That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old
gentleman in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of
us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious
eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us,
I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among
them. Plop! We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder
almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The
attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association
band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history,
got out of tune--was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still
more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable,
over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand
should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the west--in
a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of its
movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are
all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible!
People got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned,
the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not
know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from
the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman
in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were
sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness
and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting
the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the Metropole
towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly
the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured
sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of
those chair-attendants who have "Inspector" written on their caps.
"If you didn't throw the dog," he said, "who DID?"