The doctor shook his head as he slipped his ophthalmoscope into his pocket, and Rey, the trainer, who had been holding the bear's head still while the oculist made the examination, opened the door of the cage for him. The bear—a medium-sized black animal—wandered aimlessly about, stumbling over the water pan and knocking its head against the bars, its eyes, which were evidently sightless, shining like two fiery opals as they reflected the electric light. "I am sorry to tell you that it is a hopeless case," said the physician to the Proprietor, who was standing with the Stranger in front of the cage watching the examination. "Both optic nerves are atrophied, and the "It is rather unusual to call the most famous specialist in the country to examine a menagerie animal," he said, after the doctor hurriedly left them to catch the express train back to the city. "You know that he takes no small fee; his services are either given for charity or his charge is very high—and this visit was not for charity." "I should think that the value of a bear would hardly warrant the expense," answered the Stranger as the waiter filled the glasses. "It wouldn't be for an ordinary bear, but I was willing to pay anything in reason to restore the sight of this particular specimen, so I sent for the best-known oculist in New "You have no idea how many animals are offered to the owner of a menagerie and from what unusual sources the offers come," said the Proprietor. "Travelers in far countries bring back strange animals as pets or curiosities; people buy young wild animals which get beyond control when they mature and become veritable white elephants on their hands, and their owners have to dispose of them. I have had everything from monkeys to lions brought to me, and so it did not surprise me when an artist came to the Hippodrome in Paris last winter and asked me if I didn't want to purchase a bear. He seemed anxious for me to see it immediately, and at his earnest solicitation I got in a cab with him and drove to his studio, which was "The apartment was luxuriously furnished, and I realized that it was not lack of ready money which made the artist so anxious to dispose of the brute; but he seemed in a desperate hurry to have me take it away, and offered it for such a low price that I closed the bargain at once. I suggested sending one of my men for it in the evening, but he insisted upon my taking it with me, and as the bear was evidently as gentle as a kitten I called a closed cab and drove away with it. The bear sat comfortably on the seat beside me and gave no trouble, but as we drove along I got to thinking the matter over and the whole proceeding seemed a little strange. I had Mephisto, as the bear was named, put in a cage well away from the other animals—a sort of quarantine precaution which I always take with new arrivals—and as there was apparently nothing unusual about him gave "The bear had given us no trouble, and there was only one peculiar thing about him: he seemed to have an aversion to cats. The bodies of three of them had been found in front of his cage, although we had never seen one killed. The cats about a menagerie instinctively keep out of harm's way, and it puzzled me to know how Mephisto had managed to get them within reach of his heavy paw. Jack Bonavita, who fusses about his lions at all hours of the day and night, solved that mystery and incidentally saved his pet cat, Tramp, from an untimely ending. "Two days before we were to sail for America I was sitting at my desk arranging some of the last details of shipment, when the door burst open and a well-dressed, handsome woman rushed in, followed by the artist who had sold me the bear. She was in a tearing rage and jabbering excitedly in a language which I did not understand, while the artist was trying to quiet her. She pushed him aside, and opening a purse which was well stuffed with banknotes, she asked in French, which she spoke with a marked foreign accent, for how much I would sell Mephisto. The artist protested, but she turned on him and gave him a tongue lashing of which I could guess the meaning, although the words were unintelligible to me. I couldn't quite grasp the situation, but the strange hypnotic power "I regretted that I had not taken the opportunity to find out something about the history of the animal, and looked over the audience to try to locate the couple, but they had left the building. One of the keepers told me that she had screamed when she recognized the bear and called it by name. She was trying to bribe him to let her go into the cage when the artist came up and expostulated with her, and they had an awful row before coming to my office. I heard nothing more from them and we The Press Agent grew very attentive, but the Proprietor told him that he was not talking for publication, and that a name which occupied several pages of the Almanach de Gotha was sacred, even from an American promoter of publicity. "And she does carry that name and was "You have kept it quiet enough," said the Press Agent with a trace of resentment in his voice. "It sounds to me as if it ought to be good for a front-page column in every New York paper." "As I told you, there are reasons why I can't exploit it," answered the Proprietor. "I am counting upon it for my opening sensation at the Paris Hippodrome next winter, and I don't intend to discount it before a Coney Island audience. But to get back to my experience with her on the steamer. I found that she occupied the most expensive deck stateroom, and had a maid and a man servant traveling with her; so that I refused all of her renewed offers for the bear when I found the powerful fascination it had for her, and I finally consented to let her try the experiment of working with a group of animals. You know the class from which trainers are usually recruited, and you can imagine the interest I "As a matter of curiosity the artist experimented with men, but the bear appeared indifferent to them and the men made no complaint. It only seemed to exercise this strange hypnotic power over women—and cats—for the artist found two Persian felines, which had been studio pets, dead beside it; simply crushed, as were those which were killed by the bear at the Hippodrome. He mentioned the matter during "Well, I watched her with the bear on shipboard and since we landed, and I can't yet understand her control over it, for it does not control her in any way. There seems to be a sympathy between them which makes them absolutely understand each other, and through it she understands the other caged beasts. The act which I had framed for her when I found that she was absolutely in earnest was a dance to be given in the midst of a group of adult lions. The "'I have means of knowing which ones will behave and which are such idiots that they can't be controlled if anything goes wrong,' she answered when I suggested that I was a better judge of the dispositions of the lions. 'I don't intend to have my beauty spoiled,' she said, 'and I only want beasts which are intelligent. No one can trust a fool.' Perhaps I have fallen under her influence, which according to her standard should indicate intelligence, for I have given way at every point and her judgment has proved correct, for in rehearsing the act she has perfect control over the animals, three of which I considered the most vicious in the menagerie. I let her take them in fear and trembling. "For the past three days she has been anxious and uneasy about the bear and has insisted that it was rapidly going blind. She says that the bear is her teacher about things in the animal world, and that she can tell "But where is the great loss?" asked the Stranger. "It is principally a loss in prospective profits," replied the Proprietor as he beckoned to the waiter. "I had the new act all planned out for Paris—the lady was to appear masked for her performance, but I knew her identity would be discovered and that it would be a tremendous sensation. I don't know how much of her desire to train animals is due to eccentricity and as a protest "How do you account for it all—her infatuation for the bear and her intuitive knowledge of the dispositions of the lions?" asked the Stranger. "I don't try to account for anything. It is one of the thousand things about animals and the million things about women which no mere man can understand," replied the Proprietor laughing. "I have simply given you the facts of the situation and you can draw your own conclusions, but the bear's blindness upsets my plans and possibly prevents a sensation in circles which approach royalty." "Women are difficult to understand," agreed the Press Agent as the Proprietor paused to moisten his throat, "and a man who is in love with one of 'em is just about as unaccountable for his actions. I had that "As I say, the poetry was strictly on the bum, but what it lacked in quality it made up in quantity and he could spiel it off by the yard. Whenever he got stuck for a rhyme he would blow the whistle which he used to call the crowd in front of the freak he was lecturing about and move to the next platform. That didn't happen often, but whenever we had a Circassian Beauty among the freaks Merritt's poetry got so sentimental that no one but a bride and groom could stand for it—and it had to be "He sure had a soft place in his heart for Circassian Beauties, and as they were as common as wire tappers on Broadway under a reform administration he was always getting sentimental. We used to get a new lot of freaks each week; our agent in New York engaged 'em and sent on the advertising matter ahead, and when we looked over the list I could see Merritt's face brighten up if there happened to be one of the fuzzy blondes included in the bunch. "Business was good, in spite of Merritt's poetry, so that I didn't kick when I saw that another one was coming. It was a good assortment: a Legless Wonder, The Man Who Breaks Paving Stones With His Bare Fists, a pair of Siamese Twins, a Leopard Boy and a particularly fuzzy Circassian Beauty. I saw Merritt's eyes grow soft when he looked at her photograph, and I "Well, Merritt starts in with the Stone Breaker and restrains himself pretty well; the only sentiment he got in was a fervent wish that 'a certain blonde beauty, with eyes of cerulean blue, would not break a "'They say that beauty is but skin deep. And as you gaze upon this freak, You will, I think, agree with me, That though beneath he fair may be, You'd much prefer to look the same As the fair being who next will claim Our admiration and attention, With charms too numerous to mention.' "That made the Leopard Boy mad, for you know that freaks are as proud of their "'Say, Mag,' says he, 'get down offen dat staige an' come away from de guy. It ain't in our contrac' dat we has ter stand for his gettin' soft on youse an' stringin' youse like dat. Come down, er I'll climb up an' break his face fer him.' "'Sure, Mike,' says the blonde, and climbs down. That made Merritt mad and he talks real English without any poetic frills for a minute. He allowed that he "'What's all this row about, anyway?' "'Dat guy was tryin' to get nex' to me wife, de Circassian Beaut',' answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts bum poetry about her, an' I won't stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight left in him and tried to break loose, but the Circassian's remarks wilted him and I never knew him to use poetry again. "'Aw, wot's de use, Mike?' says she. 'Youse can't crack a ting dat ain't hard, an' his sky-piece is made of mush.'" |