“No, I only got to London in time for the Great Exhibition.”
“You’ve been to that?” The Showman’s eyes sparkled.
“That’s a Show!!” And a note of immeasurable envy mixed with the rapture of the rival impresario. “But what a chance missed!”
“That’s not a drink—that’s a gas. Lord, I thought, looking at that bumper house, with a proper Christian bar, they could pay off the National Debt.”
“Was there at the opening. Stood so near the Royal Party I patted the head of little Wales, and the Goldstick and Chamberlain walking backwards from the Presence nearly shoved me into the Chinese Ambassador just as he was salaaming on his stomach. Didn’t little Albert Edward look sweet in his Highland costume?”
“I wasn’t inside then,” confessed Will, “and I only had eyes for the Queen and her cream-coloured horses. You’ve got a season ticket, I suppose.”
“With the Prince Consort’s compliments. The fact is, I supplied the elephant for the Queen’s howdah.”
“Yes, didn’t you see it in the Indian compartment? They wanted to show off the magnificent trappings she got from the Rajah, and they thought of getting a real live elephant, which would have been no end of trouble amid all those precious vases. But I happened to know of a stuffed elephant at a show down here in Essex, so I entered into correspondence with Buckingham Palace and loaned the beast for the season—buying him up first, of course—and sent him up in my caravan that had to be roused from its winter sleep and completely unpacked. Yes, trouble enough! But talk of the Koh-i-noor, that elephant’ll be worth his weight in gold when he comes back—Queen Victoria’s elephant as visited by the nobility and gentry of the world. I annex the Great Exhibition. See!”
“I wish I’d noticed him,” said Will wistfully. “I only saw her statue in zinc, seven yards high. But there’s so much to see—machinery and jewels and Mexican figures, it makes your head ache, and I couldn’t even get a look at that Koh-i-noor, such a crush round it. But did you see the Preserved Pig?”
The Showman’s eyes twinkled. “Mr. Woods, d’ye mean?”
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Haven’t you noticed how they’ve left off abusing the income tax now they’ve got the show to talk about? By Jove,” he chuckled, “what a haul for the Exchequer if they bring the Crystal Palace under the window tax!”