“Turned out the Guard—horse, foot, and guns!”
A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:
“Yes, Sir…. What, Sir?… I never heard they said that,” he laughed, “but it would be just like ’em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir. Opposite the Statue? Yes, Sir.”
He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.
“Bayley’s playing up for you. Now you’ll see some fun.”
“Who’s going to catch it?” I demanded.
“Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that it’s en état de partir, and Bayley’s going to take him at his word and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the mansard roof!”
He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the building to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the flagstaff that crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black storm-cone followed.
“Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir,” said Burgard down the telephone. “Now we’d better go to the riding-school. The battalion falls in there. I have to change, but you’re free of the corps. Go anywhere. Ask anything. In another ten minutes we’re off.”
I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of houses and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open windows of this dial-dotted eyrie.