Till I lunched (the very proudest)
With the Staff at A.H.Q.

'Twas a scene of peace and plenty,
Plates a-steam and-spoons a-swoop;
'Twas a sound of five-and-twenty
Hungry Generals drinking soup.

J.M.S.

* * * * *

WAITING FOR THE SPARK.

(_With thanks to the London Telephone Directory._)

I doubt if you have ever taken the book seriously, dear reader (if
any). You dip into it for a moment, choose a suitable quotation and
scribble it down with a blunt pencil on your blotting-pad; then
you wind the lanyard of the listening-box round your neck and start
talking to the germ-collector in that quiet self-assured voice which
you believe spells business success. Then you find you have got on
to the Institute of Umbrella-Fanciers instead of the Incorporated
Association of Fly-Swatters, which you wanted, and have to begin all
over again. But that is not the way to treat literature.

In calm hours of reflection, rather, when the mellow sunlight streams
into the room and, instead of the dull gray buildings opposite, you
catch a mental glimpse of green tree-tops waving in the wind, and
hear, above the rumbling of the busy 'buses, the buzzes ... the