It was not a peculiarly clean or remarkably well-packed satchel which the trembling hand of the disgraced subaltern took from the Commander, and the latter did not intend to let attention dwell too long upon the grimy details of its exterior. Fixing the steel eye of conscious rectitude on his victim, he leant slightly towards him and very unmistakably shouted at him the one dread word, "GAS!".... Unfortunately for the Commander the subaltern not only knew what to do next, but also had just the physical strength remaining in his fingers to start doing it. With the eyes of all upon him (and by this time there had gathered round quite a nice little crowd, thoroughly conversant with the event in progress), the subaltern opened the satchel alleged to belong to the Commander and took from it--no, Charles, not a gas helmet, but a pair of socks--and _such_ socks too! Yours ever, HENRY. * * * * * [Illustration: SINKING.] * * * * * ON BELLONA'S HEM. THE MISFIRE. When I entered the third smoker there was, as there now always is, a soldier in one corner. Just as we were starting, another soldier got in and sat in the opposite corner. The freemasonry of Khaki immediately setting to work, within two minutes they knew all about each other's camp, destination and regiment, and had exchanged cigarettes. The first soldier had not yet left England and was stolid; the newcomer had been in the trenches, had been wounded in the leg, had recovered, was shortly going back, and was animated. His leg was all right, except that in wet weather it ached. In fact he could even tell by it when we were going to have rain. His "blooming barometer" he called it. Here he laughed--a hearty laugh, for he was a genial blade and liked to hear himself talk. The first soldier did not laugh, but was interested. He thought it a convenient thing to have a leg that foretold the weather. "Which one is it?" he asked. "The left." The first soldier was disproportionately impressed. "The left, is it?" he said heavily, as though he would have understood the phenomenon in the right easily enough. "The left." Completely unconscious of the danger-signals, the second soldier now began to unload his repertory of stories, and he started off with that excellent one, very popular in the early days of the War, about the wealthy private. For the sake of verisimilitude he laid the scene in his own barracks. "A funny thing happened at our place the other day," he began. He had evidently had great success with this story. His expression indicated approaching triumph. But no anticipatory gleam lit the face of his new friend. It was in fact one of those faces into which words sink as into a sandbank--a white, puffy, long face, with a moustache of obsolete bushiness. "I thought I should have died of laughing," the other resumed, utterly unsuspicious, wholly undeterred.