was rather decent of her.

"I say, Merivale," Michael began one day, as he and his friend, arm in
arm, were examining the credentials of the front on a shimmering
morning, "I say, did you notice that Miss Carthew called you Alan?"

"I know. She often does," replied Merivale.

"I say, Merivale," said Michael shyly, "supposing I call you Alan and
you call me Michael--only during the hols, of course," he added hastily.

"I don't mind," Alan agreed.

"Because I suppose there couldn't be two chaps more friends than you and
me," speculated Michael.

"I like you more than I do any other chap," said Alan simply.

"So I do you," said Michael. "And it's rather decent just to have one
great friend who you call by his Christian name."

After this Michael and Alan became very intimate and neither held a
secret from the other, as through the crowds of seaside folk they
threaded their way along the promenade to whatever band of minstrels had
secured their joint devotion. They greatly preferred the Pierrots to
the Niggers, and very soon by a week's unbroken attendance at the three
daily sessions, Michael and Alan knew the words and music of most of the
repertory. Of the comic songs they liked best The Dandy Coloured Coon,
although they admired almost equally a duet whose refrain was:

"We are a couple of barmy chaps, hush, not a word!
A little bit loose in our tiles, perhaps, hush, not a word!
We're lunatics, lunatics, everybody declares
We're a couple of fellows gone wrong in our bellows,
As mad as a pair of March hares."

Gradually, however, and more especially under the influence of Japanese
lanterns and a moon-splashed sea, Michael and Alan avowed openly their
fondness for the more serious songs sung by the Pierrettes. The words of
one song in particular were by a reiteration of passionate utterance
deeply printed on their memory:

"Two little girls in blue, lad,
Two little girls in blue,
They were sisters, we were brothers,
And learnt to love the two.

And one little girl in blue, lad,
Who won your father's heart,
Became your mother: I married the other,
And now we have drifted apart."

This lyric seemed to Michael and Alan the most profoundly moving
accumulation of words ever known. The sad words and poignant tune wrung
their hearts with the tears always imminent in life. This lyric
expressed for the two boys the incommunicable aspirations of their