Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/32

 tenancy of an unusually eligible and commodious pond, with a platform to crawl upon and a chair if he wants to sit.

He is a good swimmer, but his walk is not captivating. He can't help it; it is not easy to cultivate a military stride on flappers. He is as impatient for his dinner in his way as the big cats, but he is quieter and better behaved. He climbs out of his pond, ambles up the gravel path to the gate, and receives the condolences of the visitors through the bars. The keeper is a good friend of his, so he does not blame him for not bringing those fish half an hour before the proper time, but he feels grieved, nevertheless. When the keeper does come, he has no more loyal and obedient friend than the sea-lion. He will do anything for him—or for a herring. He will climb up on the chair and catch the fish unerringly in his mouth. He will run (or as near it as possible) up an inclined plane for one. He will rear up most affectionately and kiss the keeper—keeping one eye on the basket all the time. But readiest of all he will plunge into the water with a mighty splash for any number of them, while the surrounding spectators turn tail or open umbrellas to avert the consequent drenching. Altogether the sea-lion is a pleasant beast, but he drops into his pond with all the weight of a large bull-calf, which is inconsiderate to a radius of a good many yards.

Reporters at a fire continually speak of the "all-devouring element." This is a perversion of a stock term which, I am convinced, should read "all-devouring elephant." For an elephant devours things which no fire will consume. He will curl up his trunk before a small crowd, and receive good-humouredly a miscellaneous shower, in which biscuits, buns, apples, cigar-ends, pebbles, and fragments of lead-pencil mingle in a riot of miscellaneousness. He has been known, certainly, to shy at snuff; but that was probably in the case of some ignorant elephant not properly educated to its use. Most of the elephants here are quite up to snuff. If you have stuffed a prominent pocket full of sandwiches or apples, it is inadvisable to turn your back to Jingo. He is a very respectable elephant, but that is no reason for unnecessarily exposing him to temptation, and placing his honourable reputation in danger. I have observed of late, I regret to say, a disposition on the part of the Zoological Society's elephants, after leaving their daily work, to frequent Messrs. Spiers & Pond's bar—the small one, just under