Fortunately Minnie has her dull days. Days when she positively refuses to bust, and sulks, figuratively speaking, in silent wrath and bitterness on the upper strata of “sunny” France, or Belgium, as the case may be. After many Agags have trodden very delicately around her, and she has proved incurably sulky and poor-spirited, some one infused with the Souvenir spirit carts her away, and pounds her softly with a cold-chisel and a mallet, until he has either dissected her interior economy, or else she has segmented _his_. Minnie has her little family. The eldest male child is called by the euphonious name of Sausage, and he has brothers of various sizes, from the pure-blood Hoch-geboren down to the bourgeois little chap who makes an awful lot of fuss and clatter generally. I remember meeting little Hans one day, about the dinner hour, when he was a very naughty boy indeed. The Company was waiting to get a half-canteenful of the tannin-cum-tea-leaves, called “tea” on the Western front (contained in one large dixie placed in a fairly open spot in the front line), when suddenly little Hans poked his blunt nose into the air, and all notions of tea-drinking were banished _pro tem_. In other words, the Company took cover automatically, as it were, without awaiting any word of command. Personally I tripped over a bath-mat, came into close contact with an old shell-hole full of mud, and offered up a little prayer in the record time of one-fifth of a second. Instead of entering Nirvana I only heard a resounding splash, followed by a sizzling sound, like that made by an exhausted locomotive. Little Hans had fallen into the dixie, and positively refused to explode. I think the tannin (or the tea leaves) choked him! There is also an infant--a female infant--who deserves mention. Her name is Rifle-grenade, and, according to the very latest communication from official sources, the gentleman who states with some emphasis that he is divinely kingly, refuses to sanction any further production of her species. Like many females she is one perpetual note of interrogation. She starts on her wayward course thus: “Whrr-on? Whrr-oo? Whoo? Whoo? Whe-oo? Whe-_oo_?” And then she goes off with a bang, just as Cleopatra may have done when Antony marked a pretty hand-maid. To sum up: Minnie and her children are undoubtedly the product of perverted science and Kultur, aided and abetted by the very Devil! AN OFFICER AND GENTLEMAN He was a tall well-built chap, with big, blue eyes, set far apart, and dark wavy hair, which he kept too closely cropped to allow it to curl, as was meant by nature. He had a cheery smile and a joke for every one, and his men loved him. More than that, they respected him thoroughly, for he never tolerated slackness or lack of discipline for an instant, and the lips under the little bronze moustache could pull themselves into an uncompromisingly straight line when he was justly angry.