[A] See page [137] for short story.
Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of grass, but I could see she was still thinking about that animal race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without a tortoise and a peacock, and she saw this, though not willingly.
It was H. O. who said:
"Doing anything with animals is prime! if they only will. Let's have a circus!"
At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald's memory and he stretched himself, sat up, and said:
"Bully for H. O. Let's!"
The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up and said "Let's!" too.
Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of animals at our command. The rabbits and the guinea-pigs, and even all the bright, glass-eyed, stuffed denizens of our late-lamented Jungle, paled into insignificance before the number of live things on the farm.
(I hope you do not think that the words I use are getting too long. I know they are the right words. And Albert's uncle says your style is always altered a bit by what you read. And I have been reading the Vicomte de Bragelonne. Nearly all my new words come out of those.)
"The worst of a circus is" Dora said, "that you've got to teach the animals things. A circus where the performing creatures hadn't learned performing would be a bit silly. Let's give up a week to teaching them and then have the circus."