6 BEASTS AND MEN 
and its erstwhile occupant completely vanished! During the 
night the racoon must have made his way out through the 
bars, and have jumped off the top of the coach. 
We dared not give the alarm, for, unless the fugitive had 
been speedily recaptured, we should have had the authorities 
down on us for letting loose wild beasts in the heart of 
Germany. So we all kept our own counsel, and nobody 
knew of the occurrence save my father, the driver of the 
diligence, and myself. Two years later, however, it was 
noised abroad that a racoon had been killed on Liineburger 
Heath, and there was great excitement in the newspapers 
and much speculation as to how that carnivore came to be 
living wild in Germany. We might have been able to 
suggest a not improbable solution of the mystery, but we 
judged it more discreet to hold our tongues. 
In our early days we had many similar mishaps, most of 
them taking place at home, however. On one occasion we 
were aroused in the middle of the night by a terrified night- 
watchman, who informed us that an enormous seal was 
perambulating the streets of Hamburg. We rushed out 
with nets, and just succeeded in securing the creature as it 
was about to return to its native element. On another 
occasion a hyzna escaped from its cage, and was only 
recaptured after a long, and decidedly dangerous, nocturnal 
hunt. 
Such episodes as these, however, only formed occasional 
diversions. My chief recollection of the first ten years of the 
business is that it was a ceaseless round of very hard, and 
not over-profitable, work. We had to buy our experience 
dearly, and almost every mistake that we made in the treat- 
ment of the beasts, or in the methods of transporting them, 
would cost us the lives of some of the creatures. Indeed, for 
part of the time, my father ran the business at a loss, and 
if his success as a fishmonger had not enabled him to pass 
through this black period, it is highly probable that he would 
have given up the animal trade altogether. This, however, 
