the
head with its paw, and they remembered afterwards that his paw was as
soft as velvet, and really wasn't heavy at all.

"Chatter, chatter, chatter," said the Lion, "just like the magpies and
the sparrows, and the fashionable Society people for that matter, but
you must not interrupt. I am just like one of those guides that do all
the talking, and if I am interrupted I lose my place, get all my
thoughts out of order, and all the ceremony will be wrong. Then King
Richard and King Charles will both be down upon me, and say the party
was rotten, and that I was to blame; and as for Boadicea, she has a
nasty temper, and will probably hit me over the head with her reins."

"Oh, Lal, do you mean to say that King Richard and King Charles and
Boadicea are coming to the party?"

"Yes, all of them," grunted the Lion. "Now be quiet, and just listen.
The sulphur tablets which seem to cause you so much mystification are
simply to cause a fog upon the _outside_ of Trafalgar Square, and to
shut out the sight of the most wonderful party in the world from the
gaze of all the other people who have not been invited to it. Imagine
the millions of people who would flock to see such a sight, if it were
not screened off. Drivers of the Buzz Buzz things they call
motor-buses and taxis, loafers, tramps, idlers, City men, work-girls,
curious women--and, by the way, remember that women are always
curious--would flock in millions, attracted by the lovely lights, which
will be brighter than anything you have ever seen, by the jewels, which
will be more dazzling than anything you have ever dreamed of, to say
nothing about the gorgeous costumes that will rival anything displayed
upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, outdo the splendours of any court,
and put the pageant of the grandest pantomime ever witnessed to shame.
Follow me," commanded the Lion, "and you will see what you will see
only once in your lives, and it all begins with the sulphur tablets."

Ridgwell and Christine followed, and were dumb with amazement. The
Lion gently took the packet of sulphur tablets from Christine and
thanked her for providing them. Gingerly he approached each of the
other three sleeping lions in turn and insinuatingly placed two in the
mouth of each lion; one tablet each side between each lion's big front
teeth and its tongue.

"It's a dreadful habit," said the Pleasant-Faced Lion, "to suck sulphur
tablets in your sleep, but I suppose it's soothing. N