which made walking impossible without some assistance. A walking-stick,
without some sort of boot covering, was of little avail."--_Oxford
Times_.

That was our own experience with a walking-stick which was absolutely
bootless.

* * * * *

THE MUD-LARKS.

Our mess was situated on the crest of a ridge, and enjoyed an uninterrupted
view of rolling leagues of mud; it had the appearance of a packing-case
floating on an ocean of ooze.

We and our servants, and our rats and our cockroaches, and our other
bosom-companions slept in tents pitched round and about the mess.

The whole camp was connected with the outer world by a pathway of
ammunition boxes, laid stepping-stone-wise; we went to and fro, lepping
from box to box as leps the chamois from Alp to Alp. Should you miss your
lep there would be a swirl of mud, a gulping noise, and that was the end of
you; your sorrowing comrades shed a little chloride of lime over the spot
where you were last seen, posted you as "Believed missing" and indented for
another Second-Lieutenant (or Field-Marshal, as the case might be).

Our mess was constructed of loosely piled shell boxes, and roofed by a tin
lid. We stole the ingredients box by box, and erected the house with our
own fair hands, so we loved it with parental love; but it had its little
drawbacks. Whenever the field guns in our neighbourhood did any business,