"Rowing," came my short answer.

"What a splendid outing!" she exclaimed. "You had such a lovely day
for it, didn't you, dear?"

"Hang up that receiver!" I shouted to my friend; "hang it up, or my
mother shall hear from the lips of her son words she should only hear
from her husband."


_May 9th._ I am just after having been killed in a sham battle, and so
consequently I feel rather ghastly to-day. I don't exactly know
whether I was a Red or a Blue, because I did a deal of fighting on
both sides, but always with the same result. I was killed instantly
and completely. People got sick of putting me out of my misery after a
while and I was allowed to wander around at large in a state of great
mystification and excitement, shooting my blank bullets into the face
of nature in an aimless sort of manner whenever the battle began to
pall upon me.

Most of the time I passed pleasantly on the soft, fresh flank of a
hill where for a while I slept until a cow breathed heavily in my face
and reminded me that it was war after all. My instructions were to
keep away from the guns, and get killed as soon as possible. As these
instructions were not difficult to follow, I carried them out to the
letter. I stayed away from the guns and I permitted myself to be
killed several times in order to make sure it would take. After that I
became a sort of composite camp follower, deserter and straggler.