If any one wishes to be supplied with coal for nothing, he has only to rent a house near a railway, invest in a monkey, and follow the example set in the following story:

An eminent menagerist lived in a suburb where forty trains a day passed his garden. The weather was cold, but coal was expensive. The menagerist, however, was a man of resources, and conceived a plan for utilizing the forty trains a day. From his menagerie in town he brought a large Barbary ape, which unfortunate animal was chained to the top of a pole at the end of the garden.

The result was as pleasant as owning a colliery, without any wages to pay, or fear of floods and explosions. Every fireman, and occasionally an engineer, on the passing trains, had a shot with a lump of coal at the Barbary ape. The ape was never hit, but the garden was littered with coal, which the menagerist triumphantly conveyed to his cellar.