friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for
last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found
him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again,
although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against
the window-panes.
_ The Pall Mall Gazette, 18 September._
THE ESCAPED WOLF.
PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER.
_Interview with the Keeper in the Zoological Gardens._
After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using
the words Pall Mall Gazette as a sort of talisman, I managed to find
the keeper of the section of the Zoological Gardens in which the wolf
department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in
the enclosure behind the elephant-house, and was just sitting down to
his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk,
elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their
hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty
comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called business
until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the
table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said:--
Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You ll excoose me
refoosin to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the
wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore
I begins to arsk them questions.
How do you mean, ask them questions? I queried, wishful to get him
into a talkative humour.
Ittin of them over the ead with a pole is one way; scratchin of
their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf
to their gals. I don t so much mind the fust--the ittin with a pole
afore I chucks in their dinner; but I waits till they ve ad their
sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the
138