There was another bellow of laughter. All eyes were turned on their table. John wished he could get away. But they sat on until the lights began to go out, and when at last they were in the street again, John discovered, to his dismay, they were not bound for home but for Pop's flat off Jermyn Street. He suggested going home alone. "Rubbish, the fun's just beginning," cried Fluffy, taking his arm. He was swept along with them. Pop led the way, herded them into a small lift that ran up out of a dark hall in the street. It halted on the fourth floor, where they all emerged. "Wonder if the Colonel's in," said Pop, turning the key. They all followed and the question was answered in the diminutive hall by the emergence from a brilliantly lit room of the Colonel himself. He was big fat man, with a treble chin and thin lips. His eyes were beady and their sockets were sunken and baggy. On his enormous stomach he displayed a heavy gold chain, and as if to augment the size of the foundations of such an enormous superstructure, he wore white spats. A diamond glittered on his finger, six black hairs trailed across his gleaming head, and his teeth were stopped with gold. Anyone more unlike a colonel, John had never seen. When John, later, asked de Courtrai for his regiment, the wise young man laughed. "Oh--he's one of the Nuts," answered de Courtrai. Certainly he was. He kissed the three girls in a fatherly way, poured for them all a whiskey and soda, offered John a cigar, and finally sprang amazingly on to the lid of the baby grand piano, where he dangled his enormous legs. Pop disappeared into an adjoining room. Then it was her home thought John, for she emerged a few minutes later in a kimono, with slippers on and her hair down. She curled up on a cushion by the fireplace, lit a cigarette, and looked up admiringly at the Colonel. He had now dismounted, to permit Fluffy to sing, Wellington accompanying, after which the latter played with a skill and touch that surprised John. When Pop had contributed, "Keep on loving me," to which refrain the Colonel pursed his lips frequently, they called for John to perform. He pleaded excuse, but they would not listen. "I don't know anything, really," he urged, but they forced him down to the piano. "What is it?" asked Fluffy as he played the opening bars. "_O Lovely Night._" Pop looked at Wellington. "My--he's rapid, ain't he?" she said, but John did not hear. There was a strange stillness as he sang. Even Fluffy stared into space, her pretty little face, under the rose shade, pensive. "Makes me all shivery," she whispered, between the verses. Why did he sing this, John was asking himself. It was quite out of keeping with the atmosphere. He was a fool to court failure like this, but he struggled through. No one spoke when he finished. Finally Pop asked for another cigarette.