fact, delighted theatre goers before
her marriage, but not on the music hall stage. I showed her the
programme nervously, but I need not have been nervous. She entered
into the spirit of the thing.

A thoughtful sergeant, without consulting me, prepared for her a
dressing-room at the back of the stage. A modest man himself, he
insisted upon my leading her to it. We found there a shelf, covered
with newspaper. On it was a shaving mirror, a large galvanised-iron
tub half full of cold water, a cake of brown soap, a tattered towel,
and a comb. Also there was a tumbler, a siphon of soda water, and a
bottle of port.

"The dears," she said. "But I can't change my frock; I've nothing but
what I stand up in. What shall I do?"

I glanced at the bottle of port; but she shrank from that.

"I must do something," she said. "I'll powder my nose." The shaving
mirror, at least, was some use.

The entertainment began stiffly. We were not accustomed to
entertainments and felt that we ought to behave with propriety. We
clapped at the end of each song, but we displayed no enthusiasm. I
began to fear for our success. But our lady--she did the whole thing
herself--conquered us. We were laughing and cheering in half an hour.
In the end we rocked in our seats and howled tumultuously when the
sergeant-major, a portly man of great dignity, was dragged over the
footlights. Our lady pirouetted across the stage and back again, her
arm round the sergeant-major's waist, her cheek on his shoulder,
singing, "If I were the only girl in the world and you were the only
boy."

We believed in doing what we could for those who came to entertain
us. When we secured the services of a "Lena Ashwell" Concert Party we
painted a large sign and hung it up in front of the stage: "Welcome
to the Concert Party." We forgot the second "e" in Welcome and it had
to be crammed in at the last moment above the "m" with a "^"
underneath it.

We made two dressing-rooms, one for ladies and one for gentlemen.
The fittings were the same--brown soap, cold water, shaving mirror,
tumbler and siphon. But in the gentlemen's room we put whisky, in the
ladies' port. The whole party had tea afterwards in the sergeants'
mess--strong tea and tinned tongue. A corporal stood at the door as
we left holding a tray covered with cigarettes.

I learned to play cribbage while I was in that camp. I was pitted, by
common consent, against an expert, a man who had been wounded at Le
Cateau