“Hessian boots, and a belt, and a busby, would give the idea of a Russian, I thought,” Bill Patch explained. “And we thought of doing something with that old song, ‘The Bulbul Ameer.’ You could make quite a lot out of it, and it would be much easier to dress up to that sort of thing than to a regular play. You remember the song I mean?”
“I brought it with me,” said Mrs. Fazackerly. And then and there she read it aloud to us, in her pleasant, rather pathetic voice.
“The sons of the Prophet are hardy and bold,
And quite unaccustomed to fear;—
But, of all, the most reckless of life or of limb,
Was Abdul, the Bulbul Ameer.
When they wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or to shout ‘hull-a-loo’ in the rear—
Or to storm a redoubt, they straightaway sent out
For Abdul, the Bulbul Ameer.