height of fashion. He wore a morning coat, gray trousers, patent-leather boots and spats, eyeglass, immaculate shirt, collar, and tie. He represented, it would seem, a young man about town looking for a friend named Archibald. Presumably he had some difficulty in finding him, for he walked mincingly across the stage, grasping a cane and a pair of gloves in one horny hand, and in the other a very glossy top-hat, which he twirled violently when the spirit moved him. The first lieutenant fidgeted uneasily. The hat, a brand-new Lincoln & Bennett, belonged to him. So did the clothes. The chorus of the song went something like this:
Har-ar-chibald! Har-ar-chibald!
Son of a belted hearl.
Har-ar-chibald! Har-ar-chibald!
I'll bet 'e's mashin' 'is girl.
'E promised to meet me at 'arf-past three;
But 'e's such a nut that 'e's gone on the spree,
With 'is girls, girls, girls.
(Spoken) 'Har-ar-chibald! where are you?'
The words were not conspicuous for their wit or cleverness, but the tune went with a swing, and the audience, highly appreciative, rocked with laughter; and after the performer's 'Now all together, please,' at the end of the first verse, joined in the inane chorus until the roar of 'Har-ar-chibald! where are you?' could have been heard as far as the dockyard gates.
The song eventually came to a close with Archibald still missing, and Stoker Williams, very pleased with himself, left the stage amidst clapping, cat-calls, and loud cries of 'Encore!' But encores were barred, and the curtain came down with a crash.
The next turn was by the P.T.I. (Physical Training Instructor). He was a magnificently built man, and appeared, despite the weather, clad in flesh-coloured tights, sandals, and an imitation tiger-skin. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, advancing to the front of the stage and addressing the audience in the approved music-hall manner, 'with your kind indulgence I will now introduce a few lifting feats without apparatus of any kind. After that I shall have pleasure in giving a display with the Indian clubs. For the first part of my performance I must ask a member of the audience weighing at least ten stone to join me on the stage.'
After some hesitation and tittering, the challenge was presently accepted by Able Seaman M'Sweeny. Tubby, as he was called by his shipmates, was a short, rotund, and very bulbous person, who was a source of unfailing amusement to his friends. He had a fat red face rather like an apple, and a pair of humorous blue eyes; and, being something of a buffoon, was delighted at the idea of making himself conspicuous. He pretended to be very nervous, left his seat amid shouts of laughter and cries of 'Good old Tubby boy!' from the lookers-on, and presently appeared on the stage with the P.T.I.
'This gentleman informs me that he weighs thirteen stone,' said the P.T.I., producing a broad strap; 'one hundred and eighty-two pounds. I first place the strap round him, so'—buckling it round Tubby's middle—'and will now ask him to lie flat on the deck in the centre of the stage.'
This was rather more than M'Sweeny had bargained for, for he guessed what was coming next. But he acquiesced nevertheless, and, turning his funny face toward the audience with a solemn wink, began to agitate his arms and legs as if he were swimming.
Martin, on the verge of hysterics, was slowly becoming purple in the face. He had never seen anything quite so funny in all his life.
'Look at our Tubby boy!' came another loud remark from a youth seated near him. 'Ain't 'e the limit?'
The P.T.I., seeing that Tubby was getting all the applause, became very wroth. 'Look here!' he growled in a very audible whisper, 'is this your turn or is it mine? Knock off playing the fool, can't you!'
The victim, breathing heavily and balanced on his most prominent part, with the tips of his toes just touching the floor, looked up with a grin. ''Ere,' he asked loudly, 'w'ere do I come in?'
The audience rocked in their seats, with tears streaming down their faces.
'Shut your fat head!' whispered the gentleman in the tiger-skin.—'Ladies and gentlemen,' he went on, producing another short strap fitted with a stout hook, 'I hook this into the strap passing round the gentleman's body, so, and shall now carry him round the stage in my mouth.'
The 'gentleman' seemed distinctly nervous, but it was too late to back out now.
The band broke into slow music. The P.T.I, bent down, seized the strap in his mouth, and, bracing himself with his hands on his knees, lifted M'Sweeny a few inches off the floor. Then, with another heave which very nearly precipitated his victim and himself into the middle of the orchestra, he swung his burden waist-high, and staggered slowly round the stage with his back bowed and his muscles bulging.
Tubby, suspended by his centre of gravity, hung limply, with drops of perspiration trickling off his face. He was desperately alarmed lest he should be dropped with a crash, poor man!
The P.T.I., who, judging from his stertorous breathing, had undertaken more than he had bargained for, tottered once round the stage, and then went to the side and lowered his prey gently to the floor out of sight of the audience. At the same time the big drum gave a prearranged and very resounding crash. The audience laughed themselves hoarse, and cheered uproariously. After sundry other feats of strength with a long wooden bar from which depended the limp figures of two Royal Marines, one ordinary seaman, and one stoker, the performer gave his club-swinging display with lively music from the band. It was quite effective, and came to a close with great éclat.
The next item was a very doleful sentimental ditty about a lonely robin. It was sung by an intensely serious A.B., and the bird, it appeared, was on terms of great intimacy with a lady suffering from an incurable disease, who was slowly dying in the top back-room of a cottage. Every morning at breakfast-time the robin appeared on the window-sill; but on one memorable occasion he came rather late, to find the undertakers in the house. The shock unnerved him to such an extent that he died too, poor bird! It was so intensely pathetic that some of the ladies in the back-rows actually wept. The two rows of officers and their wives blew their noses and hid their faces in their programmes. Their shoulders shook visibly, but not with grief.
'The next thing,' said the master of ceremonies—rather perturbed because the last man had exceeded his appointed time by three minutes—'is a song called "Slattery's Mounted Foot," by the members of the troupe.'
The curtain went up to show a man clad more or less as a soldier. He wore a marine's red tunic, baggy blue trousers with broad yellow stripes, a cocked hat with an enormous plume, a naval cutlass, and a pair of leather sea-boots with huge tin spurs. He sang the first verse of a song amidst much amusement, and then started the rollicking chorus:
Down from the mountains came the squadrons and platoons,
Four-and-twenty fighting men and a couple of stout gossoons.
At the cue 'squadrons and platoons' the Mounted Foot, riding home-made hobby-horses with flowing manes and tails, galloped on to the stage. Their appearance was the signal for a volley of shouts and laughter, in which the music was quite inaudible, and truly they were comical. There were six others besides the first man, who, it would appear, was General Slattery himself. They all wore burlesque military uniforms. One was a hussar, another a lancer, a third a soldier in a British line regiment, a fourth an Indian cavalryman with lance and turban all complete, a fifth a cross between a Chasseur d'Afrique and a Chinese brave, and the last an artilleryman. The pièce de résistance was the artillery itself, for
