his own fur; but it is very hard on Smith of Peckham, who
through no fault of his own finds himself in a Highland regiment,
trying to make his shirt-tails do where his trousers did before. But
the real heather-mixture, double-distilled Scot is a hardy bird with
different ideas from _nous autres_ as to what is cold: also as to what
is hot. Witness the trying experience of our Albert Edward.

Our Albert Edward and a Hun rifle grenade arrived at the same place at
the same time, intermingled and went down to the Base to be sifted. In
the course of time came a wire from our Albert Edward, saying he
had got the grenade out of his system and was at that moment at the
railhead; were we going to send him a horse or weren't we?