it was a matter of little moment that a young girl should be upon intimate terms with savage jungle beasts.
"It was horrible!" ejaculated the Hon. Morison.
"Horrible?" repeated Meriem, puckering her brows in bewilderment. "What was horrible about it? They are my friends. Is it horrible to talk with one's friends?"
"You were really talking with them, then?" cried the Hon. Morison. "You understood them and they understood you?"
"Certainly."
"But they are hideous creatures—degraded beasts of a lower order. How could you speak the language of beasts?"
"They are not hideous, and they are not degraded," replied Meriem. "Friends are never that. I lived among them for years before Bwana found me and brought me here. I scarce knew any other tongue than that of the mangani. Should I refuse to know them now simply because I happen, for the present, to live among humans?"
"For the present!" ejaculated the Hon. Morison. "You cannot mean that you expect to return to live among them? Come, come, what foolishness are we talking! The very idea! You are spoofing me, Miss Meriem. You have been kind to these baboons here and they know you and do not molest you; but that you once lived among them—no, that is preposterous."
"But I did, though," insisted the girl, seeing the
