Homewards I came at last. Down the gravel pathways and across smooth green lawns—(No "Keep off the Grass" notices in Kew Gardens!)—and between bushes laden with white, glistening blossoms, and by the side of tulip and hyacinth beds. And, everywhere, was the song of birds. . . .
I tried, in a moment of voluntarily-imposed melancholy, to think of the office and clerkdom. But I couldn't grip or visualize it. And yet Africa seemed extraordinarily near and real.
Behind some bushes on the left, I caught a glimpse of the African Crane—"Freddy," as Molly called him. He came striding along in that haughty and lady-like way of his—an ash-gray symbol of the true poetry of motion. I wondered if I should ever see his brothers and sisters in their native habitat.
I strolled towards him, but he moved gracefully and disdainfully away. Probably, he despised me. What did I, a wretched civil servant, know of his life and ambitions? What right had I to pay a penny to come and gaze at him as if he was some curio in a museum?
I agreed with him. When I reached Africa it was I who would be a curiosity—I who would be an object of scrutiny and, possibly, amusement. I recalled those wicked and cunning little monkey-eyes in my dreams of the previous night, and I couldn't help laughing. It seemed so ludicrous to think that presently the measure of my importance in a Government office would be turned topsy-turvy and have to adjust itself to the ape standard of the African jungle. What would be the value of my civilized brain when pitted against their natural cunning and cruelty and physical strength? Would they be impressed by the position I took in that infernal entrance examination? Which would win—brains or beef?
As I came out of the Gardens into the main road I heard the sound of an aeroplane engine, looked up, and saw the black speck of machinery travelling slowly up river. The pavements, the houses, the busses and motor cars, and the people around me took on an air of unreality. In an instant I was in Gaboon, setting out to fetch our daily cargo of live gorillas.
"Whoa—guv'nor!" cried a voice.
I lowered my gaze just in time to avert a collision with a ladder and innumerable pots and pans, and once more the paraphernalia of modern civilization obtruded itself into my consciousness.
"Better 'phone to the office," I thought, "and let them know I'm not coming to-day. I wonder who'll have to tackle that Wilson file now? What a mess! What a conglomeration of correspondence and Board's orders! What a fuss over nothing! Why do civil servants and their overlords spend their lives in writing and talking and arguing with one another?"
I didn't bother to answer the question—it all seemed such a feeble waste of time and energy.