The first dozen or so 'busses we passed our low comedian greeted by rising to his feet and bowing profoundly, afterwards falling back upon either the tenor or myself. Except by the tenor and myself his performance appeared to be much appreciated. Charing Cross passed, and nobody seeming to be interested in our progress, to the relief of the tenor and myself, he settled down.
“People sometimes ask me,” said the low comedian, brushing the dust off his knees, “why I do this sort of thing off the stage. It amuses me.”
“I was coming up to London the other day from Birmingham,” he continued. “At Willesden, when the ticket collector opened the door, I sprang out of the carriage and ran off down the platform. Of course, he ran after me, shouting to all the others to stop me. I dodged them for about a minute. You wouldn't believe the excitement there was. Quite fifty people left their seats to see what it was all about. I explained to them when they caught me that I had been travelling second with a first-class ticket, which was the fact. People think I do it to attract attention. I do it for my own pleasure.”
“It must be a troublesome way of amusing oneself,” I suggested.
“Exactly what my wife says,” he replied; “she can never understand the desire that comes over us all, I suppose, at times, to play the fool. As a rule, when she is with me I don't do it.”
“She's not here today?” I asked, glancing round.
“She suffers so from headaches,” he answered, “she hardly ever goes anywhere.”
“I'm sorry.” I spoke not out of mere politeness; I really did feel sorry.
During the drive to Richmond this irrepressible desire to amuse himself got the better of him more than once or twice. Through Kensington he attracted a certain amount of attention by balancing the horn upon his nose. At Kew he stopped the coach to request of a young ladies' boarding school change for sixpence. At the foot of Richmond Hill he caused a crowd to assemble while trying to persuade a deaf old gentleman in a Bath-chair to allow his man to race us up the hill for a shilling.
At these antics and such like our party laughed uproariously, with the exception of Hodgson, who had his correspondence to attend to, and an elegant young lady of some social standing who had lately emerged from the Divorce Court with a reputation worth to her in cash a hundred pounds a week.