The gymkhana was more remarkable for energy than for any special skill. It drew a crowded house, most of the audience being required from time to time as performers—a circumstance that is apt to restrain criticism, since critics can be really untrammelled only when pleasantly certain of not having to face the limelight themselves. There had been potato-races and obstacle-races; they had chalked the pig’s eye—a competition won gloriously by Mr. Linton, who had at least succeeded in placing the eye in the porker’s snout, whereas no other blindfolded competitor had gone nearer than his hind leg. Gentlemen in sacks had run, and tripped, and fallen, and writhed helplessly, amid unfeeling laughter; ladies had driven blindfolded gentlemen between zig-zag rows of bottles, with the customary results to the bottles; other gentlemen, greatly daring, had raced for parcels of feminine attire, and, donning it in a manner highly unscientific and interesting, had held it about them miserably, and fled for home. There had been races in pairs, wherein ladies had to tie their partners’ neckties and light their cigarettes; blindfolded fighting; egg-and-spoon scurries—in short, all the paraphernalia of what the natives of India call a “pagal” gymkhana—pronouncing the adjective “poggle” and signifying by it a revel of much buffoonery.
It was nearing tea-time when the competitors took their places for the last event, which the doctor, much overheated by his exertions as umpire, called a concession to the fine arts. Music was its basis, and it was run in pairs—the lady sitting meekly on a camp-stool while her partner raced to her, and whistled in her ear a tune which it was her part to recognise. This done, she wrote down the name and handed the document to the whistler, who turned and raced back with it. It was a competition in which musical ability was less likely to score than an ample supply of breath and fleetness of foot.
Norah and Wally were paired together, their most dangerous opponents being Mr. Grantham and a cheery Cape Town damsel whose acquaintance with rag-time airs was little short of the black art. Jim and his partner had survived one heat, but had gone down in the second—owing to the lady’s insisting that “Pop Goes the Weasel” was “God Save the King.” Jim had liked his partner, and his faith in human nature was shaken. He exhorted Norah to “show more sense,” and took his place by the rail to cheer her and Wally on to great deeds.
There were three couples, their male halves being somewhat equally matched in speed. Norah braced herself to her task as they tore down the deck to the waiting ladies on the camp-stools—feeling in her heart that she would much rather race than wait. There was too much responsibility about the feminine part of the business—since no man would ever admit that he had failed to whistle correctly. The flying figures arrived, pell-mell—she lent an anxious ear to Wally’s musical efforts, thankfully recognised “Tit Willow,” and saw him turn to race away, at the same moment that Grantham received his document and started home.
“What tune did you hear?” she asked Edith Agnew, the Cape Town girl.
“Oh, an easy one—‘Tipperary.’ But isn’t it hard to hear!—they puff and pant, and every one laughs, and the sea is noisy—and altogether it’s enough to make Wagner sound like a musical comedy! And they look so funny I can only laugh, instead of writing. Look—it’s a dead heat, I believe!”
It was—Grantham and Wally breasted the tape together, and returned presently, somewhat crestfallen.
“We’re awfully puffed, but it’s the last thing on the programme—we might as well run it off,” Grantham declared. “You don’t mind, Wally?”
“Not a bit—my cheerful lay is naturally so unintelligible that a little puffing can’t hurt it much,” Wally laughed. “Come on—ready, Norah?”
They went back to the starting-point and received the umpire’s instructions; then came flying down the deck. Norah struggled hard to recognise a tune that sounded like no melody she had ever heard, partly because it would persist in mingling with the one which Grantham was whistling desperately to Miss Agnew. Wally came to the end of the verse, and began again, breathlessly. Light dawned on Norah in a flash.