THE KAISER'S MASCOT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 205, 3 October 1914, Page 8

THE KAISER'S MASCOT.

[Written for THE SUN.] N The Kaiser's war talisman is a four-loaf clover pressed and scented and tucked away in a pocketbook of his greatcoat. A Geneva paper, wliich is generally well informed, publishes a telegram stating that the Kaiser is ill with inflammation of the lungs, the result of falling into a trench full of water. Now this is the tale of a martial male 'oo "was reckoned immune from grief As long as 'e felt near 'is royal pelt a curious clover leaf, Wot a sentimental girlie sent 'im fifty years ago * As a kind of bloomin' anomalous botanical curio. It's a sort of a misfit clover with four leaves —but, goodness me! Der Kaiser, 'e values it quite as much as though it 'ad only,three! And 'e keeps it preserved in a pockeibook stowed safe and scented strong, For while it's at rest on 'is royal chest things simply can't go wrong. Way back in the struggle of "seventyone'' it altered our granddads' map, And 'twixt us two, it's reckoned to do the same in the present scrap. And we worry a lot (perhaps, p'raps not!) and our 'carts is wrung with grief, To think we've the men and the guns and all, but nary a clover leaf. Still we lips and asks (not darin' to doubt the marvellous tales they pitch), "Was the mascot 'aving its 'Sunday out' when der Kaiser fell in the ditch?" SINC. S. C.