When I entered the third smoker there was, as there now always is, a
soldier in one corner.
Just as we were starting, another soldier got in and sat in the opposite
corner; and within two minutes they knew all about each other's camp,
destination and regiment, and had exchanged cigarettes.
The first soldier had not yet left England and was stolid; the new-comer
had been in the trenches, had been wounded in the leg, had recovered,
was shortly going back, and was animated. His leg was all right, except
that in wet weather it ached. In fact he could even tell by it when we
were going to have rain. His "blooming barometer" he called it. Here he
laughed--a hearty laugh, for he was a genial blade and liked to hear
himself talk.
The first soldier did not laugh, but was interested. He thought it a
convenient thing to have a leg that foretold the weather.
"Which one is it?" he asked.
"The left."
The first soldier was disproportionately impressed.
"The left, is it?" he said heavily, as though he would have understood
the phenomenon in the right easily enough. "The left."
Completely unconscious of the danger-signals, the second soldier now
began to review his repertory of stories, and he started off with that
excellent one, very popular in the early days of the war, about the
wealthy private.
For the sake of verisimilitude he laid the scene in his own barracks. "A
funny thing happened at our place the other day," he began. He had
evidently had great success with this story. His expression indicated
approaching triumph.
But no anticipatory gleam lit the face of his new friend. It was in fact
one of those faces into which words sink as into sand--a white, puffy,
long face, with a moustache of obsolete bushiness.
"I thought I should have died of laughing," the narrator resumed,
utterly unsuspicious, wholly undeterred.
In the far corner I kept my eye on my book but my ears open. I could see
that he was rushing to his doom.
"We were being paid," he went on, "and the quartermaster asked one of
the men if he did not wish sixpence to be deducted to go to his wife.
The man said, 'No.' 'Why not?' the quartermaster asked. The man said he
didn't think his wife would need it or miss it. 'You'd better be
generous about it,' the quartermaster said; 'every little helps, you
know.'"
He paused. "What do you think the man said to that?" he asked his new
friend. "He said," he hurried on, "'I don't think I'll send it. You see,
I allow her four thousand a year as it is.'"
The raconteur laughed loudly and leaned back with the satisfaction--or
at least some of it--of one who has told a funny story and told it well.
But the other did not laugh at all. His face remained the dull thing it
was.
"You see," said the story-teller, explaining the point, "there are all
sorts in the Army now, and this man was a toff. He was so rich that he
could afford to allow his wife four thousand pounds a year. Four
thousand pounds! Do you see?"
"Oh yes, I see that. He must have been very rich. Why was he just a
private?"
"I don't know."
"Funny being a private with all that money. I wonder you didn't ask
him."
"I didn't, anyway. But you see the point now. No end of a joke for the
quartermaster to try and get a man who allowed his wife four thousand a
year to deduct sixpence a week to send to her! I thought I should have
died of laughing."
The first soldier remained impassive. "And what happened?" he asked at
last.
"What happened?"
"Yes, what was done about it? The sixpence, I mean. Did he agree to send
it?"
The second soldier pulled himself together. "Oh, I don't know," he said
shortly. "That's not the point."
"After all," the other continued, "the regulations say that married men
have to deduct sixpence for their wives, don't they?"
"Yes, of course," the other replied. "But this man, I tell you, already
gave her four thousand a year."
"That doesn't really touch it," said the first soldier. "The principle's
the same. Now----"
But I could stand the humiliation of the other honest fellow, so
brimming with anecdote and cheerfulness, no longer; and I came to his
rescue with my cigarette case. For I have had misfires myself.