'You've heard 'bout Puhbelow, down heah year befoh last—old Puhbelow, used to c'mand 25th Wangers? A.D.C. wides up t' Puhbelow an' tells him he's wanted at headquahtehs immediately. "That case," says Puhbelow, "I'd better walk!" An' he did,' said my vis-à-vis.
'Lord!' returned the other, 'I hope it won't come to that.'
'It's the last day I shall be able to turn out,' he went on, ruefully.
'For w'y?'
'Can't get inside my uniform another year.'
'Supuhfluous adipose tissue?'
'Rather! Attended the Levée last week, an' came away black in the face! At my time o' life a man's got to consider his buttons. 'Pon my word, I envy you lean dogs.' He addressed both his neighbour and the pink-eyed man, who took no notice of the pleasantry, but folded his paper the other way, and said, without looking up, that that had been a very disastrous flood in the United States.
'They do everything on a big scale over thayah,' remarked the man across from me, genially, 'includin' swindles.'
The round-faced gentleman's eye kindled with new interest. 'Were you let in on those Kakeboygan Limiteds?' he said. 'By Jove!—abominable! Never knew a cooler thing! Must have scooped in fifty thousand!'
'It was ve'y painful,' said the other, unexcitedly. 'By th' way, what d'you think of Little Toledos?'