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"You said it!" yelled a corporal, when a Boche shell landed somewhere ahead with its horrible "Whee-ee-ee-ee pow!" Instinctively I ducked.

"What'sa use dodging?" queried the historian from Texas; "if it's got your name on it, it'll get you, anyhow."

"Well, captain, I don't like those shells myself," the lieutenant in charge of the convoy remarked; "they talk too much before they hit you. Remember the Negro who said to a pal going up to the front for the first time:

Sam, when you get to de front, look out for dem talkin' shells!'

Talkin' shells?'

Yes, talkin' shells. Dey talk jes' lak a man.'

What does dey say?' asked Sam.

Dey says, "Yooooooaintgoinbackerala—bam!"

(Just drone that through your nose, with the inflection rising quickly to the end of the Yoooooo and falling slowly the rest of the way to the pause before the bam! and you have a good imitation of a shell.)

The truth is that there is nothing pleasant