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176 for field service.—(Ah! these dear old Generals, what depths of simplicity they disclose when they get by themselves. I sometimes think that if I had my life to live over again I would keep a newspaper and become a really great General. I know some live or six obscure aboriginal tribes that have never yet yielded a single war or a single K.C.B.)

But this is a digression. I was maintaining the goodness of Mrs. Lollipop—little Mrs. Lollipop! sweet little Mrs. Lollipop! I was going to say that she was far too good to be made the subject of whisperings and inuendoes Her virtue is of such a robust type that even a Divorce Court would sink back abashed before it, like a guilty thing surprised. Indeed, she often reminds me of Cæsar's wife.

The harpies of scandal protest that she dresses too low; that she exposes too freely the well-rounded charms of her black silk stockings; that she appears at fancy-dress balls picturesquely unclothed—in a word, that the public see a little too much of little Mrs. Lollipop; and that, in conversation with men, she nibbles at the forbidden apples of thought.