I was a patient in a general hospital in 1918, when a Cockney gunner
was put into the bed next to mine. He was suffering from a severe form
of influenza, and after ten days' treatment showed little sign of
improvement.
One evening the Sister was going her rounds with the thermometers.
She had taken our friend's temperature and registered it on the chart
hanging over his head. As she passed to the next bed he raised himself
and turned round to read the result. Then he looked over to a Canadian
in a bed in the far corner of the ward, and this dialogue ensued:
Gunner: Canada!
Canadian: Hallo!
Gunner: Up agin.
Canadian: Go on! How much?
Gunner: 'Arf inch.--_E. A. Taylor (late 4th London Field Ambulance),
Drouvin, The Chase, Wallington, Surrey._
"'Arf Price at the Pickshers!"
On the way across Channel with a Blighty in 1917 I chummed up with a
wounded Cockney member of the Sussex. His head was swathed in bandages.
"Done one o' me eyes in altergevver," he confided lugubriously. "Any
blinkin' 'ow," he added in cheerier tones, "if that don't entitle a
bloke to 'arf price at the pickshers fer the rest of 'is blinkin'
natural I don't know wot will do!"--_James Vance Marshall, 15, Manette
Street, W.1._