e--_are allowed to go on living!_

That startles you? I thought it would. You looked down upon us.
Recognition, you told yourself, would only mean that we were immediately
to be employed as waterproof sheeting for the new huts or concrete
foundations for the new guns. Aha! Now you wish you had joined us. We
are allowed to go on living!

But I was forgetting. The War Office is being even more generous than
that. In return for our not bothering them any more, it will allow us to
wear (and pay for) a small red armlet with "G.R." on it; the red colour,
I suppose, informing the Germans that we have just been vaccinated, and
the "G.R." ("got rash") warning them that the left arm is irritable.

James is annoyed about it. This is silly of him. As I point out, our
soldiers have already earned a reputation abroad for gaiety and high
spirits, and it is all to the good that the War Office should show that
it has a sense of humour equally keen. When the invasion comes, and
music-halls, cinemas and football matches are closed down, the amusement
of the country (as the War Office has foreseen) will depend entirely
upon _us_. Let us, then, obey rigidly the seven commandments of
"recognition" and see how funny we can be.

For instance:--

AT HEADQUARTERS.

[_The Brigadier and the Adjutant--I beg pardon (don't shoot)--Father and
Father's Help are discovered in conversation._]

_Father (explaining orders)._ The Battalion will advance to-morrow
towards Harwich, where the enemy----

_Father's Help._ Excuse me, Sir, but isn't that _rather_ too military?
How would this do?--"The brethren will walk out towards Harwich
to-morrow, where the Band of Hope from another parish has already
assembled."

IN THE FIELD.

_Churchwarden Jones._ Advance in half-pew rushes from the right!

_Sidesman Tomkins._ No. 1 half-pew, advance.... At the congregation in
front at a thousand yards.

_Parishioner Brown (to his neighbour)._ I say, how many bullets have you
brought with you?

_Parishioner Smith._ Fifteen. Fact is, I'm jolly hard up just now.
Emily's been ill again, and one thing and another.... I did have twenty,
but the baby swallowed two.... You might lend me some, old man. I
promise to pay you back at the end of the month.

_Parishioner Brown._ I'll lend you a couple, but that's really all I can
spare.... Look at Boko swanking away like a bally millionaire. That's
his tenth shot this afternoon. Fairly chucking his money about.

_Paris