The peeling complete, Albert Edward sat in the draughts of the inner chamber and waited for the bath.  The outer chamber was filled with smoke, and the flames were leaping six feet above the cauldrons; but every time Albert Edward holloaed for his bath Sandy implored another minute’s grace.

Finally Albert Edward could stand the draughts no longer and ordered Sandy, on pain of court-martial and death, to bring the water, hot or not.

Whereupon Sandy reluctantly brought his buckets along, and, grumbling that neither his experience nor establishment had had a fair chance, emptied them into the tub.  Albert Edward stepped in without further remark and sat down.

The rest of the story I had from my groom and countryman, who, along with an odd hundred other people, happened to be patronising the outer chamber tubs at the time.  He told me that suddenly they heard “a yowl like a man that’s afther bein’ bit be a mad dog,” and over the screen of the inner chamber came our Albert Edward in his birthday dress.  “Took it in his sthride, Sor, an’ coursed three laps round the bath-house cursin’ the way he’d wither the Divil,” said my groom and countryman; “then he ran out of the door into the snow an’ lay down in it.”  He likewise told me that Albert Edward’s performance had caused a profound sensation among the other bathers, and they inquired of Sandy as to the cause thereof; but Sandy shook his Tam-o’-shanter and couldn’t tell them; hadn’t the vaguest idea.  The water he had given Albert Edward was hardly scalding, he said; hardly scalding, with barely one packet of mustard dissolved in it.

Our Albert Edward is still taking his meals off the mantelpiece.

I met my friend, the French battery commander, yesterday.  He was cantering a showy chestnut mare over the turf, humming a tune aloud.  He looked very fit and very much in love with the world.  I asked him what he meant by it.  He replied that he couldn’t help it; everybody was combining to make him happy; his C.O. had fallen down a gun-pit and broken a leg; he had won two hundred francs from his pet enemy; he had discovered a jewel of a cook; and then there was always the Boche, the perfectly priceless, absolutely ridiculous, screamingly funny little Boche.  The Boche, properly exploited, was a veritable fount of joy.  He dreaded the end of the War, he assured me, for a world without Boches would be a salad sans the dressing.

I inquired as to how the arch-humourist had been excelling himself lately.

The Captain passaged his chestnut alongside my bay, chuckled and told me all about it.  It appeared that one wet night he was rung up by the Infantry to say that the neighbouring Hun was up to some funny business, and would he stand by for a barrage, please?

What sort of funny business was the Hun putting up?

Oh, a rocket had gone up over the way and they thought it was a signal for some frightfulness or other.