s
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.

He stood by for half an hour, and then, as nothing happened, turned
in. Ten minutes later the Infantry rang up again. More funny business;
three rockets had gone up.

He stood by for an hour with no result, then sought his bunk once
more, cursing all men. Confound the Infantry getting the jumps over
a rocket or two! Confound them two times! Then a spark of inspiration
glowed within him, glowed and flamed brightly. If his exalted _poilus_
got the wind up over a handful of rockets, how much more also would
the deteriorating Boche?

Gurgling happily, he brushed the rats off his chest and the beetles
off his face, turned over and went to sleep. Next morning he wrote
a letter to his "god-mother" in Paris ("_une petite femme, tres
intelligente, vous savez_"), and ten days later her parcels came
tumbling in. The first night (a Monday) he gave a modest display,
red and white rockets bursting into green stars every five minutes.
Tuesday night more rockets, with a few Catherine-wheels thrown in.
Wednesday night, Catherine-wheels and golden rain, and so on until the
end of the week, when they finished up with a grand special attraction
and all-star programme, squibs, Catherine-wheels, Roman candles,
Prince of Wales' feathers, terminating in a blinding, fizzing barrage
of coloured r