Then she dropped suddenly like a cypress toward Mr. Bazalgette, which
meant "you can kiss me." This time it was her cheek she proffered, all
glowing with exercise and innocent excitement.
Captain Kenealy was the first arrival: a well-appointed soldier; eyes
equally bright under calm and excitement, mustache always clean and
glossy; power of assent prodigious. He looked so warlike, and was so
inoffensive, that he was in great request for miles and miles round
the garrison town of ----. The girls, at first introduction to him,
admired him, and waited palpitating to be torn from their mammas, and
carried half by persuasion, half by force, to their conqueror's tent;
but after a bit they always found him out, and talked before, and at,
and across this ornament as if it had been a bronze Mars, or a
mustache-tipped shadow. This the men viewing from a little distance
envied the gallant captain, and they might just as well have been
jealous of a hair-dresser's dummy.
One eventful afternoon, Mrs. Bazalgette and Miss Fountain walked out,
taking the gallant captain between them as escort. Reginald hovered on
the rear. Kenealy was charmingly equipped, and lent the party a
luster. If he did not contribute much to the conversation, he did not
interrupt it, for the ladies talked through him as if he had been a
column of red air. Sing, muse, how often Kenealy said "yaas" that
afternoon; on second thoughts, don't. I can weary my readers without
celestial aid: Toot! toot! toot! went a cheerful horn, and the
mail-coach came into sight round a corner, and rolled rapidly toward
them.
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