The reply came: “Thanks for yours. Before Brown left here he bet us ten pounds apiece all round the mess that he would make the colonel take off his shirt in the ante-room on the first night he arrived.”
“You are always on leave,” exclaimed the officer. “What on earth do you want special leave for now?”
“My sister’s baby going to be vaccinated, sir.”
“She’s my sister, sir,” explained Tommy, with a hurt look.
“No, sir, the baby’s sister’s my brother—I mean I’m the mother’s baby—er—the father’s my sister. No, I mean—”
“You mean,” broke in the O. C., angrily. “What do they want you for? That is the point.”
Private McGuire, lying in hospital, was very fractious. He pointedly refused to take a second dose of medicine, which was inordinately nasty. Several smiling nurses bent over him and urged him to be good.
“Come,” pleaded one, “drink this and you’ll get well.”
M’Guire visibly brightened, and actually sat up in bed.
After surveying the pretty group, he inquired, eagerly, “What wan o’ yez is Rosy?”
Mr. Meek was not very well, and the doctor had advised him to take a glass of beer occasionally “for his stomach’s sake.”
“It can’t be done, doctor; it can’t be done,” said Mr. Meek. “Although there is a barrel of beer in the cellar, my wife insists on my being teetotal for the duration of the war.”
“Tut, tut,” said the doctor, as he took his leave; “you must invent a way to overcome your wife’s scruples; an easy matter enough, surely?”
A few days later the medical man received a visit from Mrs. Meek, who was greatly concerned as to the state of her husband’s health. “I am afraid, doctor,” she said, “that the poor man has had a nervous breakdown. He’s continually fancying that he can hear Zeppelins, and goes to hide in the cellar; besides which he often appears to be somewhat strange and aggressive in his manner.”
In a small village in Ireland the mother of a soldier met the village priest, who asked her if she had had bad news.
“Shure, I have,” she said. “Pat has been killed.”
“Oh, I am very sorry,” said the priest. “Did you receive word from the War Office?”
“No,” she said, “I received word from himself.”
The priest looked perplexed, and said, “But how is that?”
“Shure,” she said, “here is the letter, read it for yourself.”