Various

“ He said to Jimmy, "Pull in, sonny; you've got a bite."
But he stopped laughing when the German spy tripped up and fell on top of the bloodhound; for the German spy shouted out, "Ach, Himmel!" The man who was looking on shouted, "What ho!" and put all the fingers of both hands into his mouth and gave one terrific whistle. The bloodhound held on tightly underneath the German, baying faithfully, till the policeman came and forced them apart. The German spy never said anything to the policeman or to the man or to Jimmy, but it seemed he couldn't say enough to the bloodhound. ”

“ We learn that the naval gunnery expert, Sir Percy Scott, has raised a regiment known as Scott's Guards.
It illustrates the difficulty which the British have in raising recruits, that the Government, now that it has acquired the railways, is ruthlessly compelling even the older servants to join the army. One section of these men, who hitherto have been occupied with flag and whistle, and have never been mounted in their lives, are being enlisted in a special battalion known as the Horse Guards, while, as the authorities themselves admit, the railways furnish whole regiments of the line. ”

“ There are deaths and wounds and sickness, and in the endurance of these and in the courage that surmounts all difficulties and dangers the dingiest regiment may make as brave a show as those which used to practise the parade-march over the review-field. I rather doubt if you had thought of all this—now had you?
Moreover our Russians, though they may look rough and though you may accuse them of ignorance, are no whit inferior to the most cultivated German professor in their patriotism and in their stern resolution to die rather than submit to defeat. ”

“ Jimmy has trained his bloodhound to watch things. It is very good at watching. It watched a cat up a tree all one night, and never left off once: it is very faithful like that. And it bays quite well, without being taught to. It bayed up to four hundred and ten one night, and would have gone past that but a man opened a window and told it not to. He sent it a water-bottle to play with instead.
Jimmy's bloodhound is a splendid fighter. It fought a dog much bigger than itself and nearly choked it. The other dog was trying to swallow it, and Jimmy had to pull his dog out. ”

“ Now in the train I recommend tinned pork and beans with Worcester sauce as a cheap and nourishing food in war-time.
Greenwood says nothing but glares at me. For once in his life he cannot rise to the occasion. ”

“ Through a sort of mist I see a figure in a chair facing a damsel who cuts off and packs up endless yards of cream wincey till there rises between them on the counter a stockade of brown-paper parcels. I see the other young female haberdashers, her companions, gathering timidly round, an awed joy upon their faces. ”

“ So partly out of consideration for the Empire, which we felt could not afford in the present crisis to lose a single man, even Jones, partly out of consideration for Mrs. Jones (though here we were perhaps influenced by a sentiment of mistaken kindness) , and partly out of consideration for ourselves we decided to avoid the topic of the War when conversing with Jones.
It proved very difficult to carry out our resolution. When a man is determined to discuss the War, the whole War, and nothing but the War, with everybody he meets, it is hard to side-track him. ”

“ His facial growth (a little in the manner of Mr. Maurice Hewlett) suited him well—far better indeed than the frock coat of the final Act. He was admirable throughout (except in one rather stuffy homily where he was not quite certain of his own views) ; but I could have done with much more of those lighter phases in which he excels. It was the same with the pleasant humour of Miss Frances Ivor as the Queen-Mother, which was sadly curtailed. Miss Marie Löhr played the young Queen with extraordinary sincerity, notably in one of the many scenes in which she lamented her lost child. ”

“ The curious practice of bathing the body in cold water at the beginning of day, which is compulsory in the British army, is an old one, and is said to have been inaugurated by a royal regiment which even to-day commemorates the beginning of the odd habit in its title of Coldstreamers. ”

“ Jimmy knows all about bloodhounds, how to train them. He is training his to track down German spies, amongst other things.
He knows a way so that if you say something—well, you don't exactly say it, you do it by putting your tongue into the place where your front tooth came out and then blowing—a really well-trained bloodhound will begin to shiver, and the hair on the back of his neck will go up. You then go and look for someone to help you to pull him off the German's throat, and ask the German his name and address, politely. ”

“ It disappeared in the spray of half-a-dozen shells, and emerged unharmed for an instant before it dipped; but a rapidly-forming line of torpedo-bubbles showed that the submarine too had seen, and had made answer after its fashion.
People who ought to know assure us that the truly great often regret their days of obscurity; certainly the captain now wished that he were still merely the lieutenant-commander of a T.B. Then he could have turned nearly parallel to the course of the torpedo, and tried for a ram. With the heavier and slower ship there was no room or time for such a manœuvre ”

“ We have an earnest hope that we shall be able to make your troops highly uncomfortable in the North, while towards the South we have been dealing quite faithfully with the Austrians. The Caucasus is filled with Turks dead or flying from our troops. As to Serbia—but I feel it would be scarcely polite to mention this stiff-necked country. It must be galling for your ally to have to fight a people so small in numbers but so great in their unconquerable resolution. Was it in order that Austrian troops might be chased headlong from Belgrade that you went to war? ”

“ Sir George Alexander, as an imperial uncle, of no particular nationality, filled his familiar rôle of amicus curiæ; a man of sixty and much dalliance in the past, but with his heart—what was left of it—in the right place. ”

“ The War Office has even made up a force from the men who drive King George's trains, under the title of the Royal Engineers.
The British commemorate their generals in their regiments. For instance, the name of the Duke of Wellington is carried by the West Riding Regiment, which, as its name indicates, is a cavalry regiment; and the Gordon Highlanders—the Chasseurs Alpins of the British army—were founded to preserve the name of the late General Gordon. ”

“ Tara and Aberdeen—that's what it should have been,
For never has there been an insult so obscene
To dear Dark Rosaleen, our holy Island Queen,
As letting Tara's sheen be dimmed by Aberdeen.
"Grease Spots on Milk.—Take a lump of magnesia, and, having wetted it, rub it over the grease-marks. Let it dry, and then brush the powder off, when the spots will be found to have disappeared."—North Wilts Herald.
They didn't. Perhaps we had the wrong kind of milk.
Lady. "I want some studs, please, for my son."
Shopman. "Yes, Madam—for the front?"
Lady. "No—home defence." ”

“ But there is no need to be actually the warrior's lover. To be his companion merely on a walk is to reap benefits, too, as I have been observing on the promenade of —— (a marine town whose name is, for tactical reasons, suppressed) . At —— the girls whose good fortune it is to have for an acquaintance a lieutenant or captain have just now a great time, for the town has suddenly become a veritable Chatham, and the promenade is also a Champ de Mars. All the week it is the scene of military evolutions, a thought too strenuous for the particular variety of jolly good luck of which I am thinking ”

“ Scientists, statisticians, fishmongers and other authorities tell us that for the development of the human brain there is nothing to compare with fish. Indeed, one has only to glance at the throng assembled in any popular fish-bar of a night to realise that the people of our country are alive to their need in this respect. ”

“ Then he asked the man whose ticket had won the raffle if it was really a prize bloodhound.
The man looked at the dog critically, and said it was either a prize bloodhound or a Scotch haggis; at any rate it was a very rare animal.
Jimmy asked if he would have to have a licence for it, but the man said it would be best to wait and see what it grew into. All good bloodhounds are like that, Jimmy says.
Jimmy ran all the way home: he couldn't run very fast, as the bloodhound tried to slide on its hind legs most of the way, it was so fierce. ”

“ It is a dreadful thing to be alone in a ladies' and children's outfitter's; these establishments are apt to contain so many articles that no self-respecting man should know anything about. As I realised where I was I shuddered. ”

“ Some high-spirited ones among the satellites even go so far as noticeably to count the salutes which a walk yields. And I daresay they pit their bag against those of others. Their heroes probably vote such a competition bad form, and yet I doubt if they are really deeply resentful, and I guess that the young Roberts and the young Wolseley and the young Wellington all passed through similar ecstasies when they were first gazetted. ”

“ Here's a defaulter in my squad of fangs:
Deal with him, please, and spare me needless pangs."
"Ah yes," he said, and jammed that rubber thing
(Does your man use it?) round the guilty tooth,
And, having gagged me, started gossiping
About the Germans' disregard for truth.
"Did you observe," he asked, "that last report?"
"Urrup!" said I, or something of the sort.
"How one admires our English troops!" said he,
"Such hardy chaps! (A leetle wider, please) .
And isn't it a shameful thing to see
So many slackers lounging at their ease—
Young men who can and ought to go and serve? ”

“ I only came myself from—er—duty. It's disgraceful to think that our able-bodied young men should waste their time kicking a ball about in this crisis. I would enlist myself if only I were ten years younger. ”

“ He had volunteered to help with the refreshment stall. There is a lot of work about a refreshment stall, Jimmy says. His work made him a bit husky, but he stuck to it and so it stuck to him.
He was very busy explaining the works of a cake to a lady when a man came up with something under his arm. It was a raffle. You paid threepence for a ticket, and would the lady like one?
The lady said she already had two tea-cosies at home; but the man explained that it was not a tea-cosy, it was a dog.
A dog! Perhaps a bloodhound! Jimmy trembled with excitement. ”

“ Jimmy takes it out every day, searching for German spies. It goes round sniffing everywhere—in hopes. It is a very strong sniffer and full of zeal, and one day it did it.
A man was looking at a shop-window, where they sell sausages and pork pies. He was studying them, Jimmy says. Jimmy says he never would have guessed he was a German spy if his bloodhound hadn't sniffed him out. It walked round the man twice, and in doing so wrapped the chain round the man's legs. Jimmy says it was to cut off his retreat. ”

“ They do not boast themselves to be learned men, but, on the other hand, it is not they who have made Louvain a city of ruins. They fight fiercely against men who have arms in their hands, but they have not executed innocent hostages, nor have they used warships and airships to massacre women and children. ”

“ How can we expect our parcels to be delivered intelligently, our gas-fittings to be adjusted properly, our bulbs to be planted effectively, if our carmen, our plumbers, our jobbing gardeners, and so forth, are deprived of their daily bloater or bloaters, as the case may be? ”

“ I have verified the theory that human nature is the same all the world over. When I was at home for that last forty-eight hours' leave before we sailed for India, five of us returned to the camp on Salisbury Plain by motor, and on our way we stopped at a country inn. ”

“ Each man will be posted in a tree with a type-*writer before him. The enemy, approaching, will hear from all sides a continuous tap-tapping and will fly in disorder, imagining that he is being assailed by a new kind of machine-gun.
Did I tell you that we are living in a tent? Four of us occupy one tent; that is to say, we occupy that portion of it which is not required by some five hundred millions of ants. I arrived at this figure in the same way that other scientists count microbes—by multiplying the number on a square inch by the superficial area in inches of the tent. ”

“ Besier's play achieves the popular favour of which, as I understand, it has already secured the promise, it will not be on account of its intrinsic merits, though it has its good points; it will be due in part to the excellence of the performance, and in part to that innocent snobbery which is latent in the typical British bosom. ”

“ He is thus in a position to speak with authority upon a phase of life which most of his contemporary readers will either have forgotten or never known. Just as Service novels in the past used to appear full of the most absurd technical errors, so to-day many books that profess to deal with civilian life are disfigured by every kind of solecism. ”