Page:Pleased to Meet You (1927).pdf/151

 "Grand!" said the Colonel. "We'll knock Irving Berlin for a loop. Here we go: That ts the tragic in every sweet magic"

"Yes, even the fairy tales end—" she improvised, in a prettily pretended pathos.

Both paused, struggling for the next rhyme. The Colonel got it first, and warbled in a thrilling espressivo:

He finished off with a fine rich flourish on the mouth-organ.

"Gene, you're wonderful!" she cried ecstatically. "You're much too good for the old League of Nations, you ought to be a bandmaster or something."

The delighted virtuoso replied with both arms and the one word that was his favourite ejaculation.

"Darling!" was his simple declarative statement. One word and two arms, he used to remark, could best express a tender crisis.