"It is rather unusual to call the most famous specialist in the country to examine a menagerie animal," he said, after the doctor hurriedly left them to catch the express train back to the city. "You know that he takes no small fee; his services are either given for charity or his charge is very high—and this visit was not for charity."
"I should think that the value of a bear would hardly warrant the expense," answered the Stranger as the waiter filled the glasses.
"It wouldn't be for an ordinary bear, but I was willing to pay anything in reason to restore the sight of this particular specimen, so I sent for the best-known oculist in New York. The decision which he has just given will probably mean a loss of thousands of dollars to me, but that is one of the risks which I have to assume. Would it interest you to hear a rather unusual romance of the menagerie business?" The Stranger gave eager assent, and the Press Agent settled himself comfortably and lighted a cigar.
"There seems to be a sympathy between them."
"You have no idea how many animals are offered to the owner of a menagerie and from what unusual sources the offers come," said the Proprietor. "Travelers in far countries bring back strange animals as pets or curiosities; people buy young wild animals which get beyond control when they mature and become veritable white elephants on their hands, and their owners have to dispose of them. I have had everything from monkeys to lions brought to me, and so it did not surprise me when an artist came to the Hippodrome in Paris last winter and asked me if I didn't want to purchase a bear. He seemed anxious for me to see it immediately, and at his earnest solicitation I got in a cab with him and drove to his studio, which was situated on the far side of the Seine. The bear which you saw examined to-night was in a small room adjoining the studio, chained to a ring in the wall.
"The apartment was luxuriously furnished, and I realized that it was not lack of ready money which made the artist so anxious to dispose of the brute; but he seemed in a desperate hurry to have me take it away, and offered it for such a low price that I closed the bargain at once. I suggested sending one of my men for it in the evening, but he insisted upon my taking it with me, and as the bear was evidently as gentle as a kitten I called a closed cab and drove away with it. The bear sat comfortably on the seat beside me and gave no trouble, but as we drove along I got to thinking the matter over and the whole proceeding seemed a little strange. I had Mephisto, as the bear was named, put in a cage well away from the other animals—a sort of quarantine precaution which I always take with new arrivals—and as there was apparently nothing unusual about him gave him little attention, there being for the moment no group of animals in training for which he would be available. I soon noticed that during the intermissions, when the audience wandered about and examined the animals in the cages, there was always a crowd of women about his den; but I thought that it was because he was such an inveterate beggar, and had a habit of standing at the bars with his mouth wide open, waiting for some one to flick a lump of sugar into it.
"The bear had given us no trouble, and there was only one peculiar thing about him: he seemed to have an aversion to cats. The bodies of three of them had been found in front of his cage, although we had never seen one killed. The cats about a menagerie instinctively keep out of harm's way, and it puzzled me to know how Mephisto had managed to get them within reach of his heavy paw. Jack Bonavita, who fusses about his lions at all hours of the day and night, solved that mystery and incidentally saved his pet cat, Tramp, from an untimely ending. Tramp has been with Jack for years and appreciates the folly of venturing within reach of the animals in the cages, but Bonavita came across him in front of Mephisto's cage in the middle of the night. The bear was absolutely quiet, lying with its head on its paws and its eyes, which glistened like two points of flame, fixed on the cat. Tramp was staring at it in turn and slowly drawing nearer to the cage, apparently struggling against some influence which was stronger than its will. Bonavita watched them for a few minutes, but before the cat ventured within striking distance he picked it up and carried it away, while Mephisto, growling with rage, tried to break through the stout bars and get at it.