Motioning to me and the section corporal, our platoon commander advanced cautiously towards the nullah and you can imagine our surprise when we discovered "Dido" Plumpton calmly showing the "three-card trick" to the two Bulgar prisoners he had been detailed to escort. He was telling his mystified audience: "Find der lidy--dere you are--over yer go--under yer go--_nah_ find 'er!"--_Alfred Tall (late 2nd East Kents), 204 Hoxton Street, N.1._ 3. HOSPITAL "Tich" Meets the King In a large ward in a military hospital in London there was a little Cockney drummer boy of eighteen years who had lost both legs from shell fire. In spite of his calamity and the suffering he endured from numerous operations for the removal of bone, he was one of the cheeriest boys in the ward. At that time many men in the ward had limbs amputated because of frost-bite, and it was quite a usual thing for a visitor to remark, "Have you had frost-bite?" Nothing made Tich so furious as the suggestion that he should have lost his limbs by any, to his mind, second-rate way. If he were asked, "Have you had frost-bite?" he would look up with disgust and reply, "Naow---a flea bit me!" If, however, he was asked, "Were you wounded?" he would smile and say, "Not 'arf!" A visit was expected from the King, and the Tommies kept asking Tich what he would say if the King said, "Have you had frost-bite?" "You wite!" said Tich. I was standing with the Sister near to Tich in his wheel-chair when the King approached. His Majesty at once noticed Tich was legless, and said in his kind way, "Well, my man, how are you getting on?" "Splendid, sir!" said Tich. "How did it happen?" asked the King. "Wounded, sir--shell," replied Tich, all smiles. Tich's opinion of the King soared higher than ever.---_M. A. Kennedy (late V.A.D., Royal Military Hospital, Woolwich), 70 Windmill Hill, Enfield, Middlesex._ Putting the Lid on It It was "clearing day" at the 56th General Hospital, Wimereux. Nurses and orderlies were having a busy morning getting ready the patients who were going to Blighty. Nearly all of them had been taken out to the waiting ambulances except my Cockney friend in the bed next to mine, who had just had an arm amputated and was very ill. Two orderlies came down the ward bearing a stretcher with an oblong box fixed on to it (to prevent jolting while travelling). They placed it beside my friend's bed, and, having dressed him, put him in the box on the stretcher. Then a nurse wrapped him up in blankets, and after she had finished she said: "There you are. Feeling nice and comfortable?" "Fine," said he, "but don't put the lid on before I have kissed the orderly good-bye."--_E. C., Hackney, E.8._ Riddled in the Sands One of the finest exhibitions of Cockney spirit I saw during the war occurred in Mesopotamia after the Battle of Shaiba (April 1915), in which we had completely routed the Turkish army.