"Silence!" said I, hammering on the glass lampshade with my fork. "The party begins, like all children's parties, with children's games. 'Going to Jerusalem' will be the first game played!"
"How is that played?" demanded several at once.
I instructed them, gravely; and presently Smith and I, eating our dinner beside the music-box, beheld our guests in their baby costumes marching around and around a row of chairs and, at a given signal, falling into the unoccupied seats with squeals and shrieks and bellows of laughter.
They tired of that, presently, and I laid aside my chicken and glass of claret and, rising, instructed them in the game called "Oats-peas-beans." They listened attentively, but Thusis and Clelia appeared much disconcerted when further revelations on my part disclosed that it was a "kissing" game; and they both withdrew, firmly declining to play it, much to the dissatisfaction of Eddin Bey and Tino.
So Thusis and Clelia came over to where Smith and I were installed, and, while we resumed our dinner, they cranked the music-box in which I had inserted a disk containing the immemorial air of "Oats-peas-beans."
We then became pleased observers of royalty and nobility in baby clothes, hands joined, walking very seriously in a circle in the center of which stood the Princess Pudelstoff, and singing in unison and with all their might:
"Oats-peas-beans
And barley grow,
Though you and I and nobody knows
Where oats-peas-beans
And barley grow!"
"Thus the farmer sows his seed!
(All made motions of scattering something.)
Thus he stands and takes his ease!
(All with hands on hips.)
Stamps his foot,
(All stamp)
And claps his hand,
(All clap.)
And turns around to view the land,
(All turn.)
While waiting for a partner!
While waiting for a partner!
So open the ring
And choose one in
And kiss him when you get him in!"
The singing ceased; the Princess Pudelstoff giggled; then, to his dismay, she pounced upon Eddin Bey, almost throttled that handsome Moslem in her enthusiasm, and gave him a resounding smack amid screams of laughter and roars of approval.
And then the game waxed fast and furious: Eddin Bey chose the Countess Manntrapp and kissed her delicately and courteously; she chose King Constantine, but merely saluted his cheek, much to his exasperation.
Then Tino held the ring, waggish, jocose, bantering everybody with their expectations. But though the queen eyed him commandingly, furiously, he swaggered over to Josephine Vannis and soundly kissed that classic memorial in animated Grecian marble.