IT WAS a British Linesman. His face was like a

fist,

His sleeve all stripes and chevrons from the

elbow to the wrist.

Said he to an American (with other words of his):

"It's a big thing you are doing—do you know

how big it is?"

"I guess, Sir," that American inevitably drawled,

"Big Bill's our proposition an' we're goin' for him

bald.

You guys may have him rattled, but I figure it's

for us

To slaughter, quarter, grill or bile, an' masticate

the cuss."

"I hope your teeth," the Linesman said, "are

equal to your tongue—

But that's the sort of carrion that's better when

it's hung.

Yet—the big thing you're doing I should like to

make you see!"

"Our stunt," said that young Yankee, "is to set

the whole world free!"

The Linesman used a venial verb (and other parts

of speech):

"That's just the way the papers talk and

politicians preach!

But apart from gastronomical designs upon the

Hun—

And the rather taller order—there's a big thing

that you've done."

"Why, say! The biggest thing on earth, to any

cute onlooker,

Is Old Man Bull and Uncle Sam aboard the

same blamed hooker!

One crew, one port, one speed ahead, steel-true

twin-hearts within her:

One ding-dong English-singin' race—a race

without a winner!"

The boy's a boyish mixture—half high-brow and

half droll:

So brave and naÏve and cock-a-hoop—so sure

yet pure of soul!

Behold him bright and beaming as the bride-

groom after church—

The Linesman looking wistful as a rival in the

lurch!

"I'd love to be as young as you—" he doesn't

even swear—

"Love to be joining up anew and spoiling for my

share!

But when your blood runs cold and old, and brain

and bowels squirm,

The only thing to ease you is some fresh blood in

the firm.

"When the war was young, and we were young,

we felt the same as you:

A few short months of glory—and we didn't care

how few!

French, British and Dominions, it took us all the

same—

Who knows but what the Hun himself enjoyed

his dirty game!

"We tumbled out of tradesmen's carts, we fell off

office stools;

Fathers forsook their families, boys ran away from

schools;

Mothers untied their apron-strings, lovers un-

loosed their arms—

All Europe was a wedding and the bells were

war's alarms!

"The chime had changed—You took a pull—the

old wild peal rings on

With the clamour and the glamour of a Genera-

tion gone.

Their fun—their fire—their hearts' desire—are

born again in You!"

"That the big thing we're doin'?"

"It's as big as Man can do!"