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He established an equilibrium in the gutter. It would not have mattered so seriously if he had not been a bandsman. It became known that similar scenes were enacting at the thresholds of other inns. And the judicious were sad.
Then Brumpton's smooth, round face grew dim, and in its place there was the haughty, self-satisfied young officer, proud of his regimentals and scornfully gazing at the young bandsman as he passed. Dick could bear it no longer; he felt that he must get back into the open air, and to some place where he could be in peace while he made up his mind what to do.
Jerry coughed and then began: "The Late Fire at the Barracks. We understand that Lieutenant Sir Mark Frayne, of the 310th, has presented Smithson, the gallant young bandsman of the 205th Fusiliers, with a handsome cheque as a memento of his prowess daring the catastrophe after the military ball was nearly over. Smithson, we are glad to say, is convalescent."
The superintendent left to perform his mission, and orders were given to the military provosts; but another day passed away, and neither civil nor military police had anything to report. No one had seen the young bandsman on his way to some distant railway station, and men began to shake their heads, while Jerry's face looked hollow from anxiety.
The colonel and major left the barracks some time later, and were driven up to the quarters of the colonel of the 310th, who looked surprised at the visit, but said en passant "I have just heard that your missing bandsman has been found. Suicide, I suppose?" "Or attempted murder!" said the colonel gravely. "We have come about that."
"Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with whom? with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment, without money, and whose father alas! I must now tell you all was the bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law."
Before I ever saw a West End Londoner I knew beautiful from ugly, rare from common, in music, speech, costume, and gesture; for in my father's operatic and theatrical companies there did come now and then, among the crowd of thirdraters, a dancer, an actor, a scenepainter, a singer, or a bandsman or conductor who was a fine artist.
That's what makes it sound so nice. I wish I could play the snare-drum. In the Mechanicsburg band is a boy about fourteen years old, a muscular, sturdy chunk of a lad. He walks with his heels down, his calves bulged out behind, his head up, and the regular, proper swagger of a bandsman. He hasn't any uniform, but he's all right.
"Leave me, if you please!" I went back to the cafe. The two young men had disappeared, so had Jules, but everything else was going on just as before; the bandsman still twanging out his czardas; the waiters serving drinks; the orientals trying to sell their carpets. I paid the bill, sought out the manager, and apologised.
Perhaps the moment of which he was most proud in all his life was that, when, at the finish of his school mile, he overheard a vulgar bandsman say: "I like that young 's running; he breathes through his nose." At that moment, if he had stooped to breathe through his mouth, he must have won; as it was he had lost in great distress and perfect form.
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