The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (7.1895)

By Hubert Crackanthorpe 257
harnessing “ Tim ” to the lions’ cage; within the elephant tent
Maggie was boiling the water for tea, and laying the cloth on the
piled trusses of hay.
One after another I bid them good-bye, strangely reluctant to
leave them, childishly eager to prolong indefinitely this short
moment of departure. The “ lieutenant ” and I promised to write
regularly to one another, and we hurriedly arranged how we would
meet again next year in the South.
Then I pushed my way through the crowd of loungers that
surrounded the camp, and turned slowly away down the boulevard
towards the railway station.
Twenty minutes later, as my train steamed out of the city, I
could hear the distant wavering strains of the band, and I could
see the sunlight glinting on the white, bulging canvas of the big
show-tent.