THE CHIMPANZEE. 



117 



and flung it at her. Hate her as he might, he 

 could not help being interested ; if any sound 

 came from her side of the wall, he hurried to the 

 opening and glued his ear or his eye to the 

 crack, as an eavesdropper to a keyhole. 



One day each of them had a stick to play 

 with. Kitty amused herself biting hers to a 

 point, pressing it into a hole too small to admit 

 it, until it was reduced in size, and breaking 

 it off, then biting it again, and repeating the 

 operation, apparently liking the noise it made. 

 Crowley used his stick to annoy her ; he pushed 

 it between the bars and tried to reach her with 

 it. She would take hold of it, when he jerked 

 it away, and was so pleased that he chuckled 

 and grinned most unpleasantly. After torment- 

 ing her a long time, he grew careless, and she 

 snatched it out of his hand. Then his fury was 

 terrible to see ; he raged round like a demon, 

 pelted her with showers of sawdust, and became 

 so outrageous that one of the keepers took a long 

 iron rod with a scraper on the end, and tried to 

 discipline him. But, so far from succeeding, Mr. 

 Crowley turned the tables on him by snatching 

 it out of his hand, and then he had a weapon 

 with which he might easily kill half a dozen of 

 his packed spectators. He had the strength to 

 do it, too ; he handled that six-foot rod as if it 

 were a bamboo cane. There was a sort of panic 



