My hand was on the elevator button jabbing it fiercely, and my lips replied, “Yes—­yes—­say—­Do you know whether Mr. Allen is in our room?  It is getting late and he must hurry or—­”

The manager continued to look me over still leisurely, then he smiled persuasively, but spoke firmly; realizing that something would have to be done for the good name of his hotel:  “Well now, sir, you wouldn’t be wearing those brown shoes to Lord Bryce’s tea, would you, Mr. White?” And while that taxi ground out two shillings, black shoes slowly but nervously enveloped two Emporia feet, while Henry stood by and chortled in ghoulish Wichita glee!

But if we made a rather poor fist of our social diversions, at least we had a splendid time at the London shows.  And then there was always the prospect of an exciting adventure getting home after the performance was over.  The hotel generally found a taxi which took us to the theater.  But once there we had to skirmish for ourselves and London is a big town, and hundreds of thousands of Londoners are hunting taxis at eleven at night, and they are hard to catch.  So we generally had the fun of walking back to Brook Street in the dark.  And it is dark in London toward midnight.  Paris is merely gloomy.  Rome is a bit somber, but London is as black as the inside of your hat.  For London has been bombed and bombed by the German airmen, until London in the prevailing mist which threatens fog becomes mere murk.  Night after night we wandered the crooked streets inquiring our way of strangers, some of whom were worse lost than we; one night we took a Londoner in charge and piloted him to Leicester Square; and then got lost ourselves finding Piccadilly and Regent Street!  So that whenever we went out after dinner we were never without dramatic excitement, even if it was not adequately supplied by the show.  The London taste in shows seems to sheer away from the war.  In the autumn last past but two shows had a war motive:  One “General Post,” a story of the fall of caste from English life during the war, telling how a tailor became a general; the other “The Better ’Ole,” a farce comedy, with a few musical skits in it, staged entirely “at the front.”  “The Better ’Ole” could be put on in any American town and the fun would raise the roof!  There is no story to it; the show is but a series of dialogues to illustrate Bairnsfather’s cartoons.

[Illustration:  “Well now, Sir, you wouldn’t be wearing those brown shoes to Lord Bryce’s tea, would you, Mr. White?”]

A soldier comes splashing down the trench.  His comrade cries, “Say, Alf, take yer muddy feet out o’ the only water we got to sleep in.”  Again a soldier squats shivering with fear in a shell hole, while the bombs are crashing over him, and dirt threatens to bury him.  A comrade looks in and to his captious remarks the squatting soldier answers, “If you knows where there’s a better ’ole, go to it!” Three men seated on a plum jam box