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‘What on earth’s that for?’ said he.

‘Because you’ve been wearing my evening things,’ I said. ‘I want to get into ’em again, if you don’t mind.’

‘Then you aren’t a reporter?’ he said.

‘No,’ I said, ‘but that shan’t part us.’

‘Oh, hurry!’ cried Eames in desperate convulsions. ‘We can’t stand this much longer. ‘Tisn’t fair on the young.’

‘I’ll attend to you in good time,’ said Wontner; and when he had made careful toilet, he unwrapped the bonnets, put the peacock’s feather into the magenta one, pinned the crimson wing on the blue one, set them daintily on the boys’ heads, and bade them admire the effect in his shaving-glass while he ripped the muslin into lengths, bound it first, and draped it artistically afterwards a little below their knees. He finished off with a gigantic sash-bow, obi fashion. ‘Hobble skirts,’ he explained to Stalky, who nodded approval.

Next he split open the bottom of each sack so that they could walk, but with very short steps. ‘I ought to have got you white satin slippers,’ he murmured, ‘and I’m sorry there’s no rouge.’

‘Don’t worry on our account, old man–you’re doing us proud,’ said Bobby from under his hat. ‘This beats milk-punch and mayonnaise.’

‘Oh, why didn’t we think of these things when we had him at our mercy?’ Eames wailed. ‘Never mind–we’ll try it on the next chap. You’ve a mind, Claus.’

‘Now we’ll call on ’em at Mess,’ said Wontner, as they minced towards the door.

‘I think I’ll call on your Colonel,’ said Stalky. ‘He oughtn’t to miss this. Your first attempt? I assure you I couldn’t have done it better myself. Thank you!’ He held out his hand.

‘Thank you, sir!’ said Wontner, shaking it. ‘I’m more grateful to you than I can say, and–and I’d like you to believe some time that I’m not quite as big a–‘

‘Not in the least,’ Stalky interrupted. ‘If I were writing a confidential report on you, I should put you down as rather adequate. Look after your geishas, or they’ll fall!’

We watched the three cross the road and disappear into the shadow of the Mess verandah. There was a noise. Then telephone bells rang, a sergeant and a Mess waiter charged out, and the noise grew, till at last the Mess was a little noisy.

We came back, ten minutes later, with Colonel Dalziell, who had been taking his sorrows to bed with him. The ante-room was quite full and visitors were still arriving, but it was possible to hear oneself speak occasionally. Trivett and Eames, in sack and sash, sat side by side on a table, their hats at a ravishing angle, coquettishly twiddling their tied feet. In the intervals of singing ‘Put Me Among the Girls,’ they sipped whisky-and-soda held to their lips by, I regret to say, a Major. Public opinion seemed to be against allowing them to change their costume till they should have danced in it. Wontner, lying more or less gracefully at the level of the chandelier in the arms of six subalterns, was lecturing on tactics and imploring to be let down, which he was with a run when they realised that the Colonel was there. Then he picked himself up from the sofa and said: ‘I want to apologise, sir, to you and the Mess for having been such an ass ever since I joined!’

This was when the noise began.

Seeing the night promised to be wet, Stalky and I went home again in The Infant’s car. It was some time since we had tasted the hot air that lies between the cornice and the ceiling of crowded rooms.

After half an hour’s silence, Stalky said to me: ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I believe I’ve been weepin’. Would you put that down to Burgundy or senile decay?’