There are heroes and heroes. All heroes are heroes: that is certain. But there are some heroes whose heroism involves more thought (shall I say?), more material, than that of others, who are heroic in a kind of rush, without any premeditation—heroic by instinct. Now it seems to me that the rewards of the more complex heroes ought—but let me illustrate.

I have a friend who is a hero. The other day in France he did one of the most desperate things, and did it apparently as a matter of course; and he is to have the V.C. for it. But is the V.C. enough'? If it's enough for the instinctive heroes, is it enough for him? That is my question. The secret history of his deed is known only to me and to himself, and when I give you an idea of it you will be able to answer.

I will tell you.

Never mind what the deed was. All I will say is that it is comparable to the glorious feat of Lieutenant Warneford, who bombed the Zeppelin from above and sent it crashing down. My friend is an aviator too, and since I am not allowed to describe his great performance in detail let us pretend that it was an exact replica of the Warneford triumph. Armed with his bombs he saw the approaching Zepp and flew high, six or seven thousand feet, to get above it. So far he had merely obeyed the dictates of his brave impulsive nature. He had given no thought to the chances of danger or death, but had flown direct to his duty. So far he was instinctive. But my friend, as well as being unusually brave, is a singularly retiring kind of man. He hates publicity, ostentation. Very shy and very quiet, he moves about the world unperceived, and has all the reluctances of the anchorite. Nothing but his deep feeling about the War could have got him to do anything as prominent as aviation, so that it is not unnatural that, as he mounted higher and higher and came nearer and nearer to the desired point over the Zepp, he should suddenly realise what it would mean for him if he succeeded in bringing it down.

Not that he had too much time for such reflections, for until the envelope intervened between him and the Zepp's marksmen he was being blazed at steadily. Bullets whistled about him. But one thinks swiftly, and in a flash he saw the extremely distasteful consequences to humility, and the dislocation of his secluded way of life if, dropping his bombs accurately, he earned (as he was bound to do) the Victoria Cross. All this he saw, and was properly furious at his bad luck—at the trick that destiny had played on him. He then dropped the bombs, the envelope ignited, and the Zepp, with its crew and its deadly cargo, fell to earth and was blown to atoms.

Now my point is that for such a hero as my friend, whose whole soul is to be outraged by publicity and rÉclame, and much of whose dearly loved privacy is to be lost for ever, there ought to be a V.C. above and beyond the ordinary V.C.—a super V.C.; for he performed not one deed, but two: he not only destroyed the Zepp but he surrendered his sanctuary.

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An Exhibition of Mr. Punch's War Cartoons is now being held at the Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square.

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TO THE PRINCE OF ARTILLERYMEN

who recently brought down a Zeppelin.

When, Gunner, through the breech you passed
That wingÉd messenger of death,
And having made the breech-block fast,
With pounding heart and bated breath
Drew back the rod of tempered steel
That frees the charge and fires the fuse,
I would have given much to feel
My feet in your distinguished shoes.
But when your deadly missile burst
Right on the rover, checked his speed,
And made him rock like one whose thirst
Has frankly caused him to exceed,
You must have felt as feels a god
To whom whole nations bend the knee—
Whichever of the dozen odd
Disputant gunners you may be.

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"Who can tell but what Rumania's watchful eye will yet sound the bugle note which at the psychological moment will unite the Balkan thrones?"—Shanghai Mercury.

Rumania seems to have something more than a speaking eye. It even plays tunes.

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From a German paper quoted by The Times:—

"The German people fully recognises the nicely retiring manner of the Kaiser during this war."

The Allies are confident that it will receive further recognition before long.

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In an article entitled "The Superiority of German Strategy" the Frankfurter Zeitung says:—

"The road before us is, however, long and calls for great achievements. We are not lacking in strength. Let us wait and see."

Mr. Asquith is wondering what this flattery portends.

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"I have spoken of the good there is in grooves, in the groovy way of life ... Who can be blind to the fact that life in a groove leads to bigotry and nar-grooves, in the groovy way of life?"

"Claudius Clear" in "The British Weekly."

Not we. We have never been blind to anything of the sort.

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"Little Lady, during all these months thoughts entirely with you, treasuring up unbleaching memory of happy hours spent together."—Advertisement in "The Times."

Presumably in the wash-house. Unless some confusion arose, in the mind of the advertiser, between dying and bleaching.

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