“That’s all, gentlemen; but I’m going to ask the man who buys her to remember her story and to see that her last days are not too hard.”

She fell at a good price to a splendid type of West Country farmer, and the auctioneer whispered to me, “I’m glad old Carey’s got her.  There’s not a man in the county keeps his horses better.”

“Old Carey” came up to me as we were moving off.  “I had a son in France,” he said, “in the gunners, too, but he hadn’t the luck of the old mare”—­he hesitated a moment and his old eyes looked steadily into mine—­“for he’ll never come back.  The mare’ll be all right, Sir,” he went on as he walked off, “easy work and full rations.  I reckon she’s earned them.”

* * * * *

    “The bride was given away by her grandfather who was dressed
    in Liberty satin in empire style, with hanging sleeves of
    chiffon.”—­Provincial Paper.

He must have looked a sweet old dear.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  The goose that lays the Golden eggs.

The Bird.  “Have you realised, my good sir, that if you proceed to extremes with that weapon my auriferous activities must inevitably cease?”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Echo of the tube strike.

“Take Yer up to the City for ’Alf-A-quid, GUV’NOR.”]

* * * * *

The acute angler.

The Colonel of our Reserve Battalion has an almost unique reputation as an angler.  Scattered elements of the regiment carry his piscatorial heroics to obscure corners of the earth.  Majors on the Pushti Kuli range recount the episode of the ingenuous troutling which, having apparently conceived a violent passion for the Colonel, literally forced itself upon the hook seven times within a short afternoon.  Captains on the Sultanitza Planina rehearse the epic incidents of how the Colonel snatched victory from defeat after pursuing for three miles an infuriated pike which had wrenched the very rod from his grasp.  Subalterns in the chill wilds of Cologne, adding picturesque details to an already artistic story, relate how he hooked a mighty veteran carp near Windsor, and played it for nine full hours (with a rest of ten minutes after the first, and five after each successive hour); how, under a full moon, he eventually grounded it on the Blackfriars’ mud and beached it with a last effort; how they lay panting side by side for a space, and how, finally, with the courtesy due to an honourable foe from a gallant victor, he forced neat brandy down its throat and returned it to its domain in a slightly inebriated but wholly grateful condition.