Everybody had a go—­
  Chief, Commander, P.M.O.,
  Padre, Carpenter and Stoker,
  Using engine-grease and poker,
  Hawser, marlin-spike and soap,
  Till at length they gave up hope,
  For, in spite of all they did,
  Edwin fitted like a lid.

  Suddenly upon the scene
  Came a German submarine. 
  Then a flash, a roar, a groan;
  “We are sinking like a stone!”
  Cried the Bloke with angry frown;
  “Can we leave poor Peck to drown? 
  Really, this is too absurd;”
  Then a miracle occurred.

  As the cold green waters roll
  Round poor Edwin in his hole,
  Are the watchers wrong in thinking
  That the Captain’s neck is shrinking? 
  As she took her final list on,
  Sighing, “uedor men aeriston!”
  Long-enduring Captain Peck
  Gracefully withdrew his neck,
  Poked it out again and spoke
  To the sorrow-stricken Bloke: 
  “Nothing more that we can do? 
  No?  Then sound the ‘Sove kee poo!’”

  Need I tell how Captain Peck
  Was the last to leave the wreck,
  How the good ship perished, or
  How he brought them safe to shore,
  Landing, after all his men,
  Clucking softly like a hen?

* * * * *

Up-to date quotation for foot-sore Londoners:  “Et Tube, brute!”

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

One reads a lot nowadays about the “slavery” of various habits (drug, drink, bigamy, etc.) and loud is the outcry.  But there is yet another bondage, just as binding and far more widespread, which nobody ever seems to mention, namely, the drill habit.  Drill the young soldier up in the way he should go and for ever after his body will spring to the word of command, whether his soul approves or no.

Once upon a time two men turned up in a railway construction camp deep in the Rhodesian bush.  They were a silent, furtive, friendless pair, dwelling apart, and nobody could discover whence they came, whither they were bound, or, in fact, anything about them.  It was generally conceded that they had some horrid secret to bury (camp optimists voted for “murder”) and left it at that.  Time went by and so did the rail-head, leaving the two mysteries behind as permanent-way gangers.  Solitude seemed to suit them.  Years passed along and still the two remained in that abomination of desolation guarding their stretch of track and their horrid secret.  Then one day ROBERTS rolled by on his way to Victoria Falls, and, his train halting to tank-up, the old Field-Marshal stepped ashore and called to the two gangers, who happened to be close at hand tinkering at their trolley.  The guard, who was taking a bottle of Bass with the steward on the platform of the diner, suddenly jabbed his friend in the brisket.

“Look, for the love of Mike!” he giggled.

The two gangers were standing talking to “BOBS,” shoulder to shoulder, heels together, feet spread at an angle of forty-five degrees, knees braced, thumbs behind the seams of their trousers, backs hollowed, heads erect—­in short in the correct position of attention as decreed in the Book of Infantry Training.  The old man finished speaking and the two saluted smartly and broke away.  The steward looked at his friend and nodded, “Old soldiers.”