But this mail brings him a gleam of comfort.

So you tell me, Chrissie, writes Cosh to the lady in South Kensington, that you are engaged to be married on a milkman....

("Thank heaven!” murmurs Bobby piously.)

No, no, Chrissie, you need not trouble yourself.  It is nothing to me.

("He’s as sick as muck!” comments Bobby.)

All I did before was in friendship’s name.

("Liar!”)

Bobby, thankfully realising that his daily labours will be materially lightened by the withdrawal of the fickle Chrissie from the postal arena, ploughs steadily through the letters.  Most of them begin in accordance with some approved formula, such as—­

It is with the greatest of pleasure that I take up my pen—­

It is invariably a pencil, and a blunt one at that.

Crosses are ubiquitous, and the flap of the envelope usually bears the mystic formula, S.W.A.K.  This apparently means “Sealed with a kiss,” which, considering that the sealing is done not by the writer but by the Censor, seems to take a good deal for granted.

Most of the letters acknowledge the receipt of a “parcle”; many give a guarded summary of the military situation.

We are not allowed to tell you about the War, but I may say that we are now in the trenches.  We are all in the pink, and not many of the boys has gotten a dose of lead-poisoning yet.

It is a pity that the names of places have to be left blank.  Otherwise we should get some fine phonetic spelling.  Our pronunciation is founded on no pedantic rules.  Armentieres is Armentears, Busnes is Business, Bailleul is Booloo, and Vieille Chapelle is Veal Chapel.

The chief difficulty of the writers appears to be to round off their letters gracefully. Having no more to say, I will now draw to a close, is the accepted formula.  Private Burke, never a tactician, concludes a most ardent love-letter thus:  “Well, Kate, I will now close, as I have to write to another of the girls.”

But to Private Mucklewame literary composition presents no difficulties.  Here is a single example of his terse and masterly style:—­

Dere wife, if you could make the next postal order a trifle stronger, I might get getting an egg to my tea.—­Your loving husband, JAS. MUCKLEWAME, No. 74077.

But there are features of this multifarious correspondence over which one has no inclination to smile.  There are wistful references to old days; tender inquiries after bairns and weans; assurances to anxious wives and mothers that the dangers of modern warfare are merely nominal.  There is an almost entire absence of boasting or lying, and very little complaining.  There is a general and obvious desire to allay anxiety.  We are all “fine”; we are all “in the pink.”  “This is a grand life.”

Listen to Lance-Corporal M’Snape:  Well, mother, I got your parcel, and the things was most welcome; but you must not send any more.  I seen a shilling stamp on the parcel:  that is too much for you to afford.  How many officers take the trouble to examine the stamp on their parcels?