“Ad wasn’t id beade?” said A. Fish, Esq. “There were four shillings ad threepedce id the boxes, ad the Doctor-id-Law wouldn’t give us a penny of id.”
“Well, I let you pay my fare home. That amounted to the same thing,” replied the little man.
Just then Mrs. Putchy came in with afternoon tea, and I joined my guests in the drawing-room.
CHAPTER VIII
HIS MAJESTY IS INTERVIEWED
The next morning we were all seated around the breakfast table laughing over our adventures of the evening before, when we had visited the Earl’s Court Exhibition together. We had been up in the Great Wheel, and having passed through the pretty old English village were walking around the artificial lake listening to the band playing in their little pavilion on the island in the middle, when the Doctor-in-Law declared that he heard a strange trumpeting sound, and asked me what it could be. I had not heard it and so could not tell him, and we were just discussing the matter when the Wallypug clutched wildly at his crown, and turning around we saw a huge elephant lifting it gracefully off his head with its trunk.
Directly his Majesty realized what it was, he gave a wild scream and took to his heels, as did all the others, with the exception of the Rhymester, who tripped against a stone and lay with his head buried in his arms for some time, kicking and screaming for help.
Of course it was only the tame elephant that carries the children on its back, but to the unaccustomed eyes of the Wallypug and his party it seemed, so they told me afterwards, some strange and awful monster ready to devour them.