“Yes, sir.”

“Well, we’ll have our opening hymn, ’Keep the home fires burning.’”

And didn’t those boys sing that! Some of them were smoking, and I wasn’t
going to tell them not to smoke. That would have put their backs up. They
were British boys and they knew what to do when the right moment came. And
so I said, “Boys, you sang that very well, but you were not _all_ singing.
Now, if we have another, will you all sing?” And they answered, “Yes.” I
knew if they sang they couldn’t smoke. So we had “Pack up your troubles,”
and this time every smoke was out and every boy was singing. “We’ll have
another,” said I, when they had finished; “we’ll have—

“Way down in Tennessee
Just try to think of me
Right on my mother’s knee.’ ”

I knew if I got them round their mothers’ knees I should be all right.

“Now, boys,” I said, “what am I to talk to you about?” I let them choose
their subject very often.

“Tell us the story of the gipsy tent,” they called out.

And there I was at home, and it was all right, and for an hour I told them
the story of how grace came to that gipsy tent—the old romance of love.

“Now, boys, I’m through,” I said when I had spoken for an hour—and they
gave me an encore. When I had finished my encore, the dear old Colonel got