“Very good,” said Collins; then catching sight of Joe Tennison gazing at Cromartie and the lady from a distance of three feet, with his yellow eyeballs almost popping out of his sooty face, he sternly ordered him to go into the back room of his cage.
“Oh, I can tell you something, I can tell you what you’ld never believe,” cried Joe, but Collins silently pointed his finger at him, and the nigger jumped up and slowly beat a retreat into his own quarters.
Ten minutes later the curator came in.
“Come round to the back where we can talk more conveniently, Miss Lackett,” he said. Then he unlocked the door of the inner cage or den and Josephine walked in. They sat down.
“I have asked Miss Lackett to marry me, and have been accepted,” said Cromartie rather stiffly. “I was anxious to tell you at once, so as to make arrangements with regard to the ceremony, which of course we wish to be carried out as privately as possible, and at once. After our marriage my wife is prepared to live with me in this cage, unless of course you arrange for us to have other quarters.”
The curator suddenly laughed, a loud, good-natured, hearty laugh. To Cromartie it seemed a piece of brutality, to Josephine a menace. They both frowned, and drew slightly together waiting for the worst.
“I ought to explain to you,” the curator began, “that the committee has already considered what to do in the event of such a contingency as this occurring.
“It is impossible, for various reasons, for us to keep married couples in the Man-house, and we decided that in the event of your mentioning marriage, Mr. Cromartie, that we should consider our contract with you at an end. In other words you are free to go, and in fact I am now going to turn you out.”
As he said these words the curator rose and opened the door. For a moment the happy couple hesitated; they looked at each other and then walked out of the cage together, but Josephine kept hold of her man as they did so. The curator slammed the door and locked it on the forgotten Caracal, and then said:
“Cromartie, I congratulate you very heartily; and my dear Miss Lackett, you have chosen a man for whom all of us here have the very greatest respect and admiration. I hope you will be happy with him.”