Johns was, I think, the greatest natural wit I have ever met. His comments on any unusual situation came as quickly as lightning, and were just as bright and penetrating, They were backed by a strong humorous personality, and a power of comic grimaces and mimicry which I have never seen surpassed.
One night he suddenly climbed up the iron pipe of our Canadian stove,
which conducted the smoke straight up through the roof. The pipe was exceedingly hot where he embraced it, and he therefore had to scramble madly upwards to attain a cooler situation. When he had ascended about six feet and was clinging on with both arms and legs round the pipe, it gave way just where it entered the roof, and bent slowly in a graceful curve, with smoke pouring out of its open end. Johns was suspended in mid-air hanging on to it. He remained unperturbed, an extraordinarily funny fixed smile on his face. Then in a curious falsetto voice he made an impromptu speech, which started, I remember, as follows :-
“Now lads, when I was aboard the French frigate Flossie .... "
And then followed a ludicrous description of life at sea, which reduced everyone, including the long-suffering stewards, to helpless laughter. I would give a good deal to remember it all. He had somehow contrived to take a drink up with him, and his final touch was to appear suddenly to notice the smoke which was still pouring out of the pipe, and then make a pretence of putting out “a fearful fire which was raging in the ’tweendecks" by emptying his glass down it.
His humour gained a great deal by the speed at which his mind worked, and the unexpected twist he would give to the ordinary course of conversation. One morning an engineer came up to Johns, saluted, and reported “Sorry you won’t be able to go up, sir; your engine’s gone dud.” He instantly turned to the C.O., saluted, and with an exact imitation of the engineer’s manner, said, "Sorry, I shan’t be able to go up, sir, my Camel’s got the hump."
One night he appeared as a witch, in an astounding costume, the head-dress consisting of a gramophone record cardboard cover pulled down over his face. It just allowed his eyes, nose and mouth to show through the hole in front, and a large bunch of hair to stick out through the back. He was armed with a pack of cards, and offered to tell anybody’s fortune.
Jordan asked for his, and johns shuffled the cards and laid the three of hearts on the table. He gazed at it and said: “Ah!' the Jack of Spades, I see.
