There is a dark, sinister man with a
harmonium and a shivering monkey on a chain; there is an Italian woman,
wearing bright wraps round her head, and she has a cage of birds who
tell fortunes; there is a horsey, stable-bred, ferret-like man with,
two performing dogs, and there is quite an old lady in a black bonnet
and shawl who sings duets with her grand-daughter, a young thing of some
fifty summers.
There can be nothing in the world more charming than the way the Square
receives its friends. Let it number amongst its guests a Duchess, that
is no reason why it should scorn "Colonel Harry" or "Mouldy Jim," the
singer of hymns. Scorn, indeed, cannot be found within its grey walls,
soft grey, soft green, soft white and blue--in these colours is the
Square's body clothed, no anger in its mild eyes, nor contempt anywhere
at its heart.
The Square is proud, and is proud with reason, of its garden. It is not
a large garden as London gardens go. It has in its centre a fountain.
Neptune, with a fine wreath of seaweed about his middle, blowing water
through, his conch. There are two statues, the one of a general who
fought in the Indian Mutiny and afterwards lived and died in the Square,
the other of a mid-Victorian philanthropist whose stout figure and
urbane self-satisfaction (as portrayed by the sculptor) bear witness to
an easy conscience and an unimaginative mind.
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