SPIDERS.
ON THE SICK LIST.
"COINCIDENCE? HE'S ALL RIGHT."
It is this house that witnesses most excitement on Bank Holidays. Who would be a monkey in a cage set in the midst of a Bank Holiday crowd? I wouldn't, certainly, if there were a respectable situation available as a slug in some distant flower pot, or a lobster at the bottom of the sea. Is a monkey morally responsible for anything he may do under the provocation of a Bank Holiday crowd? Is he not rather justified in the possession of all the bonnets and ostrich feathers he can grab by way of solatium? Bank Holiday is the dies iræ of these monkeys, and then is Professor Garner avenged. The Professor shut himself in an aluminium cage, and the cage littered about Africa for some time, an object of interest to independent monkeys—a sort of free freak show. Here the monkeys, secure in their cage, study the exterior freaks, collecting specimens of their plumage, whiskers, spectacles, and back hair. But it is hard work—and savage.
RECOVERING.
It takes even a cageful of monkeys a few days to recover from a Bank Holiday, and for those few days trade is slack indeed. At such times it is possible to observe the singular natural phenomenon of a monkey in a state of comparative rest. But he is more doleful than ever.