“That isn’t good,” said the animal man, who was a person like the one with the camera, who had first taken a liking to Sharp Eyes. “We must put this silver fox where he will be happier, and will make friends with other animals.”
“I think he’d like to be near Chunky, the happy hippo,” said the keeper.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because when Sharp Eyes first came to our park, and his cage broke, he went in the hippo’s cage and they seemed to like each other.”
“Ha! Well, maybe it would be a good thing to move this silver fox back near the hippo,” said the animal man. “Sharp Eyes is not the same sort as these red or black foxes. His coat of fur is much better. He is a different kind of fox, and if we put him in a cage by himself the people will look at him more. Sharp Eyes ought to like that. It will keep him from getting lonesome and homesick for the woods from which he came.”
So, a few days later, they took Sharp Eyes out of the main fox den, and put him in a cage by himself not far from where Chunky, the happy hippo, lived.
“Ah! I am glad to see you again!” cried the animal with the big mouth which looked like a piano lined with red flannel. “So you have come to see me?”
“Yes. And I didn’t like it with the other foxes,” answered Sharp Eyes. “I am glad they brought me here.”
Soon he and the hippo were talking away to one another at a great rate, though if you had stood in front of their cages you would not have thought that they were doing anything more than grunting or barking. But that was their way of talking.
“You said you were going to tell me a funny story of Tum Tum, the jolly elephant,” said Sharp Eyes to Chunky one day.