Explore "An Awfully Big Adventure" by Bartimeus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It may or may not have been the effect of the old brandy, but in all the years Milsom and I were shipmates I never remember him in a mood of such sheer light-hearted reckless gaiety as that into which he seemed to slip on the threshold of the antechamber.
A sing-song was in progress round the piano, but on his arrival the group turned and bellowed for "The Tuppeny Tube. " "The Tuppeny Tube," it must be explained, was a song of his own invention, accompanied by a great deal of patter and not a little horseplay. In pantomime he herded the Public (the newly joined subalterns filled the rôle) into an imaginary overcrowded tube lift, and with clashing fire-irons imitated the closing and opening of the gates. His stentorian bellow of "Urry up there, step smartly! Plenty of room in front! " was the gag that presently involved the Mess and its guests in a furious mêlée amid overturned card-tables and chairs. Little did we guess as we sprawled gasping, breathless with laughter and exertion, on the leather upholstered chesterfields, in what grim surroundings many of us were to hear again and thrill at that slogan.