James was now thoroughly enjoying himself.
"Left _incline_! Theirs not to reason why, Private Kipling; if I had meant 'right incline, and stop at the canteen,' I should have said so.... Tut-tut, Private Tree, 'left incline' doesn't mean 'advance like a crab'.... Right _incline_! And now where are you, Private Masterman? Left behind _again_. Halt! Dress up by the right. Blanket, Private Haldane, you're _still_ talking. Private Haldane will be blown from the guns at dusk. As you were. It's no good taking half measures with Private Haldane; kindness is wasted on him. Private Haldane will be stopped jam for tea this afternoon."
And then a smile came over James's face. He repressed it, drew himself up, and surveyed us sternly.
"Thank you, I feel much better," said James.
DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Unless the blackberrying season is to be utterly ruined and thousands of homes thus rendered poisonously unhappy, something must be done to make people play the game.
Why is it that this simple little fruit should have such a bad influence on otherwise nice persons? But it has. It makes them utterly selfish and inconsiderate.
Take our experience last week on the Common. We went out with baskets--three of us--Elsa, Dolores, and me, and, after hunting about for some time and getting fearfully scratched, we came upon a perfectly priceless group of bushes which no one had discovered.
The blackberries were there in millions, ripe too, and all sparkling in that patent-leather way which makes the mouth water and prevents as many getting into the basket as ought to. We were of course fearfully bucked by finding such a spot, and began at once in earnest. Judge then of our dismay when another party of blackberriers, attracted, I imagine, by our cries of rapture, came up and began picking too! These were the two Misses Blank, whom we know very slightly. They ought, of course, to have gone right away and done their own discovering. Instead of that they just nodded, and then snatched away at our bushes as though they were in their own garden. One of them even came up to a bush on which Elsa was engaged. What was she to do? She could not remonstrate, as we knew them so slightly, so she abandoned the bush with a gesture of contempt which should have made a dummy blush, but had no effect whatever on these thick-skinned Prussians, as we now believe they must be. Probably their real name is Fressen, Elsa thinks.