RUBE IN THE RANKS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2771, 15 May 1916, Page 6

RUBE IN THE RANKS

LITTLE JOKES FROM TRENTHAM. Opinion was divided on the question whether he was really simple or full of guile. That is the great merit of being simple—you can baffle, mystify. Judge for yourself. It was at Trentham. Tho sergeant was scanning the platoon, when his eye fell on Rube. The bolt of Rube's rifle had slipped. "Look at your riflo, you!" ho called, sharply. Rube started violently, gathered up his rifle, and gazed at the breech. "Me gun's come undone," he informed the company, The sergeant choked, and hurried to the other end of the line, while the platoon grinned.

That night diver's voices wailed from tho darkness of their bunks: "Sergeant, me gun's come undone!"

Rube cherished, unwillingly, a boi). The doctor cut off his cheese ration, and told him and others similarly afflicted to eat onions. "An onion a day keeps the-^ah—boil away;" he said, cynically facetious:

So Rube ate onions. befel, as ho stood on parade one morning, that the sergeant, seeing him, frowned. "Why don't you smarten up. Staunup! Arms close to the side! Your arms are bandy. I can see the camp between them arid your ribs. Close 'em up!" "I can't, Sergeant," said Rube. "I got onions in me pockets." The sergeant passed on, with his noso tilled to leeward. There came a day when Sube had a pain 'under his tunic.; He was a "good, fefiter," and this alimentary disorder worried him. So he saw the doctor. ' That overworked individual was busy, conversationally inclined. Besides, he had missed hid dinner, and his emptiness irritated him. .• " ■ /jWell?" said he. "I got a feelin' o' fulness in me stummick," said Rube. ' • "You have, have you!" said the man of pills. "Well, you're lucky. Get cut."