“Just look after my gal, will ye?
While I’m frontin’ the fire an’ the foe--
Like a good old pal, look after my gal--
An’ Gawd bless ye wheerever I go!”
“That will do as a beginning!” said Mrs. Arteroyd, nibbling anxiously
at the pencil with which she had “produced” these lines. “It suggests
love and a spice of immorality. His ‘gal’--one of the silly creatures
who walk out with him, not ‘on the strength,’ of course. It’s a change,
and it’s sure to go down! Not his wife,--and not his baby--ugh!
you little wretch! (this was a side apostrophe to the absent and
unconscious Marquise Dégagée)--but his ‘gal’! Old Dummer-Esel will
appreciate _that_!”
She bit her pencil again and thought,--then glanced over a few more
music-hall songs, and went on--
“She’s a weak an’ a lovin’ creetur!
Not ‘on the strength,’ you bet!
An’ ’tis ’ard to be leavin’ her lonely,
Though I hopes we’ll be married yet,--
But there’s death lurkin’ down in they kopjes,
And graves in the golden Transvaal--
Never mind!--it’s for king and country--
But--just look after my gal!