“Thanks to you,” he replied, hypocritically. “If I had come alone they wouldn't have troubled to show _me_ things.” Then they roused the nocturnal animals from their slumbers in the straw--the wingless apteryx, like a little armless man with a very long nose; the huge misshapen earthy-looking ant-bear, and those four-footed Rip Van Winkles, the quaint, rusty, blear-eyed armadillos. But the giant ant-eater was the most wonderful, for he walked on his knuckles, and strode majestically about, for all the world like a mammalian peacock, exhibiting his great tail. They also saw his tongue, like a yard of pink ribbon drawn out by an invisible hand from the tip of his long cucumber-shaped head. In the parrot-house the shrieking of a thousand parrots and cockatoos, all trying to shriek each other down, drove them quickly out. “I am sorry my nerves are not stronger, but really I can't stand it, Mr. Eden,” said Fan, apologetically. He laughed. “It's a great row, but not a very sublime one,” he answered. “By-and-by we shall hear something better.” And by-and-by they were in the great lion-house, where the prisoner kings and nobles are, barred and tawny and striped and spotted, and with flaming yellow eyes. They were all striding up and down, raging with hunger, for it was near the feeding-time; and suddenly a lion roared, and then others roared; and royal tigers, and jaguars, and pumas, and cheetahs, and leopards joined in with shrieks and with yells, and the awful chorus of the feline giants grew louder, like the continuous roar of near thunder, until the whole vast building shook and the solid earth seemed to tremble beneath them. And Fan also trembled and grew white with fear, and implored her companion to take her out. If she had shouted her loudest he could not have heard a sound, but he saw her lips moving, and her pallor, and led her out; yet no sooner was she out than she wished to return, so wonderful and so glorious did it seem to stand amidst that awful tempest of sound! Thus passed Fan's day, seeing much of animal life, and with welcome intervals of rest, when they had a nice little dinner in the refreshment rooms, or sat for an hour on the shady lawn, where Mr. Eden smoked his cigar, and related some of his adventures in distant lands. “You have given me so much pleasure, Mr. Eden--I have spent a very happy day,” said Fan, on their walk back to her humble lodgings. “And I, Miss Affleck?” “You know it all so well; it could not be so much to you,” she returned. “Have I not been happy then?” “Yes, I think you have,” she answered. “But you were happy principally because you were giving pleasure to someone else.” “I think,” he said, without directly answering her words, “that when I am far from England again, and see things that are as unfamiliar to me as this has been to you, which people come from the ends of the earth to look at, it will all seem very dull and insipid to me when I remember the pleasure I have had to-day.”