REMINISCENCES FROM THE MELBOURNE ZOO. 
195 
Mr. Wilkie volunteered to hold the animal at bay. When all was finished 
young Parsons gave the signal to go, and Mr. Wilkie left a deeply con- 
templative young buck watching his departure with a sadness that seemed 
to indicate his distress at being suspected of being capable of mischief. 
But he had scarcely gone a dozen yards past the gate when he heard an 
exclamation of surprise and fright, and, looking behind, he saw the 
young man coming through that small gate as though he had been shot 
from a catapult. The onlooker was irresistibly reminded of a clown 
going through a window in a pantomime. But who was responsible? 
There was the chamois still lost in contemplation and showing not the 
slightest interest in the man’s extraordinary movements, so who could 
blame him for the deed? 
Almost as soon as Arthur Parsons landed Mr. Wilkie was by his 
side. 
“What’s the matter?” he asked. 
“I don’t know!” was the gasping answer. “Something hit me!” 
It turned out that the innocent looking chamois had proved himself 
to be not nearly as well-bred as the Dowager Countess of Mickleham 
under like provocation. Lovers of “The Dolly Dialogues” will remember 
that when that most provoking man, Mr. Carter, laughed over the 
accident of the breaking of the handle of her “starers” while she was 
trying to be particularly dignified, she ordered him out of her presence, 
and to get his hat he had to stoop at her feet. “To tell the truth,” he 
said, “I was rather afraid to expose myself in such a defenceless attitude ; 
but the Countess preserved her self-control.” The Austrian also pre- 
served his self-control, to a superlative degree, but that did not prevent 
him making the most of his opportunity and taking the Australian in 
the rear. 
“I guess that Austrian consul owes me a new pair of trousers,” said 
the victim, as he contemplated the ruin of his clothes — and he got them, 
too. 
Later, when war broke out, this boy thought he would make an 
attempt to retrieve Australia’s honor, jeopardised that day; and he was 
among the first to enlist. But he had to be content with fighting Turks 
instead of Austrians, and he is not even now sure whether he has received 
compensation in full for the damage done to his self-respect and his feel- 
ings, for while he punished the Turks they also punished him, and sent 
him out of the fray to be a mere spectator at the end. 
