Finding myself alone, I set off up a tunnel. Presently I came to a
notice--"Exit by Stairs." I didna know what "exit" meant, but I knew
all about those terrible conjuring-trick stairs, and so I turned back
and tried another tunnel. Seeing a lot of people going into a little
room, I followed them. I gave ma ticket to another lassie, but she was
so busy love-making to a bit of a boy that she took it without so much
as a glance at it or me. There were advertisements in the room, and
sort of sliding doors at each end of it. "It's a waiting-room," says I
to maself; and thinking there might be some time before a train came
and they opened the other door, I lit a "fag." Very wisely, I saw,
they'd put up "Beware of Pickpockets," so I kept my eyes about me.
"No smoking!" barks the lassie; and she came into the room, closing the
other gates behind her.
I was just going to argue with her, when all of a sudden the room
started to move upwards. Losh! mon, it gave me an awfu' turn! I yelled
out, and a man standing next to me laughed--anyway, he laughed till
I turned round and ma rifle knocked against his head. Then, before I
knew what had happened, the other gates swung open in a ghostly way.
Mon, I'll swear there was no one to open them! I drew in a breath
of fresh air, thinking I'd got to Piccadilly but, if you'll believe
me, I'd walked the sewers of London and _come out at place where I'd
entered_! And that old man said the "Tube" was an underground railway!
Underground maze, I call it! I walked to Piccadilly after that; I was
afraid of spending the rest of ma leave down there.
I have no doot that Piccadilly is gay enough. But I was feeling tired
and hungry the noo there were officers thick as flies after jam; and
there didn't seem room for me and ma kit on the pavement. And the
lassies! Never have I seen such clothes, and some of 'em had enough fur
on them to make twenty goatskin waistcoats. It's a queer thing, though,
but all of them seemed to have their clothes too short for them;
ma mither would have been horrified. They looked at me as if I was
something out of a show, and I began to feel nervous. "Losh!" I says to
maself, "I'll have a bit of dinner. I'll do maself well." So I walked
into a restaurant, after dodging a naval officer who was standing at
the entrance and seemed to have something to do with the place. As
soon as I got in I saw I'd made a mistake, and I'd have retired at the
double, but a foreigner in evening dress, with about four square feet
of starched shirt on him, came rushing up quite excited.
"You can'd sdop here," says he. "Dis blace is for ladies and gendlemen."
"Mon," says I, "there's many a rule made to be broken, or you wouldna
be here."
"I'll haf no insolence!" he cries, going very red. "You go to a common
restaurant. We do not serve your sort here."
That roused what ma mither calls the devil in me.
"Mon," says I, catching him by the collar, "I've been killing the
likes of you for the past sixteen months. The only difference is that
they wore a grey uniform, instead of that fancy dress of yours. Say
'kamerad' and bring me some sausages and mashed and a pint of beer, or
you'll be the thirteenth I've finished off at close quarters, and that
might be unlucky for both of us!"
"The Scotsman's quite right," piped a pretty voice; and I felt fair
frightened. The whole place was in an uproar. Ma rifle--an awkward
thing is a rifle--had knocked over a chair, and a young Brass Hat
(Staff officer) who was sitting at a table with the girl with the
pretty voice, came over. I had to let the other chap go, so as to
salute.
"This won't do, you know," says Brass Hat, very severe; but the pretty
lassie frowned at him, and he looked a bit awkward. "Confound you, you
fool!" says he, very fierce, to the man in evening dress. "The young
lady wants this man to lunch with us!"