Amusements of the common people; a deputy of the Government, proposed by
Skepsey to his hero with a deferential eagerness. Dartrey clapped him on
the shoulder, softly laughing.

'System--Mr. Durance is right--they must have system, if they are to
appreciate a holiday,' Skepsey said; and he sent a wretched gaze around,
at the justification of some of the lurid views of Mr. Durance, in signs
of the holiday wasted;--impoverishing the country's manhood in a small
degree, it may be argued, but we ask, can the country afford it, while
foreign nations are drilling their youth, teaching them to be ready to
move in squads or masses, like the fist of a pugilist. Skepsey left
it to his look to speak his thought. He saw an enemy in tobacco. The
drowsiness of beer had stretched various hulks under trees. Ponderous
cricket lumbered half-alive. Flabby fun knocked-up a yell. And it was
rather vexatious to see girls dancing in good time to the band-music.
One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque of the thing he
could not do.

Apparently, too certainly, none but the girls had a notion of orderly
muscular exercise. Of what use are girls! Girls have their one mission
on earth; and let them be healthy by all means, for the sake of
it; only, they should not seem to prove that old England is better
represented on the female side. Skepsey heard, with a nip of spite at
his bosom, a small body of them singing in chorus as they walked in
step, arm in arm, actually marched: and to the rearward, none of these
girls heeding; there were the louts at their burlesque of jigs and
fisticuffs! 'Cherry Ripe,' was the song.

'It's delightful to hear them!' said Dartrey.

Skepsey muttered jealously of their having been trained.

The song, which drew Dartrey Fenellan to the quick of an English home,
planted him at the same time in Africa to hear it. Dewy on a parched
forehead it fell, England the shedding heaven.

He fetched a deep breath, as of gratitude for vital refreshment. He had
his thoughts upon the training of our English to be something besides
the machinery of capitalists, and upon the country as a blessed mother
instead of the most capricious of maudlin step-dames.

He flicked his leg with the stick he carried, said: 'Your master's the
man to make a change among them, old friend!' and strolled along to
a group surrounding two fellows who shammed a bout at single-stick.
Vacuity in the attack on either side, contributed to th