“Oh, come, Colonel, it is not as bad as that!” Flixton remonstrated.
“You don’t know how bad it is,” Brereton answered, his brooding eyes kindling. And he developed anew his fixed idea that the forces of disorder, once provoked, were irresistible; that the country was at their mercy, and that only by humouring them, a course suggested also by humanity, could the storm be weathered.
The company consisted, for the most part, of reckless young subalterns flushed with wine. They listened out of respect to his rank, but they winked and grinned behind his back; until, half conscious of ridicule, he grew angry. On ordinary occasions Flixton would have been the worst offender. But he had the grace to remember that the Colonel was his guest, and he sought to turn the subject.
“Come, come!” he cried, hammering the table and pushing the bottle. “Let the Colonel alone. For Heaven’s sake shelve the cursed Bill! I’m sick of it! It’s the death of all fun and jollity. I’ll give you a sentiment: ‘The Fair when they are Kind, and the Kind when they are Fair.’ Fill up! Fill up, all, and drink it!”
They echoed the toast in various tones, sober or fuddled. And some began to grow excited. A glass was shattered and flung noisily into the fire. A new one was called for, also noisily.
“Now, Bill,” Flixton continued to his right-hand neighbour, “it’s your turn! Give us something spicy!” And he hammered the table. “Captain Codrington’s sentiment.”
“Let’s have a minute!” pleaded the gentleman assailed.
“Not a minute,” boisterously. “See, the table’s waiting for you! Captain Codrington’s sentiment!”
Men of small genius kept a written list, and committed some lines to memory before dinner. The Captain was one of these. But the call on him was sudden, and he sought, with an agonised mind, for one which would seem in the least degree novel. At last, with a sigh of relief, “Maids and Missuses!” he cried.
“Ay, ay, Maids and Missuses!” the Honourable Bob echoed, raising his glass. “And especially,” he whispered, calling his neighbour’s attention to Vaughan by a shove, “schoolmissuses! Schoolmissuses, my lad! Here, Vaughan,” he continued aloud, “you must drink this, and no heeltaps!”