Volume VII - Modernist Magazines Project

By Hubert Crackanthorpe 257harnessing " Tim" to the lions' cage ; within the elephant tentMaggie was boiling the water for tea, and laying the cloth on thepiled trusses of hay.One after another I bid them good-bye, strangely reluctant toleave them, childishly eager to prolong indefinitely this shortmoment of departure. The " lieutenant" and I promised to writeregularly to one another, and we hurriedly arranged how we wouldmeet again next year in the South.Then I pushed my way through the crowd of loungers thatsurrounded the camp, and turned slowly away down the boulevardtowards the railway station.Twenty minutes later, as my train steamed out of the city, Icould hear the distant wavering strains of the band, and I couldsee the sunlight glinting on the white, bulging canvas of the bigshow-tent.