Arrived in the Gardens, Julius took possession of his companions, and
exerted all his arts to charm and fascinate. He led the ladies from cage
to cage, from enclosure to enclosure, showed himself as familiar with
the characters and habits of their wild denizens as a farmer is with
those of his stock, and they responded to his strange calls, to his
gentleness and fearlessness, with an alert understanding and confidence
beautiful to see. His favourites were certain creatures of the deer
species, which crowded to their fences to sniff his clothes, and to lick
his hands, which he abandoned to their caresses with manifest
satisfaction. His example encouraged the queenly Nora and her sprightly
mother to feed the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel
the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft lips
with the palm of the hand. After that they were scarcely astonished
when, without bravado, but clearly with simple confidence and enjoyment,
Julius put his hand within the bars of the lion's cage and scratched the
ears of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange tongue such fond
sounds as only those use who are on the best terms with animals.
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