P.S. That so?
P.H. By the way, Stanning, is he a relation of yours? Of course, it’s a very common name in the City.
P.S. Ye—es, I suppose he is in a way.
P.H. That’s something to be proud of. I’m not saying it to flatter you, but at this minute I’d rather be Stanning, R.A., than any one else in the wide world.
Private Stanning laughed like a good one.
P.H. Honest. I’m not talking out of the back of my neck. Stanning, R.A., for me. You can have all my share of the Kitcheners and the Joffres and the von Klucks. If I could be born again and born somebody as mattered I’d like to be Stanning, R.A. Why, what the hell are you grinning at?
P.S. That’s rheumatism. And if you’ll only take it over, old son, you can have all the remainder of my interest in Stanning, R.A., as a going concern.
P.H. What! do you mean to say——!
“I told you, Mother,” concluded Private Hollis in his port-wine-inspired narrative, “that he was going gray at the temples. And there he set like a himage at the foot of his shakedown all twisted with rheumatics, groaning like one o’clock. And then he began to laugh. Queer world, ain’t it, what?”