Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/151

"Bobby dear, can't you get Marcelle to play with you sometimes?"

"I do try, but she doesn't seem to care about it—she's always knitting. I think, mother, perhaps it might be better if, for the next war, we had a boy."

At the beginning of things I sat outside my tent in the early hours of the morning while a stalwart warrior poured buckets of cold water down my spine. I felt heroic.

Towards the end of October I began to dislike my servant; I had a suspicion he was icing the water. Before November was in I had given up sitting outside my tent. My bathing I decided (one cold wet morning) should take place under cover, either at the Golf Club or at some kindly person's house.

A few days later, not being on duty, I had arranged to dine with the Fergusons. In the late afternoon I strode into the Golf Club and had a hot bath. From there I wandered into town, where I met Mrs. Johnston.

"Hello!" she said. "I'm just going home. Won't you come with me?"

Mrs. Johnston is ono in a thousand.

"Rather," I agreed. Forward—by the right."

Tea over, my hostess turned to me brightly. "Now," she said, "I know what it must be in camp. I'm sure you'd like a nice hot bath," and she rang the bell.

Somehow I didn't tell her I'd had one at the Club. You might have done differently perhaps, but—well, the little lady was beaming hospitality; was it for me to stifle her generous intentions? I thought not.

I went upstairs and splashed manfully.

For the third time that day I dressed; then I went downstairs and found Johnston.

"Hello," he said. "Been having a bath? Good!"

I stiffened perceptibly at "good."

We chatted a little while, then I breathed my sincere thanks and left them.

My arrival at the Fergusons' was rather early, somewhere about seven-thirty. I was shown into the drawing-room while the maid went to inform Mrs. Ferguson of my arrival. In two minutes she returned.

"Will you come this way, Sir?" she said.

I went that way.

Ten minutes later I emerged from Ferguson's bath and walked into his dressing-room. Ferguson had arrived.

"Hello!" he said. "Been having a bath? Good!"

I winced at the word; then I smiled bravely and started to dress—for the fourth time.

*****

It was eleven o'clock when I got back to camp, and I found to my surprise that the Mess had been moved from the tent to the new hut.

"Hello!" they said, "how do you like the new quarters?"

I surveyed the bare boards.

"Topping," I replied, "but it's not anywhere near finished."

"No," said the Junior Major, "bnt the bath's in. Hot water, by Gad! Go and have a bath."

I looked at him blankly. "I've had three, Sir, to-day."

I might have known it was foolish; the Junior Major is still young.

"It's up to the subalterns," he suggested, "to see he has No. 4."

They saw to it.

"Baron von Bissing, the Governor of Belgium," says The Central News, "has paid a visit to Turnhout and inspected the German guards along the Belgo-Dutch frontier." In the whole of our experience we know no finer example of self-control than our refusal to play with that word Turnhout.