Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/134

 —rather like a Cabinet Minister), is then the source of a sort of pyrotechnic shower of fish, every one of which is caught and swallowed promptly and neatly, no matter how or where it may fall. Fanny, by the way, is the most active seal possible; it is only on extremely rare occasions that she indulges in an interval of comparative rest, to scratch her head with her hind foot and devise fresh gymnastics. But, all through the day, Fanny never forgets Sutton, nor his shower of fish, and half her evolutions include a glance at the door whence he is wont to emerge, and a sort of suicidal fling back into the pond in case of his nonappearance, all which proceedings the solemn turkeys regard with increasing amazement.

Toby, however, provides the great seal-feeding show. Toby has a perfect set of properties and appliances for his performance, including a chair, a diving platform, an inclined plane leading thereunto, and a sort of plank isthmus leading to the chair. He climbs up on to the chair, and, leaning over the back, catches as many fish as Sutton will throw for him. He dives off the chair for other fish. He shuffles up the inclined plane for more fish, amid the sniggers of spectators, for Toby's march has no claim to magnificence. He tumbles himself unceremoniously off the platform, he clambers up and kisses Sutton (keeping his eye on the basket), and all for fish. It is curious to contrast the perfunctory affection with which Toby gets over the kiss and takes his reward, with the genuine fondness