"Hi, you!" he shouted to the oncoming rower. "Sheer off with that thing! We've got explosive aboard!"
By way of answer the old man—now scarce a dozen yards away—cupped his hand behind his ear.
"What d'yer say, sir?" he called back, mildly. "I found this 'ere in the tideway, an' I knew there was a bit of a reward offered, an' so——"
The big mine was now bobbing dangerously close to the steamer's side, and the officer, frantic with anxiety, literally bellowed orders for the man to remove himself and his prize. In his excitement he suggested regions where it is possible the temperature might have had a disastrous effect.
The fisherman looked up at him with a smile. "That's all right, sir," he replied. "He 'on't do no harm. I knocked the horns off he with a boat-hook."
And so it proved. The old man, in his ignorance, had taken a million to one chance, and it had come off. They say there is a special Providence that looks after fools, but it must be peculiarly irritating to the apostle of "frightfulness" to know that an aged waterman, encountering a drifting mine, can lightheartedly knock off the detonator-equipped "horns" or projections and live to bring his prize into port and receive a reward. The chief officer aforesaid, however is not anxious for another experience of the kind; he says they are too trying to the nerves.
V—THE COCKNEY AND HIS "SOOVENEER"
Comedy, it has been observed, turns upon character, and many little comedies of the war hinge upon the mere personality of Thomas Atkins himself, and the somewhat difficult adjustment of that uniquely stubborn thing to a new environment. The resulting incidents derive a great part of their humor from Mr. Atkins's manner of narrating them—especially if he chance to be from London. There is no wittier or more tersely vivid raconteur than the Cockney, and though one often hears the humor of the British soldier described as unconscious, it is really nothing of the kind. Spontaneous and unpremeditated it may be, but such penetrating acumen as his racy idiom reveals was never unconscious.
Half-a-dozen soldiers home from the Front on short leave found themselves in a railway carriage bound for Victoria. They were of different battalions, and fell naturally to the swapping of yarns. Soon the conversation drifted to "souvenirs," a topic of surpassing interest. Trophies were produced by each in turn, with the exception of one taciturn member of the party who sat in a corner seat morosely sucking at a short clay pipe.