the 'darning needle.' After
groping about in the sand at the bottom of the case he found the
specimen required and handed it over to Mr. Bartlett, who held it
in his hand and allowed it to make savage darts at his fingers.
'You see,' he said, it is a lively little thing--extremely
spiteful, but quite powerless to hurt me.' After it had been put
back and carefully secured, lest it should make another descent
upon London, Mr. Bartlett gave his theories as to how it might have
got into Regent's Park. 'There are two ways in which it might have
come here,' he explained. 'I imagine it has been brought in some of
the plants or shrubs which have been provided for the Park
gardeners; or else somebody may have brought a female with young
ones from the country and carelessly allowed this one to escape.
But stray animals like this are almost sure to come to us sooner or
later. Whenever people find anything unusual, they think it must be
an escaped specimen and forward it here. Why, when the great
explosion on the canal occurred in 1874, the glass in our aviaries
was shattered. Of course a great number of our birds escaped, but
it was in November, and most of them were glad enough to return to
the warmth and to the food provided for them. But people were
continually sending us birds for a long time, and, in fact, more
birds were sent here than had actually escaped.'

"'Then, as a last question, Mr. Bartlett, what does the fuss which
has been made about this snake mean?'

"Mr. Bartlett looked more solemn than ever as he suggested: 'Well,
Mr. Harry Furniss is fond of a joke--Lika-Joko is a capital name
for him; he may have been serious, or he may not."

I was serious, and so was dear old Mr. Bartlett, whom it was my
privilege to know well, but he did not let the representative of the
_Westminster_ see this.

I replied to the above article:

"On reading your descriptive interview with Mr. Bartlett _a propos_
of my finding a reptile in Regent's Park, I was, believe me, far
more surprised than when I captured the primary cause of your
representative's journey to the Zoological Gardens. You endeavour
to sum up the incident and my veracity by quoting the following
lines of Mr. Lewis Carroll's:--

"'He thought he saw an Elephant
Upon the mantelpiece;