So, under the beneficent influence of martial law he was compelled to sell at that price, and made a fine loss.

The troops received this morning's heavy news with cheerful stoicism; not a single complaint, only tender regrets about the whisky and Christmas pudding we shall have to do without.
_December 18, 1899._ How is one to treat an indeterminate situation?
The siege is already too long for modern literature.

It was all very well when we thought it must end by Christmas at the furthest.

But since last Sunday we are thrown back into the infinite, and can fix no limit on which hope can build even a rainbow.

So now the only way to make this account of our queer position readable will be to dwell entirely in the glaring events of adventure or bloodshed, and let the flat days slide, though the sadness and absurdity of any one of them would fill a paper.
We have had such luck in escaping shells that we grow careless.