I have
no doubt that on occasion the man could have returned the salute with
interest, but the suddenness and the publicity of the attack rendered
him both speechless and powerless. There he stood blushing like a school
girl; the while his comrades urged him to retaliate. He bore himself
like a martyr; but when a man immediately afterwards proceeded to kiss
him on both cheeks,--as foreigners often do--then 'Tommy' recovered his
mental equilibrium; and his language, well! it was more forcible than
elegant.
A far more pathetic welcome fell to my lot, as I walked across the
square at Ypres, in the early days of the British occupancy. While
talking to a brother officer, I suddenly felt my hand seized, kissed,
and then stroked; and looking down, I saw a sweet little blue-eyed maid
of some five years, not much above the level of the bottom of my tunic
in height, who said in the prettiest broken English, 'Brave Ingleese.'
The memory of a certain other blue-eyed kiddy, away in England, was too
much for me, and this time _I_ was the aggressor, for I took the little
maid up in my arms and kissed her, much to the amusement of the
passers-by I have no doubt.
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