ALL FOR JANE.
(With the British Army in France.)
How Jane contrived to inspire affection and bitter rivalry in the hearts of Sergeant Bulter and Chippo Munks is hard to imagine. She was not beautiful or agreeable or even intelligent. And she was certainly fickle and greedy. If Sergeant Bulter persuaded her to accompany him for a walk she was quite likely to return with Chippo; and if Chippo invited her to dine the end of the dinner was usually the signal for her to leave in search of the further hospitality of Sergeant Bulter.
Nevertheless both soldiers wooed her with an intensity that nearly brought them into deadly conflict. The climax was precipitated by an announcement in Battalion Orders that ran:—
"All ownerless dogs straying about the Camp will be secured by the Camp police for destruction. Owners of dogs will therefore ensure that their dogs are provided with collars showing names of owners, and such dogs are not permitted to stray about the lines unattended."
On reading this Chippo laboriously inscribed an old identity disc—
JANE MUNKS,
"B" Coy.,
and sought out Jane in her usual corner near the cook-house. He was threading the disc with a piece of string when Sergeant Bulter appeared.
"What are you doin' to that dawg?" demanded the Sergeant.
"Fittin' 'er with a necklace," replied Chippo.
"Well, you can keep it to hang yourself with," said Bulter triumphantly; "she's already provided."
Chippo perceived, what he had previously overlooked, that Jane's neck was encircled with a collar marked—
JANE BULTER,
Sergeants' Mess.
A sick feeling of disappointment came over him, but he dissembled.
"I reckernize the family likeness, Sergeant," he remarked and walked away, whilst Jane, with callous disregard for his sufferings, meditated whether to dine with the Ration Corporal or the Sergeant Cook, or both.
Chippo walked gloomily in the direction of the town. As he approached the place the blaring of cornets and sounds of hilarity reminded him that Quelquepart was holding its annual foire. Merry-go-rounds and swing-boats were not in harmony with Chippo's mood, and the performance at the gaudily-painted Guignol struck him as particularly dreary, but the sight of Ferdinand Delauney's Grande Loterie, with its huge red wheel and tempting array of prizes, roused him to animation. Ferdinand was attracting investors by methods of persuasion which Chippo, as an acknowledged "Crown-and-anchor" expert, recognised as masterly.
"Reckon I'll try a franc's-worth of Ferdy's prize bonds," he said. "But I expect it'll just be my luck to win a dog-collar or a muzzle."
In due course the wheel began to revolve, and it had scarcely stopped before Ferdinand jumped from the platform and embraced Chippo with emotion.
"Mon ami," he said, "mes félicitations! Vous avez gagné le premier prix!"
Opening a crate he extracted an athletic young cockerel, which he thrust under Chippo's arm, and the latter walked away with a prize for which he had not the slightest use.
Presently the cockerel began to struggle, and Chippo, after considering all methods of transport, took the string intended for Jane from his pocket, attached it to the rooster's leg and marched it before him. He had not proceeded far before he was confronted by the scandalised Sergeant Bulter, with Jane trailing miserably at his heels.
"Hi!" shouted the Sergeant, "what do you mean parading the town like a blamed poultry show?"
"A chap must 'ave a bit o' company when he goes out. I ain't got no dawg now," replied Chippo pathetically.
"Dawgs is one thing," said the Sergeant, "and a mangy wry-necked rooster wot's probably missing from some-one's back-yard is another. It ain't regimental."
"It's as regimental as a yellow flap-eared mongrel wot's bin enticed away from its rightful owner," said the insubordinate Chippo. "There ain't nothink in King's Regs. against it."
"P'r'aps there ain't," said Bulter; "but it ain't soldierlike."
"One minit, Sergeant. Wot's our regimental mascot? It's a goat. An' what's the Dampshires'? A chattering monkey. If monkeys an' goats is soldierlike so's poultry."
The Sergeant was silenced, and Chippo and his rooster proceeded on their way, giving a finished exhibition of the goose-step.
Thereafter Chippo and his pet ostentatiously paraded the lines, selecting the occasions when the Sergeant was starting out for a constitutional. Though Bulter's feelings were sorely outraged he preserved an air of icy aloofness, which Jane imitated as long as she was on the lead. This apparent indifference should have been a warning to the cockerel, but he did not know Jane's peculiar temperament. The full revelation came one morning when they met in the lines unattended by their respective masters. The rooster quickly fell a victim to feminine duplicity, and Jane carried the mangled bundle of claws and feathers and dropped it at Chippo's feet.
Chippo took the remains to Sergeant Bulter.
"See what your dawg's done," he said with indignation.
"An' a good job too," answered Bulter.
"You 'ear that?" appealed Chippo to another N.C.O. who was standing by. "He was allus jealous of me 'avin' a pet, so 'e deliberately set 'is dawg on it, an' now 'e's gloatin'."
"See 'ere, my lad," spluttered Bulter, "you'll be for orderly-room to-morrow if you ain't careful."
"Very well, Sergeant," said Chippo meekly; "it'll give me a chawnce to make my complaint to the orficer."
"'Ow do you mean?"
"Why, against you for flat disobedience of Battalion horders. If you 'adn't let your dawg run about the lines unattended this wouldn't 'ave 'appened."
The Sergeant's face bore the expression of a quack compelled to swallow his own pills. Chippo continued relentlessly and untruthfully—
"I 'ear she's bit the Colonel's groom an' pinched the joint from the Warrant Orficers' Mess. She never oughtn't to be at large, she didn't."
Rarely in his career had Bulter shown such visible discomfiture.
"Of course," added Chippo casually, "if Jane was my dawg I'd 'ave no grounds for complaint."
When your strong man is compelled to submit to the inevitable he usually does it ungracefully. Bulter took the collar from Jane's neck and pushed her over with his foot.
"Take the brute," he said, "an' if ever I see 'er round this Mess again I'll shoot 'er!"
Fatuous Person. "Are you a diver?"
Cynic. "Ho, no. I'm Pavlover's dancin' partner."
"Paris, Friday.—The High Court of the Senate resumed in public its hearing of the Caillaux trial.... The jury found the prisoner guilty. Mr. Justice Darling postponed sentence."—Scotch Paper.
No other journal appears to have noticed this remarkable extension of the Entente Cordiale.