.

'You can't take any more,' said the voice. 'You haven't shells enough
for another attack. You had to stop the last one because your guns
were running short.'

'Any'ow,' replied an English corporal who had been handing round half a
dozen grenades, 'we ain't anyways short o' bombs. 'Ave a few to be
goin' on with,' and he and his party let fly. They listened with
satisfaction to the bursts, and through their trench periscopes watched
the smoke and dust clouds billowing from the trench opposite.

'An' this,' remarked a Tower private, 'is about our cue to exit, the
stage bein' required for a scene-shift by some Bosh bombs,' and he
disappeared, crawling into a dug-out. During the next ten minutes a
couple of dozen bombs came over and burst in and about the British
trench and scored three casualties, 'slightly wounded.'

'Hi there! Where's that Soho barber's assistant that thinks 'e can
talk Henglish?' demanded the Towers' spokesman cheerfully.

That annoyed the English-speaking German, as of course incidentally it
was meant to do.

'I'm here, Private Petticoat Lane,' retorted the voice, 'and if I
couldn't speak better English than you I'd be shaming Soho.'

'You're doing that anyway, you bloomin' renegade dog-stealer,' called
back the private. 'Wy didn't you pay your landlady in Lunnon for the
lodgin's you owed when you run away?'

'Schweinhund!' said the voice angrily, and a bullet slapped into the
parapet in front of the taunting private.

'Corp'ril,' said that artist in invective softly, 'if you'll go down
the trench a bit or up top o' that old barn behind I'll get this
bloomin' Soho waiter mad enough to keep on shootin' at me, an' you'll
p'raps get a chance to snipe 'im.'

The corporal sought an officer's permission and later a precarious
perch on the broken roof of the barn, while Private Robinson extended
himself in the manufacture of annoying remarks.

'That last 'un was a fair draw, Smithy,' he exulted to a fellow
private. 'I'll bet 'e shot the moon, did a bolt for it, when 'e
mobilised.'

'Like enough,' agreed Smithy. 'Go on, ol' man. Give 'im some more
jaw.'

'I s'pose you left without payin' your washin' bill either, didn't you,
sower-krowt,' demanded Private Robinson. There was no reply from the
opposition.

'I expeck you ler' a lot o' little unpaid bills, didn't you?--if you
was able to find anyone to give you tick.'

'I'll pay them--when we take London,' said the voice.

'That