s camp, destination and regiment,
and had exchanged cigarettes.

The first soldier had not yet left England and was stolid; the newcomer
had been in the trenches, had been wounded in the leg, had recovered,
was shortly going back, and was animated. His leg was all right, except
that in wet weather it ached. In fact he could even tell by it when we
were going to have rain. His "blooming barometer" he called it. Here he
laughed--a hearty laugh, for he was a genial blade and liked to hear
himself talk.

The first soldier did not laugh, but was interested. He thought it a
convenient thing to have a leg that foretold the weather.

"Which one is it?" he asked.

"The left."

The first soldier was disproportionately impressed.

"The left, is it?" he said heavily, as though he would have understood
the phenomenon in the right easily enough. "The left."

Completely unconscious of the danger-signals, the second soldier now
began to unload his repertory of stories, and he started off with that
excellent one, very popular in the early days of the War, about the
wealthy private.

For the sake of verisimilitude he laid the scene in his own barracks. "A
funny thing happened at our place the other day," he began. He had
evidently had great success with this story. His expression indicated
approaching triumph.

But no anticipatory gleam lit the face of his new friend. It was in fact
one of those faces into which words sink as into a sandbank--a white,
puffy, long face, with a moustache of obsolete bushiness.

"I thought I should have died of laughing," the other resumed, utterly
unsuspicious, wholly undeterred.

In the far corner I kept my eye on my book but my ears open. I could see
that he was rushing to his doom.

"We were being paid," he went on, "and the quartermaster asked one of
the men if he did not wish sixpence to be deducted to go to his wife.
The man said, 'No.' 'Why not?' the quartermaster asked. The man said he
didn't think his wife would need it or miss it. 'You'd better be
generous about it,' the quartermaster said; 'every little helps, you
know.'"

He paused. "What do you think the man said to that?" he asked his new
friend. "He said," he hurried on, "'I don't think I'll send it. You see,
I allow her four thousand a year as it is.'"

The _raconteur_ laughed loudly and leaned back with the satisfaction--or
at least some of it--of one who has told a funny story and told it well.

But the other did not l