One of the captain’s best pals, he told us, had just been severely wounded. He was a gime one, though even smaller than the captain. The captain recalled one night when he, the pal, took prisoner a boche lieutenant who stood over six feet. Fritz was asked whether he spoke English. He shook his head. He was asked whether he spoke French. He lost his temper and, in English, called the entire continent of Australia a bad name. The captain’s little pal then marched him off to the proper authority, to be questioned in English. On the way the captain’s little pal made him take off his helmet and give it to him. This was as punishment for what Fritz had said about Australia.

Before the proper authority Fritz was as sweet-tempered as a bloody bear. This puzzled the proper authority, for making a boche prisoner is doing him a big favor.

“What iles you?” asked the authority when Fritz had refused to reply to any of a dozen questions. “You ine’t the first bloody boche officer we’ve tiken.”