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“Besides,” protested Kelly, “what you propose to do is not only impracticable, but it’s cruelty to animals. A domesticated animal can’t return to a state of nature, and live.”

“Can’t it?” jeered Herrick.”Did you ever read ‘The Call of the Wild’?”

“Did you ever read,” retorted Kelly, “what happened at the siege of Ladysmith when the oats ran low and they drove the artillery horses out to grass? They starved, that’s all. And if you don’t feed your bears on milk out of a bottle they’ll starve too.”

“That’s what will happen,” cried Jackson; those bears have forgotten what a pine forest smells like. Maybe it’s a pity, but it’s the fact. I’ll bet if you could ask them whether they’d rather sleep in a cave on your farm or be headliners in vaudeville, they’d tell you they were ‘devoted to their art.'”

“Why!” exclaimed Kelly, “they’re so far from nature that if they didn’t have that colored boy to comb and brush them twice a day they’d be ashamed to look each other in the eyes.”

“And another thing,” continued Jackson, “trained animals love to ‘show off.’ They’re children. Those bears enjoydoing those tricks. They enjoythe applause. They enjoy dancing to the ‘Merry Widow Waltz.’ And if you lock them up in your jungle, they’ll get so homesick that they’ll give a performance twice a day to the squirrels and woodpeckers.”

“It’s just as hard to unlearn a thing as to learn it,” said Kelly sententiously.”You can’t make a man who has learned to wear shoes enjoy going around in his bare feet.”

“Rot!” cried Herrick.”Look at me. Didn’t I love New York? I loved it so I never went to bed for fear I’d miss something. But when I went ‘Back to the Land,’ did it take me long to fall in love with the forests and the green fields? It took me a week. I go to bed now the same day I get up, and I’ve passed on my high hat and frock coat to a scarecrow. And I’ll bet you when those bears once scent the wild woods they’ll stampede for them like Croker going to a third alarm.”

“And I repeat,” cried Kelly, “you are a nature faker. And I’ll leave it to the bears to prove it.”

“We have done our best,” sighed Jackson.”We have tried to save him money and trouble. And now all he can do for us in return is to give us seats for the opening performance.”

What the bears cost Herrick he never told. But it was a very large sum. As the Countess Zichy pointed out, bears as bears, in a state of nature, are cheap. If it were just a bear he wanted, he himself could go to Pike County, Pennsylvania, and trap one. What he was paying for, she explained, was the time she had spent in educating the Bruno family, and added to that the time during which she must now remain idle while she educated another family.

Herrick knew for what he was paying. It was the pleasure of rescuing unwilling slaves from bondage. As to their expensive education, if they returned to a state of ignorance as rapidly as did most college graduates he knew, he would be satisfied. Two days later, when her engagement at the music hall closed, Madame Zichy reluctantly turned over her pets to their new manager. With Ikey she was especially loath to part.

“I’ll never get one like him,” she said.”Ikey is the funniest four-legged clown in America. He’s a natural-born comedian. Folks think I learn him those tricks, but it’s all his own stuff. Only last week we was playing Paoli’s in Bridgeport, and when I was putting Bruno through the hoops, Ikey runs to the stage-box and grabs a pound of caramels out of a girl’s lap-and swallows the box. And in St. Paul, if the trombone hadn’t worn a wig, Ikey would have scalped him. Say, it was a scream! When the audience see the trombone snatched bald-headed, and him trying to get back his wig, and Ikey chewing it, they went crazy. You can’t learn a bear tricks like that. It’s just genius. Some folks think I taught him to act like he was intoxicated, but he picked that up, too, all by himself, through watching my husband. And Ikey’s very fond of beer on his own account. If I don’t stop them, the stage hands would be always slipping him drinks. I hope you won’t give him none.”