366
PARTISAN REVIEW
sending me 'in for a beauty competition next week. This is the only
kind of joke that is understood in St. John's Wood. At my local, the
Warthog was limping round with a
st~ck
and groaning. This public
house is the meeting-place of the Local Defence Volunteers, and the
Warthog had been drilling last night at a barracks, under a ser–
geant of the Guards who made his men stamp hard. The Warthog
had clicked his heels together so smartly that he burst a blood
vessel in his ankle. He had been to hospital and was told that he
would need a small operation in the groin. The sad thing was that
nobody believed him. As soon as his back was turned, the young
Irish barman said the Warthog was supposed to be on armed guard
all tonight and didn't like the thought.
