With its naturally ardent temperament irritated by months of bitter
cold, its constitutional hunger aggravated by a prolonged fast, its
appetite tempted by a novel diet in the form of British soldiery
well-washed and firm-fleshed after years of Army rations, the North
Russian mosquito is likely, in the opinion of experts, to take a high
place among the more deadly horrors of war.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Sergeant_. "NOW THEN, ARE YOU THE FOUR MEN WITH A
KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC I WAS ASKING FOR?"
_Chorus_. "YES, SERGEANT."
_Sergeant_. "RIGHT. PARADE OFFICERS' MESS 11.30 TO MOVE GRAND PIANO TO
MARQUEE--DISTANCE 500 YARDS--FOR CONCERT THIS EVENING." ]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
That audacious paraphrase of the Book of Job, _The Undying Fire_
(CASSELL), seems to me to be marred by a fundamentally false note. I am
sure that Mr. WELLS is as serious about his new God in the Heart of
Man as he was about the Invisible King--I've no sort of intention of
sneering--but I cannot credit him with belief in the Adversary, who by
arrangement with the Almighty (as set forth in a discreetly flippant
prologue with something of the flavour of those irreverent yarns
invented and retailed by Italian ecclesiastics about Dominiddio) visits
_Job Huss_, the headmaster of Woldingstanton, with the plagues of his
desperate trial.
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