[Penelope’s English Experiences by Kate Douglas Wiggin]@TWC D-Link book
Penelope’s English Experiences

CHAPTER IV
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In that one morning we drove past Pie, Pudding, and Petticoat Lanes, and later on we found ourselves in a 'Prudent Passage,' which opened, very inappropriately, into 'Huggin Lane.' Willie Beresford said it was the first time he had ever heard of anything so disagreeable as prudence terminating in anything so agreeable as huggin'.

When he had been severely reprimanded by his mother for this shocking speech, I said to the Honourable Arthur:-- "I don't understand your business signs in England,--this 'Company, Limited,' and that 'Company, Limited.' That one, of course, is quite plain" (pointing to the front of a building on the village street), "'Goat's Milk Company, Limited'; I suppose they have but one or two goats, and necessarily the milk must be Limited." Salemina says that this was not in the least funny, that it was absolutely flat; but it had quite the opposite effect upon the Honourable Arthur.

He had no command over himself or his horses for some minutes; and at intervals during the afternoon the full felicity of the idea would steal upon him, and the smile of reminiscence would flit across his ruddy face.
The next day, at the Eton and Harrow games at Lord's cricket-ground, he presented three flowers of British aristocracy to our party, and asked me each time to tell the goat-story, which he had previously told himself, and probably murdered in the telling.

Not content with this arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some of my international episodes to a literary friend who writes for Punch.

I demurred decidedly, but Salemina said that perhaps I ought to be willing to lower myself a trifle for the sake of elevating Punch! This home-thrust so delighted the Honourable Arthur that it remained his favourite joke for days, and the overworked goat was permitted to enjoy that oblivion from which Salemina insists it should never have emerged..


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