The eight pairs of eyes were cast down. Nobody said anything. Each was thinking: “So that dream is over. I mustn’t let anything on before the others”: those who were polishing brass gave an extra twirl to the chamois.
Stonor, suddenly suspicious, narrowly searched the sergeant-major’s face. “Fellows, he’s joshing!” he cried. “It isn’t possible that every one of us has flunked! It isn’t reasonable!”
The sergeant-major roared with laughter. “Wonderful penetration, Sherlock! When I saw your faces I couldn’t help it. You were asking for it. All passed! That’s straight. Congrats!” He passed on down the corridor.
There was a silence in the company-room. They looked shyly at each other to see how the news was being taken. Each felt a sudden warmth of heart towards all his mates. All of them displayed an elaborate and perfectly transparent assumption of indifference. Stonor added a postscript to his letter, and sedately folded it.
Then speech came, at first softly. “Damn old Huggins, anyway. Almost gave me heart-failure!… Wot t’hell, Bill! Poor old Hugs, it was his last chance. Sure, we’ll have him where we want him now.… Think of being able to call Hugs down!… Lordy, Lordy, am I awake!”
Suddenly the unnatural tension broke, and a long-limbed trooper jumped to his feet with his arms in the air. “Boys! Are you dumb! We’ve passed! We’ve got the straps! All together now, Mumbo-Jumbo!”
They marched around the room with their hands on each other’s shoulders, singing:
“For I’ve got rings on my fingers
And bells on my toes;
Elephants to ride upon——”
In a little house in Vancouver, embowered in such greenery as only the mild, moist airs of Puget Sound can produce, a young woman sat in her drawing-room regarding a letter she had just read with a highly dissatisfied air. It was a pretty little room, not rich nor fussy, but expressing the charm of an individual woman no less than the clothes she wore.
To the mistress entered the maid, to wit, a matronly Indian woman with an intelligent face. She looked from her mistress’ face to the letter, and back to her mistress again. When the latter made no offer to speak she said, for she was a privileged person: