‘Did you laugh?’ I said.

’I’m not much of a wag myself; nor it wasn’t as if we ’ad time to allow the spectacle to sink in.  The coloured fires was supposed to burn ten minutes, whereas it was obvious to the meanest capacity that the Junior Service would arrive by forced marches in about two and a half.  They grarsped our topical allusion as soon as it was across the foot-lights, so to speak.  They were quite chafed at it.  Of course, ’ad we reflected, we might have known that exposin’ illuminated rockin’-horses to an army that was learnin’ to ride on ’em partook of the nature of a double entender, as the French say—­same as waggling the tiller lines at a man who’s had a hanging in the family.  I knew the cox of the Archimandrite’s galley ’arf killed for a similar plaisan-teree. But we never anticipated lobsters being so sensitive.  That was why we shifted.  We could ‘ardly tear our commandin’ officer away.  He put his head on one side, and kept cooin’.  The only thing he ’ad neglected to provide was a line of retreat; but your Mr. Leggatt—­an ’eroic soul in the last stage of wet prostration—­here took command of the van, or, rather, the rear-guard.  We walked downhill beside him, holding on to the superstructure to prevent her capsizing.  These technical details, ‘owever, are beyond me.’  He waved his pipe towards Leggatt.

‘I saw there was two deepish ruts leadin’ down ‘ill somewhere,’ said Leggatt.  ‘That was when the soldiers stopped laughin’, and begun to run uphill.’

‘Stroll, lovey, stroll!’ Pyecroft corrected.  ’The Dervish rush took place later.’

’So I laid her in these ruts.  That was where she must ’ave scraped her silencer a bit.  Then they turned sharp right—­the ruts did—­and then she stopped bonnet-high in a manure-heap, sir; but I’ll swear it was all of a one in three gradient.  I think it was a barnyard.  We waited there,’ said Leggatt.

‘But not for long,’ said Pyecroft.  ’The lights were towering out of the drums on the position we ’ad so valiantly abandoned; and the Junior Service was escaladin’ it en masse.  When numerous bodies of ’ighly trained men arrive simultaneous in the same latitude from opposite directions, each remarking briskly, “What the ’ell did you do that for?” detonation, as you might say, is practically assured.  They didn’t ask for extraneous aids.  If we’d come out with sworn affidavits of what we’d done they wouldn’t ’ave believed us.  They wanted each other’s company exclusive.  Such was the effect of Persimmon on their clarss feelings.  Idol’try, I call it!  Events transpired with the utmost velocity and rapidly increasing pressures.  There was a few remarks about Dicky Bridoon and mechanical horses, and then some one was smacked—­hard by the sound—­in the middle of a remark.’

‘That was the man who kept calling for the Forty-fifth Dragoons,’ said Leggatt.  ‘He got as far as Drag ...’