“Do you, boys?” I ask them. “No, sir,” they invariably reply. “Well, then, why do you use these swear-words?” And then I’ve got them and, out of their own mouths, they are condemned. I tell them it is bad form, and I say, “Cut it out.” These boys made a solemn compact that night that the first man who swore should clean all nine guns, and before the week was out my champion was cleaning nine guns. But those eight boys didn’t go back on him. They were sporty. I have seen a little bird’s nest all broken with the wind and torn with the storm, and two or three little eggs, with a few wet leaves over them, addled and cold and forsaken, and my little gipsy heart cried over those poor little motherless things, for I was motherless too. And up in a tree I have heard a thrush singing the song of a seraph and I have said, as I looked at the eggs, “You would have been singers too, but you were forsaken.” These boys—they did not forsake their chum. They said, “Buck up, old boy. We’ll help you.” “No,” he said. “This is my job.” So they stood by him and cheered him on. People, I say again, don’t die of overmuch love, but for the want of a bit of it. These boys stood by my champion swearer, and when he was putting the polishing touches on the last gun he stood up, his face radiant, like a man that has fought a battle and won: “Boys, this is the last gun I shall clean for anybody under these conditions, because, God helping me, I’m going to see this thing through.” And he _is_ seeing it through. * * * * * I was at a home for limbless men the other day—there are over one hundred and eighty of them in that home. I held my hand out to shake hands with the first two men I met, and they laughed at me. I looked down for their hands—they hadn’t got one between them! I took the face of one of those dear boys and I patted it. I wanted to kiss it with gratitude. I wonder how you feel! I walked round amongst those boys—one hundred and eighty limbless! I found one boy without legs and without an arm. He was just a trunk, and his comrades, those who could, were carrying him around. He was the sunshine in the whole place—not a grouse. They are doing no grousing—your boys there. When they see you they just say, “Cheerio.” A friend of mine, a minister, went to see one of these boys, and he was wondering what he could say to him; he thought he had got to cheer him up. The boy looked at the padre and said, “Guv’nor, don’t get down-hearted. I am going to make money out of this job. Why, I shall only want a pair of trousers with one leg, and I shall only want a coat with one sleeve, and I shall only want a pair of boots with one boot.” It reminds me of the question I once asked: “Sonny, what struck you most when you got in the trenches?” and the reply came sharp, “A bit of shrapnel.”