In that dim happy past, the Summer of 1913, I first saw him idly seated in a deck-chair on the firm sands of——, on the East Coast. A quiet detached figure amid a crowd of joyous children. Hard by a boy and girl were building a moated fortress, but, alas! the swiftly incoming tide eroded its foundations until the frowning battlements tottered to destruction.

Turning, the children faced him. He smiled.

"D'you know this one, Jacky?" he ventured.

"He's Dick," the little maid protested, "and I'm Betty."

"Now we're introduced, do you know this one?" he asked again.

Straightaway he plunged into the new game, moving back to where a smooth stretch of sand lay invitingly. Immediately two minute shapes were etched with his stick on its surface.

"What's those?"

"Hairpins, of course! You always start with hairpins. And this," indicating a narrow oblong, "why, this must be that silver tray someone's always leaving her hairpins lying about on. Now for the hair-brushes—two of those—" (unerringly symmetrical)—"then the comb—" (equipped with most effective sand-teeth)—"then a powder-box? Well, a very little one——"

As fast as he thought of them, fresh articles (or their symbols) came into being. There was no pause. "The shoe-horn, the button-hook, oh! and a clothes-brush——"

Immediately following the last hair of the clothes-brush a rectangle put in an appearance around these assorted objects.

"Mummy's dressing-table," asserted Master Dick authoritatively.

"Sound man! What else do we want?"

The children suggested alternately and in chorus the completion of the plan. An armchair with cushions incredibly soft, a fire-place pokered and tonged, a wardrobe (disproportionately enormous), two colossal hat-boxes, and detail after detail, with finally the door, the key-hole and the key.

The little hamlet somewhere in France had been shelled spasmodically for months. Possibly there was something faintly familiar in the seated figure of that Captain of Engineers that caught my eye; one did not often come across Captains of Engineers sitting on dÉbris in the village street. He squatted on a pile of granular masonry before a rudely prepared space surrounded by three small ragged children gazing round-eyed at something he was drawing with half a Nilgiri cane in the powdered rubble. I paused to look, and there arose before me the picture of a man with a boy and girl on a bygone day in happy England.

"On commence avec le sel," he was explaining as he indicated the shape of a salt-cellar. "Eh b'en, aprÈs Ça quat' assiettes, des couteaux, des fourchettes——" All the appurtenances of a homely table were quickly put in. "Et puis la table, n'est-ce pas? Et surtout faut pas oublier quelqu'chose À manger, eh, Jeanne?"

"Non, monsieur." But the little girl was busy pointing to where a small brown bird pecked fruitlessly in the dust. "Regardez, donc, le p'tit oiseau; il n'a pas mangÉ, c'lui lÀ."

"Y a pas grande chose À manger; les Boches, vous savez, ont passÉ par ici," added one of the two boys quite impersonally.

The Captain of Engineers continued quickly, "Maintenant il faut mettre le—" he paused for the word—"le—table-cloth." The children grasped his meaning from the comprehensive gesture. Rapidly he outlined chairs, a delightful baby's cradle, a clock with cuckoo complete, a fire-place, until at length a complete pictorial inventory had been made of the contents of the living-room of just such a cottage as had obviously been buried beneath the rubbish heap upon which he sat. Those children of the stricken country-side entered with keenness into the spirit of the make-believe. The little girl, searching for an appropriate stone to place on the imaginary table for imaginary bread, thrust her hand down among the dÉbris and, withdrawing it, exposed a relic. It was the faded remnant of a baby's shoe, grotesque in the autumn sunshine.

"Oui, par exemple, les Boches ont passÉ par ici," said the little boy as impersonally as before.

In a Good Cause.

An auction of stamps will be held on the 13th and 14th of March at 47, Leicester Square, in aid of the National Philatelic War Fund, the proceeds to be given to the Societies of the British Red Cross and St. John of Jerusalem. Collectors should seize this chance, as the Allies may shortly be arranging to modify the map of the world.

"The year 1914 showed a drop of 441 million eggs in the year." Trade Paper.

Taking our population as 46 millions this means 9½ eggs dropped per head in the year. Under the influence of the thrift campaign a great effort is being made to drop only half an egg per head this year, but should there be a General Election there may be a rise in the drop.