All went well till the time came for the 
sailors to leave the arena. This was the 
critical moment, and to my horror every- 
thing went wrong. The outside files took a 
wrong turn, and immediately everybody was 
at sixes and sevens. I changed the tune and 
made frantic motions — which in the semi- 
darkness only made confusion doubly con- 
founded — and I was at my wits’ end what to 
do when one of their petty officers who was 
standing by me said : “ Let ’em be, sir ; 
they’ll get out somehow, you’ll see.” 
They did. I do not know to this day how 
they did it. Evidently Jack is not called the 
handv-man for nothing. Some got out at 
one exit and some at another, it is true, but 
at any rate they got out, and I do not think 
the audience ever guessed what a fiasco had 
been so narrowly avoided, for the applause 
was quite as warm as usual and no remarks 
were ever made so far as I know. 
A still more amusing tattoo experience 
occurred at a fete a few years ago. This was 
held in a natural arena surrounded by hills. 
The tattoo took place after dark, of course, and 
it was arranged that the torch-bearers should 
wait behind the hills, out of sight, and, at a 
given signal, enter the valley in single files 
from four different directions — like four 
serpents of fire, which were to wend in and 
out of each other until they were massed in 
the centre. 
There were present eight pipers. These 
played their bagpipes, and their tuning-up 
was the signal for the torch-bearers to march. 
Well, the pipers commenced to blow lustily. 
and almost at once the heads of the four 
columns appeared Oyer the hills. But instead 
of wending across the valley and then back 
to the centre as directed, each column 
marched straight ahead and vanished behind 
the opposite hill. 
Minute after minute went by. The three 
or four tunes which the pipers had rehearsed 
were played out and played again, and soon 
the pipers were u played out ” themselves ! 
First one dropped out and then another. At 
the end of twenty minutes they were taking 
it in turns, one or two blowing while the others 
rested, but ten minutes later they were all 
so utterly winded that only one poor fellow 
could keep going at all, and I was obliged to 
call upon the bands to relieve them, soon 
after which the torch-beaters appeared again 
and the necessary evolutions were completed. 
Needless to say, I was very much annoyed at 
what had occurred, and I asked the official in 
command of the torch-bearcrs what on earth 
had happened. lie explained that at the last 
moment it had struck him that to merely do 
as he had been directed would have taken too 
short a time, so he had told the men to march 
across the valley and right round the hills. 
Thus they had gone for a route march on their 
own account, blissfully oblivious of the fact 
that they were quite out of sight ! I need 
hardly add that, being annoyed at the time, 
1 said a few strong words about obeying 
instructions, etc. 
One last story of a more personal nature. 
At Olympia one day I was accosted by a 
gentleman who had engaged the band to play 
