171 THE STRAND JAGAZINE
pole, and 1t shook the more the hicher she ascendced APy —she acquired the little present halt way up, and R descended to where Punch waited to renew the display. e But Judy was thoughtful, and indisposed for the noble art. She had found a new thing in life, something to live for and think about—buns. So she thought about them. The place where they were to be found, she reasoned—-for she had ncever noticed the man at the opposite end of the long stick—was up that pole ; the pole being probably a bun- tree. Do that, whenever dis- poscd for buns, 1t only needed to chimb the pole and find some. Having arrived at this stage 1 the argument, it scemed to o strike her that another bun was desirable, there and then. Whercetore she began another rather nervous climb, her cyes fhixed steadily above to where the buns were expected to appear. The expedition was a failure, and Judy pondered it, with the apparent decision that the buns must be a
i little higherup. Soshe started again; S | and found onc! She has got over [ thf"tt Inttle bun-tree superstition by i this time, and can climb better. Also H she and the others have already
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broken up entirely five of the sticks upon which buns wrive, thus from time to time cutting ofl” the supply. And although Toby and the Police- man are very usclul as scconds at the later boxing matches, very few buns get past Judy. Punch, the hen- pecked and wily, waits good-humour- cdly at the foot of the pole, and has been known to cateh many a bun that Judy climbed for, Through all the bear-dens yvou Ny see bears in attitudes sufliciently human to be quaint and grotesque. A squat hike that of an Indian 1dol, an oddly human looking out of win- dow, or a lounge at the bars, clumsily sugeestive of a lounge at a bar the Strand : and of all the attitudes thosc of the gentle little Malays arc quaintest. A certain bandy human respectability hangs about these small fellows. Dolly, after twrning his somer- cault, will st and ispect his reward
just as a child wiil
—_ [N,
7