legend to the schoolboy who keeps green lizards and tame snakes; but his sister, his mother, or his aunt—well, she shudders, and instinctively rubs the palm of her hand on her muff. She turns with relief to the milder announcement, "Gentles always in stock," and, sorely misled by the name, wonders why Johnny, instead of nasty lizards, can't keep a dear little, pretty, tame gentle, with soft fur, and trustful brown eyes; afterwards being much edified to find that she has recommended the addition of maggots to the juvenile vivarium.
"A wicker cage."
Nobody knows how well animals of different species may agree together till visiting Leadenhall Market. Here you shall often see hung up in one of those wicker cages, of shape like a haystack, a congeries of cocks and hens, ducks, guinea-pigs, and puppies that shall astonish you by its amiability. They do not fight, being bound together by a bond of common interest—the desire to get out. They cannot fight, if they want to, being packed much too tightly; wherein we see how bodily tribulation and discomfort may bring about moral regeneration and peaceful manners. Indeed, we have here, in these cages and boxes, a number of small nations or states; for, no matter how amicably the inhabitants of each may exist together, beaks and claws are ever ready to reach out whenever possible for attack between the bars of cages adjoining.
"A drug in the market."
All the stock isn't kept in crowds, however. It doesn't do. Here is an old tom-cat, for instance, who would scarcely be a safe companion for half a dozen doves, or white mice; a handsome, wicked-looking old chap who won't allow any liberties. And here is another, just as wicked-looking, and not at all handsome. He has begun to despair of anybody ever buying him, and is crusty in consequence of being a drug in the market. It is a noticeable thing that every animal here, always excepting the cats, shows a most intelligent and natural anxiety as to who is to become its owner. They all know that they are here for sale, quite as well as the shopkeeper himself; and every face is anxiously turned toward each newcomer, while a rapid estimate is taken of his appearance, dress, manners, disposition, the probable character of his house, and the quantity of table-scraps therein available. All this, as I have said, with the
