SENTIMENTAL TOMMY.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2870, 7 September 1916, Page 6

SENTIMENTAL TOMMY.

A GENTLE (MROYERSY My cousin Kathleen is a very serious young person, with large, brown, accusing eyes that offer no encouragement for frivolity—the sort of eyes that, so to speak, sit in judgment upon you across the breakfast table tho morning after an irresponsible and perfectly harmless evening with a few friends. She reads Yeate, Galsworthy, Rabindranath Tagorc, appalling dissertations on the sub-conscious mind, and all that Bort of thirig. So when, the other day, she asked mo whother I ever felt sentimental about anything, I stopped myself, just in time, from some unseasonable lovity, and replied that I supposed I did. "I don't think I believe you," she said.

"Try me and prove me," I said, with Masonic unction. "In point of fact," 1 added, "excoss of sentiment has been tho very curse of my existence." "Dear mel" said she. "How funny 1" And she gazed at mo with an amused expression, which I know some fine day will be my undoing. "It isn't funny at all," I replied, crossly. "I've been involved in all sorts of idiotic and robbect right and left through it." "I should never have thought it — you, of all people!" She giggled, and then became serious. "I want you to settle an argument," said she, approaching the main question. Once my cousin Kathleen has taken sides she becomes a fierce and frantic partisan, but her habit of jumping at hasty conclusions has led her so often to back the wrong horse that she has lately grown cautious. "Oho I" said I. "An argument with whom?" "Oh —several ladies ". ' "Ladies?" "Yes—don't interrupt. The ladies of I rose firmly. "My dear young lady," said I, impressively, "I will do nothing of tho kind." "Don't bo so silly," said she. "You're not asked to do anything." 1 sat down again, and lit a cigarette. "I want you to be perfectly serious, mind," said Miss Kathleen, severely. "The solemn hour has struck!" T declared, in sepulchral tones. "It's about sending parcels of gifts to tho soldiers at the front," said Kathleen, withering my levity with her breakfast-table eyo. I nodded. "Some of us in the Countess of Liverpool Committee in Wellington think that tho soldiers appreciate the parcels wo have made up for them—socks, handkerchiefs, sweet's, cigarettes, and so on, far more than hussives." "What's a hussive?" I asked, indiscreetly. Kathleen stared. "Do you mean to say, after two years of this horrid war, that you don't know what a hussivo is?" ■'. . ; "Guilty, m'lud," said I, with a hangdog air. • ' . "But you ought to know," she insisted. "Quito right," said I, "so I ought." "A hussive," she explained, "is a sort of companion—needles, thread, and so on, you see?" "I see," said I. "A sort of repair kit, as it .were." "Ye 3, but we call it a hussive." I nodded. "Erratum—for repair kit, read hussive. .All correct, carry on, sergeant." "Well, now," she continued, "the others think we should stop sending these parcels of gifts, and devote all our time to making hussives. These we would hand over to the Government, who would pay us for them, and the money would go into the funds. Then the men would get "their hussives as part of their equipment." "I see," said I. "And which side are you on?" I pursued, diplomatically. "I believe in the parcels, of course, for sentimental reasons," she said. "Quite right," said I, "I'm with you there." "But it's so hard to convince some people. They don't seem to_ realise what it moans to a soldier in_ the trenches, or in hospital, to receive a parcel of gifts, or 'a letter, from their homeland. And the other day some horrid, ungrateful wretch sent a letter out, and it appeared in a newspaper, saying that the parcels were a mistake, and that some of the men used the handkerchiefs to clean their rifles with!"

"I 'should .advise that particular young man to remain where he is for a while," I said, warmly. "Of course," she went on, "that gives the hussives side another argument to work on."

"M-yes," I agreed, '"it's rather a facer, if you look at it that way. Wait a minute. I've got a letter here that should satisfy them." I rummaged in a drawer amongst a mass of papers, and finally came across a grubby-looking document. I took it out, and spread it on my knee. It was written on odds and ends of paper, with what must have been an awful stub of a pencil. "The poor chap who wrote this, Kathleen," 1 explained, "posted it in the afternoon and was killed that night. His name doesn't matter, but you can read them this part of it: i

"' . . . Yesterday was a great day for us all—except one or two poor beggars who had been unfortunately overlooked, but. we saw that they had. a look in, at any rate. A big mail, witß'the good old N.Z. post-mark, came in with letters and parcels. Of courso, as you know, I have no people of my own, but you can't imagine what I felt to get a letter from an unknown girl who said she'd felt that she ought to write to a lonely soldier. She gave me a lot of chatty gossip about herself andi her doings,-and where sho'd been, and what was doing. I tell you, it did cheer me up. Then, of course, I got your own illegible scrawl—which I had to read sideways—and a jolly gift parcel, which. I can tell you, I appreciated. You can have no idea how that sort of thing cheers a fellow up. It's the tie intimate touch of home sentiment, I suppose. You've only got to snot some poor beggar who has been left out in the cold to know, what I mean— ho looks as miserable as a cat on a wet door-step. . . .'. "So, you see, Kathleen," I concluded, "that's what tho men really think about it." —"Wi." Cabinet has decided that all members and ranks of the Expeditionary Force shall receive expeditionary rates of pay from the pate of going into camp. This will take effect from the date on which the Military Service Act was passed, i.e., August 1, 1916.

A meeting of the astronomical section of the Philosophical Society was held last evening, Mr. C. G. G. Berry presiding. Papers were read by Sir. W. S. La Trobe, M.A., on "Circular ijrror in Pendulums"; Mr. A. E. Gifford, M.A., F.R.C.S., "Novae"; and Mr. C. E. Adams, D.Sc, F.R.A.S. ,(1) "Wireless Timo Signals," <8) "Notes on the Recent Eclipse of the Sun." Mr. Gilford was asked to repeat his paper next week.