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, indeed, by any
legal formula, but by a natural law of classification which seems to be
inherent in the universe. It was a curious and motley crowd--a little
dull, perhaps, but orderly, well-behaved, and self-respecting, with
here and there part of the flotsam and jetsam of a great city, a ragged,
sodden, hopeless wretch wending his way about with the rest, thankful
for any diversion.

Under the trees, each in the centre of his group, large or small
according to his magnetism and eloquence, stood the park 'shouter,'
airing his special grievance, playing his special part, preaching his
special creed, pleading his special cause,--anything, probably, for
the sake of shouting. We were plainly dressed, and did not attract
observation as we joined the outside circle of one of these groups after
another. It was as interesting to watch the listeners as the speakers.
I wished I might paint the sea of faces, eager, anxious, stolid,
attentive, happy, and unhappy: histories written on many of them; others
blank, unmarked by any thought or aspiration. I stole a sidelong look at
the Honourable Arthur. He is an Englishman first, and a man afterwards
(I prefer it the other way), but he does not realise it; he thinks he is
just like all other good fellows, although he is mistaken. He and Willie
Beresford speak the same language, but they are as different as Malay
and Eskimo. He is an extreme type, but he is very likeable and ve