"Cats aren't what you might call nearly extinct animals same as they unicorns. Us ha' got more home than us knows what to do with," remarked a lady timidly.
"Us drowns 'em mostly," observed a matron who looked capable of doing it.
"Not cats like these—the latest triumph of scientific inbreeding," the Captain shouted.
"Oh no, sir! Ours be bred all nohow," said the timid lady.
"Don't the monkeys tease 'em, Captain?" asked the Gentle Shepherd.
"The simians have sufficient intelligence to understand that my felidæ are famous for the claws. Beneath that tree," continued the Captain, "about three paces from the side of my nephew, you see the giant tortoise, which is the greatest antiquity that I possess—next, of course, to the Egyptian mummy. That tortoise, my friends, has lived in this world during the last five hundred years."
"Ain't that wonderful!" gasped a lady.
"I captured it upon the beach of one of the Galapagos Islands, where it had just succeeded in laying an egg."
"Him lay eggs! Then all I can say is he'm the funniest old bird I ever did set eyes on," cried a lady who was famous for her poultry.
"How did you manage to get hold of his birth certificate, Captain?" asked Squinting Jack.