“Ha!” Major Montresor, from the other big chair, came to the rescue. “‘The Bando-lero’!”
“That’s it! Know it, William? ‘I am the Bando-lero!’” vociferated Uncle Albert, “‘the—something—Bando-lero——’”
“I know it,” said my employer, with restraint, “but I haven’t got it in the house!”
It was my turn to suppress a smile as I remembered how, in my nursery-days, I’d defined “a bandolero” as “a person with a very loud voice,” just as naturally as I used to think that “a Radical” meant “a dreadfully wicked man.” It was the very song that I could imagine Uncle Albert enjoying singing himself. A pity his nephew didn’t happen to have it in the house!
“You have this, though,” I suggested helpfully, as I turned to the rack and took out “The Storm-Fiend,” with a look at the Governor meaning, “Don’t dare to say you loathe this thing!” (It was because he did, by the way, that the song had been ordered for him in a burst of unsisterliness by Theo.)
“Yes! You can look soft nothings at the girl, my boy!” was Uncle Albert’s interpretation of that glance of the Governor’s as I spoke, “but she’s got to keep those pretty dark eyes of hers for the music!”
(—And I wonder the sheet of music didn’t shrivel up under the gaze of the eyes thus praised!)
We then proceeded to dash through “The Storm-Fiend.” I wondered whether the Governor found in the loud singing of it as much of a safety-valve as I found in the playing of the artillery-like accompaniment!
“Bravo! Very good! Stirring song, that!” Uncle Albert’s bellow swelled the echoes of the last chord. “Capital song—very well sung. I like that tune—‘I chuckle and laugh, ho, ho! I chuckle and laugh, ho, ho!’” he persisted (to some tune quite of his own). “‘The Storm-Fiend is the Lord—of—Woe!’ Very good! Still, not very appropriate for to-night, Billy? Not much Woe about this evening, my dear, eh?” (to me). “Supposing we have a bit of sentiment now. What was that other song, now? I was talking about it only at tea-time here—something tally-ho-ish that we could all join in the chorus of.”
But here I felt I simply must nip in the bud a request for the one about—