“Why are you for the Allies?” a friend asked a solemn-looking neutral, who looked as if there had been much suffering in his life. “Is it because you abhor Prussian militarism?”
“No.”
“Is it that you fear Germany’s desire to expand, to absorb foreign lands? Is it that you dislike the German character?”
“No,” replied the solemn-looking individual.
“Well, why are you for the Allies?”
“Because,” said the other, with a pensive air, “I once ate some sauerkraut.”
A sentry was giving close attention to his post in the neighborhood of a British army camp in England, challenging returning stragglers late after dark. The following is reported as an incident of his vigil:
“Who goes there?” called the sentry at the sound of approaching footsteps.
“Coldstream Guards!” was the response.
“Pass, Coldstream Guards!” rejoined the sentry.
“Who goes there?” again challenged the sentry.
“Forty-ninth Highlanders!” returned the unseen pedestrian.
“Pass, Forty-ninth Highlanders!”
“Who goes there?” sounded a third challenge.
“None of your d——n business!” was the husky reply.
“Pass, Canadians!” acquiesced the sentry.
The crew of the Harpalion, one of the British ships torpedoed off Beachy Head, arrived in London yesterday. Mr. S. Harper, the second officer, describing the experiences of the crew, said the ship was sailing down the Channel at the rate of about eleven and a half knots.
“We had just sat down to tea,” said Mr. Harper, “at the engineers’ table, and the chief engineer was saying grace. He had just uttered the words, ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful,’ when there came an awful crash.”
A gallant Tommy, having received from England an anonymous gift of socks, entered them at once, for he was about to undertake a heavy march. He was soon prey to the most excruciating agony, and when, a mere cripple, he drew off his foot-gear at the end of a terrible day, he discovered inside the toe of the sock what had once been a piece of stiff writing paper, now reduced to pulp, and on it appeared in bold, feminine hand the almost illegible benediction: “God bless the wearer of this pair of socks!”
“I saw a war picture, and one of the soldiers in the firing-line, amid bursting shells and dead and wounded men, was yawning.”
“He was probably a football-player to whom his surroundings seemed tame.”
During the opening stages of the present war a certain soldier was told that there were three Germans to every one of the Allied forces in that part of the field.
Tommy went into action with great vigor, but later his company sergeant was horrified to see him shoulder his rifle and calmly march to the rear.
“Where are you off to?” he roared.
“Oh,” replied Tommy, “I’ve killed three of the enemy. I’ve done my share, so I’m off back to the camp.”
“If you had to go to war what position would you choose?”
“The drummer’s, I think.”
“Why so?”
“When a charge was ordered, I’d pick up my drum and beat it.”
The company was about to commence practice in trench-digging.
“Shall I show you how to handle the spade?” inquired a young officer of one private who was curiously watching the efforts of his companions.
“Aye, if tha likes,” responded the soldier.
“There you are,” commented the officer shortly afterwards, as he handed over the spade.
“Tha shapes pratty weel,” said the private, a collier from the Durham pits, “for a novice.”
Policeman (arresting burglar)—“Ain’t people worried enough by this war without burglaring their houses?”
Burglar—“All the papers are saying ‘business as usual.’”
Bill Bates, a coal miner, had joined Kitchener’s Army, and was undergoing musketry instruction.
The officer had been at some pains to impress upon the recruits that in loading a rifle they should place one cartridge in the barrel and ten in the magazine.
Singling out Bill, the officer said to him:
“Now, what do you do with your cartridges when loading?”
“Put one in t’ tunnel an’ ten in t’ can!” was the reply.
The general was distributing medals for special valor. Summoning Private Bumptious to step forward, much to the general surprise of the ranks, he thundered out:
“Men, look upon this hero, and imitate his bravery! All through the long night he stood firm at his sentinel’s post, although completely surrounded by the enemy, and there he remained, calmly.”
Private Bumptious turned deadly pale. But before he fell in a faint to the ground, he gasped out:
“Then they were enemies! I thought they were our own troops.”
“Wasn’t it fearful about the Reims cathedral?”
“Don’t say Reems; it sounds horribly ignorant.”
“Well, how do you pronounce it?”
“Why, Hranss.”
“How?”
“Hn—Hranhss! Just as if you were clearing your throat. See? Hranss!”
“Well, you sound as if you had a dreadful influenza, threatened with grip!”
“Well, that’s right, anyhow. H—hn—hnh—hrahnhss!”
“You’d better go to Arizona! You’ll never get well here! I don’t believe you, anyway. Everybody says Reems.”
“They don’t, either!”
“They do so!”
“Oh, well, it depends on the sort of people you associate with—”
“Well, I don’t go with a lot of fake highbrows, anxious to show off the French they learned in a course of lessons by mail—”
“Better than a lot of country junks who don’t know how to pronounce—”
“Oh, well, the church wasn’t hurt much, anyhow.”
“No, they say it can be repaired. How do you like my hat?”
“Heavenly! What do you think of mine?”
“Adorable! Let’s go in and have soda.”
“Let’s.”
British Teacher (to small boy)—“So you’ve come to school without a pen, eh? What would you say if one of our soldiers went to France without his gun?”
Tommy—“Please, sir, I should say he was an officer.”
The awkward squad had been having a lecture in musketry. Just before they were dismissed the instructor asked one of them:
“Why is the rifle placed in the hands of a soldier?”
“To protect my life,” came the prompt reply.
The instructor glared at him.
“Protect your life!” he snorted. “Who’s bothering about your life? The rifle, my lad, is placed in your hands for the destruction of the King’s enemies!”
A friend called on a merchant who did a large Continental business to offer him his sympathy.
“This must hit you very hard.”
“Very hard,” said the merchant. “I’ve over eleven hundred pounds owing to me in Germany, and it’s touch and go whether I ever get a penny of it. Still, we’ve got to put up with something for the country.”
“I’m glad you take it so cheerfully.”
“Well,” explained the merchant, “I owe over sixteen hundred pounds in Germany.”
In order to stimulate rifle practice in a Lancashire district, especially amongst the rising generation, a match was arranged in which the competitors must be over fourteen years and under seventeen years of age.
The match was in progress, and there seemed to be not a few of the competitors who would never see another seventeenth birthday.
The climax was reached, however, when a young enthusiast, seeing the excellent score one of the competitors was making, astonished the spectators by shouting at the top of his voice:
“Go on, father; get another bull’s-eye!”
A corporal in the Liverpool Scottish tells a good story of “the front.”
The sentry’s challenge is no longer the orthodox “Halt! Who goes there?” It is a short, prosaic, “Who are you?”
The other day a tired sentry challenged a party of the Princess Patricia’s Own Canadian Light Infantry. Back came the response, “P.P.O.C.L.I.”
“I don’t want to hear you say your alphabet,” growled the sentry. “Who the blazes are you?”
“George, where are your school-books!”
“When notices appeared that books were wanted for the wounded, I gave mine to them.”—Humoristicke Listy (Prague).
They were about the rawest lot of recruits the sergeant had ever tackled. He worked hard for a couple of hours, and at last, thinking he had them licked into shape, he decided to test them.
“Right turn!” he barked; then, before they had ceased to move, barked again, “Left turn!”
One burly yokel slowly left the ranks and made off towards the barracks.
“Here, you!” yelled the sergeant, angrily, “where are you off to?”
“Ah’ve had enough on’t,” replied the recruit, in disgusted tones. “Tha dissent knaw thee arn mind two minutes stright running.”
“Excuse me, but do you mind keeping your dog indoors at night till the war is over?”
“Why?” said the surprised dog-owner to the stranger.
“Well, your dog’s barking sounds just like a ‘special’ boy shouting in the distance. My wife’s got two brothers at the front, and every time she hears your dog she sends me racing down to get the ‘special,’ and says I’ve been too stupid to catch the boy.”
Very British Guest—“What! Brahms? You’re surely not going to sing German?”
Hostess (apologetically)—“Well, of course, I shall take care to sing it flat.”
Frederick Palmer, the war correspondent, was talking about England.
“Everything is war, war, war, over there,” he said. “Dear help the young man who is not in khaki. He has a dreadful time.
“Now and then, though, one of these slackers—as they are called—gets a bit of his own back.
“A slacker, for example, was passing a prison camp near London when an interned German shouted at him from the barbed wire fence:
“‘Hey, Kitchener vants you!’
“The slacker frowned. ‘What?’ he said.
“‘Kitchener vants you,’ the German repeated.
“‘Well, by Jove,’ said the slacker, ‘he’s got you, all right!’”
Robert Skinner, ex-consul-general to London, said at a dinner:
“Of course neutrals see things from one viewpoint and belligerents from another. We all have our various viewpoints.
“An English inebriate was recently released from jail. To a friend who met him outside the prison gates he said:
“‘Well, mate, wot noose?’
“‘There’s a law agin’ treatin’, was the reply, ‘and pretty near the whole world is at war.’
“‘Just think,’ he said. ‘Just think of a no-treatin’ law havin’ sech an effect as that.’”
The wounded soldier had reached home and was just out of a long delirium.
“Where am I?” he said, feebly, as he felt the loving hands making him comfortable. “Where am I? In heaven?”
“No, dear,” cooed his devoted wife. “I am still with you.”
A chaplain in the navy enjoys telling of his endeavors to induce a marine to give up the use of tobacco. During a talk that ensued between the two, the chaplain said:—
“After all, Bill, you must reflect that in all creation there is not to be found any animal except man that smokes.”
The marine sniffed.
“Yes,” he agreed, “and you won’t find, either, any other animal in all creation that cooks its food, or wears clothes.”
Zealous Sentry—“Afraid I can’t let you go by without the password, sir.”
Irate Officer—“But, confound you! I tell you I have forgotten it. You know me well enough. I’m Major Jones.”
Sentry—“Can’t help it, sir; must have the password.”
Voice from the Guard-Tent—“Oh, don’t stand arguing all night, Bill; shoot ’im.”
The English official had been telling the old Scottish farmer what he must do in the case of a German invasion on the East Coast of Scotland.
“An’ hiv I reely tae dae this wi’ a’ ma beesties gin the Germans come?” asked the old fellow at the finish.
The official informed him that such was the law, “All live stock of every description must be branded and driven inland.”
“Dearie me!” gasped the farmer, in dismay. “I’m thinking I’ll hae an awful; ob wi’ ma bees!”
A stranger became one of a group of listeners to a veteran of many battles. The veteran had about concluded a vividly colored narrative of a furious battle, in which he had taken part.
“Just think of it,” exclaimed one of the party, turning to the stranger. “How would you like to stand with shells bursting all around you?”
“I have been there,” responded the newcomer.
“What? Have you, too, been a soldier?”
“No,” answered the stranger. “I am an actor.”
Outside one of the recruiting depots in a large town a sergeant saw a smart young milkman, and, thinking to get a fresh recruit, said:
“Young man, would you like to serve the King?”
“Rather!” said the milkman, eagerly. “How many quarts does he want?”
Two Irishmen were walking into Dublin from one of the outlying villages, and fell to discussing the war and the consequent increase in the cost of living.
“But have ye heard the latest news?” says Tim.
“No,” says Pat. “Phwat is it?”
“There’s a penny off the loaf.”
“Bedad,” says Phat, “I hope it’s off the penny ones.”
An Army officer’s wife wrote to a Royal Army medical corps officer saying her child was suffering during teething; she addressed the letter “Dr. Brown.”
The recipient returned it with the remark that he should be addressed “Brigade-Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel Brown.”
Whereupon the lady wrote back:—
“Dear Brigade-Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel Brown—I am sorry about mistake.—Yours, May Jones.
“P. S.-Please bring your sword to lance baby’s gums.”
“I suppose you had a good deal of trouble when you spent your holiday in Germany this summer?” said Mrs. De Jinks.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Von Slammerton; “chiefly in the matter of getting money, however. Why, would you believe it, Mrs. De Jinks, a letter of credit over there wasn’t of any more value than a treaty of neutrality?”
An Irishman who had recently joined Lord Kitchener’s Army was sitting in a railway refreshment room the other day, when two smart young soldiers entered. Thinking to make the Irishman look small, one of them went up to the young lady attendant and asked for “A good cigar for a Hussar!”
A little time afterwards the other one went up and said: “A glass of beer for a Grenadier!”
Pat was not to be taken down so easily, and after a few moments’ thought went up to the bar and, in a loud voice, ordered “A good tea for a V. C.!”
At a recruiting meeting recently the speaker, having got his audience in a high state of enthusiasm by telling them of the many brave deeds of the British soldiers in France, suddenly espied a big, strongly built man at the back of the hall. “My man,” he cried, “how is it that you are not at the front?”
“Oh, it is all right,” replied the burly yokel; “I can hear every word you say from here.”
A South London resident, whose garden runs down to the railway line, has hit upon a novel recruiting advertisement.
He has hung out two old petticoats with a poster reading:
“If you won’t help your King and Country now you had better wear these.”
If you favor war, dig a trench in your back yard, fill it half full of water, crawl into it, and stay there for a day or two without anything to eat, get a lunatic to shoot at you with a brace of revolvers and a machine-gun, and you will have something just as good, and you will save your country a great deal of expense.
“Some of the soldiers in those trenches,” said a doctor, recently back for a rest, “don’t get a chance to wash for weeks at a time. They eat like bears, they never take cold, their health is superb—but, dear me, how they look, with never a wash!
“A humorist of the Coldstream Guards was singing in a second-line trench a parody of ‘Tipperary.’ It was a funny parody, and in the midst of it a young sergeant shouted to the singer:—
“Yer makin’ me laugh till I cry, Bill! Won’t yer stop it? The tears are makin’ me face all muddy.’”
A few Sundays ago Bobby’s mother was hurrying him to get ready for Sunday-school. Bobby (aged seven), not being very fond of Sunday-school, was grumbling all the time about schools in general and Sunday-schools in particular. Finally, to give vent to his feelings, he exclaimed:—
“I wish there was only one Sunday-school in the world, and that—er—that one was in Germany.”
Ernest P. Bicknell, national director of the American Red Cross, said on his return from Belgium to a Washington reporter:
“If peace is to come, each side must do its share. Advances must be made like the girl, you know.
“A young millionaire said to a beautiful girl on a moonlit beach between two dances:
“‘Don’t you like that Shakespearean quotation:
“‘“The friends thou hast and their adoption tried, Grapple them to they soul with hoops of steel”?’
“The girl sighed.
“‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘Beautiful. But wouldn’t hoops of gold be better?’”
An absentee soldier at West London police court complained that he had not been able to get a decent dinner at the police station and that he was hungry.
“Well, I like to show consideration to men serving their country,” said the magistrate. “Would you like something now?”
“Yes, I could do with tea and bread and butter,” the soldier answered.
“All right,” said the magistrate, but the soldier amended his request.
“Can I have tea, bread and butter and cheese?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” said the magistrate, laughing, “but take him away, jailer, before he asks for champagne and oysters.”
A British soldier in Belgium was one morning wending his way to camp with a fine rooster in his arms when he was stopped by his colonel to know if he had been stealing chickens.
“No, colonel,” was the reply, “I saw the old fellow sitting on the wall and I ordered him to crow for England, and he wouldn’t, so I just took him prisoner.”
A Herculean soldier, arriving at Liverpool by rail, somewhat travel-stained, was passing along Lime Street when he stopped and called on a street arab to shine his boots. His feet were in proportion to his height, and, looking at the tremendous boots before him, the arab knelt down on the pavement and, hailing a companion near by, exclaimed:—
“Billie, come o’er and gie’s a hand; I’ve got an army contract.”
A chap had just gone to Flanders from the training camp in Devon, and his calmness and cheerfulness under German fire impressed everyone. So much so, in fact, that his corporal declared:
“I never saw a new hand settle right down to it like George.”
“Oh,” said another recruit, “if you knew George’s wife, corporal, you’d understand how the poor fellow enjoys a quiet day among the vitriol sprays and poison bombs.”
An English school inspector, who did not look beyond military age, got a Roland for his Oliver the other day. He invited a class he was examining to put questions to him.
“Now, boys,” he said, “don’t be shy; it’s your turn now. Ask me any question you like on any subject you like, and if I can, I’ll answer it.”
After hesitating, a small but courageous boy held up his hand and blurted out: “Why are you not in khaki?”
“No, sir, I don’t believe in war,” cried the little man. “It means invasion and confiscation and a forcible and brutal alteration of existing boundaries.”
The man across the way turned to his companion and asked in a whisper who the little man was.
“He is a mapmaker,” the companion whisperingly replied, “and he’s got an immense stock of old maps on hand.”
A British officer inspecting sentries guarding the line in Flanders came across a raw-looking yoeman.
“What are you here for?” he asked.
“To report anything unusual, sir.”
“What would you call unusual?”
“I dunno exactly, sir.”
“What would you do if you saw five battleships steaming across the field?”
“Sign the pledge, sir.”
The people of Luxemburg are not wanting in a sense of humor. One day an officer of the Prussian Guard entered a barber shop and had a shave. Whereupon he tendered to the barber a twopenny piece.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the barber, “but it’s threepence now.”
“Why threepence?” asked the Kaiser’s Guardsman. “In August last you only charged me twopence.”
“That’s true enough,” was the barber’s reply; “but since the Battle of the Marne your face has grown much longer.”
They were talking of the war.
“What an age we are living in, to be sure!” said one.
“Yes,” replied the other; “it is the German sauce age.”
When a certain Dublin woman was informed a few days ago that her son had been captured by the Germans with other prisoners, and that he had been put into a chain-gang, she said, with great emotion:—
“Heaven help the man that’s chained to our Paddy.”
English Host—“I thought of sending some of these cigars out to the front.”
The Victim—“Good idea! But how can you make certain that the Germans will get them?”
During the fighting a Highlander had the misfortune to get his head blown off.
A comrade communicated the sad news to another gallant Scot, who asked, anxiously:—
“Where’s his head? He was smoking ma pipe.”
I received a letter from my husband last week, in which he states that he and others were having a glass of beer, when a minister came amongst them and, kneeling down, began to pray, when one of the company present, known as “Stammering Tommy,” closed his eyes and bent his head. When he again opened his eyes, at the close of the prayer, some one had drunk up all his beer. “Eh!” exclaimed Tommy, in astonishment. “M-my b-beer’s all g-gone. I shall w-watch and p-pray n-next t-time.”
A group of patriotic and very enthusiastic boys was assembled outside a well-known London hospital. A passer-by was asked by one of them:—
“Please, sir, can you tell us which general it is who is in this hospital?”
“General?” replied the man. “I don’t know of any general in this hospital.”
“Oh, yes, sir—look for yourself,” cried all the boys together.
The man fixed his gaze on the sign and read, “General Lying-In Hospital.”
A woman who had had four stalwart soldiers billeted on her endeavored to use as little butcher meat as possible. Day after day there was served at the dinner time a scanty meal, the chief item of which was tea.
“Ah,” she said one day, pointing to a tea leaf floating in one of the cups, “there’s to be a visitor today.”
“Well, madam,” said one of the hungry four, “let us hope that it’s the butcher!”
The number of famous literary men who are now serving in his majesty’s forces is so great that the happy idea has been conceived of publishing a book, the contributors to which are all celebrated authors who have become soldiers.
Among the long list of names to be found in the volume, one of the best known is that of A. E. W. Mason, the novelist.
Formerly Mr. Mason was a member of Parliament, and he tells of a man who wrote a certain M. P. asking for a ticket of admission to the gallery of the house of commons.
The M. P. wrote back saying that he was very sorry that he could not send the ticket because the gallery was closed.
The next day he was astonished to receive from the stranger the following note: “As the gallery is closed, will you please send me six tickets for the zoo?”
A gentleman in khaki, just back from France, rambled into a restaurant. After glancing over the bill of fare, he looked around the room for a waiter.
“Yes, sir,” said the waiter, sliding over in response to his call with a glass of water and a napkin.
“Tell me, waiter,” remarked the soldier, “have you got frogs’ legs?”
“No, sir,” was the rather unexpected answer; “it is rheumatism that makes me walk like this!”
Gen. Joffre’s quiet humor is typified in a story which comes from the trenches. Some members of the general’s staff were discussing the number of officers whose hair had turned from jet black to white since the war began, and they had decided to their own satisfaction that the cause was to be found in the mental strain. Gen. Joffre was asked for his opinion, and, while agreeing with the conclusion arrived at by his officers, naively added that it was also very difficult in war time to obtain the toilet accessories to which one was accustomed in times of peace!
First Tramp—“You seem very ’appy abaht it. Wot’s up?”
Second Tramp (reading Mr. Asquith’s Guildhall speech)—“’Ere’s me bin goin’ wivout luxuries all this time, an’ I’ve only jus’ found out that I’ve bin ’elpin’ the country to win this war.”
During the recent fighting along the banks of the Aisne a man was badly wounded. The Ambulance Corps tenderly placed him on a stretcher.
“Take him to the hospital,” said the man in charge.
Slowly the wounded man opened his eyes and whispered, faintly:—
“What’s the matter with the canteen?”
Sergeant-Major—“Now, Private Smith, you know very well none but officers and non-commissioned officers are allowed to walk across this grass.”
Private Smith—“But, Sergeant-Major, I’ve Captain Graham’s verbal orders to—”
Sergeant-Major—“None o’ that, sir. Show me the captain’s verbal orders. Show ’em to me, sir.”
A soldier had died, and a very unpopular sergeant was making a “voluntary” levy of a shilling per man to be sent to the dead soldier’s widow. He came to Mick, an Irishman, who was always in trouble, and who hated the sergeant.
“Now, Mick, my man, where’s your shilling?”
Mick slowly put his hand in his pocket, and as slowly withdrew it. He looked lovingly at the shilling as it lay in his palm, and then passed it over to the sergeant.
“There it is,” he said, “and I’d gladly make it a sovereign if it was for you.”
The following story is vouched for by a well-known Scottish M. P. somewhere off the East Coast. A trawler was on naval patrol duty. The skipper thought he would like some fish for breakfast, so he commenced operations. Soon up popped a German submarine close by. The trawler’s skipper, an Aberdonian, was about to ram it and earn the prize money when the submarine’s commander, not suspecting this evil intention, offered to buy some fish. So the canny Scot went alongside, sold his fish—and then rammed the submarine.
Girl (reading letter from brother at the front)—“John says a bullet went right through his hat without touching him.”
Old Lady—“What a blessing he had his hat on, dear.”
“I was speaking with your father last night,” he said, at last, somewhat inanely.
“Oh, were you?” answered the sweet young thing, lowering her eyes. “Er—what were you—er—talking about?”
“About the war. Your father said that he hoped the fighting would soon be over.”
The sweet young thing smiled.
“Yes,” she remarked, “I know he’s very much opposed to long engagements.”
He took the hint.
Vicar (who has called to read a letter to one of his parishioners from her son at the Front)—“Your son, Mrs. Codling, has been fighting in the trenches. For a whole week he was standing up to his neck in water!”
Mrs. Codling—“Well, I never! This war be doing some funny things, sir, to be sure. We couldn’t get ’im to put water anywhere near ’is neck when ’e was at ’ome!”
“Do you know, Bill would be awfully helpful to the Germans at the front.”
“How so?”
“They might just get him on to talking about his fishing exploits when they were filling their gas-bombs.”
Mrs. Brown (to Mrs. Jones, who has been to see a son off in a troop-ship)—“Well, I’m sure they’ll be starting soon, for both funnels are smoking; and, you see, my dear, they couldn’t want both funnels just for lunch.”
Private A—“Wot kind of a cigarette have you got?”
Private B (handing him one)—“Flor de Kitchener.”
Private A (takes a few puffs and throws it away, remarking)—“They would floor better men than Kitchener.”
The Home Secretary, we understand, can not see his way to allow a distinguished Anglo-American who dwells in our midst with his family to exhibit, with a view to safeguarding his home against Zeppelins, an illuminated sky-sign bearing the words “Gute leute wohnen hier” (“Good people live here”).—Punch.
In a certain hospital “somewhere in France” one of the nurses, before going out shopping, was inquiring of the wounded soldiers whether they required anything brought in, and, if so, what.
One poor chap asked her to bring him a bottle of “Scotch.” She told him that was impossible, as he had been forbidden to drink anything, whereupon he promptly replied:
“Well, have it frozen, and I’ll bite it.”
Patriotism is more than name-deep. In the early summer a tourist party at a Stirling hotel included an obvious German who had a few months previously gone the whole hog in the matter of naturalization.
He had called himself—say—Hector McKiltie. The party strolled out to the field of Bannockburn. Standing beneath the flagstaff, “McKiltie’s” eyes beamed through his spectacles for a minute. And then came the patriotic outburst:
“Mein gracious,” he exclaimed, “so dis vas vere ve beat der Inglish!”
The wounded soldier explained his grievance to his nurse.
“You see, old Smith was next to me in the trenches. Now, the bullet that took me in the shoulder and laid me out went into ’im and made a bit of a flesh wound in his arm. Of course I’m glad he wasn’t ’urt bad. But he’s stuck to my bullet and given it his girl. Now, I don’t think that’s fair. I’d a right to it. I’d never give a girl o’ mine a second-’and bullet.”
Wealthy Benefactress (stopping in at the hospital)—“Well, we’ll bring the car to-morrow, and take some of your patients for a drive. And, by the bye, nurse, you might pick out some with bandages that show—the last party might not have been wounded at all, as far as anybody in the streets could see.”
Eminent Woman Surgeon, Who Is Also an Ardent Suffragette (to wounded guardsman)—“Do you know, your face is singularly familiar to me? I’ve been trying to remember where we’ve met before.”
Guardsman—“Well, mum, bygones be bygones; I was a police constable.”
Sniper—“I’ve knocked the spike orf ’is bloomin’ ’elmet—’e’s took the top orf o’ my bloomin’ ear—and it’s my shot next!”
An Irishman invalided home from the war was asked by one of his relatives what struck him most about the battles he took part in.
“What struck me most?” said Pat. “Sure, it was the large number of bullets flying around that didn’t hit me.”
Sergeant—“’Ey, there! Where are you going?”
The Absent-Minded Beggar (who climbed out of the trench)—“’Oly Jiminy! When that bloomin’ shell whistled over ’ead Hi thought it was twelve o’clock!”
“My love, I’ve an idea,” said old Mrs. Goodart to her caller. “You know we frequently read of the soldiers making sorties. Now, why not make up a lot of those sorties and send them to the poor fellows at the front?”
Rather unexpected was the reply of a Mrs. Tommy Atkins to a lady who inquired if her husband was at the front.
“Yus,” she said, “an’ I ’ope ’e’ll serve the Germans as ’e served me.”
A stranger inquired of Pat which was the shortest way to the hospital.
Pat seriously replied: “By shouting three cheers for Germany.”
A soldier in barracks asked for exemption from church parade on the ground that he was an agnostic. The sergeant-major assumed an expression of innocent interest.
“Don’t you believe in the Ten Commandments?” he asked, mildly.
“Not one, sir!” was the reply.
“What! Not the rule about keeping the Sabbath?”
“No, sir.”
“Ah, well, you’re the very man I’ve been looking for to scrub out the canteen!”
Making the geography lesson as interesting as possible, the teacher asked the name of one of the Allies.
“France,” cried one little boy.
“Now name a town in France.”
“Somewhere,” promptly returned the youngster.
Young Subaltern:—“I think I ought to get a periscope; what do you think?”
Grandmamma—“Don’t go buying one, my dear; if you could borrow one for a pattern, I am sure I could knit you one just as good.”
“Mein Gott, it iss too much? Ain’t it enough dot I fight for der Vaterland? Now der Emperor says we should marry before leaving for der front.”
A young officer at the front wrote home to his father:
“Dear Father—Kindly send me $250 at once. Lost another leg in a stiff engagement and am in hospital without means.”
The answer was as follows:
“My dear Son—As this is the fourth leg you have lost (according to your letters), you ought to be accustomed to it by this time. Try and hobble along on any others you may have left.”
“I understand that all the warring nations find that women are perfectly able to make shrapnel.”
“I’ll wager they make it in their own way, however. One cupful gunpowder, one cupful nitroglycerin, a pinch of fulminate, and so on.”
She—“Where have you been?”
He—“In the hospital getting censored.”
She—“Censored?”
He—“Yes; I had several important parts cut out.”
“Did you ever go to a military ball?” asked a lisping maid of an army veteran.
“No, my dear,” growled the old soldier. “In those days I once had a military ball come to me, and what do you think? It took my leg off.”
The young organist of the village church had joined the local corps to fight for King and Country. The whole place turned out to see the boys go off to the Front, among them the organist’s mother, a dear old soul, who was weeping bitterly. Bravely the old lady dried her tears, and as the train steamed out of the station she called to her son:—
“Look after yourself, my boy, and be sure you keep your practice up.”
Recruiting Officer—“And now, my lad, just one more question—are you prepared to die for your country?”
Recruit—“No, I ain’t! That ain’t wot I’m j’ining for. I want to make a few of them Germans die for theirs!”
British Foreman Compositor—“Three more of my men have enlisted this morning.”
Editor—“Ah! A wave of patriotism, I suppose?”
Foreman Compositor—“Well! Perhaps that’s the way to put it, but they say they would rather be shot than set any more of your copy!”
War Fan—“What’de yuh think of von Hindenburg’s drive?”
Golf Fan—“His drive is all right, but they say he’s weak on the green.”
The Village Know-All—“’Ow’s that son o’ yourn wot went into the Army gettin’ on, Mr. Highpate?”
Mr. Highpate—“Oh, doin’ splendid. They’ve made ’im a color-sergeant now.”
The Village Know-All—“’Ave they, though? What color?”
“What makes you think we’ll have better times when the war is over?”
“Well, for one thing, all these men who do nothing but stand around discussing the war news will have time to go back to work.”
Yoemanry Officer (to trooper whose horse continually falls to the rear)—“How’s this? You told me your horse had won half-a-dozen matches against some of the best horses in the country.”
“So he has, sir,” replied the trooper. “It was in ploughing matches he took the prizes.”
“Blockhead!” shouted the exasperated drill-sergeant to the raw recruit. “Are they all such idiots as you in your family?”
“No,” said the recruit. “I have a brother who is a great deal more stupid than me.”
“Impossible! And what on earth does this incomparable blockhead do?”
“He is a drill-sergeant.”
Teacher—“Now, children, who can tell me which is the Germans’ favorite drink?”
After a pause—“Champagne,” exclaimed all the class excepting Tommy.
Teacher—“Now, Tommy, don’t you agree with the others?”
Tommy—“Well, teacher, I don’t know. I am not sure that the German army are fond of champagne, but all the world knows that their navy always stick to port.”
Scene, improvised singsong in a British relief-camp, to which a number of German prisoners were admitted as a special favor. Officer running it returns after a brief absence to find the sergeant left in control of the program announcing the following item: “Our friends Fritz and ’Ans will now oblige with the ’Ymn of ’Ate.”
Officer (in volunteer camp, to recruit)—“Now, if a fire should break out, what are you to do?”
Recruit—“Run and find you, sir.”
Officer—“Right. And, if I’m not be found, what then?”
Recruit—“Put out the fire, sir.”
“Well, I see the Germans have taken Lodz.”
“I’ll bite. Loads of what?”
A big German officer went into a shop in Brussels and explained to the old woman inside that Germany was ever so many times bigger than Belgium.
“How is it, then,” she inquired, “that you can travel through Germany in three weeks, whereas you have taken over a year to get through Belgium, and you are not through yet?”
The officer saluted the old woman and walked away.
A platoon of a certain regiment, among whom were a number of men noted as inveterate card-players, was being drilled. The instructor lined them up and gave the command:
“Number off!”
Like fire along the front rank ran the response:
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace!”
“Anyhow, there’s one advantage in having a wooden leg,” said the happy soldier.
“What’s that?” said his friend.
“You can hold your socks up with tin-tacks.”
“Does your wife show any interest in the war?”
“Yes, indeed. She talks about it.”
“What does she say?”
“Why, she says that she wishes I could go.”
He—“Why so pensive, my dear? What are you thinking about?”
She—“I was thinking that if all the yarns husbands give their wives could be knit up, what a lot of socks and mittens there’d be for the brave soldiers.”
“I can’t understand it. A month ago you cut her dead, and now you can’t make too much fuss over her.”
“My dear, it’s quite simple. She has the biggest cellar in the district.”—London Opinion.
“My barber is a Frenchman. Every day while he’s shaving me he gives me a little lesson in French.”
“Fine. But don’t you find it rather difficult to make replies?”
“Yes, to a certain extent, but the lather that gets into my mouth seems to help my accent.”
It was several days after arriving home from the front that the soldier with two broken ribs was sitting up and smoking a cigar when the doctor came in.
“Well, how are you feeling now?” asked the latter.
“I’ve had a stitch in my side all day,” replied the wounded soldier.
“That’s all right,” said the doctor. “It shows that the bones are knitting.”
At a party Miss Brown had sung “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” and for days after she was singing or humming it to herself.
“It seems to haunt me,” she said to a friend, who had also been at the party.
“No wonder,” said the friend. “Look at the way you murdered it.”
A pair of field-glasses “made in Germany” was responsible for the loss of a trench by the Germans in circumstances at once laughable and inspiring.
The hero was a young British subaltern who won the Victoria Cross.
The subaltern had a pair of Beiss field-glasses of which he was extraordinarily proud. He bored everyone stiff by talking about them continually.
One day his company had been compelled to fall back on their support trenches owing to a sudden German attack.
All at once the subaltern shouted “Good heavens!” and bolted through the communication trench.
A sergeant, who was very fond of the young officer, went after him, and came back shortly after to the commanding officer to report:—
“Sir, he has recaptured the trench.”
The commanding officer collected his men, and again advanced to the fire trench, where he found the subaltern, with a revolver in each hand, in front of a whole row of Germans, who had laid down theirrifles and were holding up their hands. The commanding officer congratulated him, but pointed out the recklessness of his action.
“Sir,” replied the subaltern, “I wanted to get my glasses back.”
Old Lady (to nephew on leave from the front)—“Good-by, my dear boy, and try and find time to send a post-card to let me know you are safely back in the trenches!”
Bix—“By the way, who is, or rather was, the god of war?”
Dix—“I’ve forgotten the duffer’s name, but I think it was Ananias.”
Officer (as Private Atkins worms his way toward the enemy)—“You fool! Come back at once!”
Tommy—“No bally fear, sir! There’s a hornet in the trench.”
Ship’s Officer—“Oh, there goes eight bells; excuse me, it’s my watch below.”
The Lady—“Gracious! Fancy your watch striking as loud as that!”
“That is the rhinoceros. See his armored hide?”
“Um. And what’s this?”
“The giraffe.”
“Gee! He’s got a periscope.”
First Recruit—“What do you think of the major, Bill?”
Second Recruit—“‘E’s a changeable kind o’ bloke. Last night I says to ’im ‘’Oo goes there?’ An’ he says, ‘Friend,’ an’ today ’e ’ardly knows me.”
Old Lady (to wounded officer)—“Oh, sir, do you ’appen to ’ave ’eard if any of your men at the front ’as found a pair of spectacles wot I left in a 16 ’bus in the Edgware Road?”
“Do the Germans ever leave anything valuable behind them in the trenches?”
Veteran—“Never a drop, mum!”
Overlooking Blackburn cemetery has been stuck a great recruiting poster, which reads:—
“Wake up! Your King and Country need you!”
Here is a true story from Paris. A batch of conscripts were to be examined by the army doctor. The latter, after seeing that everything was ready in the room, called out to the soldier attendant:
“Send in the first man.”
The attendant shouted, “Adam!” And in walked a nude man whose name it was, and who happened to be the first on the list.
The black sheep of the regiment stood before his commanding officer charged with being drunk. He stoutly denied the offense, and there was only one witness, a sergeant, to prove it. However, the records showed eleven previous convictions for the same offense.
“You are a hardened and habitual offender,” said the captain, sternly. “I can’t take your denial against the sergeant’s word.”
The prisoner turned to the sergeant-witness, and asked, “Have you ever been drunk?”
On receiving an emphatic negative, he turned to the captain again.
“Sergeant says I was drunk; I says I wasn’t. I ask yer, captain, which is likely to be right—him what’s ’ad no experience of what being drunk is, or an ’ardened and ’abitual like me?”
Modesty is an engaging quality in a young man, and the British War Office is said to have appreciated the letter of a youth with no military experience whatever who, in applying for a commission, stated that he would be quite willing to start as a lieutenant.
“I hear, Tommy, you saved a life in the war.”
“Hi did, sir.”
“How did you do it, Tommy?”
“By not hinlisting, sir.”