CHAPTER SEVEN.
A NIGHT WITH THE CROWNED HEADS.
Sub-Chapter I.
THE ARREST.
It was a ferociously hot day at the beginning of the summer vac.

I, as in duty bound, had been spending my first day as a well-conducted, newly broken-up schoolboy should.
Being fully impressed with the importance of combining self-improvement with all my recreations, I had been in the morning to the Zoo, where I had eaten buns with the elephant, cracked jokes and nuts with the monkeys, prodded the hippopotamus, got a rise out of the grizzly, made the lions roar, had a row with the chimpanzee, and generally enjoyed myself.
Then I had done the Tower.

This only took ten minutes, as the place was horribly slow, and fellows looked after you wherever you went.
After that I had had a turn at the circus, to study the habits of the horse in a state of nature.

I should have liked this more if the clown had not been such a muff.

He wasn't half up to his business, and consequently the place was not as improving as it ought to have been.
So I shook off the dust of it from my feet, and, after laying some apples and other things aboard, took an omnibus to Madame Tussaud's, where I knew I should see some fellows of my acquaintance, and be able to improve my mind in good company.
You must know I had pulled off the third history prize in our division last term, and therefore felt more or less friendly disposed to the kings and queens generally, and was even a little curious to see what they looked like, now that I was supposed to know more about them than most fellows do.
To tell the truth, although I had several times been to Madame Tussaud's before, I had invariably cut these grand people and devoted myself to another part of the establishment, which boys are usually supposed to understand better.