Job is not an emotional person. He never exhibits enthusiasm, even for
fishing. I shouldn't myself, after ten years' waiting for a bite. There
he floats, with all the mental activity of an ordinary brick, while
visitors come and go, nations are convulsed, elections, boat-races
are decided, and green weed grows all over his back, but he doesn't
care. "A rolling stone gathers no moss" is a capital proverb for the
guidance of people who care for moss as a personal adornment. Job
avoids all rolling, in common with other forms of movement, and is
lavishly rewarded with moss of the greenest, on back, legs, toes, and
tail. Beyond his patience (a negative sort of virtue, after all), Job
Walton has no particular personal characteristic that I can discover,
except extreme niggardliness plain and patent in his face. He has
nothing in the world to be niggardly with, except his moss, but if he
had, he would make a very un-indulgent uncle. I have a theory that
Job is not an animal at all, but a fossilized concretion of the twin
virtues (or what you like to call them), patience and stinginess; a
sort of petrified fungus, produced by the chemical action consequent
on the mingling of the two qualities. Probably some very shocking old
miser (perhaps it was Scrooge himself) lost all his stinginess at
once, just at the identical moment when some long-suffering person
lost his patience (this was, probably, an angler). The subtle essences
comprising these qualities met and mingled--result, a fungus growth,
Job Walton. The same sort of thing occurs a thousand times a day in the
case of toadstools.
[Illustration: ON DUTY.]
I am really friendly with only one of the smaller lizards here--and he
is a large one; the big monitor at the corner. But I have never been
able to learn from him, even in his most confidential moments, how many
feet of tongue he really has. It is a round, whip-lash sort of tongue,
like the ant-eater's, and I have a private superstition in both cases
that there actually is no other end to that tongue. The monitor is fond
of rats, but the rats are not at all partial to his society.
[Illustration: "PAID YOUR SHILLING?"]
[Illustration: "TICKET?"]
[Illustration: "VACCINATED?"]
Lesueur's Water Lizard is a curious specimen. He has not been here
long, but has already assumed, on his own nomination, a position of
great responsibility and importance. He is Inspector of Visitors. He
won't have questionable characters in the reptile-house. When not
actively inspecting, he is watching for his victims. He observes
a visitor approaching. He is on guard at once, by the front glass
of the case. His aspect is official and stern, his manner abrupt
and peremptory; he is not a lizard to be trifled with. "Paid your
shilling?" he demands, as plainly as a silent lizard may. "Got your
railway ticket? Show it." Any respectable visitor with the fear of the
law before his eyes will comply at once. "Where do you live? Produce
your last water-rate receipt." He looks you up and down suspiciously.
"Been vaccinated lately? Date? All right. Pass along." And he swings
abruptly round to watch for somebody else.
[Illustration: "?--?--?"]
[Illustration: ALL'S WELL.]
[Illustration: "MINE!"]
[Illustration: "MINE, I TELL YOU!"]
The Australian Bearded Lizard (most quaint lizards are Australian)
is supposed to derive his colloquial name--the Jew Lizard--from his
beard. But he has an Israelitish acquisitiveness of his own, too. He
goes about his shop--everything he does makes it seem a shop--and
brings his paw down on one pebble and one twig after another with an
unmistakable air of assertive proprietorship. "Mine," he intimates,
"mine, every one of them; and you keep your hands off them, unless
you're ready to do business." He would pronounce it "pishnesh" if
mere gesture-talk admitted of it. A little irritation goes a long way
with the Jew lizard. His beard stands out tremendously, he swells to
a rib-threatening degree, and stands at bay with open mouth, ready
to smite the Philistines hip and thigh and spoil the Egyptians of
their finger-tips--let them but come near enough. But he is a very
respectable lizard, not so lazy as most, and pleasant to the touch.
[Illustration: "YESH, MINE, MY TEAR."]
[Illustration: GALLOT'S LIZARD--"RATIONS AHOY!"]
[Illustration: CATCH WHICH?]
He is not so lazy, for instance, as the chameleon. The chameleon is
the slowest creature alive. If there were a race between a chameleon
and a pump, it would be safest to back the pump. An active little
Gallot's lizard was placed here lately, with a pair of chameleons, but
the contrast was so disgraceful to the chameleons that he was removed,
and made to chum with a Gecko, a few cases off. He absorbed all the
rations, too, which was an addition of injury to insult, although
chameleons can always put off dinner for a month or two without
inconvenience. A chameleon is a sort of twin. Like other things, he has
two halves; but these halves are only acquainted with one another--not
really intimate. His left-hand side is often asleep while the right
is as wide awake as a chameleon's side can be. His eyes, also, are
quite independent of one another, and roll in opposite directions as
often as not, so that he would be inconvenient as a Speaker. Everybody
would catch his eye at once and there would be quarrels--possibly
even fights--a thing impossible in the House of Commons as it is. A
chameleon never walks, he proceeds in this way: After a long and
careful deliberation, extending over half an hour or so, he proceeds
to lift one foot. You may not be able to see it moving, but it is
moving all the same, like the hand of a watch. Take a look round the
Gardens and come back, when, if you have not been too hurried in your
inspection, you may see the lifted foot in mid-air, and the chameleon
probably asleep. He usually takes a nap after any unusual exertion.
In an hour or two he will wake up, and proceed to plant that foot,
with proper deliberation, before him. Then there will be another nap
and a good think, after which the tail will begin to unwind from the
branch it clings to. This process, persistently persevered in for many
days, will carry the intrepid gymnast quite a number of inches. But a
journey of this sort is an enterprise rarely ventured on. Chameleons
prefer the less exciting sport of sitting face to face and daring each
other to mortal combat, secure in the assurance that neither will
think of moving toward the other. They _have_ been known to fight. A
chameleon fight is an amusement whereunto neither the Peace Society
nor the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals need have
any objection. No evangelistic clergyman need incur scandal by being
present, an interested spectator, at a chameleon fight. The savage
combatants never attempt to bite. They gaze gravely and seriously at
the surroundings, and at proper pre-arranged intervals solemnly dab
their tails together--not hard, nor with any particular feeling beyond
a desire to conduct the rite with proper formality and decorum. It is
the most harmless and dignified scuffle in the animal creation.
[Illustration: "GARN, PULL YER EAR!"
"WHAT, YOU?"
"YUS, ME."
"GARN!"]
[Illustration: "THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME."]
_My Diving-Dress._