London she was
rewarded by coming out into Park Lane, with the fine breadth of Hyde
Park open to her eyes and her impulse towards exploration. She pretended
that she knew the Park; but in fact to her older eyes and in its weekday
freedom from crowds it looked so different that she could not link it
with ancient memories. Thus, for a time, its paths and its greenness and
its air of great space gave her unqualified pleasure. She wandered on,
observing the fallen leaves, and the few pedestrians; and looked up at
the blue sky, and marvelled to herself; and then presently she sat down
upon one of the public seats and tried to get some coherence into her
thoughts. She sat there for some time, her shabby little toes cocked up
on the gravel before her, and she began to feel lonely and tired and
restless, as though something further had still to be done. There was
the whole day before her. She could not stay here, because although the
day was clear and fine there was a chill wind, and she was not warmly
clad. Already her hands were feeling numb in the cotton gloves, and her
feet were losing the pleasant tired tingle they had had a short time
before. The sense of innumerable hours which had to be filled was strong
upon Sally, who had never previously had so much time to herself, alone.
So she rose briskly from her seat, walked along the broad pathway, and
came back to the Marble Arch, where Oxford Street began again. This time
she was bent upon looking at the shops, and browsed for a time at the
windows of Lewis's, at the end of Orchard Street. And then she had her
inspiration. A clock told her it was after half-past eleven. May's words
came into her mind: "She might think you was takin' a day off to go to
the Zoo."
"Here, where's the Zoo," she suddenly, without a tremor, asked a
policeman.
"They got plenty white mice," the policeman said. "No good you a-goin'
there."
"Saucy!" rebuked Sally. "Suppose they let you out ... on a chain."
"Quite right," said the policeman. "Didn't want to let me go. Everybody
loved little Sammy. But the Police Force wanted me."
"Fancy wanting _you_!" remarked Sally, witheringly, staring at his
good-tempered face, and, under his helmet, at a pair of bright blue
eyes. He was a "red" man. "Give 'em a bit of ginger, I suppose."
"As you go by the Marrabon Road, you just cross over and go into Madame
Tussaud's. You'll see a lot of old friends and relations there. Charlie
Peace, and Mother Dyer
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