most
sacred moments. As they leaned over the rail of the promenade and gazed
down upon the pretty Pierrette whose tremolo made the night air vibrant
with emotion, Michael and Alan were moved by a sense of fleeting time,
by thoughts of old lovers and by an intense self-pity.

"It's frightfully decent, isn't it?" murmured Michael.

"Ripping," sighed Alan. "I wish I could give her more than a penny."

"So do I," echoed Michael. "It's beastly being without much tin."

Then 'Encore' they both shouted as the Pierrette receded from the
crimson lantern-light into obscurity. Again she sang that song, so that
when Michael and Alan looked solemnly up at the stars, they became
blurred. They could not bear The Dandy Coloured Coon on such a night,
and, seeing no chance of luring Pierrette once more into the
lantern-light, they pushed their way through the crowd of listeners and
walked arm in arm along the murmurous promenade.

"It's beastly rotten to go to bed at a quarter past nine," Michael
declared.

"We can talk up in our room," suggested Alan.

"I vote we talk about the Pierrots," said Michael, affectionately
clasping his chum's arm.

"Yes, I vote we do too," Alan agreed.

The next day the Pierrots were gone. Apparently they had had a quarrel
with the Corporation and moved farther along the South Coast. Michael
and Alan were dismayed, and in their disgust forsook the beach for the
shrubberies of Devonshire Park where in gloomy by-ways, laurel-shaded,
they spoke quietly of their loss.

"I wonder if we shall ever see that girl again," said Michael. "I'd know
her anywhere. If I was grown up I'd know her. I swear I would."

"She was a clinker," Alan regretted.

"I don't suppose we shall ever see a girl half as pretty," Michael
thought.

"Not by a long chalk," Alan agreed. "I don't suppose there is a girl
anywhere in the world a quarter as pretty. I think that girl was simply
fizzing."

They paced the mossy path in silence and suddenly round a corner came
upon a bench on which were seated two girls in blue dresses. Michael and
Alan found the coincidence so extraordinary that they stared hard, even
when the two girls put their heads down and looked sidelong and giggled
and thumped each other and giggled again.

"I say, are you laughing at us?" demanded Michael.

"Well, you looked at us first," said the fairer of the two girls.

In that moment Michael fell in love.

"Come away," whispered Alan. "They'll follow us