The performances of the bears ended with Bruno and Clara dancing heavily to the refrain of the “Merry Widow Waltz,” while Ikey pretended to conduct the music of the orchestra. On the final call, Madame Zichy threw to each of the animals a beer bottle filled with milk; and the gusto with which the savage-looking beasts uncorked the bottles and drank from them greatly amused the audience. Ikey, standing on his hind legs, his head thrown back, with both paws clasping the base of the bottle, shoved the neck far down his throat, and then, hurling it from him, and cocking his clown’s hat over his eyes, gave a masterful imitation of a very intoxicated bear.
“That,” exclaimed Herrick hotly, “is a degrading spectacle. It degrades the bear and degrades me and you.”
“No, it bores me,” said Kelly.
“If you understood nature,” retorted Herrick, “and nature’s children, it would infuriate you.”
“I don’t go to a music hall to get infuriated,” said Kelly.
“Trained dogs I don’t mind,” exclaimed Herrick. “Dogs are not wild animals. The things they’re trained to do are of USE. They can guard the house, or herd sheep. But a bear is a wild beast. Always will be a wild beast. You can’t train him to be of use. It’s degrading to make him ride a bicycle. I hate it! If I’d known there were to be performing bears to-night, I wouldn’t have come!”
“And if I’d known you were to be here to-night, I wouldn’t have come!” said Kelly. “Where do we go to next?”
They went next to a restaurant in a gayly decorated cellar. Into this young men like themselves and beautiful ladies were so anxious to hurl themselves that to restrain them a rope was swung across the entrance and page boys stood on guard. When a young man became too anxious to spend his money, the page boys pushed in his shirt front. After they had fought their way to a table, Herrick ungraciously remarked he would prefer to sup in a subway station. The people, he pointed out, would be more human, the decorations were much of the same Turkish-bath school of art, and the air was no worse.
“Cheer up, Clarence!” begged Jackson, “you’ll soon be dead. To-morrow you’ll be back among your tree-toads and sunsets. And, let us hope,” he sighed, “no one will try to stop you!”
“What worries me is this,” explained Herrick. “I can’t help thinking that, if one night of this artificial life is so hard upon me, what must it be to those bears!”