The Tale of Lal Part 3

BY ORDER OF THE LION

"Hullo, Lal!" said Ridgwell, as he looked up at the Lion the following evening.

"Hullo!" rejoined the Lion huskily. "Who is that you have brought with you?"

"This is Christine," said Ridgwell.

"How do you do?" said the Pleasant-Faced Lion, and he seemed to look even more pleasant than usual. The Lion stretched himself, descended from his pedestal, and held out his paw to shake hands with Christine: Christine responded to these greetings shyly.

Ridgwell really thought the Lion was one of the most amiable creatures he had ever met.

"If you do not mind," the Lion observed to Christine, "you might walk upon the other side of Ridgwell and not next to me."

"Oh, Lal, why?" asked Christine.

"Who asked Christine to call me Lal?" inquired the Lion, as he lifted his head up with an intensely comical air of self-importance.

"I did," said Ridgwell; "you told me always to call you Lal."

"Quite right," replied the Lion. "But do you always do exactly alike, you two?"

"Yes, always," said Ridgwell.

"Humph!" grunted the Lion. "Suppose there is only one apple and you both want it, what happens?"

"We exactly divide it," said Ridgwell.

"Mathematically correct," said the Lion. "Good."

"But please why can't I walk next to you, _Mister_ Lion?"

"Ha!" shrieked the Lion, "there she goes, Mister Lion. You taught her that too, I suppose."

"Hush, Lal," said Ridgwell, "don't get excited. Christine will soon get out of the habit and call you Lal, directly she knows how pleasant you are."

"You haven't answered my question, Lal," objected Christine.

"Well, little Christine, it is like this," and the Lion pondered deeply for awhile. "If you walked _next_ to me and rested your hand upon my mane as you are doing now, anybody who saw us might take us for Una and the Lion, otherwise Beauty and the Beast, and oh! my dear child,"

implored the Lion, "you surely could not wish me ever to be called a _beast_."

"Of course not," said Christine; "we wouldn't hurt your feelings for worlds. So, Ridgie, you walk next to Lal, and I will walk the other side of you."

"A most reasonable child," muttered the Lion, "really quite reasonable."

"Did you bring the sulphur tablets?" asked the Lion mysteriously.

"Yes, here they are. Christine has them wrapped up in a packet,"

explained Ridgwell; "but, Lal, what can you want with sulphur tablets?

You promised me we should both be asked to the party, but sulphur tablets do seem such an odd thing to want as a start. I have thought over it, and Christine has thought over it, and we cannot really think what they can be for."

The Lion chuckled his most pleasant chuckle.

"Give it up?"

"Yes," nodded Ridgwell.

"So would any one else," grinned the Lion, "except me. Have you ever thought how the thick yellow London fogs come?" inquired the Lion insinuatingly. "Do you know what causes them?"

"No," said Ridgwell. "I don't think anybody knows that."

"I do," replied the Lion.

"What causes them, then?" asked Ridgwell.

"The yellow fogs are caused solely by the habit the other three lions have of sucking sulphur tablets whilst they are asleep," declared the Lion. "They are always sleeping, and directly two sulphur tablets are placed in the corner of each one's mouth they go on sleeping and breathing, sleeping and breathing. The result is a thick yellow fog."

"I never knew that was the cause of London fogs," mused Ridgwell.

"One of them," sighed the Lion; "and who can wonder at it? Just look at the size of their mouths."

"But your mouth is as large as theirs, is it not?" debated Christine.

"Yes," said the Lion, "but there is a particular reason for my mouth being large."

"Why?" asked the children.

"On account of all the wisdom I utter," replied the Lion loftily.

"Anyway," said Ridgwell, "it does seem a horrid preparation for a party to start with a fog. Surely n.o.body would see what was going on."

"Hush, hush, my children," remonstrated the Pleasant-Faced Lion. "Just gather round and listen, and do not interrupt. You will be amazed at all the things you are about to see and hear, for you are going to be present to-night for a few minutes at the most wonderful party ever given in the whole world."

"That will be lovely," said Ridgwell and Christine. "And oh! Lal, really we have looked forward to it so much."

The Lion patted each of the children in turn affectionately upon 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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. Now watch,"

observed Lal maliciously. "Sleeping and breathing, sleeping and breathing, the sulphur tablets will soon commence to work."