"Uncle Ken looks jolly ripping in a kilt," Merivale informed Miss Carthew, when on the last evening of Captain Ross's stay they were all sitting in the rubied light of the hotel table.
"Shut up, showman," said Captain Ross, banging his nephew on the head with a Viennese roll.
"Oh, I say, Uncle Kenneth, that loaf hurts most awfully," protested Merivale.
"Well, don't play Barnum," said the Captain as he twirled his little moustache. "It's not done, my lad."
When Captain Ross went away next morning, Miss Carthew at his earnest invitation accompanied the boys to see him off, and, as they walked out of the station, Merivale nudged Michael to whisper:
"I say, I believe my uncle's rather gone on Miss Carthew."
"Rot," said Michael. "Why, she'd be most frightfully annoyed. Besides, chaps' uncles don't get gone on——" Michael was going to add 'chaps' sisters' governesses,' but somehow he felt the remark was all wrong, and blushed the conclusion of the sentence.
The weather grew very hot, and Miss Carthew took to sitting in a canvas chair and reading books on the beach, so that Michael and Merivale were left free to do very much as they wanted which, as Michael pointed out, was rather decent of her.
"I say, Merivale," Michael began one day, as he and his friend, arm in arm, were examining the credentials of the front on a shimmering morning, "I say, did you notice that Miss Carthew called you Alan?"
"I know. She often does," replied Merivale.
"I say, Merivale," said Michael shyly, "supposing I call you Alan and you call me Michael—only during the hols, of course," he added hastily.
"I don't mind," Alan agreed.
"Because I suppose there couldn't be two chaps more friends than you and me," speculated Michael.
"I like you more than I do any other chap," said Alan simply.
"So I do you," said Michael. "And it's rather decent just to have one great friend who you call by his Christian name."
After this Michael and Alan became very intimate and neither held a secret from the other, as through the crowds of seaside folk they threaded their way along the promenade to whatever band of minstrels had secured their joint devotion. They greatly preferred the Pierrots to the Niggers, and very soon by a week's unbroken attendance at the three daily sessions, Michael and Alan knew the words and music of most of the repertory. Of the comic songs they liked best The Dandy Coloured Coon, although they admired almost equally a duet whose refrain was:
| "We are a couple of barmy chaps, hush, not a word! |
| A little bit loose in our tiles, perhaps, hush, not a word! |
| We're lunatics, lunatics, everybody declares |
| We're a couple of fellows gone wrong in our bellows, |
| As mad as a pair of March hares." |
Gradually, however, and more especially under the influence of Japanese lanterns and a moon-splashed sea, Michael and Alan avowed openly their fondness for the more serious songs sung by the Pierrettes. The words of one song in particular were by a reiteration of passionate utterance deeply printed on their memory:
| "Two little girls in blue, lad, |
| Two little girls in blue, |
| They were sisters, we were brothers, |
| And learnt to love the two. |
| And one little girl in blue, lad, |
| Who won your father's heart, |
| Became your mother: I married the other, |
| And now we have drifted apart." |
This lyric seemed to Michael and Alan the most profoundly moving accumulation of words ever known. The sad words and poignant tune wrung their hearts with the tears always imminent in life. This lyric expressed for the two boys the incommunicable aspirations of their most sacred moments. As they leaned over the rail of the promenade and gazed down upon the pretty Pierrette whose tremolo made the night air vibrant with emotion, Michael and Alan were moved by a sense of fleeting time, by thoughts of old lovers and by an intense self-pity.
"It's frightfully decent, isn't it?" murmured Michael.
"Ripping," sighed Alan. "I wish I could give her more than a penny."
"So do I," echoed Michael. "It's beastly being without much tin."
Then 'Encore' they both shouted as the Pierrette receded from the crimson lantern-light into obscurity. Again she sang that song, so that when Michael and Alan looked solemnly up at the stars, they became blurred. They could not bear The Dandy Coloured Coon on such a night, and, seeing no chance of luring Pierrette once more into the lantern-light, they pushed their way through the crowd of listeners and walked arm in arm along the murmurous promenade.
"It's beastly rotten to go to bed at a quarter past nine," Michael declared.
"We can talk up in our room," suggested Alan.
"I vote we talk about the Pierrots," said Michael, affectionately clasping his chum's arm.
"Yes, I vote we do too," Alan agreed.
The next day the Pierrots were gone. Apparently they had had a quarrel with the Corporation and moved farther along the South Coast. Michael and Alan were dismayed, and in their disgust forsook the beach for the shrubberies of Devonshire Park where in gloomy by-ways, laurel-shaded, they spoke quietly of their loss.
"I wonder if we shall ever see that girl again," said Michael. "I'd know her anywhere. If I was grown up I'd know her. I swear I would."
"She was a clinker," Alan regretted.
"I don't suppose we shall ever see a girl half as pretty," Michael thought.
"Not by a long chalk," Alan agreed. "I don't suppose there is a girl anywhere in the world a quarter as pretty. I think that girl was simply fizzing."
They paced the mossy path in silence and suddenly round a corner came upon a bench on which were seated two girls in blue dresses. Michael and Alan found the coincidence so extraordinary that they stared hard, even when the two girls put their heads down and looked sidelong and giggled and thumped each other and giggled again.
"I say, are you laughing at us?" demanded Michael.
"Well, you looked at us first," said the fairer of the two girls.
In that moment Michael fell in love.
"Come away," whispered Alan. "They'll follow us if we don't."
"Do you think they're at all decent?" asked Michael. "Because if you do, I vote we talk to them. I say, Alan, do let's anyway, for a lark."
"Supposing anyone we know saw us?" queried Alan.
"Well, we could say something," Michael urged. He was on fire to prosecute this adventure and, lest Alan should still hold back, he took from his pocket a feverish bag of Satin Pralines and boldly offered them to the girl of his choice.