"What of that?" asked Dick Dawson; "a band is all very well for making a splash in the first procession to the hustings, but what good is it in working out the details?"
"What do you call details?" said Durfy.
"Why, the popular tunes in the public-houses and in the tally-rooms, while the fellows are waiting to go up. Then the dances in the evening—Wow!—won't Scatterbrain's lads look mighty shy when they know the Eganites are kicking their heels to 'Moll in the Wad,' while they haven't a lilt to shake their bones to?"
"To be sure," said Murphy; "we'll have the deserters to our cause from the enemy's camp before the first night is over;[20] ] wait till the girls know where the fiddles are—and won't they make the lads join us!"
"I believe a woman would do a good deal for a dance," said Doctor Growling; "they are immensely fond of saltatory motion. I remember, once in my life, I used to flirt with a little actress who was a great favourite in a provincial town where I lived, and she was invited to a ball there, and confided to me she had no silk stockings to appear in, and without them her presence at the ball was out of the question."
"That was a hint to you to buy the stockings," said Dick.
"No—you're out," said Growling. "She knew I was as poor as herself; but though she could not rely on my purse, she had every confidence in my taste and judgment, and consulted me on a plan she formed for going to the ball in proper twig. Now, what do you think it was?"
"To go in cotton, I suppose," returned Dick.
"Out, again, sir—you'd never guess it; and only a woman could have hit on the expedient; it was the fashion in those days for ladies in full dress to wear pink stockings, and she proposed painting her legs!"
"Painting her legs!" they all exclaimed.