What would
you have had her do?
ZOO. Go on to the next, of course. After eight or nine children become
quite uninteresting, except to themselves. I shouldnt know my two eldest
if I met them.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_again drooping_] I am dying. Let me die. I wish
to die.
ZOO [_going to him quickly and supporting him_] Hold up. Sit up
straight. Whats the matter?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_faintly_] My spine, I think. Shock. Concussion.
ZOO [_maternally_] Pow wow wow! What is there to shock you? [_Shaking
him playfully_] There! Sit up; and be good.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_still feebly_] Thank you. I am better now.
ZOO [_resuming her seat on the sacks_] But what was all the rest of that
long name for? There was a lot more of it. Blops Booby or something.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_impressively_] Bolge Bluebin, madam: a
historical name. Let me inform you that I can trace my family back for
more than a thousand years, from the Eastern Empire to its ancient seat
in these islands, to a time when two of my ancestors, Joyce Bolge
and Hengist Horsa Bluebin, wrestled with one another for the prime
ministership of the British Empire, and occupied that position
successively with a glory of which we can in these degenerate days form
but a faint conception.
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