&U&Z3T& THE TROUBLE.

337

talking again, if nobody hurt—maybe saying, < That was s ripper!' or some
such commonplace comment before we resumed; or, maybe, we would see a
shell poising itself away high in the air overhead. In that case, every fellow
just whipped out a sudden, * See you again, gents !' and shoved. Often and
often I saw gangs of ladies promenading the streets, looking as cheerful as
you please, and keeping an eye canted up watching the shells; and I've
seen them stop still when they were uncertain about what a shell was going

BEINGING THE CHILDREN.

to do, and wait and make certain; and after that they s'antered along again,
or lit out for shelter, according to the verdict, Streets in some towns have
a litter of pieces of paper, and odds and ends of one sort or another lying
around* Ours hadn't; they had tro» litter. Sometimes a man would
gather up all the iron fragments and unbursted shells in his neighbourhood,
and pile them into a kind of monument in his front yard—a ton of it, some-
times. No glass left; glass couldn't stand such a bombardment; it was all
z