"
A day of furtive darts out from his room to do London, which
glumly declined to be done. He went back to the Zoological
Gardens and made friends with a tiger which, though it
presumably came from an English colony, was the friendliest
thing he had seen for a week. It did yawn, but it let him talk
to it for a long while. He stood before the bars, peering in,
and whenever no one else was about he murmured: "Poor fella,
they won't let you go, heh? You got a worse boss 'n Goglefogle,
heh? Poor old fella."
He didn't at all mind the disorder and rancid smell of the cage;
he had no fear of the tiger's sleek murderous power. But he was
somewhat afraid of the sound of his own tremorous voice. He had
spoken aloud so little lately.
A man came, an Englishman in a high offensively well-fitting
waistcoat, and stood before the cage. Mr. Wrenn slunk away,
robbed of his new friend, the tiger, the forlornest person in all
London, kicking at pebbles in the path.
As half-dusk made the quiet street even more detached, he sat on
the steps of his rooming-house on Tavistock Place, keeping
himself from the one definite thing he wanted to do--the thing
he keenly imagined a happy Mr.
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