This lyric seemed to Michael and Alan the most profoundly moving accumulation of words ever known. The sad words and poignant tune wrung their hearts with the tears always imminent in life. This lyric expressed for the two boys the incommunicable aspirations of their most sacred moments. As they leaned over the rail of the promenade and gazed down upon the pretty Pierrette whose tremolo made the night air vibrant with emotion, Michael and Alan were moved by a sense of fleeting time, by thoughts of old lovers and by an intense self-pity. “It’s frightfully decent, isn’t it?” murmured Michael. “Ripping,” sighed Alan. “I wish I could give her more than a penny.” “So do I,” echoed Michael. “It’s beastly being without much tin.” Then ‘Encore’ they both shouted as the Pierrette receded from the crimson lantern-light into obscurity. Again she sang that song, so that when Michael and Alan looked solemnly up at the stars, they became blurred. They could not bear The Dandy Coloured Coon on such a night, and, seeing no chance of luring Pierrette once more into the lantern-light, they pushed their way through the crowd of listeners and walked arm in arm along the murmurous promenade. “It’s beastly rotten to go to bed at a quarter past nine,” Michael declared. “We can talk up in our room,” suggested Alan. “I vote we talk about the Pierrots,” said Michael, affectionately clasping his chum’s arm. “Yes, I vote we do too,” Alan agreed. The next day the Pierrots were gone. Apparently they had had a quarrel with the Corporation and moved farther along the South Coast. Michael and Alan were dismayed, and in their disgust forsook the beach for the shrubberies of Devonshire Park where in gloomy by-ways, laurel-shaded, they spoke quietly of their loss. “I wonder if we shall ever see that girl again,” said Michael. “I’d know her anywhere. If I was grown up I’d know her. I swear I would.” “She was a clinker,” Alan regretted. “I don’t suppose we shall ever see a girl half as pretty,” Michael thought. “Not by a long chalk,” Alan agreed. “I don’t suppose there is a girl anywhere in the world a quarter as pretty. I think that girl was simply fizzing.” They paced the mossy path in silence and suddenly round a corner came upon a bench on which were seated two girls in blue dresses. Michael and Alan found the coincidence so extraordinary that they stared hard, even when the two girls put their heads down and looked sidelong and giggled and thumped each other and giggled again. “I say, are you laughing at us?” demanded Michael. “Well, you looked at us first,” said the fairer of the two girls. In that moment Michael fell in love. “Come away,” whispered Alan. “They’ll follow us if we don’t.” “Do you think they’re at all decent?” asked Michael. “Because if you do, I vote we talk to them. I say, Alan, do let’s anyway, for a lark.”