"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