Accent may or may not be
influenced: the vocabulary undoubtedly is. Nearly every home in the land
is soon going to be invaded by many forms of army slang: the process in
fact has already begun. If we were a sprightlier nation the effect might
not be all to the bad. But most of our slang-mongers are not wits. "He
was balmy a treat," I heard a soldier say of another soldier who had
shammed insane. That is what we are coming to: it is the tongue we
shall use and likewise (I fear) the condition in which some of us will
find ourselves as a result.
XV
A BLIND MAN'S HOME-COMING
In my boyhood I had the ambition--it was one of several ambitions--to
become a courier. The _Morning Post_ advertisements of couriers who
professed to be fluent in a number of languages and were at the disposal
of invalid aristocrats desiring to take extensive (and expensive) trips
abroad, aroused the most romantic visions in my mind. A courier's was
the life for me. I saw myself whirling all over Europe--with my
distinguished invalid--in sleeping-cars de luxe. Anon we were crossing
the Atlantic or lolling in punkah-induced breezes on the verandahs of
Far Eastern hotels.
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