In India it is sometimes "a bazaar
buzz" (a rumour circulating in the bazaars); here it is, naturally, a
bathroom buzz.
Many were the choice examples of slang and of colloquialisms which I
culled in the bathroom, sitting comfortably in my bath and communing
with my neighbour in the next bath. I remember one morning making the
acquaintance of an Australian who had recently recovered from a bad
attack of trench feet. Four of the toes of one foot were missing, and
the fifth looked far from sound. My friend was examining this lonely toe
with a critical gaze, and I sympathised with him over its condition.
"Ah!" he said, "that toe is a king to what it was." He went on to tell
me (what I could well believe) that to get your "plates of meat"
frostbitten wasn't such a "cushy wound" as it was cracked up to be by
those who had never experienced its sufferings. "When I went sick the
doctor thought he'd rumbled me swinging the lead. But as soon as he
spotted them there toes of mine--the ones that's gone--I could see he
knew I'd clicked a packet, square dinkum, this trip." ("Square dinkum"
or "dinkum" is an Antipodean verbal flourish, which broadly
approximates to the American "Sure enough" or the English "Not 'arf.
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