more tales!' He seemed to forget that even subalterns might have engagements of their own. 'We're thinking of dining out somewhere-the lot of us-and going on to the Empire afterwards,' said Nevin, with hesitation. He did not like to ask Cleever to come too. The invitation might be regarded as perilously near to 'cheek.' And Cleever, anxious not to wag a gray beard unbidden among boys at large, said nothing on his side. Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurting out: Won't you come too, sir?' Cleever almost shouted 'Yes,' and while he was being helped into his coat, continued to murmur 'Good heavens!' at intervals in a way that the boys could not understand. 'I don't think I've been to the Empire in my life,' said he; 'but-what is my life after all? Let us go,' They went out with Eustace Cleever, and I sulked at home because they had come to see me but had gone over to the better man; which was humiliating. They packed him into a cab with utmost reverence, for was he not the author of As it was in the Beginning, and a person in whose company it was an honour to go abroad? From all I gathered later, he had taken less interest in the performance before him than in their conversations, and they protested with emphasis that he was 'as good a man as they make; knew what a man was driving at almost before he said it; and yet he's so damned simple about things any man knows.' That was one of many comments. At midnight they returned, announcing that they were 'highly respectable gondoliers,' and that oysters and stout were what they chiefly needed. The eminent novelist was still with them, and I think he was calling them by their shorter names. I am certain that he said he had been moving in worlds not realised, and that they had shown him the Empire in a new light. Still sore at recent neglect, I answered shortly, 'Thank heaven we have within the land ten thousand as good as they,' and when he departed, asked him what he thought of things generally. He replied with another quotation, to the effect that though singing was a remarkably fine performance, I was to be quite sure that few lips would be moved to song if they could find a sufficiency of kissing. Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and colourman in words, was blaspheming his own Art, and would be sorry for this in the morning. MY LORD THE ELEPHANT. 'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back at once, For the bullocks are walkin' two by two, The byles are walkin' two by two, The bullocks are walkin' two by two, An' the elephants bring the guns! Ho! Yuss! Great-big-long-black-forty-pounder guns: Jiggery-jolty to and fro, Each as big as a launch in tow- Barrack-room Ballad. TOUCHING the truth of this tale there need be no doubt at all, for it was told to me by Mulvaney at the back of the elephant-lines, one warm evening when we were taking the dogs out for exercise. The twelve Government elephants rocked at their pickets outside the big mud-walled stables (one arch, as wide as a bridge-arch, to each restless beast), and the mahouts were preparing the evening meal. Now and again some impatient youngster would smell the cooking flour-cakes and squeal; and the naked little children of the elephant-lines would strut down the row shouting and commanding silence, or, reaching up, would slap at the eager trunks. Copyright, 1893, by D. Appleton & Co. Then the elephants feigned to be deeply interested in pouring dust upon their heads, but, so soon as the children passed, the rocking, fidgeting, and muttering broke out again. The sunset was dying, and the elephants heaved and swayed dead black against the one sheet of rose-red low down in the dusty gray sky. It was at the beginning of the hot weather, just after the troops had changed into their white clothes, so Mulvaney and Ortheris, looked like ghosts walking through the dusk. Learoyd had gone off to another barrack to buy sulphur-ointment for his last dog under suspicion of mange, and with delicacy had put his kennel into quarantine at the back of the furnace where they cremate the anthrax-cases. 'You wouldn't like mange, little woman?' said Ortheris, turning my terrier over on her fat white back with his foot. You're no end bloomin' partic'lar, you are. 'Oo wouldn't take no notice o' me t'other day 'cause she was goin' 'ome all alone in 'er dorg-cart, eh? Settin' on the box-seat like a bloomin' little tart, you was, Vicy. Now you run along an' make them 'uttees 'oller. Sick 'em, Vicy, loo!' Elephants loathe little dogs. Vixen barked herself down the pickets, and in a minute all the elephants were kicking and squealing and clucking together. 'Oh, you soldier-men,' said a mahout angrily, 'call off your she-dog. She is frightening our elephant-folk.' 'Rummy beggars!' said Ortheris meditatively. "Call 'em people, same as if they was. An' they are too. Not so bloomin' rummy when you come to think of it, neither.' Vixen returned yapping to show that she could do it again if she liked, and established herself between Ortheris's knees, smiling a large smile at his lawful dogs who dared not fly at her. "Seed the battery this mornin'?' said Ortheris. He meant the newly-arrived elephant-battery; otherwise he would have said simply 'guns.' Three elephants harnessed tandem go to each gun, and those who have not seen the big forty-pounders of position trundling along in the wake of their gigantic team have yet something to behold. The leadelephant had behaved very badly on parade; had been cut loose, sent back to the lines in disgrace, and was at that hour squealing and lashing out with his trunk at the end of the line; a picture of blind, bound, bad-temper. His mahout, standing clear of the flail-like blows, was trying to soothe him. 'That's the beggar that cut up on p'rade. 'E's must,' said Ortheris pointing. There'll be murder in the lines soon, and then, per'aps, 'e'll get loose an' we'll 'ave to be turned out to shoot 'im, same as when one o' they native king's elephants musted last June. 'Ope 'e will.' |