"And spent practically the first twenty years of my life in Italy."
"This," I said, "is the absolute boundary. Yours is a case for the New Prize Courts."
"But you haven't formally arrested me yet," he said.
"True," I said, "I'm just coming to that part, but at the moment I've forgotten the opening movements of the half-nelson."
"My wife," he said musingly, "will be very annoyed. She's extremely English, you know."
"Look here," I said, "I really think I shall let you go, after all. So little of you is the enemy, so much the friend, that I don't care to take the responsibility of arresting you. But perhaps I ought to resign. Come and have a sandwich, I've just time for one, and we can talk it over."
"Right," he said, "we may as well. By the way, it was my grandparents on my mother's side who were French and German." Then, producing his warrant card, he said, "I am a Special too. My name's Briggs."
_Some of our Soldiers, who were within seventy yards of the German trenches, hoisted an improvised target. The Germans did the same. Both sides signalled the result of the shooting._
_First Tommy._ "GET DOWN! DO YOU WANT 'EM TO COP YER?"
_Second Tommy._ "BLIMY! THE PERISHERS SIGNALLED MY BULL A MISS, AND I'M JUST AGOIN' TO 'OP OVER AN' TELL 'EM ABAHT IT."
The following reaches us from General Headquarters abroad:--
"ARMY TROOP ORDER, NO. 40.--Information has been received that many Field Service postcards are arriving at the G. P. O. without any address on them. The instructions printed on the cards that nothing is to be written on them does not apply to the address. O. C.'s are requested to bring this fact to the notice of all ranks. _Oct. 12, 1914._"
The discipline in the Army seems to be almost too good.
"The German Press is conducting a campaign to prove that Belgium was deceived by the English, who, it is asserted, depicted the Germans as sausages; hence the people were frightened when the German troops approached."--_Yorkshire Evening Press._
The Scotch, however, are even less polite, _The Aberdeen Evening Express_ announcing boldly--
"GORILLA FIGHTING ON THE BELGIAN FRONTIER."
The blinds were drawn, the lamps were lit and the fire was burning brightly. I was reading an evening paper--we get the 5.30 edition at the moment of publication, though we are thirty miles from London--and I had just found Prezymyzle (my own pronunciation) on the map for the thousandth time. Helen says that quite in the early days of the war she was told it ought to be pronounced Perimeeshy, but that seems impossible. Rosie declares for Prozmeel. Still she isn't very confident about it. One thing seems certain: when the Russians take this jaw-cracking town they will pronounce it quite differently from the Austrian form, whatever that may be. Just think of what happened to Lemberg. There appeared to be a kind of finality about that, but no sooner were the Russians in it than it turned into Lwow. After that anything might happen to Przemysl.