Monk nodded hastily.  “Yes, so it turned out.  Well, out of respect for O’Dwyer I looked after it as far as it would allow me, naturally expecting he’d come over and claim it—­but he didn’t.  On the fourth day, after it had made a light breakfast off a bombardier’s ear and kicked a gap in a farrier, I got absolutely fed up, turned the damn cannibal loose and gave it a cut with a whip for godspeed.  It made off due east, cavorting and snorting until it reached the tank-track; there it stopped and picked a bit of grass.  Presently along comes a tank, proceeding to the fray, and gives the mule a poke in the rear.  The mule lashes out, catching the tank in the chest, and then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course.  But instead of being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and moves on.  That roused the mule properly.  He closed his eyes and laid into the tank for dear life; you could hear it clanging a mile away.

“After delivering two dozen of the best, the moke turned round to sniff the cold corpse, but the corpse was still warm and smiling.  Then the mule went mad and set about the tank in earnest.  He jabbed it in the eye, upper-cut it on the point, hooked it behind the ear, banged its slats, planted his left on the mark and his right on the solar plexus, but still the tank sat up and took nourishment.

“Then the donkey let a roar out of him and closed with it; tried the half-Nelson, the back heel, the scissors, the roll, and the flying-mare; tried Westmoreland and Cumberland style, collar and elbow, Cornish, Graeco-Roman, scratch-as-scratch-can and Ju-jitsu.  Nothing doing.  Then as a last despairing effort he tried to charge it over on its back and rip the hide off it with his teeth.

“But the old tank gave a ‘good-by ee’ cough of its exhaust and rumbled off as if nothing had happened, nothing at all.  I have never seen such a look of surprise on any living creature’s face as was on that donk’s.  He sank down on his tail, gave a hissing gasp and rolled over stone dead.  Broken heart.”

“Is that the end?” Albert Edward inquired.

“It is,” said Monk; “and if you go outside and look half-right you’ll see the bereaved Mr. O’Dwyer, all got up in sack-cloth, cinders and crepe rosettes, mooning over the deceased like a dingo on an ash-heap.”  PATLANDER.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Aunt Maria.  “DO YOU KNOW I ONCE ACTUALLY SAW THE KAISER RIDING THROUGH THE STREETS OF LONDON AS BOLD AS BRASS.  IF I’D KNOWN THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW I’D HAVE TOLD A POLICEMAN.”]

* * * * *

“FOR THE DURATION ...”

    “The forenoon service in the Parish Church will be at 11 o’clock
    instead of 11.15 on Sunday first, and will continue till further
    orders.”—­Scottish Paper.