the cheat, and that not even Clara should know of it now.

"I am aware that my profession is not high art as you call it, and on
hot days it is precious uncomfortable. But what won't a fellow do under
the pressure of an exchequer in distress, and enticed by the promise of
the hand of the prettiest and best girl in the world? The pay is not
much, but I keep soul and body together, which is more than some poor
devils do in this great city. By the way, Sam, have you got five
dollars about you?"

Now, if there was anything that Jack Gale specially loved, it was the
state of being in debt. He was never so happy as when in debt, and when
by accident, or the interference of friends, he got out of it, he was
uneasy and wretched, apparently, until he got in again. The normal
condition of the man was debt; so when he asked me for a loan, I could
not help laughing; and I told him that he had undoubtedly found one of
the greatest privations of his gorilla life to be the difficulty of
contracting new debts.

"That's a fact," said Jack. "The menagerie opens at eight o'clock in
the morning; it takes me a good hour to get myself up for the day; and
we don't shut up until ten o'clock at night; so you see my professional
duties are very confining, and a real, live African gorilla is not
supposed to have first-rate credit with the people who poke stale
sandwiches and peanuts through his cage-bars by day."

I promised Jack that if old Seanecks, of the _Interoceanic Monthly_,
accepted my article on the Origin of the Human Species, I would divide
the proceeds with him. Jack and I had shared and shared alike with our
little gains too often in years gone by, for me to remember which owed