My old gentleman yawned, hard as he strove to conceal the fact. "You must excuse me," he purred, when he saw that I had seen, "but really, at this hour— Suppose," he suggested, sinking back on his slab, "you watch a Farce or two, by way of change. How will that do?"
"If you think there are any Farces in the Orient," I said doubtfully, "I'm sure I'd be very glad—"
"It's easy to find out," said he, and moved his hand a little, and—I heard a voice speaking, an even, drawling, dryly humorous voice. This is what it said.
"Want passes, eh? Twelve-hour passes? H'm," says the Captain. Me and Big Terry Clancy and three or four others was standin' up in front of him with three months' pay in our blouses, lookin' pleasant and harmless for a fare-ye-well. "H'm," he says, "you're a fine bunch. Can you remember you're in Maniller now, not Samar?"
"We can, sir," says Terry.
"H'm. Take your mouth out fr'm under your chin, Clancy," says th' Old Man. "It looks better. H'm. Well, go along with ye, and if ye get into trouble ast th' Lord to have mercy on your crazy heads, for ye know well by this time that I won't," he says.
With that he signs the passes, an' that's where he let us all in for it. Yes, sir, me and Terry an' th' Old Man and the Regiment and the Little Brown Brother and the C.G. all had ours comin' right then, on'y we didn't know about it, not yet. We thought we was just homeward bound, and we wanted a little fun with Maniller to make up for the deeprivations of the Samar campaign. We got it all right.
"H'm," says the Captain, dealin' us the passes. "I'm sorry f'r Maniller, but ye have earned a little reelaxation. Don't forget you're f'r guard to-morrer, Casey," he says to me, an' we saluted an' hit th' trail.
Terry and me clumb into a two-wheeled chicken-coop wagon outside the Barracks, and th' horse not bein' only boy's size we lifted him by th' slings, th' pair of us, and just naturally wandered on tiptoe down to th' New Bridge. They give you th' biggest schooner of San Magill f'r your peseta there. New Bridge is th' name. Anybody can tell you.
We had some beers, and then we went across to Mrs. Smith's, and got a steak that never seen a tin can, and then we went back to the New Bridge and met up with some more of th' Army. There was an Engineer't could deal himself th' coldest hand of talk I ever bucked up against, and two Coast Artillerys, and a Marine, an Irishman named Schleimacher, that Clancy remembered helpin' to stuff a jade idol into his blouse, up in Peking those happy days. Maybe there was others. I don't remember.