Chapter 18

A MEETING

Of all places in the world the Zoo is, perhaps, the most uninspiring to your diffident lover, but Mr Hancock was fond of zoology. It was a mild sort of hobby which he cultivated in his few leisure moments, and he was not displeased to air his knowledge before his pretty friend, and to show her that he had a taste for things other than forensic. Accordingly in the Bird House he began to show off. This was a mistake. If you have a hobby, conceal it till after marriage. The man with a hobby, once he lets himself loose upon his pet subject or occupation, always bores. He is like a man in drink, he does not know the extent of his own stupidity; lost in his own paradise he is unconscious of the trouble and weariness he is inflicting on the unfortunates who happen to be his companions—unlike a man in drink, he is rarely amusing.

There were birds with legs without end, and birds apparently with no legs at all, nutcracker-billed birds, birds without tails, and things that seemed simply tails without birds.

Before a long-tailed bird that bore a dim resemblance to himself, Mr Hancock paused and began to instruct his companion. When he had bored her sufficiently they passed to the great Ape House, and from there to the Monkey House.

They had paused to consider the Dog-faced Ape, when Fanny, whose eyes were wandering about the place, gave a little start and plucked her companion by the sleeve. "Look," she said, "there's old Mr Bridgewater!"

"Why! God bless my soul, so it is!" cried Hancock. "What the—what the—what the——"