"Gawd!"

Mrs. Henry Higgins called upon the Almighty in the vernacular of Seven
Dials, sought gropingly for the members of her progeny who clutched her
skirt, and fortunately kept her head.

"'Enery James--no! Gertrude Ellen--you've gotter better headpiece,
jest yer slip along to the keeper an' tell _'im_ to look slippy and
come along quick _h'and_ quiet!"

Gertrude Ellen, puffed up with pride at the pull she had had over her
brother, slipped off, as her mother continued in a raucous whisper,
"Now if that young miss don't deserve a thorough good 'iding! I'd take
the skin off yer if any of yer did such a fing, strite I would. Drat
yer, keep stilt cawn't yer--you'll rouse the brute!"

She shook her skirts so that the half-dozen clinging children rattled
like a bunch of keys, pushed her jet bonnet back from the shiny
wrinkled forehead, and waited, her motherly heart aquake in spite of
her drastic language.

Jan Cuxson was standing in front of the lions' cage at one end of the
lion-house, talking to his old friend the keeper, under the impression
that Leonie was close beside him; but she, having taken advantage of
their conversation and a practically empty house, had slipped quietly
away, climbed the barrier near the far window, and was _also_ holding
conversation--with a tiger from Bengal.

The animal lay outstretched with his wonderful head close to the bars,
and his unblinking opalescent gold-flecked eyes staring straight into