"Our forests skinny and bare looking, did you say? You don't know what you are talking about. I guess our forests are as nice as yours in India, and not half so full of snakes and chattering monkeys, to say nothing of the nasty crocodiles and hippopotamuses that you have in your rivers; and vines growing all over the trees and from one tree to another, so thickly you can't walk without making a path for yourself by breaking them down."
"Oh, but that is just what I like," said the elephant, "and the air is so hot and moist you feel fine, while here you are either all dried up with heat or shivering with cold."
"Well, every one to his taste, I suppose," and he walked over to the hyenas' cage to make their acquaintance, out of curiosity, as he knew little about hyenas.
"My, aren't they homely, sneaky, shifty-eyed looking things!" thought Billy. "I would not like to meet one alone after dark, but still I hear they are cowardly and wait until one is dead before they try to eat him up. I don't think I will make a long call, for they grin and laugh too much, and their laughter has no mirth in it. It is just a loud guffaw." So he only stayed a few minutes and then went on to a beautiful white llama's cage.
"Good morning, Miss Llama," said Billy very politely, for he wished to get in the good graces of the beautiful Miss Llama whom he admired very much for her long, silky, white hair and mild, brown eyes.
"Good morning, Mr. Whiskers," she replied. "How do you find yourself after our Saturday night's trip?"
"Very well," said Billy, "but I am afraid you must have had a bad shaking up where the bridge was broken, if you had to go down that steep embankment to cross the creek."
"You are right; it was steep," said the llama, "and I was nearly scared to death when I felt the water running into my cage and I had just given myself up as lost when it commenced to recede, and I was thrown on my knees by the cage being pulled with a jerk up the opposite bank. How did you get across?"
"Oh, easily! I just jumped across from one pier of the bridge to the other," said Billy. "I met a friend of mine and we went off and had a fine time. How I wish you could get out of that cage, so you could go with us sometime!"
"You don't wish it more than I do, and it always makes me weep, when we are driven along the sweet smelling roads, to think that I can't get out and must be shut in here for life."