CHAPTER III

IN WHICH A VISIT IS PAID TO A RED-HAIRED LADY AND CERTAIN MEMBERS OF LONDON'S FOREIGN POPULATION ARE ENUMERATED

Armed with a message of introduction from Mrs. Wiles, I called on Mr. Wiles at his place of business. He is to be found under the New Ape House. You knock on the closed door opposite the King's Nepal exhibits, and as you stand there waiting for it to be opened the contemptible monkey house and the shameless prismatic mandril are on your left. By and by steps are heard on a stone passage and Mr. Wiles or his mate opens the door.

"Are you Mr. Wiles?" I asked.

He said he was, and I told him that I was Mr. Falconer, and our alliance was completed. Some friendships are made beforehand, and this was one of them.

He showed me his kitchen, where the food of these delicate exotic creatures is prepared, and then he led me to the little warm room where Barbara holds her court. She herself opened the door for us--a young clinging ourang-outang, red as Rufus, with quick sad eyes and restless hands and arms that could strangle a bull. These arms she flung round Mr. Wiles's neck and he carried her to the window.

"Wouldn't do for the missis to see too much of this," he said. "Women don't understand it. She's a brick, my missis, but, bless your heart, she'd carry on a treat if she found me and Barbara like this. The rum thing," he went on, "is that Barbara's a woman too. In fact, you can't be long in these Gardens without finding out how much alike we all are--us and them. As for babies, why, they ought to be here; and lots of grown-up people too. Makes you think a bit, you know." He lowered his voice. "It makes you think too much, almost. What I ask myself is this, What is a soul? Because, here's Barbara, here, hasn't got one, and I have; and as far as I can see, the only difference between us, after clothes, is that she can't talk and I can. But knowing! there's nothing she doesn't know and nothing she doesn't feel. She's as understanding as a Christian and much more affectionate than many of them. What I ask myself sometimes is, Why is Barbara in a cage and all these people out and about? or, Why aren't I in a cage and Barbara paying a bob to see me? It wants a bit of thinking. It isn't enough just to say, Because I'm a man and Barbara's an ourang-outang; because, who was it called me a man and Barbara an ourang-outang? Why, man did. That is to say, it's all going his way. But what do you suppose ourang-outangs call us? Ah! Suppose"--he lowered his voice to a whisper--"suppose ourang-outangs call themselves men and us apes! Wouldn't that be terrible? But nobody knows. Not even Dr. Chalmers Mitchell knows."

Barbara meanwhile sat absolutely motionless save that her eyes roved and her great jaws worked a little. It was enough for her that she was in Mr. Wiles's arms and he in hers.

"Look at her now," Mr. Wiles continued; "she's taking it all in. She knows what I'm saying. And another thing. The best in the land come to see her. The King and Queen are often here. Great scholars come, artists, authors. And they all make a fuss of her such as they wouldn't make of any human being outside their own families, and not them often. That's odd, isn't it? Makes you think there's something more in apes than you bargained for.

"The trouble is," he went on, "they're so delicate, ourang-outangs, and so are chimpanzees; in fact, all the larger apes. First it's bronchitis and then it's pneumonia. I've had so many pass through my hands--all dead now. Barbara's doing fairly well, but I dread the winter. I dare say you've heard of the famous performing chimpanzee--Consul? Seen him, perhaps? It might surprise you to know that there have been twenty-six Consuls since he first appeared. The public think it's the original one, but it's not. Twenty-six."

Whatever else I may have to do later in the day I manage to get to the Zoo for a little while every fine morning. Only thus can one obtain real intimacy with any of its inhabitants, whether they have souls or not. Only thus could I have become so close a friend of the wombat, that engaging stupid Australian with his broad, blunt, good-natured face. As the wombat lives on the north bank of the turgid dyke called the Regent's Canal, into which apathetic but sanguine Londoners drop bait all day with never a bite, and nursemaids drop surreptitious love-letters when they have read them a sufficient number of times, it is upon him that I pay one of my first calls, since it is by the Albert Road gate that I enter this attractive sanctuary: passing on my way Owls' Terrace, the solemn occupants of which are either reflecting so sagely upon life (far more sagely than anybody in Primrose Terrace) or are merely pretending to, no one will ever know which.

After the wombat I visit the capuchin (or sapajou), whose peculiarity it is to be more like an old man seen through the wrong end of a telescope than any other monkey or ape will ever be, although it is the chimpanzee that has the credit of coming nighest to our perfect state. So it may, taken as a whole, but for human features, however wizened and poor, the capuchin (or sapajou) bears away the bell. According to the Zoo guide-book, the capuchin (or sapajou) differs from man principally in retaining his tail and possessing four more grinding teeth than even those of us who are lucky to keep the complement that Heaven allowed us.

I then cross the canal by the private half of the public bridge, where the visitor to the Zoo is separated from the common outsider by an iron railing which makes each look to the other far liker a wild beast than is pleasant in this neighbourhood, and so come to my gentle friends, the giraffes, those pathetic survivals from the past whom American ex-presidents and gallant big-game hunters generally are so eager to exterminate. How any thinking creature proud in the possession of an immortal soul can bring his finger to pull the trigger at such an innocent, beautiful, and liquid-eyed vegetarian as this I shall never have imagination enough to understand; but they do it continually, and evidently have no compunctions, for they are photographed afterwards with one foot on the victim's corpse.

And so past the island cave of the beaver, a creature upon whom no visitor's eye has ever rested, and who, for all the British public knows, may not be there at all, to the elephants, one of whom has been nodding his head against the bars and opening his inadequate mouth for buns ever since 1876, and will, I dare say, continue to do so for many years yet. How many buns he has eaten let the statistician compute. I have no doubt that if placed in a line touching each other they would extend from London to Adelaide in the usual manner.

After the elephant, who is all deliberate matter, I visit the otter, who is all nervous fluid and the merriest creature in the gardens, and so, by way of the magical lizards, come to Mr. Wiles and Barbara.

That is my short round. When there is more time I extend it to take in the gay little foreign birds with the pretty names, who live between the lizards and the bears, and who, with the lizards, seem to be almost more wonderful achievements on the part of the Creator than the elephant or giraffe. And I like also to look once again at the King Penguin and the Snow Leopards; but the lions and tigers I rarely visit, for I cannot bear the forlorn look in their eyes. It hurts me to think that it is partly my subscription that is keeping them here.

And coming out again into the world of men, it seems strange and unbelievable that anyone should choose to live anywhere but close to Regent's Park.