"What are your playfings, Mister Colonel?"
"Live men and big guns, just now, Hammy; and chances and issues, and results and risks."
The plume of fair hair fell back, clearing the candid grey eyes as Hammy lifted up his face, confidently lisping:
"I don't quite fink I know what wesults and wisks are, but I'd like to play wif the live men an' the big guns too sometimes ... if you didn't want vem always?"
"We'll see about it, Hammy, when you're grown up."
"Good-bye, Mister Colonel. And I would lend you my beasts an' fings, because I know you wouldn't bweak them?"
"See that Berta has her share in them meanwhile. Off with you, now!"
Later, in the seclusion of the connubial bedchamber, said Captain Bingo, dressing for dinner, the last time for many months, as it was to prove:
"What do you suppose was the Chief's next move, after the engine and tender got in, and the crowd hoorayed him back from the Railway Works? No use your guessin', though. Even a woman wouldn't have expected to find him playin' Noah's Ark in the coffee-room with the Mayor's two kids!"
"I like that!" said Lady Hannah meditatively, arranging the Pompadour transformation, not apparently the worse for the candle-accident of the previous night.