"Der rose iss ret,
Der fiolet's plue,
Oof I lofe me
As you lofe you,
No knife can cut us togedder!"
This touching bit of sentiment was merely the overture. Carl knew how to play the guitar, for he had once been a member of a knockabout musical team, and he could get music out of anything from a set of sleigh bells to a steam calliope. If he had been able to use his voice as well as he used the guitar, Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton would probably have slept on or even have been lulled into deeper slumber; but there were dull spots in Carl's voice where there should have been sharps, and high places where there should have been flats, and whoops, grunts and falling inflections where there should have been trills, grace notes and a soft petal generally.
Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton stirred uneasily, sat up suddenly in his bed and knocked his high forehead against the iron bar that supported a canopy of mosquito netting. As he rubbed his temples and said things to himself, he listened with growing anger.
"Du hast diamanten und perlen—
(Chimineddy, vat a hotness!)
Hast alles was menschen begehren—
(Whoosh! Der muskedoodles vas vorse as der heat!)
Du hast ja die schönsten augen,
Mein liebchen was willst du noch mehr?"
Captain Reginald Charles Arthur Pierce-Plympton blinked his eyes and began forming a plan of campaign. There was a pitcher of water on a table in his room, a bulldog in the yard, and a valiant assistant in the form of Hadji Sing, his Hindoo servant. Getting softly out of bed, the captain prepared for his attack on the enemy.
When Carl climbed over the wall he had dropped into the yard at the foot of a lemon tree. He had jarred the tree and a half-ripe lemon had dropped on him. This omen should have sent him away and postponed the serenade, but it did not.
After slapping at the mosquitoes and drawing his sleeve across his eyes, Carl went on picking the guitar.
"Now for der nexdt spasm," he murmured. "I vill put der German vorts indo English for der leedle gal, yah, so.
"You haf plendy oof tiamonts und bearls,
Haf all vat a laty couldt vant,
You haf likevise der peautiful eye-es,
My tarling vat more——"
Just then the water descended. It was well aimed and Carl caught the whole of it. Probably there was no more than a couple of gallons, but Carl, for the moment, was under the impression that it was a tidal wave.