Young Lady who frequents Wallack’s.  “Who is that Clumsy Trumpeter?  I don’t know him.”

Accompanying Young Man.  “Why, don’t you know STODDART?”

Young Lady.  “Nonsense; that isn’t STODDART.  Why, he hasn’t sworn once.”

Fast Young Man.  “STODDART isn’t himself to-night.  He hasn’t the spirit to swear.  Did you hear the good thing he said Monday night about Miss MOORE?  It was devilish good.  Says he—­” (Repeats an indelicate joke.)

Irate Old Gentleman who overhears the story.  “If he said that, sir, he ought to have been hissed off the stage, sir; and turned out of the company, sir!  It was an insult to an estimable lady, and an outrage on the audience, sir!”

The second act takes place in the salon of ESTELLE.  The Colonel and his Commanding Sister lay siege to ESTELLE’S heart.  Graceless Private, in evening dress, countermines the Colonel’s forces and routs them, wading deeper than before in the exhilarating surf of love, hand in hand with ESTELLE. (This metaphor has been leased for a term of years to a distinguished hydropathic poet.) Clumsy Trumpeter drops books and things all over the room, and recognises the Graceless Private.  Finally the Colonel and the latter quarrel, and go out in the back yard to fight, where the Private is wounded in the arm.  The Colonel returns and announces the result to ESTELLE, who swoons, or at all events, makes an admirable feint of so doing.  Curtain.

Fast Young Man.  “STODDART didn’t try his good joke to-night.  He’ll say something yet, though, before the play is over.”

Every body Else.  “Did you ever see better acting than WYNDHAM’S and Miss MOORE’S?  And how capitally FISHER and Miss MESTAYER are playing?  STODDART positively hasn’t sworn yet.  What can be the matter with him?”

Inquiring Maiden, to her travelled lover.  “Are the uniforms just like those of the real French Lancers?”

Travelled Lover.  “Very nearly.  There is one button too many on the front of the Colonel’s coat.  I know the regiment well.  It’s the crack artillery regiment in the French service.”

Act III. shows us the Graceless Private brought before the Colonel for examination.  He feigns drunkenness, but the Colonel suspects him of having been his adversary at the ball.  ESTELLE visits the Colonel in order to save her Private lover.  He is proved to have broken his arrest, and is sentenced to death.  ESTELLE offers to marry the Colonel if he will pardon the Private.  The latter’s discharge arrives in the nick of time, and as he is thus beyond the reach of the Colonel’s vengeance, he graciously pardons him, and joins his hand to that of ESTELLE. He remarks—­or ought to—­“Bless you, my children.”  Every body suddenly finds out that every body else is noble and generous.  And so the curtain falls upon a happy garrison, including a Trumpeter who has not sworn a single oath.