I find myself consigning you to blazes--
James, you have let me down.

For I am one who, after having striven,
A hero (_vide_ Press) though far from bold,
Has come back home and, naturally, given
Artistic touches to the tales he's told;
The Transport was my scene of martial labours;
That was the section where I saw it through;
And I have told astonished friends and neighbours
Some lurid yarns of you.

You are the theme I have been wont to brag on;
I've told how you, my now innocuous moke,
Would chew the tail-board off a G.S. wagon
By way of mere _plaisanterie_ (or joke);
Dubbed you most diabolical of ragers,
A rampant hooligan, a fetid tough,
A thing without respect for sergeant-majors--
That is to say, hot stuff.

Full many a fair young thing I've seen displaying
A sympathetic pallor on her cheek
And wonder in her eye, when I've been saying
How almost every day in Salonique
You jazzed with me on brinks of precipices;
But when I talk to-day they cannot fail
To think of you in town and murmur, "This is
A likely sort of tale."