"'They rode back again, but not—not the six hundred,'" remarked Lancelot casually, and waved one crutch swiftly. The principal effect of the belated action was to upset the lion on to Miss O'Toole and make her last piece of Russian anthem a discord.
Lancelot hobbled off amid loud clapping of hands, and his mother thought with rapture of how he would look if he did it in London.
Mr. Keefe and Mrs. Keane were both upset by the fall of the lion, considering it to be a bad omen for the war.
The interval for sandwiches and liquid refreshment proved a brilliant success. Mrs. Weston showed a bag full of silver collected for programmes. She had charged all the men a shilling for programmes.
"And it was worth it," said Darby, "with such a lot thrown in—the 'Watch on the Rhine' and Lancelot's recitation."
"I would not," observed the General, "have missed it for a fiver, especially if the second half is as good and as funny and as er ... patriotic as to tunes."
Lancelot's mother wandered up and down for plaudits for her boy, discussing the "Charge."
"No exaggerations," she said, "no undue emphasizing, just the beauty of the thing—the one swing of the crutch when they were all killed, and my wounded boy doing it."
Sir Abel replied that he had never in his life been so touched by a recitation.
Just then Mrs. Freyne took off her gloves and made nervous way to the piano.