The company advanced on the green with the precision of people well broke to these movements. Scene-shifters could not have been quicker with the three-piece rostrum, nor stewards with the harmonium. Almost before its cross-legs had been kicked into their catches, certainly before the tourists by the lodge-gates had begun to move over, a woman sat down to it and struck up a hymn:
Hear ther truth our tongues are telling,
Spread ther light from shore to shore,
God hath given man a dwelling
Flat and flat for evermore.
When ther Primal Dark retreated,
When ther deeps were undesigned,
He with rule and level meted
Habitation for mankind!
I saw sick envy on Bat's face. 'Curse Nature,' he muttered. 'She gets ahead of you every time. To think I forgot hymns and a harmonium!'