Thereupon the band played the National Anthem, and the throng, after yet another outbreak of cheering, dispersed. Followed a silence in the darkness under the platform, broken only by the distant thudding bass of the roundabout's steam organ; and then between the boards there sounded a liquid chuckle, much like a blackbird's, and a woman's voice said—
"Come, my dear brother, say it out! The Countess has gone; everybody has gone—she must have stampeded 'em, by the way—and as the Jew said, when a thunderstorm broke on the picnic, 'Here's a fuss over a little bit of ham!' Well, my dear, there has always been this about Sally— a man can swear before her sans gene. So, to give you a start, how did they take it?"
"If after these years I didn't know you to be incorrigible—" growled the voice of Sir Elphinstone.
"'For ladies of all ages,' the bills said."
"'Ladies!'"
"I am quoting your own bill—I'll bet a fiver, too, that you drafted it.
Anyway, I'm rising forty—though I'd defy 'em to tell it by my teeth.
And since they passed me for a lady—oh, Elphinstone, it was a lark!
And I never thought I had the wind for it. You remember Kipling—you
are always quoting that young man—"
'The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a
barren doe.'
"Well, that's how it was: 'Like a barren doe,' I give you my word."
"My dear Sally!"
"Shameless, was it? My dear Elphinstone, you've only to bill it, and I'll do Lady Godiva for 'em next year—at my time of life. But if you don't like Kipling, what do you say to this?"