the methods of modern research, demand to see
the camel. Well, here it is," and Cooper turned toward a large enclosure
where several members of the family _Camelidae_ were peacefully browsing,
with the exception of one that lay in a corner with drooping head and
closed eyes, apparently lifeless. "It's been hard work, of course, and
expensive, keeping a broken-backed camel alive, but, encouraged by such
examples of the remarkable vitality of animals as may be seen for
instance in the Democratic donkey, I have persisted and succeeded. This
rather thin-legged creature near the fence is the camel that tried to
pass through the needle's eye, and the one close beside him is the one
swallowed by the man who strained at a gnat. Harrington asserts that he
has never been able to see how either phenomenon is possible, but the
problem is only half as difficult as it appears. For it is evident that
if a camel were small enough to pass through the eye of a needle, there
would be comparatively little trouble in swallowing him. And, speaking
of needles, it has been a constant regret that my collection is still
without a needle found in a haystack."

I have not the space to enumerate one tithe of what Cooper showed me. As
we hurried past the cages containing numerous specimens of _Homo
Sapiens_, he contented himself with pointing out a physician who had
failed to cure himself by psycho-therapeutics; a shoemaker who by
sticking to his last failed to become a railroad president, though in
the course of time he could tell where every man's shoe pinched; an
importer who, in defiance of the Pure Food law, put new wine into old
bottles, and labelled them Bordeaux; and a harmless-looking man of
middle age, who continued to smile and smile, and had played Iago,
Macbeth, and Hamlet's uncle. Before a sturdy-looking man dressed in
working-clothes Cooper stopped for a moment and said, "Mr. C. W. Post
and Mr. James Farley assure me that this is the rarest item in my
collection."

"Who is he?" I asked.

"It is a union labourer who is worthy of his hire," Cooper said.

XI

THE EVERLASTING FEMININE

I am convinced that the easiest business in the world must be the
writing of epigrams on Woman. I have been reading, of late, in a new
volume of "Maxims and Fables." It came to me with the compliments of the
author, in lieu of a small debt which he has kept outstanding for
several years. Although the writer contradicts himself on every third