Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/39

 the camel-goose is just as happy, and neither experiences the bitterness of being sold nor the sweetness of selling. I don't. believe that Atkinson was even aware of the triumphant sell which he lately assisted in administering to Mr. Toots, the cat from the camel-house.

The cat in the ostrichhouse is a sly fellow, and I believe he knows why there are fewer pigeons in the roof of the hippopotamus-house than there were. He horribly sold Mr. Toots, who was anxious to have a snack of poultry himself, for a change. "In my house," said this bold, bad cat, "there are the biggest pigeons you ever saw. Go in and try one, while I look out for the keeper." And the trustful Mr. Toots went in; and when, full of a resolve to make it hot for everything feathered in that house, Mr. Toots bounced into the presence of Atkinson, who is rather more than seven feet high, he came out anxious for the scalp of that other cat. I never mention this little adventure to Mr. Toots, who is sensitive, but all the other Zoo cats chaff him terribly. Even Jung Perchad and the other elephants snigger quietly as they pass, and Bob the Bactrian, from the camel-house, laughs outright; it is a horrid, coarse, vulgar, exasperating laugh, that of Bob's. Atkinson, however, is all unconscious of the joke, and remains equally affable to cats, pigeons, and human beings.

Pontius Pilate is just the sort of camel-gander that would bury its head to hide. itself. Pontius Pilate is, I fear, an ass; also a snob. He has a deal of curiosity with regard to Atkinson, who is a recent arrival, and lately belonged to the Queen. Also, he is often disposed to pay a visit—with his head-to Atkinson's quarters, and take a friendly snack—at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges among the nearest bars, being mightily astonished at his inability to reach next door, if by chance he have dropped among bars far from Atkinson's. He suspects his neck. Is the ungrateful tube playing him false? Maliciously shortening? Or are his eyes concerned in fraud? He loops his head back among his own adjoining bars, with a vague suspicion that they may be Atkinson's after all; and he stretches and struggles desperately. Some day Pontius Pilate will weave himself among those bars, basket fashion, only to be extricated by a civil engineer and a practical smith. Pontius Pilate is the sort of camel gander that damages the intellectual reputation of the species. Of course he would bury his head to hide himself. Equally of course he would muzzle himself to prevent you from biting him, or tie his legs together