English ice, which is so very minute that you think it will not be
enough, but which when you taste it is apt to be more than you want. The
spectacle of our simple refection was irresistible, and a crowd of
envious small boys thronged the railing that parted us from the general
public, till the spectacle of their hungry interest became intolerable.
We consulted with the waiter, who entered seriously into our question as
to the moral and social effect of sixpence worth of buns on those boys;
he decided that it would at least not form an example ruinous to the
peace of his tea-house; and he presently appeared with a paper bag that
seemed to hold half a bushel of buns. Yet even half a bushel of buns
will not go round the boys in Battersea Park, and we had to choose as
honest a looking boy as there was in the foremost rank, and pledge him
to a just division of the buns intrusted him in bulk, and hope, as he
ran off down an aisle of the shrubbery with the whole troop at his
heels, that he would be faithful to the trust.

* * * * *

So very mild are the excitements, so slight the incidents, so safe and
tame the adventures of modern travel! I am almost ashamed when I think
what a swashing time a romantic novelist, or a person of real
imagination would have been having in London when so little was
happening to me. There was, indeed, one night after dinner when for a
salient moment I had hopes of something different. The maid had whistled
for a hansom, and a hansom had started for the door where we stood
waiting, when out of the shadows across the way two figures sprang,
boarded the cab, and bade the cabman drive them away under our very
eyes. Such a thing, occurring at almost eleven o'clock, promised a
series of stirring experiences; and an American lady, long resident in
England, encouragingly said, on hearing of the outrage, "Ah, that's