She sang it well, and the lyric was rather a pretty one.
“What about encores?” Alfred Kendal enquired, looking alertly round him.
“We haven’t quite got to that yet.”
“I say, why not have one of the verses of the real ‘Bulbul Ameer’ song brought in each time as an encore? I call that a piece of sheer inspiration, don’t you?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” said Bill Patch grinning; and was further, and unnecessarily, supported by Christopher Ambrey, who said that personally, and speaking quite dispassionately, he called it a piece of sheer senselessness. The “Bulbul Ameer” song was already being given at the beginning, and at the end, and played at all sorts of critical moments throughout the piece, and surely there was no need to hear it more than forty-eight times in one evening?
“Do you really mean that one song is to be played forty-eight times?” said Mumma. “Fancy! forty-eight times! Do you hear that, Puppa? Why, we shall all know it quite well.”
General Kendal gave no assent to this proposition, reasonable though it was. He had been fidgeting for some time.
“I say, Patch, do you remember a pair of boots of mine?”
“Hessian boots,” put in Mumma, helpfully.
“That’s right, Hessian boots. It’s not of the slightest consequence, of course, but you don’t often see those Hessian boots about, nowadays. How would it be to give them some sort of prominence? Just draw the attention of the audience to them, in some way, if you know what I mean. I should think it could be worked in, somehow.”