"GRIM AND GAY"

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24775, 24 December 1943, Page 3

"GRIM AND GAY"

iThe Lighter Side of War on Many Fronts

Italy's Seven Phases JW" ON-BELLIGERENT, pre-belligerent, belligerent, unbelligerent, antibelligerent, ex-belligerent, co-belliger-ent. —Peterborough, in the Daily Telegraph London _ t Tch! Tch! Dept. ,r \YE shall bo glad," wrote the western firm to National Selective gen-ice, "if von can assist us in retaining this man for a little longer. He is the only man left in the firm and he is carrying on with fifteen girls."

Ma-Lingerer TTE lav in bed lingering between Life and Esquire. —Magazine Digest. All Out, Not All In QLGGESTED para troop motto: Always fit to drop." —Peterborough. Keep Your, Shin Up CjOLDIEIIS in the New Guinea area report a native pastime during which everybody tries to kick everybody else. Evidently a streamlined type of bridge, without cards. —Sudbury Star Undear Departed Q.RANNY was a tremendous favourite of little Ronny's, but she was a disciplinarian also, and on one occasion had to curb his activities; and there was no end of a hullabaloo. Then he sobbed out: "Now you've done it, Gran! I meant to put flowers on your grave, but that's all over I" —Lucio, in the Manchester Guardian. Asking in Verse A CITY wine merchant received the following from one of his women customers: — "An Elizabethan poet in Fifteen hundred and sixty-nine Wrote 'Drink to me only with thine eyes. And I will pledge with mine. Or leave a kiss within the cup. And I'll not ask for wine.' Those are a poet's sentiments, They certainly are not mine. Six weeks have gone since I Fell fainting at your door. So please to-morrow may 1 come And get a little more?" She got it. —Sunday Times, London. Gravel Rash UE was a green recruit fresh from the East and prairie life was new to him. Before joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police his only association with horses had been of the milk waggon variety and he was sure that the horses of the force had a much higher intellect. One morning 'during stable parade at Regina the sergeant had occasion to tell one of the horses to move back in its stall. The horse ignored the sergeant's softspoken request. The voif'ng recruit, eager to make an impression on his superiors, strode over to the offending equine and in a loud, frightening voice commanded: "You heard what the sergeant said! Get back in there!" —Maclean's, Canada.

—Sudbury Star

Very Fruiti

\ N incident in the return from the Maungdau raid is related in an Army divisional magazine. A unit patrol passing through a native village thought it might obtain some watermelons. The patrol commander interviewed the headman, but failed to make him understand. An n.c.o. then tried conversation by signs, indicating the size, shape and general appearance oi thf water-melon. At last the headman beamed with apparent comprehension and trotted into the village. He returned with his eldest daughter. —Manchester Guardian Live and Loin TN the West a butcher is suing a girl for breach of promise. Imagine, in times like these, any girl being dumb enough to jilt a butcher. —Cornwall Standard-Freeholder

"TO PUT IT FRANKLY, MR. MORGAN, I DON'T FEEL I'M GETTING MY SHARE OF THE GRAVY."

f rom a drawing by Whitney Darrow, jun., in his latest book, ou re Sitting On My Eyelashes." (Randon House, New "lork.)