sts, 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 Ustani; '_hark! hark! hark!_ a den is opening!'

He was right; it was the den of a catawampuss, an animal whose habits
are so well known that I need not delay to describe them.

In the centre of the dark pool in the middle of the vague space lay one
crocodile. The rest were sleeping on the banks. The catawampuss
secretly emerged from its den--horror, I am not ashamed to say,
prevented me from interfering--stealthily crept across the cold floor,
and, true to the instincts of all the feline tribe,[20] made straight
for the water.

[20]
_Is_ the catawampuss one of the Felidae?--PUBLISHER.

Of course he is. Look at his name!--ED.

'Ah!' cried Ustani, 'he's going for him!'

The expression was ambiguous, but we understood it.

The catawampuss, cunning as the dread jerboa, crept to the edge of the
pool, took a header into it, and then, still true to the feline
instincts, _swimming on its back_, made its way to the crocodile. In
this manner it caught the crocodile by the tail and waked it. When the
tail of a crocodile awakes the head awakes also. The crocodile's head,
then, waking as the catawampuss seized its tail, caught the tail of the
catawampuss. The interview was hurried and tumultuous.

The crocodil