Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914Various
History
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
There's another word, too, that some of your chaps have slung at us.
They say we're a "mercenary" lot, meaning that we took up with
soldiering just because we're paid to do it. Well, we _are_ paid a
shilling or two now and then, but don't you go and make no mistake; we
don't stick it out in the trenches, with Black Marias playing bowls with
us, and the machine-guns crackling at us and the snipers picking us off
just because of getting a few shillings, which very often we don't get
regular. We're in for this job, ah, and we're going to see it through,
too, because we think it's the right thing to do and because we wanted
to do a turn of fighting. We ain't bloodthirsty, and I'm not going to
say we shall be miserable when it's all over, but while it's going on we
like it. There's risks everywhere, even with the quietest jobs. I knew a
chap once as drove a goat-cart for children at the seaside, and one day
when the wind was strong it blew off his hat, and he got to chasing it,
and before he knew where he was he'd gone over the cliff. A careful man
he was, too, but he hadn't reckoned up that particular chance when he
put his savings into a goat and a two-wheeled cart. You can't think of
everything, even if you happen to be a Kaiser. I've heard, by the way,
that you ain't paid so badly for _your_ job of Kaisering; and old Uncle
Franky over in Austria, he rakes 'em in, too, but we don't call you a
mercenary pair, though what drove you to take up the business is more
than I can make out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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