1 JULY 1943, Page 9

A FANCY

I saw in the fire's red blaze The mask of a black fox

Stare with malignant gaze From a cave of flaming rocks.

He had taken shape from the blind Chance of the tumbled coal, But his fox's nature stole From a burrow of my mind.

So _close to read he stood, I knew that one more act Of acquiescence would Raise him to living fact ; But such an act, I knew, Would shrivel this life I live To a memory fugitive As a dissolving dew, And soulless, mindless, dumb And damned I should be thrust Into a catacomb Of gfeed and fear and lust.

MARTIN ARMSTRONG.

The fact that goods made of raw materials in short supply owing to war conditions are advertised in this tournal should not be taken as an indication that they are necessarily available for export.