Here, in a voice which ran through all the notes of the gamut, not however in due order, but like the cat's minuet, high and low alternately, Gingham struck up a strange outlandish sort of utterance, whether talking or singing I could not tell; but, if singing, it was the rummest song I ever heard—a jumping, dissonant compound of bass and treble. Capsicum responded in a similar fugue. The two funny rogues were speaking Chinese! The discovery of Capsicum's semi-gentile extraction tickled my fancy not a little.
"So," said Capsicum to Gingham, "you and Johnny intend to make a joint concern of it at headquarters."
"That's how we've settled it," replied Gingham.
"Can't be," said Capsicum. "Thought you knew all headquarters' rules, regulations, and observances."
"Thought I did know something about them," replied Gingham.
"Well, then," replied Capsicum, "don't you know what department young Johnny here belongs to?"
"Your department, the commissariat department, I always understood," replied Gingham; "saw his name put down so in the list of passengers per packet at Falmouth. If Mr Y— will oblige me by referring to a document, which I had the honour of handing him before dinner, he will find himself there designated accordingly."
Sure enough, so it was: "G. Y—, Esq., Commissary-General's Department, in A. C., with Gingham Gingham."
"But didn't you happen to know that Mr Y—, as you call him," said Capsicum, "was John Barrymore's own nephew?"
"Of that circumstance I was not cognisant," replied Gingham, "till I happened to become aware of it by the conversation during dinner. Still I retained my former impression, that Mr Y— belonged to your department, not to the military chest."