1936-12-17 — Page 8

THE CHINA MAIL THERSBAY SUPPLEMENT, DECEMBER 17,

KANGAROO LOVES

E wore a bowler hat. There was a faded

He wore a collar ch his dark blue overcoat

His gayly striped tie was worn and greasy with years of constant user His teeth were decayed. One knew at first sight that he was married to a woman much bigger than himself. He was obviously a Londoner.

He had no part in the New York crowd. A townsman, yet racy of the soil, his place. was in some pub of the "London suburbs, · where the landlord was a dog fancier and the local bookmaker had his sacred commer table and the best chair in the saloon bar. The odour that his memory most lovingly selected was a mixture of beer and iodine. So the pub had smelt whenever a new litter of prize. terriers entered the world, and their little tails were being docked on the bar before a choice crowd of the landlord's favourites. He had often held the pup; the dirty hands were very gentle. He had been a favourite of the bookmaker, too. Knew a bit about the gees. he did. His bandy legs suggested an early training as a stableboy, and indeed he had ridden a race or two. but lost his job before he was old enough to know when and how to drink. He stood before one of the kangaroo cnclosures in the Bronx Zoo. A female kan. garoo lay on her side close to the wire, listening to him. She reclined in the curious manner of kangaroos: full length and lean- ing on one elbow, like a Roman lady at a ban- quet. Her gray underside was luxuriously displayed. With her spare paw she fanned, the flies from her nose. She watched him with languorous interest, and waved her ears when he spoke to her.

The crowd, a cross section of central Europe, loud-mouthed, well fed, and feeding as they walked, passed by the kangaroos with little interest; they were bound for the capybara and the anteater, distorted crea- tures to which they had a certain affinity. When people joined him at the railing, he glanced sidelong at them like a fox. If they belonged to the usual run of visitors, he ducked his peaked head into his dirty butter- fly collar and waited resignedly till they moved on. But if, the intruder was a man, and alone, and likely to be sympathetic, he motioned to him to be still. He showed un- canny judgment in picking those whom he chose to trust. They seldom let him down. but watched, smiling, while he continued the interrupted conversation.

Ain't yera 1 bleeder?" he would say softly. 'Like to be back in Austrylia. wouldn't yer?

His voice was a caress of curious vowel sounds. The kangarou fanned herself, and listened with obvious delight.

•

DWTI.

II

His name was Breown-so he pronoun- ced it, and his associates, to whom such immigrant names as Szczewo were easy be- cause they never saw them writter, took him at his own valuation of it. His wife was a roaring Irish-American, red-faced and bulg- ing. She ran a small hand laundry of her He had the reputation of a good-for- nothing little Britisher, who would be in the bread line if not for her. It was true. that she supported him; yet he would have will ingly slaved for some colourless little woman of his own breed. Kate's overpowering ritality sapped his self-respect. A dog would have been something to live for, even to work for, but he hadn't the heart to bring up a pup in a New York tenement. He hun- gered for the monotonous rows of small, sor- bid houses on the outskirts of London, cach with its own back garden where a dog could' run loose, and there was room for å hütch of ferrets or Belgian hares.

Kate was not unkind, but she was no object for tenderness. She was a mother to men; a brazen, foul-mouthed mother who liked them rebellious and hard-fisted. Her husband was neither. She treated him with a good-humoured contempt, and was unfaith- ful to him on the rare occasions when she aroused a passing desire. He was surround- ed by contempt--even at Mike's, where the salted, ethered beer kept up some semblance of a saloon, and he should have been in his element. But Mike's customers knew little of dogs, and of horses less. Of heavy badin- age they knew all there was to know, and he .was their butt

The crowd little interest

Until he discovered the Bronx Park, and the inner shrine which housed his slender. and gentle kangaroo, he had no creature to appreciate the sensitiveness that was his birthright. Twice a week for more than 3 year he had visited her, On every occasion he risked the three-dollar fine and brought her a carrot. For nine months he threw it over the netting. Then on one triumphant day, and ever since, she had taken it from his hand. Only one carrot he gave her at each visit, for he respected the rights of the zoological society, and did not wish to inter- fere with her carefully balanced diet

The kangaroo gave him an ambition. It was very long since he had had one. If you had asked him what he most wanted, be would have answered: To get 'ome agyne. But that was a mere longing. like the bope of the pious to go to Heaven; the difficulties

A

passed by the Kangaroos with

but not the little cockney

“Crinės-1"/* Timidest, animals in the gor- dens! Yer don't say?” he muttered, deeply impressed..

He slunk away, hurt and disappointed, but his pride in his achievement increased.. He did not know he was proud. It took the form of increased pity for the kangaroo.

"She ain't got no call to be timid, he murmured indignantly......."'Go's going to 'urt 'er? That's what I'd like ter know! "Oo's. going to "art"er?

I

He understood tisæt he would never per- suade the keeper to let him into the cage. The result of his disappointment was an orgy

By

*

Geoffrey Household

seemed so immense that he never even plan- Geoffrey

ned return to England His ambition was more definite. It might be attained. It was a desire that sweetened the hour in bed be- fore he slept, and took away the bitterness of awaking.

One day he overcame his fear of ridicule. and demanded boldly that his desire be granted. He swallowed before speaking. and his scraggy Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

'Lemme in the kyye with 'er,' he begged the keeper.

*Against the rules,' answered the keeper shortly he was not a little jealous of Mr. Breown's conquest. And dua't you kid your- self that you've made friends with her. Those kangaroos are the timidest animals in the gardens.

of poisonous whiskey that left him whiter and spottier than ever. But the orgy, was not bad for him spiritually. It was followed by an intense need to assert himself, which led him to use his brain. His cockney cun- ning, long unemployed for want of any wor- thy cause, came back to him.

The municipal elections were not far off. He sat in Mike's, drinking cautiously, and dribbling a nasty stream of cockney irony against the Democrats. His tongue was a keen weapon, but he had ceased to use it in would personalities, for the sallies which have set a London pub rocking with laughter were lost in Mike's. His comments on the

AINT LOVE GLAND!

GLAND DOMINANT

FINGER. NAILS

ANKLES

& LEGS

Postpituitary (hyper)

“the campstammals and hail-fellow vrgo"

Medium, small moon

Wormandy, well tarurd wakia, good calf, bot

over de underly mamma-

lar, fall_shighs, sound- ch, chubby kodopa

FEET

Spoel!

PERSON ALITY

· **The Eters) Feminine with a' supercharger/

Thrillchasing, TOVINE. Inconelent, very strong-

Prepituitary

"che`isballechmal_nud,

crostics we

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Long urasly thick aniles, stall Things

Largs

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"the organizing and sporting wys"

Thick, brittle

Xuncalar, very scalpe turesque exile; and kard Thighs, valid

Hyperthyroid

"the restlaus urge for am- cilement and action"

Medien, wery wodnis. cent, larga, moon

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`public administration found listeners; t

style, passed unheeded, but the eloquence alone won attention. The district leader. white facing on his waistcoat, gold watch chain across his ample stomach, was forced to take notice of this attack. He asked Me Breown what the Democrats could do for him. Mr. Breown told him.

you

"Aw, come on now! Talk plainly, can't

I tells yer that's what I want,” repeated the little man. "Get me into the kangaroo kyge, and Fll shut me 'ead""

Enough of hia race remained in the Jew to enable him to recognize a spiritual need when he saw one. He agreed to do his best. It wasn't easy; but the district leader, his interest stirred both by the oddness of Mr. Breown's ambition and by the difficulty of realizing it, went far up in the hierarchy of Tammany Hall to get permission. Even- tually he got it.

The Londoner dressed as if for his wed- ding. He was conscious of the same feeling of excitement. It was purer excitement, for he had been afraid of Kate. His marriage to her was a desperate effort to make the new country livable as if by changing his man— ner of life he could change his tastes. He had no fear at all of this second wedding. He would have liked to buy himself a new suit for the occasion. But the kangaroo knew the smell of his old suit. She might be nervous of a new smell. Eetter not risk it.

In the subway he was very still and tense. He hated the subway--chiefly be- . cause it wasn't the London tube--and took a perverse pleasure in losing himself on it that

Thymocentric

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"the maternal IrtineTM

Very thin break off

Xedien

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Long and macOW

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Small

**

-The Emancipaved

Karenloid, intelligent, good busi- - ban jacki- sation towards manly interés. Can be very explosive, wielons “derathoul.", Cour ago, apart, AKTIEM HAYA

The Beautiful mod

Dombed" semplove, sewer sizes, subject to pulpitation of the Cat on "like a bare AnⱭ VIKT thie, drink like a fab. wol stay sober. Emo Lionally, and intelleen leally quick-triggered.-

The Tawaiful” - and

Duma: The soul of s child, quiestin, Sighty, cruel, often trante ing so well "Dumper-

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Pesupírurienes

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he might add fuel to his grievance. He did not lose himself on this journey, though Mott Avenue offered him the only genuine chance in New York to do so.

He bad stipulated that the inperview was to take place after the public had Jew, the gardens. He slipped through the gates a quarter of an hour before closing time. He walked'; unseeing past the walz and the ostriches, but stopped to say a word to the CHILL The bird came from Australia, the same country as his beloved.

Waiting for him by the kangaroo pad- docks were the district leader, his little boy, and two of his friends. The district leader had a healthy human curiosity, sometimes offensive in its outward manifestations, bat always kindly. Nevertheless, Mr. BrowZI resented his presence. It seemed an intru- sion on his privacy that made him flush with unreasoning anger. He comforted himself deliberately with the thought that for once he was the centre of interest.

"Timidest animal in the gordens! Er'r, I'll show 'em!"

But even the fame which he knew he would win did not compensate him. It was -- like making capital out of the timidity of a bride.

His audience greeted him with the gibes of crude good-fellowship, slapping him on the back, telling him he'd forgotten his whip and uniform, begging him to put his head in the kangaroo's mouth. He stepped jauntily to the case, acting, acting, with an absurd feeling of disloyalty to his kangaroo,,

**Ere y" are, genTmen!"-Walk-up and see Mr. "Arry Breown do "is fymous, act!”

The keeper unlocked the door. "She won't let you touch her," he growledTM** disgustedly. I never saw a kangaroo yet that would let itself be handled.*

The little cockney entered the cage, and crept softly through the door in the partition that led to the paddock. The kangaroo shied away from him and sat on her hind legs, startled and ready for fight. She recogniz ed him, but he was in the wrong place. It took her some time to reconcile the contra- dictory fact that a friend whose essence was outside-the-cage-ness was now inside It He sat on the step and talked to her. After ten minutes of false starts, she hopped across the paddock and rested on her tail, looking at him. He stood up very slowly and made a step towards her. She trembled and her ears moved anxiously, but she didn't stir." He talked to her until it was safe to take one more step. Once she was under the spell of She his voice, he offered her the carrot. hopped forwards on hands and haunches. with the ungainly motion of a kangaroo at ease, and took it. While she was eating he talked to her, humorously and gently.

·She lifted her head and waited for more carrot. Instead, the offering hand came nearer and touched her muzzle. She shied, ́ ́bat it wasn't a determined shy. She tempted him again, ears pricked like the gracious ears of an antelope. He stroked her throat and scratched her behind the ears. She lay down on one elbow Never hurrying, always falking, he stroked the brown back and the soft gray belly. The kangaroo fanned her- self with egy detachment. At last she hop- "ped away from hizi?

He left the paddock, happy as he had not been happy since childhood. He simply didn't see the men who surrounded him. The keeper was generous and enthusiastic. The others, taking their cue from him, showed no less astonishment, th

"She sure loves you!' exclaimed the keeper.

"Loves me 7 repeated the little man, still dazed by his good fortune. Loves me?".

The district leader guffawed,

And, oh boy! Is you in love with her!' The gibe, innocently enough" - meant, crashed into the smooth and shining pool of his mind. He blushed, ducking his head within the butterfly collar, and walked rapid- ly and guiltlly away.

He never went back to Kate or to the district. That was well for him. Yet, had be done so, he would have met with a new respect. They didn't believe that he was really in love with his kangaroo.

(THE END)

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