Salemina says that this was not in the least funny, that it was
absolutely flat; but it had quite the opposite effect upon the
Honourable Arthur. He had no command over himself or his horses for
some minutes; and at intervals during the afternoon the full
felicity of the idea would steal upon him, and the smile of
reminiscence would flit across his ruddy face.

The next day, at the Eton and Harrow games at Lord's cricket-ground,
he presented three flowers of British aristocracy to our party, and
asked me each time to tell the goat-story, which he had previously
told himself, and probably murdered in the telling. Not content
with this arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some
of my international episodes to a literary friend who writes for
Punch. I demurred decidedly, but Salemina said that perhaps I ought
to be willing to lower myself a trifle for the sake of elevating
Punch! This home-thrust so delighted the Honourable Arthur that it
remained his favourite joke for days, and the overworked goat was
permitted to enjoy that oblivion from which Salemina insists it
should never have emerged.



Chapter V. A Hyde Park Sunday.



The Honourable Arthur, Salemina, and I took a stroll in Hyde Park
one Sunday afternoon, not for the purpose of joining the fashionable
throng of 'pretty people' at Stanhope Gate, but to mingle with the
common herd in its special precincts,--precincts not set apart,