If she had been less beautiful they would have resented this. But, as it was, they looked sorry, and asked her if she had never read “Who's Who in America”? She shook her head, and admitted that she had not read it all through.
“Well,” said her neighbor on the south, “this is rather an offhand soiree, and we may as well cut out proper names. But I will put you wise to the fact that I am the Magazine Lion. I got away from Roosevelt in Africa. He called me 'Mucky,' and I made tracks. Here he cannot hurt me, for they will never let that man do anything in good old New York, not even touch a Tiger.”
“And I,” said her neighbor on the north, “I am the Academic Lion, of whom you must have heard. My character is noted for its concealed sweetness, and my style leaves nothing to be hoped for. I am literally a man of letters, for I have seventeen degrees. Usually I look literary-lean and nobly dissatisfied, but yesterday I swallowed a British Female Novelist by accident, and that accounts for my inartistic air of cheerfulness. I won my splendid reputation by telling other Lions how they ought to have done their little tricks. But now, tired of that, I have gone into politics. This is my first public office.”
Diana was somewhat confused and benumbed by these personally conducted biographies, but she was too well-bred not to appear interested.
“How lovely,” she murmured, “to sit between two such Great Personages! I wonder what brought poor little Me to such an honor. And, by the way, how do you happen to be just here? What is this beautiful building behind you? Is it your Palace?”
“It is a Library,” said the Academic Lion, with a superior tone.
“The biggest book-heap in America,” said the Magazine Lion in his vivid way. “We have them all beaten to a finish—except the old junk-shop down in Washington.”
“You forget Boston,” said the Academic Lion.
“Who wouldn't?” growled the Magazine Lion.
“Do you mean to tell me,” asked Diana, with her most engaging and sprightly air, “that this splendid place is a Library, all full of books, and that you are its most prominent figures, its figureheads, so to speak? How interesting! I have travelled a great deal—under the name of Pasht or Bast, in Egypt, where the Cats liked me; and under the name of Artemis in Greece; and under my own name in Italy. Believe me, I have seen all things that the moon shines upon. But I do not remember having seen Lions on a Library before. How original! How appropriate! How suggestive! But what does it suggest? What are you here for?”