Miranda: "Why, last night he took the waltz position when we were just
sitting still on the Hotel piazza!"
"For sale: We have on hand a large edition of C.'s 'Art of
Dismounting'; the most complete work of its kind. Also K.'s treatise on
'The Tanbark; as I have found it.'"
So goes the _Howitzer_; and the audience are kindly told that at the
end of the explosion the members of the medical department will pass
in and out among the seats, administering "three pills, three times a
day," to each of the wounded. "Warranted to cure."
I might give sharper-pointed details; but things that pass with the
saying, in an evening frolic, might jar or rasp if written down in cold
black and white. At the time (to their good sense be it spoken), no one
laughs more readily than the sufferers themselves. And in spite of the
local colour, which is confusing to a stranger, the jokes do very much
explain themselves. As when the Irish schoolmaster, counting up his
boys, suddenly demands: "Where, thin, is Tommy L.?" and a make-believe
urchin cries out: "Plase, sor, he's puttin' on the shtamps on that last
letter to Philadelphy!" the shout from the Corps makes it easy to guess
what sort of hands will open the letter.
Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well made-up
damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed presently by
a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering anxiously from
side to side.
"She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too
disappears.
The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on the scene. He
also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by.
"Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this way."
Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly
assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written
all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of
pleasure.
"She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as he
dives in among the shadows.
The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy
amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old
Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents
pertaining thereto, laughable enough.
But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is Saturday
night.
The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the gay
company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is over.