Eventually the pilot was shipped and the safe channel entered for Hull, when the captain rather sarcastically remarked: “Do you know where the mines are?” “No,” replied the pilot, “I do not.” “What! you’ve taken over my ship and you don’t know? Well, I might just as well have brought the ship in myself.” The pilot smiled indulgently upon the enraged skipper and said: “Aye, captain, ’tis true I don’t know where the mines are, but I know where they are not.” IT WORKED ALL RIGHT All the work was mapped out for the new charwoman, but about the appointed time she arrived in tears. “My poor ’usband was shot in the battle,” she said, “and ’e’s passed away.” The employer was all sympathy, gave the widow the half-crown she ought to have earned, and did the necessary work herself. The next day she met the neighbor who recommended the woman, and said: “You’ve heard, I suppose, about Mrs. W.’s husband being killed?” “Yes,” said her friend. “But she ought to have got over it by now. It was in the Boer war.” GERMAN GIRLS CAN KNIT A certain Landwehrman had received his hundredth pair of warm woolen stockings knit by fair hands. “Fritz must be a regular Don Juan,” said one of his less fortunate comrades. “No,” said another, a fellow-townsman of the accused. “No, it isn’t that. The fact is, Fritz, before the war came, was teacher in a girls’ school.” BLOCKHEAD, EH? Sergeant—“Now, then, don’t you know how to hold a rifle?” Recruit—“I’ve run a splinter in me finger.” Sergeant (exasperated)—“Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you? Bin scratchin’ yer ’ead, I suppose?” HIS SOLE REASON As the sergeant was bawling out his orders and watching the line of feet as the raw recruits endeavored to obey the word of command, he found to his astonishment that one pair of feet—more noticeable on account of their extra large size—never turned. Without taking his eyes off these feet the sergeant bawled out, “About turn!” He could see that all the feet except those he watched turned in obedience. Rushing up to the owner, a little fellow, he seized him by the shoulder, shouting: “Why don’t you turn with the rest?” “Why, I did,” replied the trembling recruit. “You did, eh? Well, I watched your feet, and they never moved.” “It’s the boots they gave me, sir,” said the poor fellow. “They’re so large that when I turn my feet turns in them.” IGNORANCE IS BLISS The two servants met in the tram. “Does this war they’re talking so much about make much difference to you?” “The missus says we’ve got to economize, so we’ve to have margarine at meals in the kitchen.” “Doesn’t she have it, then?” “Not her. She says it doesn’t suit her digestion. But there’s nothing wrong with her digestion. We know that. For as often as not we send her up the margarine and have the butter ourselves.” STROKE OF LUCK A story is current that a certain colonel of a British regiment offered to give a sovereign for every German killed by any of his men.