VII

In the afternoon we all went to the Bellevue Gardens to see a wonderful chimpanzee, “Jock,” a powerful animal and more clever even than “Sally,” who was then the great public pet at the “Zoo” in Regent’s Park. Ellen Terry came with us and also Comyns Carr, who had arrived from London. Jock was certainly an abnormal brute. He rode about the grounds on a tricycle of his own! He ate his food from a plate with knife and fork and spoon! He slept in a bed with sheets and blankets! He smoked cigarettes! And he drank wine—when he could get it! His favourite tipple was port wine and lemonade, and he was very conservative in his rights regarding it. Indeed in this case it was very nearly productive of a grim tragedy.

We went into a little room close to the keeper’s house; a sort of general refreshment room with wooden benches round it and a table in the centre. Jock had his cigarette; then his grog was mixed to his great and anxious interest. The keeper handed him the tumbler, which he held tight in both paws whilst he went through some hanky-panky pantomime of thanks—usually, I took it, productive of pennies. Irving said to the keeper:

“Would he give you some of that, now?” The man shook his head as he answered:

“He doesn’t like to, but he will if I ask him. I have to be careful though.” He asked Jock, who very unwillingly let him take the tumbler, following it with his paws. The arms stretched out as it went farther from him; but the paws always remained close to the glass. The man just put the edge of the glass to his mouth and then handed it back quickly. The monkey had acted with considerable self-restraint, and looked immensely relieved when he had his drink safe back again. Then Irving said:

“Let me see if he will let me have some!” The keeper spoke to the monkey, keeping his eye fixedly on him. Irving took the glass from his manifestly unwilling paws and raised it to his own lips. Being a better actor than the keeper he did his part more realistically, actually letting the liquid rise over his shut lips.

The instant the monkey saw his beloved liquor touch the mouth he became a savage—a veritable, red-eyed, restrainless demon. With a sudden hideous screech he dashed out his arms, one paw catching Irving by the throat, the other seizing the glass. It made us all gasp and grow pale. The brute was so strong and so savage that it might have torn his windpipe before a hand could have been raised. Fortunately Irving did instinctively the only thing that could be done; he yelled suddenly in the face of the monkey—an appalling yell which seemed to push the brute back. At the same moment he thrust away from him the glass in the animal’s other paw. The monkey, loosing his hold on his throat, jumped back across the wide table with incredible quickness without losing its seated attitude, and sat clutching the tumbler close to his breast and showing his teeth whilst he manifested his rage in a hideous trumpeting.

Before that, at our first coming into the room he had nearly frightened the life out of Ellen Terry. She had sat down on the bench along the wall. The monkey looked at her and seemed attracted by her golden hair. He came and sat by her on the bench and, turning over, laid his head in her lap, looking up at her and at the same time putting up his paw as big as a man’s hand and as black and shiny as though covered with an undertaker’s funeral glove. She looked down, saw his eyes, and with a scream made a jump for the doorway. The monkey laughed. He had a sense of humour—of his own kind, which was not of a high kind.

A little later he regained his good temper and forgave us all. When we went round the gardens he got on his tricycle and came with us. In the monkey house was a great cage as large as an ordinary room, and here were a large number of monkeys of a mixed kind. Our gorilla—for such he really was—started to amuse himself with them. He got a great stick and standing close to the cage hammered furiously at the bars, all the while trumpeting horribly. In the midst of it he would look at us with a grin, as much as to say:

“See how I am frightening these inferior creatures!” They were in an agony of fear, crouching in the farthest corners of the great cage, moaning and shivering.