The Padre cocked his head on one side and commenced to ooze apologies from every pore.

“Oh dear—­you know how absurdly absent-minded I am; well, I suddenly remembered I had left my teeth behind.”

PATLANDER.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Old Lady. “And what regiment are you in?”

The Sub. “7th Blankshires.  But I’m attached to the 9th Wessex.”

Old Lady. “Really!  Now do tell me why the officers get so fond of regiments with aren’t their own.”]

* * * * *

“At Nottingham on Saturday the damages ranging from L7 10s. to L3 were ordered to be paid by a number of miners for absenteeism.  It was stated that, although absolved from military obligations by reason of their occupation, there had been glaring neglect of responsibility, some men having lost three ships a week.”—­Western Morning News.

These mines are very tricky things.

* * * * *

THE AS.

The French, always so quick to give things names—­and so liberal about it that, to the embarrassment and undoing of the unhappy foreigner, they sometimes invent fifty names for one thing—­have added so many words to the vocabulary since August, 1914, that a glossary, and perhaps more than one, has been published to enshrine them.  Without the assistance of this glossary it is almost impossible to read some of the numerous novels of poilu life.

So far as I am aware the latest creation is the infinitesimal word “as,” or rather, it is a case of adaptation.  Yesterday “as des carreaux” (to give the full form) stood simply for ace of diamonds.  To-day all France, with that swift assimilation which has ever been one of its many mysteries, knows its new meaning and applies it.

And what is this new “as”?  I gather, without having had the advantage of cross-examining a French soldier, that an “as” is an obscure hero, one of the men, and they are by no means rare, who do wonderful things but do not get into the papers or receive medals or any mention in despatches.  We all know that many of the finest deeds performed in war escape recognition.  One does not want to suggest that V.C.’s and D.S.O.’s and Military Crosses and all the other desirable tokens of valour are conferred wrongly.  Nothing of the kind.  They are nobly deserved.  But probably there never was a recipient of the V.C. or the D.S.O. or the Military Cross who could not—­and did not wish to—­tell his Sovereign, when the coveted honour was being pinned to His breast, of some other soldier not less worthy than himself of being decorated, whose deed of gallantry was performed under less noticeable conditions.  The performer of such a deed is an “as” and it is his luck to be a not public hero.  But why ace of diamonds?  That I cannot explain.