80 
ALMOST HUMAN 
he would stretch himself out ostentatiously as if to say he was going 
to sleep and she might as well give up grumbling for half-an-hour. But 
she knew perfectly well that he could not sleep unless she did, and 
therefore it was quite useless for him to make the attempt. His subter- 
fuge brought its own reward. She would recognise that here was 
another real grievance — if he loved her he would be anxious to share 
her troubles; as it was she was sure he was only waiting for her to 
die to begin his ardent courting of Miss Prettyman. So, with fuel added 
to the flame of her displeasure, she would stand over his prostrate form 
and call him every name that the tiger tongue could utter. When he 
pretended to be deaf she went a little closer, and by the flicker of his 
eyelids, the swish of the tip of his tail, the hasty motion of his head 
away from her, she knew that every word found its mark, and that he 
was suffering as he justly deserved for his callous neglect of such a wife 
as no tiger ever had before. 
The director and staff took so much pity upon the suffering tiger 
that it was decided they should be separated. No living creature could 
be expected to endure such punishment for any length of time. This 
decision was not communicated to the tiger in time. He took the law 
into his own hands while a new cage was being prepared for his cross- 
grained mate. One day the tigress was even more provoking than usual. 
She had determined to forgo her usual sleeps for the sake of her 
husband’s moral nature, hoping that the “third degree” might bring 
forth an admission of his guilt in ceasing to love her, and so she packed 
the misery of two days into one. The consequence was that the 
unending solo was more than any worm could meekly endure, let alone 
a tiger. The worn-out creature determined to have peace at all costs. 
While she stood looking at him with a frown of hate darkening her 
whole face as she held it low in sullenness, her mouth set in horribly 
ugly lines as she emitted the bass snarl, her overtried mate sought a 
position of vantage, sprang, fastened his teeth through her spinal cord 
at the back of her neck, and she fell dead almost before her last growl 
was finished. 
At first he seemed perfectly unconcerned about the dread deed he 
had perpetrated. Indeed, he slept almost continuously, night and day, 
for several days, showing unmistakably how fearfully worn out he was 
for want of quiet. But as his tiredness passed off he began to reflect. 
He grew restless, and paced his cage hurriedly, sniffing in every corner, 
and hastening back to look out of the bars as if expecting her to come to 
him from beyond. He would stand gazing fixedly away into the 
distance, and there was no question but that his thoughts were “long, 
long thoughts.” Day after day his uneasiness increased, and as he 
