There were snapping-crackers and paper caps; and they put them on and pelted each other with the drooping table flowers.
Then Estridge went to the piano and sang an ancient song, called “The Cork Leg”––not very well––but well intended and in a gay and inoffensive voice.
But Ilse sang some wonderful songs which she had learned in the Battalion of Death.
And that is what was being done when a waiter knocked and asked whether they might desire to order breakfast.
That ended it. The hour of parting had arrived.
No longer bored with one another, they shook hands cordially, regretfully.
It was not a very long time, as time is computed, before these four met again.