“So I do you,” said Michael. “And it’s rather decent just to have one great friend who you call by his Christian name.”
After this Michael and Alan became very intimate and neither held a secret from the other, as through the crowds of seaside folk they threaded their way along the promenade to whatever band of minstrels had secured their joint devotion. They greatly preferred the Pierrots to the Niggers, and very soon by a week’s unbroken attendance at the three daily sessions, Michael and Alan knew the words and music of most of the repertory. Of the comic songs they liked best The Dandy Coloured Coon, although they admired almost equally a duet whose refrain was:
| “We are a couple of barmy chaps, hush, not a word! |
| A little bit loose in our tiles, perhaps, hush, not a word! |
| We’re lunatics, lunatics, everybody declares |
| We’re a couple of fellows gone wrong in our bellows, |
| As mad as a pair of March hares.” |
Gradually, however, and more especially under the influence of Japanese lanterns and a moon-splashed sea, Michael and Alan avowed openly their fondness for the more serious songs sung by the Pierrettes. The words of one song in particular were by a reiteration of passionate utterance deeply printed on their memory:
| “Two little girls in blue, lad, |
| Two little girls in blue, |
| They were sisters, we were brothers, |
| And learnt to love the two. |
| And one little girl in blue, lad, |
| Who won your father’s heart, |
| Became your mother: I married the other, |
| And now we have drifted apart.” |
This lyric seemed to Michael and Alan the most profoundly moving accumulation of words ever known. The sad words and poignant tune wrung their hearts with the tears always imminent in life. This lyric expressed for the two boys the incommunicable aspirations of their most sacred moments. As they leaned over the rail of the promenade and gazed down upon the pretty Pierrette whose tremolo made the night air vibrant with emotion, Michael and Alan were moved by a sense of fleeting time, by thoughts of old lovers and by an intense self-pity.
“It’s frightfully decent, isn’t it?” murmured Michael.
“Ripping,” sighed Alan. “I wish I could give her more than a penny.”
“So do I,” echoed Michael. “It’s beastly being without much tin.”
Then ‘Encore’ they both shouted as the Pierrette receded from the crimson lantern-light into obscurity. Again she sang that song, so that when Michael and Alan looked solemnly up at the stars, they became blurred. They could not bear The Dandy Coloured Coon on such a night, and, seeing no chance of luring Pierrette once more into the lantern-light, they pushed their way through the crowd of listeners and walked arm in arm along the murmurous promenade.