“Come, don’t talk nonsense, but let’s have a song!” said a brother electrician to the sporting youth.
“I never sing,” he replied, “except when hurt, and then I sing out. But see, our best musician has just seated himself at the instrument.”
“I don’t talk shop, Nimrod; call it the piano.”
Most of those present drew towards the musical corner, where Ebenezer Smith, having just entered the saloon in search of Robin, had been prevailed on to sit down and enliven the company. Robin, who had been delayed by difficulty in finding the note-book, stopped to listen.
Smith had a fair average voice and a vigorous manner.
“You wouldn’t object to hear the cook’s last?” asked Smith, running his fingers lightly over the keys.
“Of course not—go on,” chorused several voices.
“I had no idea,” lisped a simple youth, who was one of a small party of young gentlemen interested in engineering and science, who had been accommodated with a passage,—“I had no idea that our cook was a poet as well as an admirable chef de cuisine.”
“Oh, it’s not our cook he means,” explained the sporting electrician; “Mr Smith refers to a certain sea-cook—or his son, I’m not sure which—who is chef des horse-marines.”
“Is there a chorus?” asked one.