bt. "It does seem so strange to think
that he was that little boy with the black grubby face that Clo's
carriage stopped for in the street. Just eighteen years ago, dear!"

"The best years of my life, Constantia, the best years of my life!
Well--they think a good deal of that boy at the Foreign Office, and it
isn't only because he's a _protege_ of Tim's. He'll make his mark in the
world. You'll see if he doesn't. Do you know?--that boy ..."

"Suppose you give these crumbs to the Hippopotamus! I've been saving
them for him."

The gentleman looked disparagingly in the bag the lady handed to him.
"Wouldn't he prefer something more tangible?" said he. "Less subdivided,
I should say."

"My dear, he's grateful for absolutely anything. Look at him standing
there with his mouth wide open. He's been there for hours, and I know he
expects something from me, and I've got nothing else. Throw them well
into his mouth, and don't waste any getting them through the railings."

"Easier said than done! However, there's nothing like trying." The
gentleman contrived a favourable arrangement of sundry scoriae of buns
and biscuits in his palms, arranged cupwise, and cautiously approaching
the most favourable interstice of the iron railings, took aim at the
powerful yawn beyond them.

"Good shot!" said he. "Only the best bit's hit his nose and fallen in
the mud!"

"There now, Percy, you've choked him, poor darling! How awkward you
are!" It was, alas, true! For the indiscriminate shower of crumbs made
straight, as is the instinct of crumbs, for the larynx as well as the
oesophagus of the hippo, and some of them probably reached his windpipe.
At any rate, he coughed violently, and when the larger mammals cough
it's a serious matter. The earth shook. He turned away, hurt, and went
deliberately into his puddle, reappearing a moment after as an island,
but evidently disgusted with Man, and over for the day. "You may as well
go on with what you were saying," said Mrs. Pellew.

"Wonder what it was! That fillah's mouth's put it all out of my head.
What _was_ I saying?"

"Something about David Wardle."

"Yes. Him and that old uncle of his--the fighting man. The boy can
hardly talk about him now, and he wasn't eight when the old chap died.
Touchin' story! He _has_ told me all he recollects--more than once--but
it only upsets the poor boy. I've never mentioned it, not for years now.
The old chap must have been a fine old chap. But I've told