It was generally the man's chum who responded in the first instance; for every Æneas in the new legions has his staunch Achates, who collects the praise as for the firm, adding his own mite in a beaming whisper. 'He has his own choir in Edinburgh,' said one Jock of another who was playing and singing the Scottish songs with urgent power. The piano is the surest touchstone in a hut. It brings out the man of talent--but also the bore who hammers with one thick-skinned finger--but also the prevailing lenience that puts up with the bore. I _have_ been entreated to keep my piano locked and the key in the till; and once on the counter I found an anonymous notice, with a line requesting me to affix it to the instrument without delay: 'If you do play, do play--If you don't play, don't!' But a pianist of any pretensions has a crowd round him in a minute; and a splendid little audience it always is. The set concert, as I heard it, was not a patch on these unpremeditated recitals.
One night the hut was full of Riflemen, one of whom was strumming away to his own contentment, but with only the usual trusty chum for audience. I brought my pipe to the other side of the piano, and the performer got up and talked across to me for nearly an hour. He was a dark little garrulous fellow of no distinction, and he talked best with his eyes upon the keyboard, but the chum's broad grin of eager admiration never ceased to ply between us. The little Rifleman had borne a charmed life indeed, especially on Passchendaele Ridge, the scene of his latest misadventures. He was as idiomatic as Ortheris in his generation, but I only remember: 'I looked a fair Bairnsfather, not 'alf!' He was the nearest approach to a 'Bairnsfather' I ever encountered in the flesh, but the compliment to the draughtsman is no smaller for that. A third Rifleman, less demonstratively uncritical than the chum, joined the party; and at the end I ventured to ask all three in turn what they had been doing before the war.
'I,' said the little man, 'was a house-painter at Crewe.'
'And I,' said the grinning chum, 'was conductor of a 28 motor-'bus. I expect we've often dropped you at the Y.M.C.A. in Tottenham Court Road, sir.'
'And you?'--I turned to the last comer--'if it isn't a rude question?'