The Next Day, At The Eton And Harrow Games At Lord's Cricket-Ground,
He Presented Three Flowers Of British Aristocracy To Our Party, And
Asked Me Each Time To Tell The Goat-Story, Which He Had Previously
Told Himself, And Probably Murdered In The Telling.
Not content
with this arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some
of my international episodes to a literary friend who writes for
Punch.
I demurred decidedly, but Salemina said that perhaps I ought
to be willing to lower myself a trifle for the sake of elevating
Punch! This home-thrust so delighted the Honourable Arthur that it
remained his favourite joke for days, and the overworked goat was
permitted to enjoy that oblivion from which Salemina insists it
should never have emerged.
Chapter V. A Hyde Park Sunday.
The Honourable Arthur, Salemina, and I took a stroll in Hyde Park
one Sunday afternoon, not for the purpose of joining the fashionable
throng of 'pretty people' at Stanhope Gate, but to mingle with the
common herd in its special precincts, - precincts not set apart,
indeed, by any legal formula, but by a natural law of classification
which seems to be inherent in the universe. It was a curious and
motley crowd - a little dull, perhaps, but orderly, well-behaved, and
self-respecting, with here and there part of the flotsam and jetsam
of a great city, a ragged, sodden, hopeless wretch wending his way
about with the rest, thankful for any diversion.
Under the trees, each in the centre of his group, large or small
according to his magnetism and eloquence, stood the park 'shouter,'
airing his special grievance, playing his special part, preaching
his special creed, pleading his special cause, - anything, probably,
for the sake of shouting.
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