“. . . that man could not be altogether
cleared
from injustice in dealing with beasts
as he now
does.-Plutarch.
The whole house was in an uproar.
The lions were trotting round and
round, stopping to listen and snuff in the sawdust
near the bars; the stumpy jaguar, black as ink, with
a body like a steel case, was rushing up and down,
rubbing its forehead fiercely as it turned; a lion
and his mate were rearing themselves one after the
other against the walls, half turning from the middle
to fall almost backward in that peculiar movement
which reminds one forcibly of great succeeding waves
stopped and thrown back upon themselves by some bleak
rock.
People were pushing and straining
to look in at the windows, and rattling the doors
which had been hurriedly locked by the keepers who
had rushed to ascertain the cause of the tumult, whilst
the tiger made the place resound with its terrific
roars as it hurled its huge weight again and again
at the bars of its cage.
“Come on, Mother,”
shouted the keeper above the din, “bring all
those children and let’s get out. They’ll
quieten down when we’ve gone. Can’t
you read!”
He shook Leonie slightly under the
stress of his agitation as he hauled her in front
of the notice which commands you to refrain from climbing
the barrier.
“Of course I can wead,”
she replied with dignity; “I’m weading
the little-
“Well! read that!”
“But-but”-stammered
Leonie, having read with difficulty-“but
I knew the tiger, Mr. Keeper!”
“Oh! yes! of course!
You were tiger ’unting and brought him from
the Sunderbunds about four years ago; it wasn’t
the gentleman, of course not!”
“But weally,” pleaded
Leonie with the tears very near, “weally I’ve-I’ve
dweamed lots about him, and-and-and-
“Take her away, Sir-she
makes me see red she does. No thank you.
Sir-very much obliged, but it’s part
of my duty to see that people don’t climb
the barrier, and I kind of failed-p’raps
the little girl what came and-
They were outside by this time and
the centre of an interested admiring crowd; it is
only bleeding meat at three o’clock as a rule
which can rouse the inhabitants of the lion house
from their prison apathy.
Taking the dirty little paw Cuxson,
crumpling up a note, put it into the dirty little
palm and closed the fingers tightly over it.
Whereupon Gertrude Ellen blushed furiously, and went
to her mother with her clenched fist behind her back,
where she kept it stiffly until tea-time, when she
held out the bit of paper without a word, to the tune
of “Lawks a mercy me!” from her mother,
who immediately ordered more buns on the strength
of it.
“Lor’ bless yer, lovey!”
said Mrs. Higgins, whose bonnet was bobbing on the
nape of her neck, leaving the wisps of hair to straggle
unrestrainedly in the honest grey eyes, as she knelt
on the ground and tugged Leonie’s short skirts
into place. “Yer did give us a turn, dearie;
yer might ’av ’ad yer ’and nipped
orf by that there brute. Come ’ere,
Lil and ’Erb-I’ll ’ave
yer eaten by the camuls next!”
The bow-legged twins, with their spirit
of adventure quashed, rolled back to mother, and stood
wide-eyed as she ran her work-worn hand through the
stranger’s luxuriant curls.
“Give us a kiss, lovey, an’ go an’
get some tea!”
For the second time that day Leonie
moved to obey the same command, but this time there
was no hesitation as she put her thin arms round the
woman’s neck and kissed her sweetly once and
again.
And the woman, who sensed something
amiss in the quivering little body, held her firmly,
patting her gently with the same hand which dealt out
indiscriminately such resounding and often well-earned
smacks among her own; and Leonie sighed and leant
confidingly against the stout, badly corseted figure.
“How comfy,” she whispered
shyly. “How soft you are. Auntie
never holds me in her arms, and when Nannie does she’s
always full of bits of things that stick out.”
And then with a little scream of delight
she was away, speeding over the gravel in the wake
of a lumbering great form wending its way in and out
of the crowd.
“Cut along, Sir, or you’ll
find her ’obnobbing with the gorilla next!
I’ve never seen such a child for downright
mischievousness.”
Cuxson cut along as bidden and for
all he was worth, pulling Leonie up in front of the
ticket office for elephant rides, and after purchasing
tickets sidetracked her to a tea-table.
“Mind you bring Jingles when you come to stay!”
“Pwomise,” called back
Leonie from her Nannie’s arms as she opened the
door to them and lifted the tired happy child from
the taxi.
But she didn’t because she never went.