“We struck off down Crowndale Road—I was living in the neighbourhood of the St. Pancras Road then—and got to Gloucester Gate just about dusk. We had passed through, and were walking along the Broad Walk by the side of the Zoo, when Minnie suddenly caught hold of my arm, and said, ‘Look, Grandad!’ I followed the direction of her gaze, and there coming straight towards us from the Zoo walls was a lion. I can tell you it gave me a jump, as I naturally thought one of the animals had escaped. It aimed straight for us, and upon its getting close to I recognised it at once—it was the young lion that had been taken ill. To my astonishment, however, there was nothing of the invalid about it now. The expression in its eyes was one of infinite happiness. It seemed to say, ‘I have attained my ideal; I am out in the open, in the sweet, fresh air, and the wide darkness of the fast approaching night.’ It came right up to us, and I stretched out my hand to touch it, wondering what the passers-by would do when they saw it, and how on earth we should get it back into the gardens. It bitterly grieved me to think it would have to lose its freedom. I stretched out my hand, I say, to touch it, and to my surprise my fingers encountered nothing—the lion had vanished. I then realised what Minnie had known all along—that what we had seen was a ghost. A ghost, and yet it had appeared to me so absolutely real and life-like.”
“How did you know it was a ghost?” I enquired of the young woman.
“By the curious kind of light that seemed to emanate from all over its body,” she replied. “I can only describe it as a kind of glow, something like that of a glow-worm. It was not a bit natural.”
“But you saw the figure distinctly?”
“Yes,” she responded, “very distinctly, and I wasn’t the least bit afraid.”
“Let me tell you the sequel, sir,” the old man interrupted. “On my arrival at the Zoo in the morning, one of the men came running up to me. ‘It’s dead!’ he said. ‘Dead!’ I cried. ‘Who’s dead?’ ‘Why, that young lion of yours,’ was the reply; ‘it died at eight o’clock last night.’
“And, sure enough, when I went into the lion-house, there was the animal lying stretched out at full length in its cage—dead. It had died at eight o’clock, which was the exact time we had seen it in the park.”
......
And now to pursue the thread of my own life, which must of necessity run through this volume. While I was teaching at Blackheath, I not only completed my first novel, “For Satan’s Sake,” but studied for the stage at the Henry Neville Studio in Oxford Street. I shall never forget with what joy, when my duties with the spoilt and tiresome boys were over, I exchanged the terrible monotony of the schoolroom for the delightful and interesting atmosphere of the Studio. Henry Neville did not teach there himself, but periodically came to watch and help us with his criticisms, which were always as kindly and instructive as they were utterly free from pomposity and egotism. Easy and natural himself, he tried to infuse something of his spirit into us, and with many of us, I believe, he succeeded; for even those who did not believe that acting could be taught, were bound to admit that the pupils of Henry Neville were singularly free from the staginess almost always seen in amateurs, and sometimes in professionals as well.
Henry Neville’s brother, Fred Gartside, who gave me my first lesson in elocution—an abler or more persevering instructor could not have been found—left off teaching at the Studio soon after I joined. Mr. G. R. Foss took his place, and is, I believe, still at the head of it.