There is something primal and indubitable in the mere act of partaking of food at the same table which has always served to break down intangible barriers of reserve. By the time Jane Blythe had eaten of the broiled mackerel and fried potatoes--the latter vegetables being of the color and texture of untanned leather--she felt better acquainted with the man who shared these delectable viands with her than she could have believed possible. And when the two of them had finally arrived at the point of attacking twin mounds of pink and white ice cream, vouched for by the smiling young person who waited on them as "fresh strawb'r'y an' vaniller," she was ready to laugh with him at the truly national ease and dispatch with which the loud-voiced, showily-dressed damsels in their immediate neighborhood were disposing of similar pink and white mounds. And when after luncheon they followed the crowd to the lion house, Jane's brown eyes grew delightfully big at sight of the great beasts ramping up and down in their cages and roaring for their prey, which a blue-frocked man shoved in to them in the convenient shape of huge chunks of butcher's beef. From the spectacle of the great cats at food, the current of sightseers swept them along to the abode of the simians, where they found monkeys of all sizes, colors, and shapes, gathered from every tropical forest in the world, and bound always to arouse strange questionings in the minds of their nobler captors. Jane lingered before the tiny white-faced apes with the bright, plaintive eyes and withered skins of old, old women. "They seem so anxious," she said, "and so worried over their bits of food, which is sure to be given them by a power which they do not understand." John Everett looked down at her with quick understanding of her unspoken thought. "They might better be jolly, and--so might we," he murmured. "I suppose, in a way, we're in a cage--being looked after." "And yet we seem to be having our own way," Jane said. After that she was ready to enjoy the ourangs, dressed in pinafores, and sitting up at a table devouring buns and milk with an astonishing display of simian good manners under the watchful eye and ready switch of their trainer. When one of these sad-eyed apes suddenly hurled the contents of his mug at his companion's head, then disappeared under the table, she laughed aloud, an irrepressible, rolicking, girlish peal. "They make me think of Percy and Cecil at tea in the nursery at home," she explained; "they were always trying experiments with their bread and milk, and when they were particularly bad Aunt Agatha was sure to find it out, and scold me because I allowed it." "I can't imagine you a very severe disciplinarian," he said, "though you do manage Buster with wonderful success." He regretted the stupid allusion at sight of her quick blush, and made haste to draw her attention to the Canadian lynxes snarling and showing their tasseled ears amid the fastnesses of their rocky den.