Not all army slang is lacking, indeed, in a facetious irony. Miserable conditions in the desert or in the trenches, bad accommodation, doubtful food--anything which cannot arouse the faintest enthusiasm of any sort--these, in the lingo of our now much-travelled and stoical troops, are "nothing to write home about." Surely there is an admirable spirit in this sarcasm. It crops up again in the hospital metaphor "going to the pictures." That is Tommy's way of announcing that he is to go under the surgeon's knife, on a visit to the operating theatre. Again, there is a sardonic tang in the army's condemnation of one who has been telling a far-fetched story: he has been "chancing his arm" (or "mit"). Similarly one detects an oblique and wry fun in the professional army man's use of the word "sieda" to mean "socks." (The new army more feebly dubs them "almond rocks.") "Sieda" has been brought by the Anzacs from Cairo, and with them it means "Good morning!"--a mere friendly hail, now used with great frequency. But the veterans of older expeditions in Egypt and in India, when they had been on the march, took their socks from their perspiring feet and lay down to sleep; and in the morning--well, their socks said "Sieda!" to them when they awoke, and were christened accordingly.... Or again, the socks (or other property) might have vanished in the night--in which case there had been "hooks about" (pilferers about). If one of those "hooks" were caught, he would be first "rammed in the mush" (put in the guardroom), and then, if his guilt were established, he would be observed "going over the wall" or "going to stir" (going to the detention prison).