was highly improper for him to be in the very act of possessing himself
of _both_ hands when--boom, _whiz_, BANG!

We all sprang to our feet. A shell had crashed into the house and
exploded in the room above us. Bushels of plaster fell among us. That
modest and murmurous young lady sprang erect.

"Jumping Jee-rusalem!" she cried.

Haberton, who had also risen, stood as one petrified--as a statue of
himself erected on the site of his assassination. He neither spoke, nor
moved, nor once took his eyes off the face of Orderly Arman, who was now
flinging his girl-gear right and left, exposing his charms in the most
shameless way; while out upon the night and away over the lighted camps
into the black spaces between the hostile lines rolled the billows of
our inexhaustible laughter! Ah, what a merry life it was in the old
heroic days when men had not forgotten how to laugh!

Haberton slowly came to himself. He looked about the room less blankly;
then by degrees fashioned his visage into the sickliest grin that ever
libeled all smiling. He shook his head and looked knowing.

"You can't fool _me_!" he said.




CURRIED COW