ide, while he patted and fondled it.

"Now, Tommy, into your cage!" said he.

The monstrous cat walked over to one side of the room and coiled itself
up under a grating. Everard King came out, and taking the iron handle
which I have mentioned, he began to turn it. As he did so the line of
bars in the corridor began to pass through a slot in the wall and
closed up the front of this grating, so as to make an effective cage.
When it was in position he opened the door once more and invited me
into the room, which was heavy with the pungent, musty smell peculiar
to the great carnivora.

"That's how we work it," said he. "We give him the run of the room for
exercise, and then at night we put him in his cage. You can let him
out by turning the handle from the passage, or you can, as you have
seen, coop him up in the same way. No, no, you should not do that!"

I had put my hand between the bars to pat the glossy, heaving flank.
He pulled it back, with a serious face.

"I assure you that he is not safe. Don't imagine that because I can
take liberties with him anyone else can. He is very exclusive in his
friends--aren't you, Tommy? Ah, he hears his lunch coming to him!
Don't you, boy?"

A step sounded in the stone-flagged passage, and the creature had
sprung to his feet, and was pacing up and down the narrow cage, his
yellow eyes gleaming, and his scarlet tongue rippling and quivering
over the white line of his jagged teeth. A groom entered with a coarse
joint upon a tray, and thrust it through the bars to him. He pounced
lightly upon it, carried it off to the corner, and there, holding it
between his paws, tore and wrenched at it, raising his bloody muzzle
every now and then to look at us. It was a malignant and yet
fascinating sight.

"You can't wonder that I am fond of him, can you?" said my host, as we
left the room, "especially when you consider that I have had the
rearing of him. It was no joke bringing him over from the centre of
South America; but here he is safe and sound--and, as I have said, far
the most perfect specimen in Europe. The people at the Zoo are dying
to have him, but I really can't part with him. Now, I think that I have
inflicted my hobby upon you long enough, so we cannot do better than
follow Tommy's example, and go to our lunch."

My South American relative was so engrossed by his grounds and their
curious occupants, that I hardly gave him credit at first for having
any interests