CHAPTER V THE ADVENTURES OF BRIDGEWATER

The appearance of shame and conscious guilt that suffused the face and person of Bridgewater caused the wild idea to rush through his employer's mind that the old man had, vulgarly speaking, "scooped the till" and was attempting evasion.

Defaulters bound for America or France do not, however, as a rule, take the Monkey House at the Zoo en route, and the practical mind of James Hancock rejected the idea at once, and gripped the truth of the matter. Bridgewater had been following him for the purpose of spying upon him.

The unhappy Bridgewater had indeed been following him.

When, emerging from the bar, he had perceived his quarry he had followed them at a safe distance. When they went into the Vienna Café he waited; it seemed to him that he waited three hours: it was, in fact, an hour and a quarter. For, having finished her ice[Pg 172] and its accompaniments, Fanny had declared that she was quite ready for luncheon, and had proposed that they should proceed to the meal at once without seeking a new café.

When they came out, Bridgewater took up the pursuit. They got into a hansom: he got into another, and ordered the driver to pursue the first vehicle at a safe distance. He did this from instinct, not as a result of having read Gaboriau, or the "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."

The long wait, the upset of all his usual ways, and the fact that he had not lunched, coupled with his dread of a hansom—hitherto when he had moved on wheels it had always been on those of a four-wheeler or omnibus—conspired to reduce him mentally to the condition of an over-driven sheep.

They left the part of the town he knew, and passed through streets he knew not of, streets upon streets, and still the first vehicle pursued its way with undiminished speed. He felt now a dim certainty that his employer was going to be married, and now he tried to occupy his scattered wits in attempting to compute what this frightful cab journey would cost.

[Pg 173]

At the Zoo gates the first hansom stopped.

"Pull up," cried Bridgewater, poking his umbrella through the trap.

He alighted a hundred yards from the gates. At the turnstile he paid his shilling and went in, but Fanny and her companion had vanished as completely as if the polar bear had swallowed them up.

He wandered away through the gardens aimlessly, but keeping a sharp look-out. He had never been to the Zoo before, but guessed it was the Zoo because of the animals. The whole adventure had the complexion of a nightmare, a complexion not brightened by the melancholy appearance of the eagles and vultures and the distant roaring and lowing of unknown beasts.

He saw an elephant advancing towards him swinging its trunk like a pendulum; to avoid it he took a path that led to the Fish House. His one desire now was to get out of the gardens and get home. He recognised now that he had made a serious mistake in entering the gardens at all. To have returned at once to Miss Hancock with the information that her brother had simply taken Miss Lambert to the Zoo would have been[Pg 174] the proper and sensible course to have pursued.

Now at any moment he might find himself confronted with the two people he dreaded to meet. What should he say suppose he met them? What could he say? The anguish of this thought drove him from the Fish House, where he had taken temporary refuge. He took a path which ended in an elephant; it was the same elephant he had seen before, but he did not know it. A side path, which he pursued hastily, brought him to the polar bear. Here he asked his way to the nearest gate of a young man and maiden who were gazing at the bear. The young man promptly pointed out a path; he took it, and found himself at the Monkey House.

He took off his hat and mopped his head with his bandana handkerchief. Looking round in bewilderment after this refreshing operation he saw something approaching far worse than an elephant; it was Mr Hancock, and with Mr Hancock, Fanny, making directly for him.

He did not hesitate a moment in doing the worst thing possible; as an animal enters a trap, he entered the Monkey House. He[Pg 175] would have shut and bolted the door behind him had such a proceeding been feasible.

Bridgewater had a horror of monkeys; he had always considered the common organ-grinder's monkey to be the representative of all its kind, and the last production of nature in frightfulness; but here were monkeys of every shape, size, and colour, a symphony of monkeys, each "note" more horrible than the last.

If you have ever studied monkeys and their ways you will know that they have their likes and dislikes just like men. That some people "appeal" to them at first sight, and some people do not. Bridgewater did not. When he saw Fanny entering at the door he retreated to the furthest limits of the place and pretended to be engaged in contemplation of a peculiarly sinister-looking ape, upon which, to judge from its appearance, a schoolboy had been at work with a brushful of blue paint.

The azure and sinister one endured the human's gaze for a few mutterful moments, and then bursting into loud yells flew at the bars and attempted to tear them from their sockets; the mandrills shrieked and chattered,[Pg 176] the lemur added his note, and Bridgewater beat a retreat.

It was at this moment that Fanny's wandering gaze caught him.