L. R. Brightwell

“ But ever since the men in khaki first made their appearance in the Gardens some four months ago a most extraordinary undercurrent of opprobrious criticism has crept into the public's conversation, that public once so full of admiration for my noble bearing—unless it saw me walk; for which reason I don't come off my pedestal in public hours if I can help it. But now the mildest visitors seem to hold themselves under a moral obligation to connect me in some manner with what Clarence calls the "present crisis."
Sixpenny days are my worst. "There's the German eagle!" says the crowd. ”

“ For the last five years my daily life has been brightened in manner following. We live next door to a railway station and a pastry-cook's. Every morning Mabel gives me a round hard thing she calls a penny, and very slippery to hold in one's mouth. ”

“ The clerk's a man with a very well-regulated mind. He gives me chocolate. Just then, however, he was out, but his three-year-old boy-puppy was there sitting on a table all covered with bits of cardboard and little piles of pennies, ordinary brown ones, big white ones and a few little yellow ones. Well, in less time than it takes to cock your ears, that baby was shovelling pennies through the slit in my box and chuckling with joy. I stood it as long as I could, and then, in the nick of time, snatched a big white penny out of his paw and bolted off to the confectioner's. ”