Since then we have walked into London together now and then, and I have taken him to the Zoo on Sundays. He is at his best there. He seems to love and understand all animals, and he knows a good deal about them. In fact, it was he who introduced me to the giant toad who eats worms behind the scenes at the Reptile House. No one who has not seen this miracle of dining would believe either in the length or quickness of the toad's tongue. Lacey is a little spare man, very active and restless, with a clean-cut aquiline nose, sensitive mouth, alert grey eyes, and a brow which extends to the back of his head. His hands are delicate and strong and always perfectly kept, although his clothes can be rather shabby. His nose and his name, Nathan, combined, have led people to suppose him a Jew; but he has no Jewish blood. "Why my father gave me such a name beats me," he says, "and why I never had enough pluck to change it beats me even more. But he was a good old soul and he chose it deliberately; and I have gone back on him sufficiently as it is. But what chance has a Christian called Nathan? He is doubly handicapped, for everyone thinks him a Jew and acts accordingly, and not being a Jew he cannot profit or retaliate. If I had been a Jew I should be a millionaire to-day. The chances I've had! But it is my destiny to be unable to carry through any speculation. I acquire at top prices and sell at bottom: that's me. Or else I get bored with bargaining and give the infernal thing away. I have the wish, but not the instinct--that's the trouble. I make the most pathetic efforts to be cunning, but it's all no good." Without such talk his face tells me that the world has dealt him some hard blows; but he has never given in. He has the finest of all breastplates--enthusiasm; and to this he adds that other trusty buckler against the arrows of fate, a short memory. I mean a short memory for his own troubles: it is long enough if he promises to do anything for you. The rapidity of his mental recovery is amazing. If he were sentenced to death and on his way to the Tyburn gallows from Newgate, he would see, long before the cart reached Chancery Lane, something in the streets so interesting that all recollection of the rope would be effaced.