“Why is the rifle placed in the hands of a soldier?”
“To protect my life,” came the prompt reply.
“Protect your life!” he snorted. “Who’s bothering about your life? The rifle, my lad, is placed in your hands for the destruction of the King’s enemies!”
A friend called on a merchant who did a large Continental business to offer him his sympathy.
“Very hard,” said the merchant. “I’ve over eleven hundred pounds owing to me in Germany, and it’s touch and go whether I ever get a penny of it. Still, we’ve got to put up with something for the country.”
“Well,” explained the merchant, “I owe over sixteen hundred pounds in Germany.”
In order to stimulate rifle practice in a Lancashire district, especially amongst the rising generation, a match was arranged in which the competitors must be over fourteen years and under seventeen years of age.
The match was in progress, and there seemed to be not a few of the competitors who would never see another seventeenth birthday.
The climax was reached, however, when a young enthusiast, seeing the excellent score one of the competitors was making, astonished the spectators by shouting at the top of his voice:
A corporal in the Liverpool Scottish tells a good story of “the front.”
The sentry’s challenge is no longer the orthodox “Halt! Who goes there?” It is a short, prosaic, “Who are you?”
The other day a tired sentry challenged a party of the Princess Patricia’s Own Canadian Light Infantry. Back came the response, “P.P.O.C.L.I.”
“I don’t want to hear you say your alphabet,” growled the sentry. “Who the blazes are you?”
“When notices appeared that books were wanted for the wounded, I gave mine to them.”—Humoristicke Listy (Prague).
They were about the rawest lot of recruits the sergeant had ever tackled. He worked hard for a couple of hours, and at last, thinking he had them licked into shape, he decided to test them.
“Right turn!” he barked; then, before they had ceased to move, barked again, “Left turn!”
One burly yokel slowly left the ranks and made off towards the barracks.
“Here, you!” yelled the sergeant, angrily, “where are you off to?”
“Ah’ve had enough on’t,” replied the recruit, in disgusted tones. “Tha dissent knaw thee arn mind two minutes stright running.”