“And now you are here,” said Bunga, when the fox had finished.
“Yes, I am here,” agreed the fox. “And I expect the next thing they’ll do will be to take off my silver skin and sell it,” he added sadly.
“Take off your skin and sell it? Well, I guess not!” growled a tiger in the next cage. “They would no more skin you than they would me! They keep us for people to look at. Make your mind easy. You will not be hurt while you are in the zoo. You can not get away, it is true, but you will have a good place to stay, and all you want to eat.
“I used to think, when I first came here, that I would like to go back to the jungle, but there I had to sneak out at night to get something to eat, or water to drink. Here they bring it to me. Of course I am shut up in a cage, but it is not so bad.”
“Really won’t they take off my fur?”
“No indeed!” said the elephant.
“Then I’m glad,” went on the fox. “I’ll try to like it here in the zoo, though I’ll miss the North Woods and my father, mother, my sister Winkle and my brother Twinkle.”
“Oh, you’ll like it here after you get used to being stared at by the crowd of boys and girls and the men and women who come in,” said a lion, in a cage next the tiger.
So the animals talked among themselves, trying to make Sharp Eyes feel at home, for an animal gets almost as lonesome and homesick in a strange place as you boys and girls might do.