"Ernest Junior. What are you going to do with yourself in the Vac.?
"James Junior. I shall go abroad, in spite of my choice of objectives being so terribly restricted.
"Ernest Junior. Why restricted?
"James Junior. Well, I wouldn't say this to anybody else, but to tell you the truth it is impossible for me to go to either France, Belgium or Italy. You see my dear old father was in these countries during the first Great War, and if I were so much as to mention them he'd never stop talking. If I were to say that I proposed spending a fortnight in the Ardennes it would let loose such a flood of reminiscence that I should hardly get away before next term begins.
"He gets a little confused too at times. He told me the other day a long story about the relief of Ypres, and he also boasted of having himself captured a large number of Turks on the Somme.
"And it isn't only that. My mother was a V.A.D. in France, you know. And when the old man had done talking of Ypres and the Somme she'd begin about Rouen and Etaples."
I laughed, but without mirth, for I did not really think this at all funny. And after all I might have said just the same about Ernest, if only I'd thought of it first.
"CHAR-À"-VARIA.
[The Manchester Daily Dispatch gives a most distressing account of the bibulous hooliganism which is becoming more rampant week by week among char-à-bancs trippers.]