“Oh! indeed, Uncle Thomas, do you think that animals understand each other?”

“I have no doubt that they do to a limited extent, Harry, but I cannot go the whole length of Monsieur Wenzel, who records the story I have just told you.

“I will now tell you some stories about some of the other animals of the cat kind, such as the lion, tiger, &c.; and though these animals differ so much from the domestic cat, they all belong to the same family; the huge lion, which carries off with ease a buffalo from the herd, or makes the forest tremble with his hoarse roar is no more than an enormous cat.

“I dare say you have all heard the story of ‘Androcles and the Lion,’ which is recorded in that most delightful book, ‘Sandford and Merton.’  It is so captivating a tale, that I must repeat it to you as much for my own gratification as for yours.  I will just observe, however, that it is a fiction, and not a real story, though I can tell you one or two very similar ones, which occurred in real life.”

“There was a certain slave named Androcles, who was so ill treated by his master that his life became insupportable.  Finding no remedy from what he suffered, he at length said to himself:—­’It is better to die than to continue to live in such hardships and misery as I am obliged to suffer.  I am determined, therefore, to run away from my master; if I am taken again, I know that I shall be punished with a cruel death, but it is better to die at once, than to live in misery.  If I escape, I must betake myself to deserts and woods, inhabited only by wild beasts, but they cannot use me more cruelly than I have been by my fellow-creatures, therefore I will rather trust myself to them, than continue to be a miserable slave.

“Having formed this resolution, he took an opportunity of leaving his master’s house, and hid himself in a thick forest, which was some miles distant from the city.  But here the unhappy man found that he had only escaped from one kind of misery to experience another.  He wandered about all day through a vast and trackless wood, where his flesh was continually torn by thorns and brambles.  He grew hungry, but he could find no food in this dreary solitude.  At length he was ready to die with fatigue, and lay down in despair in a large cavern.

“The unfortunate man had not been long quiet in the cavern, before he heard a dreadful noise, which seemed to be the roar of some wild beast, and terrified him very much.  He started up with a design to escape, and had already reached the mouth of the cave, when he saw coming towards him a lion of prodigious size, which prevented any possibility of retreat.  He now believed his destruction to be inevitable, but to his great astonishment the beast advanced towards him with a gentle pace, without any mark of enmity or rage, and uttered a kind of mournful voice, as if he demanded the assistance of the man.