Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/221

September 9, 1914.]

—Louvain.

Imperial Patron of Art.

[A well-known battle painter of Düsseldorf has been commissioned by the to make studies of the present campaign.]



", I like the kit," she said, "and I'm glad you came to show yourself, because I've got a little present for you." He winced.

"I ought to say," he remarked, "that I have already received five barbed-wirecutters, three vacuum flasks, eleven comforters, six writing blocks"

"Oh, but this won't take up any room," and she held out a woollen helmet of the popular colour.

"Thanks awfully," he replied, drawing back, "but I never wear them."

"Of course you don't," she said; "they're not meant for tennis tournaments or the opera, but for the campaigner whose lodging is on the cold bare ground. In fact when once he gets it on he never wants to take it off again."

"From the look of it," he remarked, "it will be a case of Hobson's choice. You've underrated the size."

"I took your measurements last week," she said coldly.

"But that was before I joined the colours. You forgot to allow for subsequent developments."

"In any case the wool stretches," she observed. Are you going to try it on?"

"It will play the very deuce with my hair," he objected.

"Very well," she said. "Dick shall have it."

"Never," he exclaimed, and snatching up the woollen object, began to ram his sleek head into the small aperture at the bottom.

Halfway through, apparently yielding to panic, he sought to return to fresh air and the light of day, but her hands ruthlessly seized the elaborate crochet edging, and pulled and tugged it down mercilessly towards his shoulders until his distorted features appeared at the hold in front with a pop, and she clapped her hands in delight.

"It fits you like a glove," she cried, and though your nose is a bit red you look quite handsome."

"I'm being strangled," he gasped, clutching at his throat; "take it off!"

"In time of war," she observed, "we all have to put up with a little inconvenience. I shall soon be living on turnips, for instance, and you know how I hate them."

With a strange gurgling in his throat, he collapsed on the Chesterfield. His face grew purple, his eyes bulged and rolled, his veins swelled, his head dropped forward. She grew alarmed.

"Are you really choking?" she exclaimed. "Here, take your hands away. Let me help! Good gracious Darling! Oh! Whatever shall I do?" She sprang for her scissors, and in a moment the helmet lay on the carpet hopelessly mutilated.

"Thanks," he replied, smoothing his ruffled hair. "In another minute the Germans would have missed their billet."

"Neither you nor Dick will be able to wear it now," she said, and her lip trembled.

"Dick won't," he said, "and as a matter of fact I'm going to."

"How can you?" And there was a catch in her voice.

"Not on my head perhaps, but on my heart—or rather," he added, slipping a khaki arm round her, "on the place where my heart used to be."

Next morning, on parade, his chest measurement was the object of universal envy.

