232 
ALMOST HUMAN 
“So you did; and I told you I did,” was the patient rejoinder. 
“Why don’t you tell me what time they are fed, then?” 
“But you didn’t ask me to tell you what time they were fed, ma’am. 
You asked me if I knew what time they were fed!” 
By this time the lady was so indignant with the blandness of the 
gardener that she would not condescend to ask him to tell her the time, 
and she walked off proudly at such high speed that she did not hear 
“We are not the first 
Who, with best meaning, have incurred the worst.” 
(King Lear.) 
the crest-fallen man volunteer the information that feeding time is half- 
past three. 
Everybody likes to watch the animals fed at the Zoo, but very few 
see the most pathetic exhibit there — the poor old lion horses. It takes 
an average of seven horses a week to keep the carnivora at the gardens 
fed, which means slightly over one a day, because the beasts are not 
fed on Sundays. This is not because of any question of Sabbath rest 
or of laziness, but because all wild animals have periods of abstention 
from food in their natural state, perhaps more from necessity than from 
