Old Soldier (trying to "swing the lead"). "Well, Sir, I can't neither eat, sleep nor drink, Sir."
M.O. (in a spasm of enthusiasm). "My good man! The Army wants a battalion like you!"
THE WATCH DOGS.
LXII.
My dear Charles
,—I've become so artful these days in disguising identities under assumed names that I'm hanged if I can remember myself which of my people is which. Still I daresay your own memory isn't too good, so we'll call him Ross this time, and trust to luck that that is what we called him last time. He is that one of my friends and fellow sinners who was plugging along nicely at the Bar in 1914, and was just about to take silk, when he changed his mind, came to France and got mixed up in what he calls "this vulgar brawl on the Continent." After nearly three years of systematic warfare in the second line he has at last achieved the rank of full lieutenant, which is not so bad for a growing lad of forty-five; and is running one of those complicated but fascinating side-shows which, to oblige Their Exigencies, we have to label Queer Trades, and leave at that.