On the whole, the entertainment had been a glorious success.
The younger children had been given into Ruth’s special keeping, whilst the two elder boys went off with Mr. Busson, ostensibly to knock over cocoa-nuts and shoot at stuffed pigeons and share in various similar sports, which they considered suitable to their advanced age.
But though they returned with a cocoa-nut apiece, they each owned to having had a turn of the “galloping horses,” and more than one go in at the swings. To neither of these latter forms of entertainment were Ruth’s charges admitted. And though Hubert cast longing looks at the “merry-go rounds,” he soon forgot them for the other diversions which came in his way.
There was a wonderful performing dog, which could tell the days of the week; there was a big brown bear, that climbed a pole and danced a jig; and a gold fish, the size of a herring.
This prodigy, wonderful to relate, was reported to sing like a skylark—that is, if he had not “Happened to have caught a cold in his head on the way to Bramblehurst and lost his singing voice for the first time for over ten years.”
These last details of the gold-fish’s personal history were however only furnished after the penny (paid in advance for the privilege of hearing his song) had been safely pocketed by his mendacious owner.
A marvellous peep-show, exhibiting all the principal cities of the world, with their “male and female celebrities, taking an airing in the handsomest streets,” proved a huge attraction to the children.
And after the peep-show, there was the lucky-bag, with its penny dips and marvellous possibilities.
Marygold drew a diamond brooch, and a box with the portrait of the Prince of Wales on it. Hubert got a knife and a pincushion the latter he intended to give to Diana; whilst Gaston drew a whistle and a shawl-pin, with a blue bead for its head, which he at once offered to Mrs. Busson.
Then there was the gingerbread-stall, with its strutting cocks and hens, its gilded elephants and almond-hearted knights and ladies, all very funny to look at, the children agreed, but nicer to look at than to eat.