Shall we await in them a change of mind?
Shall we require a repentant apology?
Or in a generous spasm anticipate
The regrets unspoken that, under the heavy stress
Of labour involved in planning new frightfulness,
They have been too busy, poor dears, to formulate?

Once I remarked that on German crimes would follow
"Perdition eternal"; Heaven would make this its care,
Nor need to be hustled, with plenty of time to spare.
Those words of mine I have a desire to swallow,
Finding, on further thought, which admits my offence,
That a few brief years of Coventry, of denied
Communion with Culture--used in the Oxford sense--
Are ample for getting our difference rectified.

What is a Laureate paid for, I ask _The Times_,
If not to recant in prose his patriot rhymes?
I stamp my foot on my wrath's last smouldering ember,
And for my motto I take "_Lest we remember_." O. S.

* * * * *

=THE SUPERFECTION LAUNDRY.=

I let myself into my flat to find a young woman sitting on one of
those comfortless chairs designed by upholsterers for persons of
second quality who are bidden to wait in the hall.

"You want to see me?" I inquired. "Yes; what is it?"