A SPORTSMAN AFTER ALL.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 185, 23 June 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SPORTSMAN AFTER ALL.

The following amusing story is told by Bishop Bury in an article on prisoners of war which he contributes to the April "Nineteenth Century and After": —"In one of the camps where combatants were imprisoned a new non-commissioned officer had been added to the staff. The first night that he came on duty, before turning off the light, he said, by way of assorting himself: 'Now, you English swine, you worse than dogs and cats and farmyard fowls, the light :s going out, and if I hear a sound alter that you'll suffer for it, I can tell you,' and so on. There was an instant silence, which to an Englishman would have been at once suspicious, but which wan to the non-commissioned officer an intense satisfaction. After a moment or two a dog was heard barking loudly at tho bottom of tho room, and the sergeant, angry and surprised, went down to find and turn it out, muttering, 'Everyone knows dogs are not allowed.' As he drew near the place two or throe cats mewed and spat at each other just behind him. Startled and furious he wheeled round to find nothing but to hear, at that end of the room he had just left, the shrill crowing of a cock. Growing very hot and angry ho looked suspiciously at tho silent and still forms of the men on every side, when suddenly they all lifted their heads and began to cough violently. Tiie noise must have been almost as nerve-trying a.s shrapnel! W ; th l)is hands to his ears he strode back to the place he had left, and tnrninc round, with heated face, waited. When the coughing at last ceased, and there was rpiiet, he said in an almost choking vo ; ee. 'Gentlemen, I'm sorry T said what T did. Will you think no more of it? T have my duty to do. Let us work together, and perhaps, after a'l. we may be friends.' Anyone who knows the average Englishman there would know how that appeal would go home, and how the men would say to themselves, 'He's a spartsnian after all.' and go contentedly off to sleep, and that after such a '.tart they would L'ive tho : r ofnYer no more unnecessary trouble.''