ow and it comes scraping along the floor, just as you've
described, and finally jerks out of the window. Taken in heaps of
people; they all read up Popple and think it's old Harry Nicholson's
ghost; we always stop them from writing to the papers about it, though.
That would be carrying matters too far."

Mrs. Hatch-Mallard renewed the lease in due course, but Ada Bleek has
never renewed her friendship.

THE MAPPINED LIFE

"These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a great improvement
on the old style of wild-beast cage," said Mrs. James Gurtleberry,
putting down an illustrated paper; "they give one the illusion of seeing
the animals in their natural surroundings. I wonder how much of the
illusion is passed on to the animals?"

"That would depend on the animal," said her niece; "a jungle-fowl, for
instance, would no doubt think its lawful jungle surroundings were
faithfully reproduced if you gave it a sufficiency of wives, a goodly
variety of seed food and ants' eggs, a commodious bank of loose earth to
dust itself in, a convenient roosting tree, and a rival or two to make
matters interesting. Of course there ought to be jungle-cats and birds
of prey and other agencies of sudden death to add to the illusion of
liberty, but the bird's own imagination is capable of inventing
those--look how a domestic fowl will squawk an alarm note if a rook or
wood pigeon passes over its run when it has chickens."

"You think, then, they really do have a sort of illusion, if you give
them space enough--"

"In a few cases only. Nothing will make me believe that an acre or so of
concrete enclosure will make up to a wolf or a tiger-cat for the range of
night prowling that would belong to it in a wild state. Think of the
dictionary of sound and scent and recollection that unfolds before a real
wild beat as it comes out from its lair every evening, with the knowledge
that in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant hunting
ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think of the
crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, every bent
twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, something to
do with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealing
down to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particular
tree to scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed of dried
grass to roll on. Then, in the place of all that, put a