“Come,” cried Power, “here’s a fresh bowl coming. Let’s drink the ladies, wherever they be; we most of us have some soft spot on that score.”
“Yes,” said the adjutant, singing,—
“Here’s to the maiden of blushing fifteen;
Here’s to the damsel that’s merry;
Here’s to the flaunting extravagant quean—”
“And,” sang Power, interrupting,—
“Here’s to the ‘Widow of Derry.’”
“Come, come, Fred, no more quizzing on that score. It’s the only thing ever gives me a distaste to the service,—the souvenir of that adventure. When I reflect what I might have been, and think what I am; when I contrast a Brussels carpet with wet grass, silk hangings with a canvas tent, Sneyd’s claret with ration brandy, and Sir Arthur for a Commander-in-Chief vice Boggs, a widow—”
“Stop there!” cried Hixley. “Without disparaging the fair widow, there’s nothing beats campaigning, after all. Eh, Fred?”
“And to prove it,” said the colonel, “Power will sing us a song.”
Power took his pencil from his pocket, and placing the back of a letter across his shako, commenced inditing his lyric, saying, as he did so, “I’m your man in five minutes. Just fill my glass in the mean time.”
“That fellow beats Dibdin hollow,” whispered the adjutant. “I’ll be hanged if he’ll not knock you off a song like lightning.”