Unlucky One (after perusing latest list of honours). "NEVER HAVE HAD ANY LUCK. MONTHS AGO I SAVED A SERGEANT CHAP FROM A ROTTEN PLACE—CARRIED THE FELLOW ALL THE WAY BACK—AND TOLD HIM NOT TO SAY A WORD ABOUT IT!"
Friend. "WELL, WHAT'S WRONG? HAS HE BEEN TALKING?"
Unlucky One. "NOT A WORD, CURSE HIM!"
THE MUD LARKS.
When I was young, my parents sent me to a boarding school, not in any hopes of getting me educated, but because they wanted a quiet home.
At that boarding school I met one Frederick Delane Milroy, a chubby flame-coloured brat who had no claims to genius, excepting as a littérateur.
The occasion that established his reputation with the pen was a Natural History essay. We were given five sheets of foolscap, two hours and our own choice of subject. I chose the elephant, I remember, having once been kind to one through the medium of a bag of nuts.
Frederick D. Milroy headed his effort "THE FERT" in large capitals, and began, "The fert is a noble animal—" He got no further, the extreme nobility of the ferret having apparently blinded him to its other characteristics.
The other day, as I was wandering about on the "line," dodging Bosch crumps with more agility than grace, I met Milroy (Frederick Delane) once more.