night,' he remarked cheerfully, slipping out
of his mackintosh and hanging the streaming garment in the door. 'Bust
me if I know where all the rain comes from.'

'Any luck?' asked the Lead Driver, leaning over to rearrange the strip
of cloth which, stuck in a jam-tin of fat, provided what--with some
imagination--might be called a light.

'Five packets--twenty-five fags,' said the Centre Driver. 'There was
two or three wantin' to swap the 'baccy in their packets for the fags
in the other chaps', so I done pretty well to get five packets for
mine.'

''Twould 'a' paid you better to 'ave kep' your 'baccy and made fags out
o' it wi' cig'rette papers,' said the Wheel Driver.

'Mebbe,' agreed the Centre Driver. 'An' p'raps you'll tell me--not
being a Maskelyne an' Cook conjurer meself--'ow I'm to produce the
fag-papers.'

The Gunner chuckled softly.

'You should 'a' done like old Pint-o'-Bass did, time we was on the
Aisne,' he said. 'Bass is one of them fag-fiends that can't live
without a cigarette, and wouldn't die happy if he wasn't smokin' one.
'E breathes more smoke than 'e does air, an' 'e ought to 'ave a
permanent chimney-sweep detailed to clear the soot out of 'is lungs an'
breathin' toobs. But if Pint-o'-Bass does smoke more'n is good for 'im
or any other respectable factory chimney, I'll admit the smoke 'asn't
sooted up 'is intelleck none, an' 'e can wriggle 'is way out of a hole
where a double-jointed snake 'ud stick. An' durin' the Retreat, when,
as you knows, cigarettes in the Expeditionary Force was scarcer'n
snowballs in 'ell, ole Pint-o'-Bass managed to carry on, an' wasn't
never seen without 'is fag, excep' at meal-times, an' sleep-times, an'
they bein' so infrequent an' sketchy-like, them days, wasn't 'ardly
worth countin'. 'Twas like this, see, that 'e managed it. You'll
remember that, when we mobilised, some Lost Dogs' 'Ome or Society for
Preventin' Christian Knowledge, or something, rushes up a issue o'
pocket Testaments an' dishes out one to everybody in the Battery.
Bound in a khaki cover they was, an', comin' in remarkable 'andy as a
nice sentimental sort o' keepsake, most of 'em stayed be'ind wi'
sweet'earts an' wives. Them as didn't must 'ave gone into "Base kit,"
cos any'ow there wasn't one to be raked out o' the Battery later on
excep' the one that Pint-o'-Bass was carryin'. Bein' pocket
Testaments, they was made o' the thinnest kind o' paper an' Bass tole
me the size worked out e