8 
ALMOST HUMAN 
her smoke it with amusement. One day he took several lady friends 
with him to see her, and he decided he would be funny at her expense. 
He olfered the cigarette as usual, but instead of letting Mollie take it, he 
drew his hand back as she was about to grasp it. He kept this game 
up for quite a long while, and was highly amused when Mollie got on 
her dignity and sat frowning angrily at his cruelty. He turned his 
back upon her as he began to talk to his friends, and neither he nor 
they noticed that in leaning on the fence he was gradually getting within 
Mollie’s reach. But she was on the alert, if they were not. Her bright 
eyes were fixed upon him as he moved nearer and nearer. Nobody 
noticed a long, strong brown arm stealthily thrust through the bars, nor 
the powerful, slender fingers feel for a tight grip upon the offender’s 
collar. But before they could guess what she was about he was grabbed, 
lifted over the railings, and shaken within an inch of his life. His 
horrified friends screamed for help, and he added to their clamor, but 
Mollie cared not a whit for all their racket. She shook and shook him 
until his collar studs gave way, his clothes split half-way down with 
the strain, and he was quite half-strangled. When she was sure he 
had been taught a lesson that he would never forget, and was fully repaid 
for all he had done to her, she flung him across the railings again as 
contemptuously and triumphantly as she had thrown the label. No 
more thoroughly humbled and frightened man has ever gone out of the 
Zoo gates than the one who decided to “have a loan” of Mollie. 
THE BORROWED PARASOL. 
Once two ladies stopped before her cage and watched her for some 
time. They then began to tease her by poking her with their parasols. 
Mollie likes to be lent articles of attire, such as gloves, which she will 
put on carefully, and on the right hands, too, drawing them up over her 
arms without a wrinkle in them; or handkerchiefs, which she will turn 
into neckerchiefs or caps, deftly tying knots in the corners as if she 
had been used to it all her life. She looks curiously human dressed 
in this way. If she can get an umbrella her joy is complete. She 
knows that people cannot resist giving her a crack over the knuckles 
if she exposes them carelessly outside the bars, so she angles for the 
coveted toy as patiently as ever Isaak Walton did for fish. When she 
lands her prize, she will prepare elaborately to extract the last ounce 
of enjoyment out of it. She makes a presentable imitation of an arm- 
chair out of her bags, and then reclines at ease as she presses back the 
spring and opens the umbrella. She flirts with it then to her heart’s 
content. At first it is held high up. Then it is lowered over her head ; 
