"'He thought he saw an Elephant
Upon the mantelpiece;
He looked again, and found it was
His sister's husband's niece,'
"Now it seems to me that another extract from the same work would have lent itself better to your requirements:
"'He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek;
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
"The one thing I regret," he said,
"Is that I cannot speak!"'"
I very much regret that it—the snake—cannot speak, for were it gifted with articulate power your representative could hold a viva voce interview with his snakeship, and therefore become enlightened as to the real facts of the case. The reptile might also disclose the locality he hails from, as that important point is still shrouded in mystery.
"As soon as I had read your article, which deals somewhat frivolously with a very serious subject, I went forth to the Zoo in quest of Mr. Bartlett, but that gentleman had left town. Perhaps the article in question had something to do with his departure. Why I sought to see him was to put to him the following questions to test the accuracy of your statements:
"1. How comes it that you informed me on Saturday that the snake was a foreigner, while according to the Westminster Gazette it is English?
"2. Did you not give it to me as your opinion that it must have come in fruit? You are now made to say that it must have been brought in plants or shrubs, and if that is so, why did the Park gardeners declare that they had never seen anything like it before?
"3. Did you not say it was only a week old, and also that where it came from there must be a number more?
"4. Did you not emphatically declare that you had no specimen of the kind in the Gardens, and was it not for this reason I made you a present of this one? How do you reconcile that with the following passage in your interview with the representative of the Westminster Gazette: 'As for its rarity, here is a fairly long list of the specimens we have had, and we have several at present'? And did you not give as a reason the reptile could not have strayed from the Gardens the very cogent one that you had none of the kind in your collection? And may I ask whether you really have any or not? For if you have, and the one in question has escaped, what is to prevent rattlesnakes and cobras and other venomous specimens from escaping also?
"5. If, as you say, you doubted my seriousness, why was the snake duly entered in the books of the Zoological Society, from whom I received a formal letter of thanks for the presentation?