X.] MISKY. 223 



Misky, though a great favourite with every one, was perhaps not 

 altogether a source of unmixed pleasure to us. To an unsuspecting 

 visitor the sight of him bearing down at a loose trot to investigate 

 matters was anything but reassuring, and it was in vain for us to 

 tell our guests that it was " only his fun." A gallant lieutenant 

 coming on board one day in full dress proved too great a temptation 

 for Bruin, who immediately seized him by the coat-tails. It was 

 found impossible to make him let go until the discomfited officer 

 had reduced himself to his shirt-sleeves, when, delighted with 

 his success, the delinquent shuffled off. He was apparently almost 

 indifferent to pain. A smell of burning being one day discovered 

 forward, one of the crew proceeded to investigate the cause, and 

 found Misky standing upright on the top of a nearly red-hot stove, 

 engjacjed in steahnn; cabba2;es from a shelf above. He was growling 

 in an undertone and standing first on one leg and then on the other, 

 but he nevertheless went on slowly eating, heedless of the fact that 

 the soles of his feet were burnt entirely raw. Endless were the 

 stories about him, and the scrapes he got into, but punishment w^as 

 apparently in vain, for he got worse as he grew older ; and after 

 having devoured portions of the cabin skylight and a man's thumb, 

 and finished by drinking the oil out of the binnacle lamp, he was 

 shipped to England, and found a new home in the bear-pit in the 

 Zoological Gardens. 



Misky's sworn enemy was the mongoose, into whom seven 

 devils at least had entered. His sole object in Hfe was mischief, 

 and it must be confessed that he never idled for a moment. 

 "Wliether biting one's toes as one lay asleep in the early morning, 

 capsizing the ink-bottle, or bolting surreptitiously with some coveted 

 morsel from the dinner-table, he was never still, but his greatest 

 happiness, — ^for it was attended with that spice of danger which 

 gives the true zest to sport, — was to " draw " Misky. Wlien that 

 unsuspecting animal was rolling his unwieldy body about on deck, 

 ignorant of the proximity of his enemy, the mongoose would 

 approach noiselessly from behind and nip him sharply in the foot. 



