like the other terrible people do upon Trafalgar Day, it only makes me
look ridiculous.'

"'Why water-lilies?' asked the Alderman.

"'My favourite flower,' sighed the Lion, 'and, moreover, the one I
never see. You see, the fountains splash about so incessantly that
there is no peaceful place where they can grow, and you wouldn't
believe,' added the Lion earnestly, 'how I sometimes long for those
irritating fountains to stop, and for beautiful water-lilies to grow
there instead.'

"'It shall all be done as you say, and I will ponder over every single
thing you have mentioned,' promised the Alderman.

"'Good-bye till then,' said the Lion in his most sepulchral voice, and
then the Lion smiled at me and said, 'Good-bye, little Skylark.'

"For my own part I had stood by quite silent without saying a word, but
I somehow realized that if I wasn't going to see and speak to my old
friend Lal any more, there were several things I wanted to say, and a
good many more things I wanted to ask.

"'Ere, 'old on 'arf a mo', cocky,' I shouted.

"'Oh, _don't_ call me cocky,' entreated Lal, 'and what _do_ you mean by
that expression "hold on"? Is not my whole life a perpetual exhibition
of "_holding on_"?'

"'You've been a first-class, tip-top pal to me, Lal, an' I wants ter
know first where that there ring wot shined like blazes, and wot 'ung
round my neck and then round 'is, 'as a-gone to? Ain't I to 'ave it no
more?'

"'You will have the memory of it,' replied Lal; 'you have possessed it
once, and I think you will have quite enough imagination left all
through your life without it; in fact, in the future, at times you will
have rather too much imagination for the comfort of your other
fellow-creatures.'

"''Ave I got to go with 'im?' I asked; ''ave I got to say good-bye to
you?'

"'Certainly,' replied Lal in his most stately way; 'you are going to
have a very happy life; you are a fairly respectable kid now, but you
will become more and more respectable until one will hardly recognise
you at all. You are going to have a ready-made Father and Mother which
I have provided you with.'

"'Ain't 'eard nothink about no Muvver yet,' I said; 'where's the Muvver
come in?'

"'Ah! you wait and see,' whispered the Lion mysteriously.

"'Are you a-kiddin' me, Lal? if so, chuck it!'

"'Oh! dreadful, dreadful expressions!' lamented Lal. 'Undoubtedly the
next time I see you I believe your grammar will have improved, and your
vo