Tobermory had been Appin's one successful pupil, and he was
destined to have no successor. A few weeks later an elephant in
the Dresden Zoological Garden, which had shown no previous signs
of irritability, broke loose and killed an Englishman who had
apparently been teasing it. The victim's name was variously
reported in the papers as Oppin and Eppelin, but his front name
was faithfully rendered Cornelius.
"If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor beast," said
Clovis, "he deserved all he got."
MRS. PACKLETIDE'S TIGER
It was Mrs. Packletide's pleasure and intention that she should
shoot a tiger. Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended
on her, or that she felt that she would leave India safer and more
wholesome than she had found it, with one fraction less of wild
beast per million of inhabitants. The compelling motive for her
sudden deviation towards the footsteps of Nimrod was the fact that
Loona Bimberton had recently been carried eleven miles in an
aeroplane by an Algerian aviator, and talked of nothing else; only
a personally procured tiger-skin and a heavy harvest of Press
photographs could successfully counter that sort of thing.
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