Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 158, March 24, 1920.Various
General
Punch or the London Charivari, Volume 158, March 24, 1920.
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Originally the W.O. had had a great idea; they caused my regiment
softly and silently to vanish away, thinking that I would vanish with
it. But I had been too sharp for them. Learning that they were bent
on "disembodying" me, and not liking the sound of the word, I had very
quietly removed myself from my regiment to the Staff. Thus for a few
happy months we see the W.O. rendered inert.
My final defeat was due to a chance remark of my own, made to one of
the fifty-nine officers under whose direct command I served. Upon
my first arriving on his Staff he had said to me, "Oh, by the way,
P.S.C., of course?" Quite affable, frank and to the point; "P.S.C., of
course?"
Not knowing the language, I could not make an equally affable answer.
I asked him to repeat the question, but to change the code.
"You have Passed Staff College, of course?" he said a little less
affably.
I then had the misfortune to answer: "Why, of course, if you mean that
tall building on the right as I came up here from the station?"
He then made up his mind that I was not only wanting in essential
parts, but was also the sort of person who jested on religious
subjects. He never forgot the matter; indeed, when applied to (under
"Secret and Confidential" cover) to suggest a means of getting rid of
me, he very clearly remembered it. At once every department in the War
House got busy; the interest of the Secretary of State was enlisted,
and the War Cabinet decided that for permanent purposes my post
must necessarily be held by a P.S.C. man. Done in by what was little
better, when you come to think of it, than a mere postscript.
Please understand that there was no talk of discharging me; no talk
of demobilising me; no talk even of disembodying me. Without any
reflection on my conduct and merely upon the grounds that, not being
P.S.C., I could not be regarded as quite right in the head, they
intimated their intention of vacating my appointment by the simple
process of an advertisement in the fashionable columns of _The London
Gazette_.
"What happens next?" I asked.
"You will return to regimental duty," they said.
"But there isn't any regiment," I pointed out triumphantly, "therefore
there won't be any duty."
They didn't seem to mind that, and for some time I wondered why. Then
a thought occurred to me.
"But here, I say, what about my pay?"
"Ah!" said they unhelpfully....
And that, my dear Charles, is why, if you keep your eye on the
journals of (say) the Summer of 1925, you will read in the Stop-press
Column an urgent telegram from the W.O.: "On April 1st, 1920, the
following relinquishes his appointment
(Remaining, however,
Yours always), HENRY."
* * * * *
ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.
"MOTHERS' UNION.-- ... A helpful discussion followed on 'How
to Deal with Unworthy Members.' There were about 50
present."--_Parish Magazine_.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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