If I'm not too old
to dance to the tune of the shells I'm not too old to dance to the tune
of the fiddle and the bow. That's a glorious air floating in from the
ballroom. I think I can show some of these youngsters like Kenton here
how to shake a foot."
"After you, General," laughed Bathurst. "We know your capacity on both
the field and the floor, and how you respond to the shell and the bow.
Come on! The ballroom is calling to us, and I doubt whether we'll
explain to the satisfaction of everybody why we've been away from it so
long. You, too, Harry!"
They rose in a group and went out hastily. Harry was last, and his hand
was on the bolt of the door, preparatory to closing it, when the general
turned to Bathurst and said:
"You've that diagram of ours, haven't you, Bathurst? It's not a thing to
be left lying loose."
"Why, no, sir, I thought you put it in your pocket."
The general laughed.
"You're suffering from astigmatism, Bathurst," he said. "Doubtless it
was Colton whom you saw stowing it away. I think we'd better tear it
into little bits as we have no further use for it."
"But I haven't it, sir," said Colton, a veteran colonel, just recovering
from a wound in the arm. "I supposed of course that one of the others
took it.
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