he Crinoline with the powder puffs on
Wenus. Approaching it more nearly, we heard a hissing noise within, such
as is made by an ostler, or Mr. Daimler grooming his motor car.

"Good heavens!" said Swears, "there's a horse in it. Can't you hear? He
must be half-roasted."

So saying he rushed off, fraught with pity, to inform the Secretary of
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; while I hurried
away to tell Pendriver the journalist, proposing in my own mind, I
recollect, that he should give me half the profits on the article.

Pendriver the journalist, so called to distinguish him from Hoopdriver
the cyclist, was working in his garden. He does the horticultural column
for one of the large dailies.

"You've read about the disturbances in Venus?" I cried.

"What!" said Pendriver. He is as deaf as the _Post_, the paper he writes
for.

"You've read about Venus?" I asked again.

"No," he said, "I've never been to Venice."

"Venus!" I bawled, "Venus!"

"Yes," said Pendriver, "Venus. What about it?"

"Why," I said, "there are people from Venus in Kensington Gardens."

"Venus in Kensington Gardens!" he replied. "No, it's not Venus; it's the
Queen."

I began to get angry.

"Not the statue," I shouted. "Wisitors from Wenus. Make copy. Come and
see! Copy! Copy!"

The word "copy" galvanised him, and he came, spade and all. We quickly
crossed the Park once more. Pendriver lives to the west of it, in
Strathmore Gardens, and has a special permit from his landlord to dig.
We did not, for sufficient reasons, converse much. Many persons were now
hastening towards the strange object. Among them I noticed Jubal Gregg
the butcher (who fortunately did not observe me--we owed him a trifle of
eighteen shillings, and had since taken to Canterbury lamb from the
Colonial Meat Stores), and a jobbing gardener, whom I had not recently
paid. I forget his name, but he was lame in the left leg: a ruddy man.

Quite a crowd surrounded the Crinoline when we arrived, and in addition
to the match-vendors already mentioned, there was now Giuseppe
Mandolini, from Leather Lane, with an accordion and a monkey. Monkeys
are of course forbidden in Kensington Gardens, and how he eluded the
police I cannot imagine. Most of the people were staring quietly at the
Crinoline, totally unaware of its significance. Scientific knowledge has
not progressed at Kensington by the same leaps and bounds as at Woking.
Extra-terrestrial had less me