It is a shocking thing, after ringing the bell to inquire after a
friend, to be told that she is dead.
That recently happened to me. I rang the bell and waited on the step.
The door was at last opened by a man in livery, or at any rate uniform,
who knew me. I made to enter, remarking “How is Delia?” “Delia?” he
said. “Delia is dead.”
Here was a blow! I had been thinking of Delia all the way to Regent’s
Park, seeing again in anticipation her sad and yearning eyes, her
pathetic, dumb face, her auburn locks, feeling her confiding hand in
mine.
“Dead!” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “pneumonia. But Annie’s here if you’d like to see
her. And Jerry too.”
“Of course,” I said, and followed him to their abode; stopping in the
kitchen on the way for some grapes and milk.
Delia was an ourang-outang; Annie is a chimpanzee. Delia was a red
woman--“Sweet Auburn, loveliest sample of the Plain!” one murmured
as one looked at her; Annie is a brunette. Annie sits all day in her
little basement home, with Jerry, and now and then receives privileged
visitors, such as His Majesty, whose hat--just as if it were mine--she
seized and hurled to the other end of the room, and the young Princes
and Princesses, and Fellows of the Society and their friends. Annie is
“that mischievous,” but Jerry is thoughtful and low-pulsed. Annie will
snatch whatever you have that pleases her and rush to the ceiling with
it; Jerry sits quite still and looks at you with bright eyes filled
with ten thousand sorrows.
Annie has some of Delia’s charm; but oh, how much more had Delia! Annie
also spreads her arms for an embrace and is curious about clothes; but
Delia--no, there will never be another Delia.
It was while wandering at random regretting Delia that I came upon
Gypsy.
Now, Gypsy also is not Delia; but Gypsy’s companionableness and
merriment and candour go far to soften the loss. A Zoo with both
Delia and Gypsy in it would be almost too fortunate--shall I put it
like that? I found her in the Small Cats’ House, that abode of bright
eyes and stealthy quicknesses, and, surely, she is out of place. For
her fellow-creatures in the surrounding cages are subtle and swift,
predatory and untrustworthy, while she is the most transparently
harmless, blundering, foolish, faithful thing you could conceive,
without a movement that is not clumsy or a thought that is not obvious.
She was eating chocolate when I found her, seated firmly on the floor
and picking the silver paper off with her teeth as skilfully as a
child. Having finished the chocolate and satisfied herself (no rapid
business) that there was no more, she turned to another visitor for
entertainment and seized his walking-stick. Whether she recognized
a compatriot--for it was a Malacca cane, and she is a Malayan bear
from the same district--or whether all walking-sticks present equal
attractions, I do not know; but she fondled this one with the utmost
tenderness, shouldered it, hugged it, nursed it, bit it, and did her
best to poke out her insignificant but very capable eyes with it.
Then she rose to her full but trumpery height and flung her arms round
my leg.
Then she turned to her indulgent keeper--whose happiness at being
entrusted with a straightforward baby-bear after the monotony of
complex Small Cats is delightful to watch--and they set to at a
sparring-match with tremendous spirit. Gypsy is not an in-fighter (like
Welsh) nor an offensive assaulter (like Johnson); her method is to
deliver two or three open-handed blows (which are not allowed in the
Ring) and then to escape punishment, at any rate on the face or chest,
by rolling herself into a ball and squirming and revolving on the
ground. This exposes her unguarded rotundities to attack, it is true,
but blows there she seems to enjoy, although affecting to avoid; and
then rising to her feet she again advances to the fray and repeats the
performance. She is very gentle, and in some mysterious way softens her
claws when she hits.
The contest over, Gypsy turned to my “Pall-Mall Gazette” and proceeded
very deliberately and scrupulously to demolish it. Whether a paper
written by gentlemen for gentlemen has ever before been made a Malayan
baby-bear’s plaything, I do not know; but it is a very satisfying one,
and kept her busy and happy for ten minutes. And all the while as she
walked up and down the floor among the visitors, tearing the pages into
shreds, the Small Cats in their cages were following her with intense
and glittering gaze, while the largest of them--a young puma--flung
himself once or twice in her direction like a lovely grey missile, to
be brought up sharp against his bars.
To any one in need of a new pet I can recommend a Malayan baby-bear.
Gypsy stands about forty-two inches, and is entirely covered with
short, strong, yet soft hair, nearer black than brown. Her neck is a
rich tawny yellow. Her mouth is full of teeth which do not bite, and
her paws have long and very hard horn-like nails which do not scratch.
She is more like a magnified mole than anything in the world; absurdly
so, in fact. Her obedience is instant. “Back to your cage, Gypsy,” says
her keeper, and she returns to it; “Shut your door, Gypsy,” says her
keeper, and she shuts it. She then climbs to a lofty perch and smiles
the smile of the virtuous and uncomplaining--a lesson to the restless
ocelot and unquiet lynx.
There are always a few babies at the Zoo for those that think to ask
for them. After I had seen Gypsy I saw a lion of tender years and
he allowed me to ruffle his head and tickle his cheeks; but no such
liberties are possible with the infant jaguar, which was born in
January, 1911, and is anything but the harmless pat of butter that it
looks. And then I held between my finger and thumb a six-weeks’ old
alligator while he squirmed and raged and did everything he could to
close his fret-saw jaws over me.
But none of these privileges of course made up for Delia’s death, and
nothing can.