Warner appeared to spend most of his time sitting in a wooden armchair of Brobdingnagian proportions. When in an anecdotal or reminiscent mood, he could be extremely entertaining. One of his reminiscences may be worth repeating. The Welsh Harp pleasure-grounds had become a favourite arena for the managers of Sunday-school treats and high jinks of a similar character. During the summer months thousands of children were carted down from the lanes and alleys of the town to pick daisies in Warner’s fields, to wander by the margin of Warner’s lake, and to “wolf” Warner’s buns and ginger-beer amid delightfully rural surroundings. Consternation, therefore, seized this particular section of Society when there appeared in the papers the report that the pet bear of the Welsh Harp had escaped from its den, and had taken refuge in some neighbouring thicket. In vain did Warner write solemn disclaimers to the daily papers. His pathetic denials of the existence of any bear on the estate were received with frigid scepticism. The rumour had been sown broadcast, and had taken root. The crop was accepted as first-class fact. The more strongly did Warner protest, the more picturesque became the newspaper reports of the bear-hunt, the methods of the trackers, and their failure to trap their quarry. Meanwhile the outlook was becoming serious for the owner of the famous pleasaunce. Every post brought the poor man letters from the promoters of bean-feasts and Sunday-school treats cancelling their dates. In moments of desperation the brain sometimes becomes superactive. At such a moment Warner was the subject of an inspiration, or, as he himself put it, “an ’appy thought struck him.” He drove off to Jamrach’s, the famous dealers in wild animals, in the Ratcliff Highway, and there he purchased the cheapest bear in the market. The brute was taken to the Welsh Harp in a van and at dead of night. The following morning the animal was found tied up to a tree in the grounds, and Warner triumphantly issued to the Press a purely imaginary account of its pursuit and capture. The consequences of the ruse were satisfactory all round. Nobody seemed to remember anything at all of Warner’s pathetic denials of the existence of a bear. The accuracy of the Press reporters was vindicated, and the publication of Warner’s circumstantial account of the chase and capture attracted thousands of sightseers to the Welsh Harp—most of them thirsty. In a few days the ingenious designer of this public deception was able to recoup himself for the losses sustained owing to the alleged ravages of an ursine “Mrs. Harris” by the production of a real bear—a hired, harmless, and humiliated brute.