"I pasted him in the jaw, honest to Gawd I did, and he
didn't have no come-back. You saw the bout, Jim. If
I hadn't caught my shoulder in the ropes, he'd never have
knocked me out. Ain't it the truth, Jim?"
"If you ask me," Jim replies evenly, “I think you had horseshoes hung all over you to last as long as you did."
Or, from a group of three serious-faced young men, two of whom have just returned from the third R.O.T. C.;
"Germany's financial structure is as restless and insecure as a house built on sand."
"That's logic, but logic and the truth are often bad friends."
"Oh, Lord," groans the officer inwardly, making another mistake with his lists.
And, to cap the climax and spoil an entire sheet:
"Billy told me about it. If the Y. M. C. A. could have seen him then! Nellie had him up to tea Sunday. Least be thought he was drinking tea. Looked like it. You know a Martini and tea are the same color. They put cocktails in his cup instead of tea, and he smacked his lips and drank four cups, and all the time the poor simp thought he was drinking tea."
A deep voice cuts the air, snorting and booming:
"The hell he did!"
The sergeant tries not to grin. The officer swings passionately.
"Attention! Sergeant, if another man speaks put his name down, and I'll take care of him later, At Ease!" He turns back to his checking, aware that what he had wanted to say was:
"Men! This job has got to be done. It hurts me more than it does you."
Sometimes we checked and were checked at night, too. Whose fault was it, this ceaseless repetition that carried
