Rattle them off to a popular tune.'
It is the trickiest and most brilliant patter song ever written, I think, not even excepting the Major General's song in The Pirates. Which, by the way, Henry sang next.
'How on earth can you remember all those words!' Corinne murmured. 'And the way you get your tongue around them. I could never do it.'
She tried it, with him; but broke down with laughter.
'I know hundreds of 'em,' he said expansively, and sang on.
It was an opportunity he had not foreseen during this dreadful day. But here it was, and he seized it. The stage was set for his kind of things; all at once, as if by the merest accident. For the first time since the awkward Sunday morning on the beach he was able to turn on full the faucet that controlled his 'charm.' And he turned it on full. He had parlour tricks. Out of amateur opera experience he had picked up a superficial knack at comedy dancing. He did all he knew. He taught an absurd little team song and dance to Corinne, with Mrs Henderson (who had at last come up) improvising at the piano. And Corinne, flushed and pretty, clung to his hand and laughed herself speechless. Once in her desperate confusion over the steps she sank to the floor and sat in a merry heap until Henry lifted her up. Then Henry imitated Frank Daniels singing 'The man with an elephant on his hands,' and H. C. Bamabee singing The Sheriff of Nottingham, and De Wolf Hopper doing Casey at the Bat. All were clever bits; the 'Casey' exceptionally so. They applauded him. Even Humphrey, silent now, leaning on an end of the piano, watching Mrs Henderson's flashing little hands, clapped a little.
Once Humphrey went rather moodily to a window and peered out.
Mrs Henderson followed him; slipped her hand through his arm; asked quietly, 'Who lives across the alley?'
'It's the Presbyterian parsonage,' he replied, slightly grim.
It was after midnight when they set out, whispering, giggling a little in the alley, for Chestnut Avenue.