In prefatory remarks Montague describes this book as a collection of yarns peopled by "ardent cranks".

"...they step up to life, they speak to her first and offer to print their own whims on such talk as may pass between them and her before she consigns them to dust."

And such talk it is! Montague renders fully a third of the book in conversations among characters transcribed in various British accents. Two hapless entrepeneurs in "A propo des Bottes," speak in a melodious Irish/Australian patois:

"It seemed that some foreign woman in London, wan Madam Tussore, had acquired the wealth of th' Indies -- that was Brennan's estimate of the profits -- be keepin' a set of graven images, made up of wax -- eminent burglars an' emp'rors an' all the great ones of th' earth, each in his habit same as he lived, an' admittin' the people at sixpence a time, or a shillin' itself, until they'd be awed an' entranced the way they'd be comin' next pay-day again to the booth an' bringin' the children."

"" 'Think,' says Brennan 'what poverty-stricken old sort of a pitch is London, compared to Australy! Consider th' advantages here. An aurif''rous soil; a simple, impreshnable white population, manny of them with incomes that rush in on them like vast tidal waves, at intervals, same as your own, cryin' aloud to be spent; the pop'lar taste for the arts as yet unpolluted be these pestilintial movies that's layin' waste rotten old hem'spheres like Europe; an', as if made to our hand, a creative genius like Thady O'Gorman beyant, that's the greatest warrant in Sydney for forgin' wax figures of sufferin' saints till he has all th' old women south of th' Equator weepin' tears down on to the floor of the church.' "

Most of the pieces are not tales, really, as they lack the drama and exaggeration of good yarns, but autobiographical vignettes revealing the grim/funny contradictions, the tools of mockery, abuse and friendly sarcasm that keep men sane in the tedium of trench warfare.

In "The First Blood Sweep" they place bets each day on who will be the next one killed, but Montague deflects sentimentality or pathos by playing up the richer concerns of men deprived of the simplest pleasures.

" Ince, that we used to call Coom-fra-Wiggan, had started reading a paper that was all creases and curves from coming by post. I had been watching his lips working, shaping the words as he read to himself. And then he let the paper fall on his legs -- of course he was sitting down on the floor like everyone else, with his back to the wall.
"Fair puts lid on, thot do," he said in the flat, draggy way of speaking that some of them have in the north.
"Ah see in paaper," Ince went trailing on, " 's 'ow foalks at whoam 'as got agaate o' stoppin' futball. Noa raacin'! Noa bowlin'! No whoamin' birds! An it's noa futball noo!" he went on mourning. "Then Tommy Tween must cut in. Tommy would almost take the word out of your mouth. "Ow, gow it! Turn 'em all dahn! Never mind us. 'Ow, naow! Wot'd we wawnt wiv a little bit of int'rest in life? Not likely!"