And sad to relate, the life is
beginning to affect the boys. Only yesterday I saw one of our toughest
ponies vamping up the aisle of Mess Hall No. 2 with his tray held over
his head in the manner of a Persian slave girl. The Jimmy-legs,
witnessing this strange sight, dropped his jaw and forgot to lift it
up again. "Sweet attar of roses," he muttered. "What ever has happened
to our poor, long-suffering navy?" At the door of the Mess Hall the
pony bowed low to the deck and withdrew with a coy backward flirt of
his foot.
I can't express in words the remarkable appearance made by some of our
seagoing chorus girls when they attempt to assume the light and airy
graces of the real article. Some of the men have so deeply entered
into their parts that they have attained absolute self-forgetfulness,
with the result that they leap and preen about in a manner quite
startling to the dispassionate spectator. My career so far has not
been a personal triumph. In the middle of a number, the other night,
the dancing master clapped his hands violently together, a signal he
uses when he wants all motion to cease.
"Take 'em down to the end of the room, boys," he said. "I can tell
three minutes ahead of time when things are going to go wrong.
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