Yesterday Greatheart again found himself in my hands, and I looked to see the date of his entry upon the world.  I reflected on his sixty years of life, on the many happy fireside hours that had been spent in his company, on the gentle solace he had furnished to lesser hearts.

I had decided what to do.  There were few people about; the bookseller was not looking, and, if offence it was, well, I could fall back on the mercy of those who would judge.

I leaned forward and tenderly deposited him in the Fourpenny Bin.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  The Visitor.  “BY JOVE, PERSEUS, I NEVER KNEW YOU WENT IN FOR SCULPTURE.  GOOD STUFF, TOO, BUT A TRIFLE REALISTIC.”

Perseus.  “OH, JUST A HOBBY.  BUT, BETWEEN OURSELVES, IT’S THE MEDUSA’S HEAD THAT DOES IT.  TURNS PEOPLE INTO STONE, AND THERE YOU ARE.”]

* * * * *

TO A DEAR DEPARTED.

    ["Georgina,” the largest of the giant tortoises at the Zoo,
    has died.  She was believed to be about two hundred and fifty
    years old.]

  Winds blow cold and the rain, Georgina,
    Beats and gurgles on roof and pane;
  Over the Gardens that once were green a
    Shadow stoops and is gone again;
      Only a sob in the wild swine’s squeal,
      Only the bark of the plunging seal,
  Only the laugh of the striped hyaena
    Muffled with poignant pain.

  Long ago, in the mad glad May days,
    Woo’d I one who was with us still;
  Bade him wake to the world’s blithe heydays,
    Leap in joyance and eat his fill;
      Sang I, sweet as the bright-billed ousel, a
      Paean of praise for thy pal, Methuselah. 
  Ah! he too in the Winter’s grey days
    Died of the usual chill.

  He was old when the Reaper beckoned,
    Ripe for the paying of Nature’s debt;
  Forty score—­if he’d lived a second—­
    Years had flown, but he lingered yet;
      But you had gladdened this vale of tears
      For a bare two hundred and fifty years;
  You, Georgina, we always reckoned
    One of the younger set.

  Winter’s cold and the influenza
    Wreaked and ravaged the ranks among;
  Bills that babbled a gay cadenza,
    Snouts that snuffled and claws that clung—­
      Now they whistle and root and run
      In Happy Valleys beyond the sun;
  Never back to the ponds and pens a
    Sigh of regret is flung.

  Flaming parrots and pink flamingoes,
    Birds of Paradise, frail as fair;
  Monkeys talking a hundred lingoes,
    Ring-tailed lemur and Polar bear—­
      Somehow our grief was not profound
      When they passed to the Happy Hunting Ground;
  Deer and ducks and yellow dog dingoes
    Croaked, but we did not care.