"'Half a league, half a league,'" said Lancelot casually, then proceeding with the "Charge of the Light Brigade."
The General commanding the district rubbed his head hard.
"But why—for this—the Russian anthem?" he whispered. "For this!"
"'Cossack and Russian reeled from the sabre's stroke—shattered and sundered,'" said Lancelot pleasantly, Miss O'Toole continuing the music with the soft pedal down, and just a boom when big drums were mentioned.
"Why?" remarked the General hopelessly. "And the beginning when I came in!" Then—he had a sense of humour—he looked at his wife, and the rest of his evening was spent in laudable endeavours to check unseemly laughter and to subdue his wife's.
"'Into the valley of Hell, into the mouth of Death,'" said Lancelot, and paused to look for his sister at the wings—"that is—'mouth of Hell.'" She was prompting.
Boom! went chords in the bass.
"It's the damn piano puts one out!" murmured Lancelot over his shoulder to his sister. "What's next?"
"Make some action," hissed his prompter.
The General buried his face in his pocket-handkerchief, overcome, as Mrs. De Burgho Keane said.