"You see, me dear," he said, "it was there that I asked her."
"That you asked who what?" enquired Patricia, utterly at a loss.
"You see we'd been walking out for nearly a year; I was a foreman then. I 'ad tickets given me for the Zoo one Sunday, so I took 'er. When we was in the monkey-house there was a couple of little chaps just like that blue-faced little beggar we saw just now." There was a note of affection in Mr. Triggs's voice as he spoke of the little blue-faced monkey. "And one of 'em 'ad 'is arm round the other and was a-making love to 'er as 'ard as ever 'e could go," continued Mr. Triggs. "And I says to Emily, just to see 'ow she'd take it, 'That might be you an' me, Emily,' and she blushed and looked down, and then of course I knew, and I asked 'er to marry me. I don't think either of us 'ad cause to regret it," added the old man huskily. "God knows I 'adn't."
Patricia felt that she wanted both to laugh and to cry. She could say nothing, words seemed so hopelessly inadequate.
"You see this is our wedding-day, that's why I wanted to come," continued Mr. Triggs, blinking his eyes, in which there was a suspicious moisture.
"Oh! thank you so much for bringing me," said Patricia, and she knew as she saw the bright smile with which Mr. Triggs looked at her that she had said the right thing.
"Thirty years and never a cross word," he murmured. "She'd 'ave liked you, me dear," he added; "she 'ad wonderful instinct, and everybody loved her. 'Ere, but look at me," he suddenly broke off, "spoilin' your afternoon, and you lookin' so tired. Come along," and Mr. Triggs trotted off in the direction of the seals, who were intimating clearly that they thought that something must be wrong with the official clock. They were quite ready for their meal.
For two hours Patricia and Mr. Triggs wandered about the Zoo, roving from one group of animals to another, behaving rather like two children who had at last escaped from the bondage of the school-room.
After tea they strolled through Regent's Park, watching the squirrels and talking about the thousand and one things that good comrades have to talk about. Mr. Triggs told something of his early struggles, how his wife had always believed in him and been his helpmate and loyal comrade, how he missed her, and how, when she had died, she had urged him to marry again.
"Sam," she had said, "you want a woman to look after you; you're nothing but a great, big baby."