So far Recruiting Sergeant Denham. Meanwhile Recruiting Sergeant Flossie had also got to work. Flossie, awaked by the shock of war to the surprising fact that, after twenty-two years of vain, idle and inglorious life, she was now of the most complete unimportance to her country, had (for the first time) a sudden longing to "do something." And so, being unfitted for needlework, nursing or the kitchen, she adopted eagerly the suggestion of some stupid and unimaginative old gentleman, and constituted herself (under God) Supreme Arbiter of Men's Consciences for the South-West Suburbs of London. Patriotically aglow, she handed out white feathers to all the un-uniformed young men she chanced to meet ... the whitest of all coming to John, as he made his way next morning to the recruiting office.
A. A. M.
Old Servant (to lady who has just returned to her week-end cottage). "Dreadful this news about the war, Mum; and young Mr. Kenneth away with the Fleet, and all the gentlemen about here recalled to their regiments, and there's been a disaster I must tell you about. The moth have got into the drawing-room carpet, Mum."
HOW WILL YOU TAKE IT?
I sometimes doubt whether my bank takes me really seriously. Not that it isn't businesslike. They let me know to the minute when I have overdrawn my account by five and elevenpence; but they cash my cheques with a certain air of patronage, whereas, if you look at things properly, the patronage is all on my side.
Every Saturday morning a man comes to my bank to cash a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds. (How he gets through all that money in a week I have never had the courage to ask him.) Every Saturday morning I come to my bank to cash a cheque for—well, whatever it happens to be, you know.
The trouble is that we nearly always coincide; only the other man always seems to coincide first. And, as he takes his hundred and fifty on a selective principle, I am beginning to know from bitter experience what he will ask for and how long he will take to get served. He begins with a note for fifty and goes on with fifty in fivers. Then he has twenty sovereigns, and so on, down to the pound in copper. He and the cashier chat airily the while of cabbages and kaisers. Then at last he goes away full, and the cashier turns to me.