352 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



never lived, in the days when the illustrators made 

 their drawings upon boxwood for the wood en- 

 graver, I used to frequent the docks to watch for in- 

 coming ships from the tropics manned by piratical 

 garbed foreign sailors and hearing strange freight 



SHIPS WITH QUEER BIRDS AND ANIMALS IN THE 

 RIGGINGS 



and on the decks. The Fulton Market was also a 

 favorite hunting ground for rare fish, and the 

 u wild animal stores," on the lower East Side, for 

 objects of interest. There was one of these shops 

 on Park Row; it was an unobtrusive little store 

 filled with cages of noisy birds but the back door 

 opened into a good-sized wareroom and within 



IT WAS A MENAGERIE OF ALL SORTS OF ANIMALS 



from an elephant down to a kangaroo rat. 



As I passed the monkey cages, I shook my fist 

 at a blue-cheeked specimen of a mandrill baboon 

 and told him things of an highly insulting nature 

 about his personal appearance. A baboon is as 

 quick to resent an insult as is any Southern colonel, 

 and Bluecheeks flew at the bars in his cage, 



AND SHOOK THEM WITH RAGE. 



This was just what I expected, so in a spirit of 

 mischief I stopped to make more uncomplimentary 

 remarks. 



My portfolio was under one arm: I had taken 

 off my overcoat and thrown it over the other 



