170 THFE STRAND MAGAZIN Y.

il is only a little bigger than was Samson when he frst arrived, and is plaviul—Samson 1sn't. Twenty-one vears is a good length ol healthy captivity for a bear, but Banwzo, the hairy cared bear, has been herc since 1307 —us- tablished a quarter of a century, 41 as the shopkeepers say. Bango lives with a single eye to his own comfort and nourish- ment, being blind in the other. Still, he can sce a AN bun with his onc eye just Ehaty as quickly as any other bear can with two. DBango has a delusion—he 1s firmly con- vinced that by the regula- tions he 1s entitled to ninc or ten meals a day, in addi- tion to promiscuous snacks. Dy way of agitating for his rights, he makes a dinner gong of the partition between his cage and the next, punching it vigorously and up- roariously for five minutes together whenever it strikes him that a meal 15 duc

/ BANGO o )

A sad, bad cha- &

1 racter in bears lives ) a few doors further down., TItis Billy, & the sloth-bear. He | is the most disreputable, careless, lazyv, and unkempt bear on the premises. Per- haps his parents neglected him. Certainly if one bear can have less shape than another, which has none, Billy has. He i~ more than shapcless; he ap- proaches the ncbulous. A sort of vast, imdcfinite, black mop, with certain very long and 1ll-kept claws observable 1n odd places, and now and again a disso- lute, confused muzzle, in which a double allowance of lip and a half-allowance | of lip mingle indistinguishably. Billy i= usually asleep. He is as fond of cating as any other bear, but tonder still of sleeping. Give him a bis- cuit while he 1s lying down, and he will come for it with an indig- nant expression of muzzle, imply- ing that you are rather a nuisance

. than otherwise. T e [.udlam's dog, says the proverb, W was so o lazy as to lay his head

BILLY,