“So tha’s been to see him off?” said one.
“Aye,” replied the other. “Ah’ve been to see him off. Eh, dear, but I didna know what to say to him. So I says, ‘Well, good-bye, old lad,’ I says, ’an if tha thoomps t’ Kaiser as tha’s thoomped me he’ll be sorry he went to war!’”
“Some of our cannon are disappearing,” remarked the lieutenant.
“Well, things will disappear when you have careless help,” responded the lady who was going over the fort. “I find that a great trouble about keeping house.”
Chatty Neighbor—“I suppose you don’t stand for any war arguments among your boarders?”
Boarding House Mistress—“O, yes. You see, our biggest eater gets so interested that he forgets to eat and our next biggest eater gets so mad that he leaves before the meal is half over.”
Bill—“I read as ’ow that ’ere ’Indenburg ’as got an English wife.”
Alf—“Ah, that accounts for ’is fightin’ like ’e does.”
Barman—“Strikes me, there’s one o’ these blooming German spies in the smoke-room, sir. ’E’s bragging about bein’ a Scotsman, and the whisky I took ’im a quarter of an hour ago ’e ain’t even touched yet.”
Officer (severely)—“Is this rifle supposed to have been cleaned?”
Recent Recruit—“Well, sir—yes. But you know what these servant gals are!”
A British naval officer, home on short leave, told a North Sea story. “We had taken some prisoners aboard, three of them officers; one of their torpedoes had missed us by nearly ten feet.
“We made the officers as comfortable as we could, gave them food and drink, and talked about ordinary general matters; hardly a word was said about the fight.
“The Germans seemed ill at ease, suspicious. At last one of them said, ‘We don’t understand you treating us like this. We tried to torpedo you.’
“‘Oh, that’s all right; that’s over now,’ said a navigating lieutenant, handing him a cigarette.
“‘We’d like to show you that we appreciate your goodness,’ went on the German.
“There was a long pause. Then the lieutenant burst in with great cheerfulness, ‘Well, sing us the “Hymn of Hate.”’
“That was one of the rare moments when I have seen German officers look abashed.”
As a young man was walking along reading the evening newspaper he was accosted by an old lady who seemed interested in the war.