The first soldier had not yet left England and was stolid; the new-comer 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 review 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 sand—a white, puffy, long face, with a moustache of obsolete bushiness.
"I thought I should have died of laughing," the narrator resumed, utterly unsuspicious, wholly undeterred.