"It was like this 'ere. I'd been two weeks on a stretch in the trenches, and never a drink--wot you might _call_ a drink--the 'ole blinkin' time. Goin' back through the billets after we was relieved I seed a place where they had liquor for sale, and I goes up to the door to get a drink. Well, I 'adn't no more than took 'old o' the knob when a blinkin' Jack Johnson come over and blew the 'ole blinkin' 'ouse out of my 'and!" And with an evident sense of personal grievance not yet allayed the speaker pouched his "sooveneer" and relapsed into gloomy taciturnity. VI--THE COOK AND THE BOMB IN GREECE Of comedies arising out of Mr. Atkins's imperturbable phlegm there is no end. One will suffice here--a little incident which occurred at Salonica. At the Greek port some of our troops, it seems, are encamped upon the hills above the town. One morning a covey of six enemy aeroplanes flew overhead and dropped three bombs in passing. The first exploded harmlessly, but the second fell plumb on a cook's tent, and blew it sky-high. Shirts, coats, and trousers went hurtling up into the air with a grim resemblance to mutilated bodies. Fortunately no one was inside the tent. The cook was only five yards away, however, busily marshalling an array of "dixies" (military camp-kettles) which had been newly filled at the distant water-supply below. The force of the explosion blew him off his feet, and likewise overturned the row of dixies. Those near at hand feared their comrade had been hit by a fragment of the bomb and ran to his assistance. But as they approached a dishevelled figure rose from amidst the _débris_ and wrathfully surveyed the wreckage of his "kitchen." At the spot where his tent had been two minutes previously he hardly glanced. "And now," was his indignant comment, "I serpose I'll 'ave to go down the ---- 'ill and fill up the ---- dixies again!" VII--A SEA-TALE--THE LIEUTENANT'S STANCHIONS By way of conclusion here is a little naval comedy. A minor unit of His Majesty's Navy was undergoing the process known as "fitting out." Her commander, one of the many good sportsmen who have placed their personal services and such seamanship as they have acquired as amateur yachtsmen and sailors at the disposal of the Admiralty, arrived one morning to find a score or two of dockyard workmen on board, all busy (in theory) with the multifarious tasks awaiting completion. In practice, something like half the number were, if not idle, at least less occupied than the immediate requirements of the vessel seemed to warrant. The commander, being in private life a business man of considerable energy, with a habit of getting things done, regarded the scene with considerable disfavour, and set himself at once to remedy the state of affairs. But the dockyard workman is an individual with very definite ideas of his own as to how a job should be done, and a fixed determination to do it that way unless thwarted by an authority which he dare not evade.