Offer Bob a biscuit, and, as he hangs his head over the railings in slobbering expectancy, he will "mark time" regularly with all four feet. Rose, the cross-bred Bactrian, lives next door to Bob, and there is something about the pair, and about their whole environment, that makes one think of them in the characters of an area belle and a fascinating guardsman; particularly as Bob is, I believe, a sort of cousin. The railing between them helps the illusion, just as the clock-tower above them gives a tone to Bob's military bearing—being dimly suggestive of the Horse Guards.
Bob the Bactrian.
Between Bob in full bloom and Bob in a state of moult, there is a world of difference. A sorry, ill-upholstered, scraggy shagbag is Bob in his periodical mould. All his beard—all his magnificent frills gone; a bare, mangy hide with a small patch here and there of inadhesive hair is all his outward show. Poor Bob feels his out-at-elbows state keenly, and lies low. He hides all day in the innermost recesses of his state apartment under the clock, and only ventures forth when the gates of the Gardens are closed, or when Rose is asleep. Sometimes the presence of a piece of biscuit on the floor of his front garden will tempt him sorely for hours, till he ventures forth after it, first looking cautiously about from his door to make sure that he is unobserved.
Neither his periodical seediness of appearance, however, nor anything else under the sun will prevent Bob demanding his meals. He keeps Self the keeper up to his work. If at any time it should occur to him that business in biscuits is becoming slack, or that another meal is due—neither a rare contingency—Bob walks to his back door and kicks with his fore-feet, like a rude boy. The keeper must come then, because Bob's foot never improves a door.
Among Bob's accoutrements a feared and detested place is held by a big leather muzzle, a thing its wearer regards with mingled feelings. He isn't altogether sorry when Self proceeds to buckle it on, because it means that a pleasant walk about the grounds is to ensue. But bitter, bitter, poor Bob's lot to walk among human hands teeming with many buns—buns shut out for ever by that thing of leather! He sees the elephants caressed and fed; Jingo and Jung Perchad amble good-humouredly about, swinging their trunks in affable freedom right and left, and collecting many a pleasant morsel; while he, the magnificent, the bearded, the
