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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 108, February 2, 1895.
Edited by Sir Francis Burnand
TALL TALES OF SPORT AND ADVENTURE.
(By Mr. Punch's own Short Story-teller.)
I.—THE PINK HIPPOPOTAMUS. (CONTINUED.)
On the opposite side of the room, with his brave old back againstthe wall, stood my dear father, his arms tightly bound to his sides,and a cummerbund tied firmly over that mouth which had never, save inmoments of thoughtless, but pardonable anger, spoken any but words ofkindness to his son. In front of him was couched a huge man-eatingtiger—I recognised his hominivorous propensities at once by thepeculiar striping of his left shoulder, an infallible sign to asportsman's eye—licking his chops in joyous anticipation of theunresisting feast which Providence had thus thrown in his way. I couldsee the great red tongue darting out now on one side of his mouth, nowon the other, while his immense tail lashed the floor in dazzlingcurves. This spectacle would have been sufficient to shake the nervesof an ordinarily courageous man—but this was not all. On one side ofthe gigantic cat lay coiled an immense python, of the deadliest kind,and on the other one of the tallest and most powerful elephants I haveever seen was squatting on its haunches, blinking at my poor fatherwith its wicked little eyes. I knew at once what had happened. Myfather's only weakness was a fondness amounting to mania for conjuringtricks of all kinds. The latest mail had brought us some Englishpapers containing descriptions of the Cabinet Trick of theDavenport Brothers, who were at that time(this may help to fix the date, a point on which I have never caredto trouble myself) astounding all London by their dexterity in untyingthemselves from ropes lashed securely round them. As soon as he hadread the accounts my father determined that he would practise thetrick, and for a week past he had spent hours in our little room withcoils of rope wound round every part of his body in the effort, whichhad hitherto proved vain, to release himself. Every day the heroic oldfellow, still panting from his intolerable exertions, had murmured "Iam all but undone," but never—if the expression may be pardoned—hadhe been so near his utter undoing as he was at this awful moment. Ofcourse I knew what had happened. The dastardly Chamberlain, whosediscomfiture I have already narrated, must have got wind of myfather's daily practice, and, taking advantage of his state ofbondage, must have introduced into our room its present horribleoccupants. The room was not a large one, and the stairs leading to itwere steep, and I have never yet been able to explain to myselfsatisfactorily by what masterpiece of diabolical ingenuity thescoundrel was able to carry out his stratagem.
However, this was no moment for discovering explanations. Thesituation required instant action. Fortunately, my father's eyes wereunbandaged, and for the space of half-an-hour, as it afterwards turnedout, he had been able to control his zoological invaders by the meremagnetism of his unwavering glance. One wink, however, was bound to