A few days later he was asked,
"Well, did you write and tell your wife you had lost a leg?"
"Yus."
"I suppose she's answered? What has she said?"
"Said 'm a liar!"
Her retort had neither disconcerted nor offended him. He was a
philosopher--and, like so many of his kind, a laughing philosopher. When
he was sufficiently recovered from his operation to get about on
crutches he was the wag of the ward. He took a special delight in those
practical jokes which are invented by patients to tease the nurses, and
devoted the most painstaking ingenuity to their preparation. It was he
who found a small hole in the lath-and-plaster wall which separates the
ward from the ward's kitchen. Through this hole a length of cotton was
passed and tied to the handle of a mug on the kitchen shelf. At this
period, owing to the Zeppelin raids, only the barest minimum of light
was allowed, and the night nurse, when she entered the kitchen, went
into almost complete darkness. No sooner was she in the kitchen and
fumbling for what she required than a faint noise--that of the cup being
twitched by the cotton leading to the mischievous coster's bed--arose on
the shelf and convinced her that she was in the presence of a mouse.
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