“I am told,” said the Kaiser, “that you are a very poor man, and the only support of your aged parents. Because of your poverty you shall have your choice between taking the Iron Cross or a hundred marks.”
“Your Majesty,” inquired the hero, “what is the Cross worth in money?”
“Not much,” said the Emperor. “It is the honor that makes it valuable. It is worth perhaps two marks.”
“Very well, then,” said Einstein, drawing himself up to his full height and saluting. “I will take the Iron Cross and ninety-eight marks in cash!”
Even an extremely aggressive enemy can be conquered by strategy; it is only a question of employing the stratagem fitted to the case.
An open-air preacher of East London understood this, and his stratagem fitted to a charm. He was addressing a crowd when a soldier who had been drinking came up and ridiculed the service. Finding it was useless to ignore the man, the preacher said:
“Ah, my friend, you’re no soldier. No servant of the King would get drunk and interrupt a peaceful service.”
The man said he was a soldier, and asked the preacher to test him.
“Very well,” was the reply, “I will. Now, then, attention!”
This the soldier did as well as his condition would allow.
This order was also obeyed, though with some trouble.
And off went the valiant soldier, marching down the road at a quick pace, while the preacher resumed his address.
Recruiting Sergeant—“I can’t enlist you, my good man; you have only one eye.”
Patriotic Scotsman—“Hoots! that disna matter. Ye’ve tae shut ae e’e whin yer shootin’ onywey.”
A good recruiting story, told by an officer at Seaforth, shows how prone is a simple mind to be confused by the elaborate cross-questioning which the new recruit has to undergo. The officer was entrusted with the collection of particulars necessary for the allotment of allowances to the soldiers’ dependents.
He was interrogating a young fellow who did not seem to have a clear idea what it was all about.
“Next of kin?” he asked, in a sharp, business-like way.
The young soldier dropped his voice and became confidentially apologetic.
“I’m only wearing a jersey,” he replied; “my shirt’s getting washed.”
A young lad applied for work the other day at a shed in Burnley, where his three brothers had worked previously, but had ’listed.