He had read a little book of mine, The Color Guard, my diary as a Corporal of the Nineteenth Army Corps, scribbled off on my cap-top, my gun-stock, or indeed my shoe-sole, or whatever desk I could extemporise as we marched and fought.

As I crossed the floor I tried to extemporise a prayer, but stopped short to listen, and never finished it.

Sometimes he would extemporise a little rhyme for them, filling it out with his clear, happy voice, and that tender pantomime that comes so naturally to a man who not merely loves childrenfor who is there that does not?but one born with the instinct for intercourse with them.