Various

“ I can't live with that on me conscience. 'Ave you thought of the danger of mining and sapping? 'Ave you kinsidered field telegrafts? 'Ave you—'ot-'eaded and impulsive as you are—'ave you kinsidered anything? Percy, if you're set on this job, tell me quick, and put me out of me agony!"
"No," said Percy abruptly. "But"—with sudden misgiving—"w-what can I do? I'm on my way to join and I must join something."
Private Penny pushed his mug over to be re-filled. "I'm an infantryman myself," he said carelessly, "and I speaks as one that knows. ”

“ Watt, as Bill's grandmother informed me she was called, drew forth a single sheet of notepaper. Its dimensions had been heavily curtailed by the deepest border of mourning black that I ever had seen on English writing-paper. Other nations surpass us in this evidence of respect, but Mrs. Watt's paper was calculated to raise the national standard.
"Isn't this," I said, "rather—I mean is it quite suited for a birthday letter, to cheer up Frank in the trenches?" ”

“ It has the most perfect trustfulness, not merely allowing itself to be handled, but coming to perch on a wrist or shoulder as if it had belonged there from, time immemorial. It really is a pretty thing to have about the house, an embodiment of gentleness and kindness, and, so far as a mere human being can judge, of an almost dog-like gratitude and affection. ”

“ Lloyd George, fresh from the Paris Conference, had to deal with a number of inquiries put by the little group of Scottish malcontents whose notion of patriotism is to embarrass the Government on each and every occasion. Mr. Hogge wanted to know when the Minister of Munitions was going to give the other side of the case—"the German side," as an interrupter pertinently put it; and Mr. Pringle intimated that a settlement could have been reached but for the unreasonableness of the Government. ”

“ About a week it take me to write a letter, such a letter as I'd wish to write to Frank out at the Front, for 'is birthday, to cheer 'im up."
"Frank's Bill's father, I suppose?" I said, by way of filling an asthmatic pause.
"Lor bless yer, no, Mum. Bill's father wouldn't never go into no more danger than what 'e'd find at the Red Lion. Married my pore daughter 'e did, as died—a mercy for 'er, pore thing! That's 'ow it is Bill's living along o' me." ”

“ Charlie grins, and the stretcher-bearer begins to count. When he gets to ten he rolls up his sleeves; when he gets to twenty he takes a good grip of the sandbag; at thirty he rolls his eyes and sticks out his jaw; at forty, he lifts the bag over his shoulder and draws one foot back, Charlie watching him all the time. ”

“ On the crest of it came Percy's friends in mufti, and once, across the tumult, his voice reached my ears. "... quite decided...." he was saying loftily, "some infantry regiment or other just seems...." and he was jostled away in the centre of an admiring group.
Involuntarily I looked across at Private Penny.
One eye met mine from behind an upturned mug, and the lid fell and rose again, once, rapidly; he too had heard.
"A Council of War in the Desert.
"British Officers are here seen holding a 'bow-wow.'"—Western Weekly News.
Very natural. In the desert most days are "dog-days." ”

“ It is rude to laugh at other people's conversation, particularly if you have not been introduced to them, but I caught myself in an audible chuckle over this fine blend of patriotic and filial sentiment. ”

“ Everyone has their own way of making us happy, not forgetting the dear lady what sent us three hundred little lavender bags, with pretty little bows on them, all sewn by herself, to keep our linen sweetly perfumed. ”

“ And wot I says is—if you wants a cheerful protected kinder life, with a quiet 'ole to 'ide yer 'ead in—if you wants rest and comfort, kimbined with plenty o' fresh air—if you wants to serve yer King and country without any danger to yer 'ealth, then the infantry's the life for you, and the trenches is the place to spend it in. Ain't I been out there one solid year, and no 'arm 'appened to me yet? It's child's play, that it is, sitting there in a 'ole, with big guns booming over you protective-like from be'ind and killing all the enemy in front for you. ”

“ Only a man who has fought with bulls in Ireland could hope to tackle such a paradox. Mr. Long, having enjoyed that experience, was fairly successful.
Sir Edward Carson, who had been expected by some people to initiate a raging "Down-the-Government" agitation, was comparatively mild, and, admitting that his late colleagues had done something, chiefly blamed them for not having done it earlier. Still he made it plain that in his view compulsion all round was inevitable if Prussianism was to be crushed. Mr. Ellis Griffith agreed with him. The Government ought not to bargain with the public ”

“ Why, you 'ave to go calmly into the mouth of 'ell with supplies, over the open ground, when the Infantry's safe and snug in the trenches. You ain't strong enough for it—reely you ain't."
"Er—" hesitated the young man.
"Well, I had thought of the R.A.M.C. Mother's idea was——"
Private Penny groaned. "You know," he said with emotion, "I've took a kind of fancy to you, Percy. And if it's me dying breath I says—don't! That kind of work ain't right nor proper for the likes of you. Why, you 'ave to go out in the field there (and you ain't even armed, nor protected, mind you!) ”

“ Some sermons would be much more tolerable if they had a musical accompaniment.
"A mere automatic raising of the Income Tax strikes indiscriminately at the just and the unjust; it is just as likely to cripple the man who is supporting and educating a large family sybarite." ”

“ Soldier (on leave from the trenches visiting the sights of London—before enlarged model of common flea) . "Yes, that's it, father! That's the kind I was tellin' you about. But it ain't much of a specimen."
The name of the author of Youth Unconquerable (Heinemann) is given on the title-page as Percy Ross. But I would willingly take a small wager on the probability that this name conceals a feminine identity. For one thing, no mere man surely would attempt the task of depicting the sweet girl graduate in her native lair, often as the converse has been done. ”

“ She was a large heavy old woman, with a round colourless visage that suggested the full moon by daylight, and wispy grey locks like a nimbus about it.
"Lor bless the child, Mum!" she exclaimed. "Bill, whatever d'yer mean by it?"
"Says she kin write a letter in ten minutes," Bill repeated, with the emphasis of grave doubt on the "says."
"Bless the child, Mum! I don't know whatever 'e's been saying. It's truth as I did say as I wished I 'ad someone as could write a letter for me to my son Frank, it being 'is birthday Tuesday and 'im out at the Front. ”

“ That is the fashion in Paradise Rents. I had come upon these two young men about Fulham as they were staring with absorbed interest into the undertaker's shop advantageously situated for custom at the corner of the Rents and the main street. Certainly it was a pleasant window. Besides the legends and texts, the artificial wreaths and the pictures of tombs and tombstones, there was a number of model coffins in miniature. It was these that had fascinated the attention of the two young men.
"I should like one o' them to ply with," said the elder covetously.
"What would yer do with it, Bill?" ”

“ His application was refused, the tribunal apparently being of the opinion that a man who knew all about meat pies could decimate the German forces without striking a blow.
Colonel Roosevelt says he has found a bird that lives in a cave, eats nuts, barks like a dog and has whiskers; and the political wiseacres in Washington are asking who it can be.
An exciting hockey match was played on Saturday between a team of policemen and another composed of special constables. The policemen won—by a few feet.
For gallantry at the ovens a German master-baker has just been awarded the Iron Cross. ”

“ Watt, being more than a little afraid of the reception that her son Frank might have accorded to the letter that was to bring bright cheer to his birthday. But she ran from her door as I passed to meet and greet me. "Do step in, Mum," she entreated. "I must 'ave you see a letter as come this morning from my son Frank, as is at the Front. Read that, if you please, Mum."
"She must be a real lady that wot comes visiting you," it said. "That was a letter as she wrote. I don't know as ever I read such a beautiful letter. ”

“ It occupied, even with much compression, space far into the second side of the restricted paper.
"An' my only relative surviving," she resumed, "being brother George, as is eighty-two, and crotchety at that, lives out 'Oxton way, so I wrote to him about the funeral for a Monday, and when the undertaker puts it forward to the Saturday I didn't have no one to send all that way, so brother George—'e's eighty-two, and crotchety at that—'e didn't get no notice for the funeral on Saturday at all, so o' course 'e didn't come. You'll make all that clear to Frank, won't you, Mum?" ”

“ Manchester Evening Chronicle.
But this attempt to drag the Navy into politics met with deserved failure.
"Dwellers in the trenches are not the only fighters who know what it is to be up to the knees in seven feet of water." ”

“ TRUTHFUL JAMES ON DOCTORS.
"You're not looking well," said the staff of The Muddleton Weekly Gazette sympathetically.
"No, Sir. Can't sleep, Sir. Haven't done for days till last night. I went off beautiful quite early, and then the new nurse come and woke me to give me my sleeping draught. That finished it for the night. Strange thing, sleep. There's no sense about it. Take Bill Hawkins now, a pal of mine in B Company. He was hit and took to hospital. Not serious at all. 'Me for a rest cure,' he says. But he was in that hospital for weeks and weeks, getting worse and worse ”

“ The second great sale on behalf of the wounded will be held at Christie's (8 King Street, St. James' Square) from the 6th to the 19th of April, and from the 26th to the 28th. The entire proceeds—no charge for their services being made by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods—will be handed over to the British Red Cross Society and the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. The exhibits are still on view to-day (April 5th) .
[pg 231]
Husband. ”

“ He did not appear to attach undue importance to this claim, and Lord Islington, who replied for the Government, did not think it necessary to make any reference to it, but contented himself with stating that the Bagdad advance was authorised on the advice of General Nixon and the Indian Government, and professing official ignorance of any representations on the part of General Townshend. ”

“ You must diet yourself; take nothing but light food and——'
"Here the Sub interrupts him, thinking there's something mighty queer about a doctor what is so ready to prescribe diet for a probossis, and asks him a lot more questions. Of course the beer was in the sawdust then, and very soon a guard was called up to take our German Captain Doctor Spy away to a safe place. ”

“ Wednesday was a fortnight as she died, sister Maria did, that's Frank's aunt, and was buried a Saturday—what's too soon, as you'd say, but no disrespect meant, the undertaker arranging first for the Monday—only 'aving a bigger job, with 'orses and plumes, give'im for the Monday, and so putting my pore sister forward to the Saturday. 'Ave you got that down, Mum? ”