I shuddered and declined.
"Very well, then. We will return to the main building."
We did so, and the librarian paused beside a small case. "Here is The Gold Bug. This caterpillar is the one that Sergeant Troy removed on the tip of his sword from the dress of Bathsheba Everdene. And the bees were of the swarm that traveled about with the Bee Man of Orn."
The two cages beyond both contained large apes.
"Our orang-outangs," remarked Mr. Gooch, "have decidedly bad reputations. The one on the right committed the murders in the Rue Morgue. The other is called Bimi—he belonged to a Frenchman named Bertran. The next cage has a miscellaneous assortment of Bander Log. Oh! here are some horses and cattle. The pony once belonged to Tom Bailey. This donkey was one of those which used to annoy Miss Betsy Trotwood. Priscilla Alden, on her wedding-day, rode on this white bull. The stuffed donkey is the one whose dead body lay once in the pathway of a traveler on a Sentimental Journey. And the other donkey was the foster-mother of the Luck of Roaring Camp."
I pointed to some enormous and repulsive-looking crabs that were crawling about on the sand at the edge of a tank, and asked what they were. The librarian told me that they were from the subterranean river over which Allan Quatermain and his friends traveled.
"But they," said Mr. Gooch, "are nothing to the fellow in the next tank."
I looked where he indicated and saw the most hideous monster it has ever been my bad luck to come across. It was a tremendous crab—the creature of a nightmare.
"It is one of those found on the shores of the Future by the traveler who voyaged on the Time Machine."
"I think I have had enough of your aquariums," I said.