However, after about a week of playing trusty Watson to Wilbur's Sherlock without having effected a single arrest, drugged one courier, stilettoed a soul, or being allowed to wear my false nose once, my thrillings became less violent, and giving Wilbur the slip one afternoon, I went on the prowl alone. About four of the clock my investigations took me to Latour's. At a small marble table lapping up ices as a kitten laps cream, I beheld Temporary Second Lieut. Mervyn Esmond.
You all of you remember Mervyn Esmond, he of the spats, the eyeglass and grey top-hat, the Super-Knut of the Frivolity Theatre who used to gambol so gracefully before the many "twinkling toes" of the Super-Beauty Chorus, singing "Billy of Piccadilly." You must remember Mervyn Esmond!
But that was the Esmond of yore, for a long time past he has been doing sterling work in command of an Army Pierrot troupe.
I sat down beside him, stole his ice and finished it for him.
"And now what are you doing here?" I asked.
"I've come down from the line to get some new dresses for Queenie," he replied. "She—he, that is—is absolutely in rags, bursts a pair of corsets and a pair of silk stockings every performance, very expensive item."
I had better explain here and now that Queenie is the leading lady in Mervyn's troupe. She—he, that is—started her—his—military career as an artillery driver, but was discovered to be the possessor of a very shrill falsetto voice and dedicated to female impersonations forthwith.
"She—he—is round at the dressmaker's now," Mervyn went on, "wrestling with half a dozen hysterical mannequins. I'm getting her—him, I should say—up regardless. Listen. Dainty ninon georgette outlined with chenile stitching. Charmeuse overtunic, embroidered with musquash and skunk pom-poms. Crêpe de Chine undies interwoven with blue baby ribbon, camis——"
"Stop!" I thundered. "Do you want me to blush myself to death? I am but a rough soldier."
Mervyn apologised, wrapped himself round another ice and asked me how I was amusing myself in Tiber-town.