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To go to séances with good intentions is like ... like ... holding a smoking-concert in a powder-magazine on behalf of an orphan asylum. It's not the least protection I'm not being profane, my dear it's not the least protection to open the concert with prayer. We've got no business there at all. So we're blown up just the same. "The danger...? Oh! the danger's this, Mr. Cathcart says.
At the same hour a little party of the ship's officers who were off duty, of whom Dick Cavendish was one, were gathered in the ward-room, engaged in the conduct of an informal smoking-concert, and Dick was standing at the piano warbling "Dear Heart" to the doctor's accompaniment it is no longer the fashion for sailors to sing sea-songs when the proceedings were abruptly interrupted by a jolt it was scarcely severe enough to merit the term "shock" instantly followed by a perceptible lifting of the ship's bows and a slight list of her to starboard, while to her smooth, steady, gliding progress succeeded a rapid succession of jerks, accompanied by a sound of rending, distinctly audible in the ward-room in the dead silence that suddenly fell upon the party.
It was the Admiral's gig, rowing softly, that came into the midst of that merry little smoking-concert. It was Judson, the beribboned mandolin round his neck, who received the Admiral as he came up the side of the "Guadala", and it may or may not have been the Admiral who stayed till two in the morning and delighted the hearts of the Captain and the Governor.
As Christmas drew near, and Gueldersdorp, not yet sensible of the belly-pinch of famine, sought to relieve its tense muscles and weary brains by getting up an entertainment here and there, W. Keyse escorted his beloved by proxy, as usual to a Sunday smoking-concert, given in a cleared-out Army Service Stores shed, lent by Imperial Government to the promoters of the entertainment.
Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as incomprehensible lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to aught but a smoking-concert in his life, and who could not pronounce the name of Beethoven without hesitations! The great deed had cost money, and it would cost more money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it was finished with.
"Comrade Otto," he observed, "will now recite that pathetic little poem 'Baby's Sock is now a Blue-bag. Pray, gentlemen, silence for Comrade Otto." He looked inquiringly at the long youth, who remained mute. Psmith clicked his tongue regretfully. "Comrade Jarvis," he said, "I fear that as a smoking-concert this is not going to be a success. I understand, however.
Neither was naturally disposed to asceticism, and if they did not grumble it was only because grumbling would have been undignified. 'Did you dine with the great people on Thursday? Nancy asked. 'Yes, and rather enjoyed it. There were one or two clever women. 'Been anywhere else? 'An hour at a smoking-concert the other evening.
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