Aided by this, we looked about us and saw the strange denizens of the Zû.

    19

   Patent in the first sense of the word. She has not yet received offers advantageous enough to close with in the other sense.

   It was now that the presence of mind of Leonora saved us. Foreseeing the probability of an encounter with wild beasts, she had filled her practicable pocket (she belonged to the Rational Dress Association) with buns and ginger-bread nuts.

   The elephant now walked round, the wolves also circulated, the bear climbed his pole, the great gorilla beat his breast and roared.

   Leonora was their match.

   For the elephant she had a rusk, a bun for the bear, and the gorilla was pacified by an offering of nuts from his native Brazil.

   THIS WAY TO THE CROCODILE HOUSE

   we now read, on an inscription in black letters, and, following the path indicated, we reached the dank tank where the monsters dwell. We had arrived at a place which I find it difficult to describe. The floor was smooth and hard.

   'What do you make of

    this

   ?' asked Leonora, tapping her dainty foot on the floor.

   'Flags,' I replied phlagmatically, and she was silent.

   In the centre of the space was a dark pool, circled by crystalline palaces inhabited by the sacred snakes, from huge pythons to the terrapin proud of his tureen. Again, there was a whipsnake, and a toad, bloated as the aristocracy of old time, and puffed up as the plutocracy of to-day. For such is the lot of toads!

   Now a strange thing happened.

   '

    Hark!

   ' said Ustâni; '

 Prev. P 23/57 next