“He isn’t painted, either,” said McConnell, scratching the zebra’s back.
“Oh, this is a very honest show!” laughed the detective.
It turned out that Dobbs knew a good many of the people at the Zoo, and before the company started homeward he had made it possible for the club to do pretty much as it pleased.
When the club was ready to start, McConnell found every one but Miss Illwin. Owen had seen her over by the rhinoceros tank. Mr. Goodstone and Mrs. Creigh had left her with the deer. But no one was able to actually find her.
“Where can she be?” queried Miss Manston.
“You don’t suppose anything could have happened, do you?” asked Mrs. Creigh, her face indicating real anxiety.
“Well,” said Major Mines, mischievously, “she was taking the tiger at twenty feet. It seemed safe enough.”
“The lady or the tiger,” muttered Mr. Thornton.
“I really think,” said Mr. Goodstone, solemnly, “that some of us ought to look up the rhinoceros part of the story.”
“Do you think so?” asked Miss Manston, half inclined to think this was no joke. She was so afraid of rhinoceroses herself. “Horrors! Suppose she fell in!”