PATRIOTISM OF THE EIGHTIES 



An hour afterwards my friend joined me. " You 

 lucky old beggar," he said, " you have won a hundred 

 pounds." Mind you, while I was very much elated, 

 I remembered that I had not seen some of the other 

 notable horses as runners on that day which I had 

 noticed in the betting. But we didn't stop to think 

 that we hadn't won, so there was ample excuse for 

 the watch " going in " in order that there should be 

 a dinner-party of four. Of course my pal was one of 

 them, and the two others were not men — nor boys 

 either 1 I think we drank sparkling hock, also moselle, 

 in those days. It was nice and palatable and sweet. 

 We loved mock-turtle soup too, duck and sweet 

 omelettes, and no dinner was complete without a 

 bottle of port in the " cradle." It was pleasing to 

 follow a dinner of this kind by seats at a " hall." 

 There we would roar out " Dear Old Pals " or 

 " Johnny's up the Orchard " with the great Mac- 

 Dermott, or follow the insinuating lead of the late 

 Fred Coyne, and wish we could improvise as well as 

 the great Charles Williams. There was another 

 vocalist who was the vogue too, Fred Albert. I 

 recollect two or three years later — during the Russo- 

 Turkish war — he had a song the choiiis of which ran 

 as follows : — 



''While England has her sons, 

 Her vessels and her guns, 

 No one shall her honour defy ; 

 We'll show the Russian Czar, 

 The sort of men we are, 

 For we mean to keep our Empire in the East." 



We had forgotten the winning event of the day 

 until the obsequious waiter who brought us the drinks 

 (we drank in the auditorium in those days) said to 



13 



