"I like the big green frogs," said Gay--"Ker-chong! ker-chong!" She had learned the whole frog language in an instant!
Then she straggled away with Tom, to listen to wonderful stories about the beaver, and how he builds his curious log hut; "But," added Tom, "his roof always leaks."
"Gay, here is an animal with a name longer than you are yourself!" said Mr. Barnum.
"What is it?" she asked, as they paused before a creature with a tremendous mouth.
"Hip-po-pot-a-mus!" baby tried to say after him, adding, "he is not pretty, and I do not like him."
Tom was still less polite, and called the animal "beastly ugly;" though he seemed to admire the one-horned rhinoceros, which Gay thought still more frightful. "But how wallopy his skin is!" said Tom.
"Yes," said Mr. Barnum, "but he has a thinner skin under his heavy hide, which is only what Trixie would call his 'upper skirt'--eh, Toodles?" and the little girl laughed to think that he should know anything about such drapery.
When she saw the alligator she wished for his scaly skin, that she might have it made into slippers for papa.
But what had become of Gay? She had left the others, and they found her trying to stroke a downy little yellow chicken, which was just beyond her reach.
"Why this is like being in the country!" cried the delighted Trixie, looking around at the horses and the cattle, the pigs and the chickens. "Where's Tom?"
But a barn-yard scene was quite too tame for that young gentleman, who was chattering away to a funny little squat Esquimau, who did not understand a word he said. Near him were a fat seal and a walrus with two great tusks which seemed to say, "The better to eat you, my dear!"
The Esquimau and his pets had come from a faraway, cold country, where there were very few people, and I do not think they liked the crowd and the noise.
"Where are the tigers?" Tom asked, suddenly remembering that he had set his heart on being half-scared to death by the glance from a tiger's eye.
"They certainly would never forgive us if we forgot to present ourselves," said Mr. Barnum, bowing low before a cage, against the bars of which the Royal Bengal Tiger was rubbing his glossy sides, as he marched angrily backward and forward.