2. If they are strafing all along the line, inspect Transport.
3. Cultivate the detached manner when dealing with all but the very senior. This will give you what is called distinction. Charm will come later.
4. What you don't know, guess. If wrong, guess again.
5. Always put off on to others what you cannot do yourself.
6. What little you do, do well--and see that it gets talked about. Medals are going round, and you may as well have them as anybody else.
7. Belong to a good Mess and invite people who are inclined to criticise.
8. When rung up on a subject of which you know nothing, learn to conduct the conversation so that you abstract the necessary enlightenment from the questioner himself (while appearing to be perfectly conversant with what he is talking about), and, if possible, get him to suggest the answer to his own conundrum. In other words, bluff as in poker (which I trust you don't play).
These are just a few little hints that have occurred to me. Your own good sense will guide you as to the rest. Everybody at home is taking a tremendous interest in the War, I'm glad to say. Hardly a day passes but I am asked at least a dozen times when it is going to be over.
From an order recently issued at the Front:
"Great care must always be exercised in tethering horses to trees, as they are apt to bark, and thereby destroy the trees."
"YES, GAFFER. ME AN' MY OLE WOMAN 'ERE 'AVE LIVED TOGETHER THESE FORTY YEAR, AN' NEVER 'AD A QUARREL--FORTY YEAR, MIND YER, AN' NEVER BIN BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE!"]
The Herald lives in cloister grey; He lives by clerkly rules; He dreams in coats and colours gay, In _argent_, _or_ and _gules_; He blazons knightly shield and banner In dim monastic hall, And in a grave and reverend manner He earns his bread withal.
Were I a herald fair and fit So featly for to limn As though I'd learnt the lore of it Among the seraphim, I'd leave the schools to clerkly people And walk, as dawn begins, From steeple unto distant steeple, And paint the signs of inns.
_The Dragon_, as I'd see him, is A loving beast and long, And oh, the _Goat and Compasses_, 'Twould fill my soul with song; _The Bell_, _The Bull_, _The Rose and Rummer_, Such themes should like me still At Yule, or when the heart of Summer Lies blue on vale and hill.