Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/177

 on a Bank holiday. Even there she was recognised (by our friend 'Arry, no doubt), and knock'emdowns, nigger minstrels and all, even the good old game of "kiss-in-the-ring," were deserted to stare at her (just as at Chiswick and Campden Hill; for human nature is the same everywhere).

When she appeared at the Opera, Patti sang in vain. In vain did our most fashionable preachers preach when Mrs. Spratt made one of the congregation; in vain did Messrs. Huxley or Tyndall lecture in Albemarle Street, or Professor Max Müller at Westminster Abbey, if Mrs. Spratt were among the lectured. Even the whales at the Aquarium would look small by Mrs. Spratt's side, and Cleopatra's Needle would lose its point if Mrs. Spratt drove on the Embankment. At the Crystal Palace people forgot to listen to the big organ; the cattle at the Cattle Show were left in peace; Irish Members obstructed Home Rulers; Mr. Gladstone lost the thread of his impeachment; Captain Shaw lost all control over his men; North London trains ran into Metropolitan; pleasure-vans drove, hooraying, into Marshall and Snelgrove's; steam-rollers rolled bang into Gunter's or Grange's; Old Bailey juries forgot to listen, Old Bailey judges to sum up, Old Bailey barristers were condemned to death, Old Bailey solicitors removed in the van, while murderers left the Court without a stain on their character; and Heaven knows what all besides! and all through Mrs. Spratt being there. Indeed, the only people who in that magic presence seemed to retain some self-possession, and keep an eye to business as well as an eye to beauty, were the pickpockets, who voted Mrs. Spratt a public benefactor; and the photographers, who blessed her very name!

And the best of it is, that everybody wondered how everybody else could be such a fool! especially the intelligent foreigner, who could not make out why, in this land of pretty women, there should be so much commotion about one pretty woman the more. And not such a very pretty woman either, he thought; for prettiness is a matter of taste, and not a mathematical certainty; and he would shrug his shoulders, and exclaim, "Sont-ils drôles, ces Anglais, sont-ils drôles!"

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