"5. If, as you say, you doubted my seriousness, why was the snake duly entered in the books of the Zoological Society, from whom I received a formal letter of thanks for the presentation?
"6. Would you not rather handle a snake, however dangerous, than the special interviewer of a London evening paper?"
This I followed with another letter, which explains the conflicting information received at the Zoo:
"Since writing to you it has struck me that probably your representative saw Mr. Bartlett senior, whereas I deposited my snake into the care of, and received my information from, Mr. Bartlett junior (the present superintendent). This may account for your representative describing in his article Mr. Bartlett drawing a circle the size of my snake on a visiting-card, and that, too, without the two ends of the circle coming into conjunction. This is so utterly absurd that it is evident Mr. Bartlett could not have seen the reptile at the time. The exact measurement of my baby serpent is seven and a-half inches in length--nearly an inch longer than the word 'Westminster' at the top of your front page--and it is _still growing_!"
[Illustration: SKETCH BY MR. F. C. GOULD.]
So did the story grow--in correspondence, in prose, in verse, and in picture. Mr. F. C. Gould treated the subject in Japanese-Lika-Joka spirit, and from quantities of verse I select the following from the _Sketch_ as the best:
"'I am the snake of Regent's Park; I lie in wait for men of mark. I'd gladly give my latest breath To fright a funny man to death. So when from ambush I espy A comic artist passing by, I think there is no joy like this-- To stand upon my tail and hiss. For it is quite a novel charm To see him start in wild alarm And haste to tell the awful crimes Of Horrid Serpents in the _Times_. It used to be a bitter pang That I was born without a fang, That Nature made me as a toy For any silly idle boy. But now the humble snake may pass For lurking cobra in the grass, While people think that Regent's Park Is Kipling Jungle after dark!'"
Several letters appeared. One from a "Harrow School Boy," in the _Times_, was generally accepted at the time as a solution of the mystery:
"SIR,--I keep snakes as pets, and allow them a wriggle on the grass every day. Early last week I missed one, a little black chap about 10 to 11 in. long, and have not seen him since. Perhaps the one Mr. Harry Furniss found on Saturday is my lost pet, carried away, not by one of the expected vultures, but by a roving Regent's Park rook."