A snake in a bedroom of a modern city dwelling of the better sort is,
happily, not so common a phenomenon as to make explanation altogether
needless. Harker Brayton, a bachelor of thirty-five, a scholar, idler
and something of an athlete, rich, popular and of sound health, had
returned to San Francisco from all manner of remote and unfamiliar
countries. His tastes, always a trifle luxurious, had taken on an added
exuberance from long privation; and the resources of even the Castle
Hotel being inadequate to their perfect gratification, he had gladly
accepted the hospitality of his friend, Dr. Druring, the distinguished
scientist. Dr. Druring's house, a large, old-fashioned one in what is
now an obscure quarter of the city, had an outer and visible aspect of
proud reserve. It plainly would not associate with the contiguous
elements of its altered environment, and appeared to have developed some
of the eccentricities which come of isolation. One of these was a
"wing," conspicuously irrelevant in point of architecture, and no less
rebellious in matter of purpose; for it was a combination of laboratory,
menagerie and museum. It was here that the doctor indulged the
scientific side of his nature in the study of such forms of animal life
as engaged his interest and comforted his taste--which, it must be
confessed, ran rather to the lower types. For one of the higher nimbly
and sweetly to recommend itself unto his gentle senses it had at least
to retain certain rudimentary characteristics allying it to such
"dragons of the prime" as toads and snakes. His scientific sympathies
were distinctly reptilian; he loved nature's vulgarians and described
himself as the Zola of zoölogy. His wife and daughters not having the
advantage to share his enlightened curiosity regarding the works and
ways of our ill-starred fellow-creatures, were with needless austerity
excluded from what he called the Snakery and doomed to companionship
with their own kind, though to soften the rigors of their lot he had
permitted them out of his great wealth to outdo the reptiles in the
gorgeousness of their surroundings and to shine with a superior
splendor.
Architecturally and in point of "furnishing" the Snakery had a severe
simplicity befitting the humble circumstances of its occupants, many of
whom, indeed, could not safely have been intrusted with the liberty that
is necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury, for they had the
troublesome peculiarity of being alive. In their own apartments,
however, they were under as little personal restraint as was compatible
with their protection from the baneful habit of swallowing one another;
and, as Brayton had thoughtfully been apprised, it was more than a
tradition that some of them had at divers times been found in parts of
the premises where it would have embarrassed them to explain their
presence. Despite the Snakery and its uncanny associations--to which,
indeed, he gave little attention--Brayton found life at the Druring
mansion very much to his mind.