“Good!” cried Overtop; “and if you will take a hint from me, you will show your elephants in the act of being caught by natives, or engaged in combats with each other; your lions fighting your tigers or your rhinoceroses; your hippopotamuses engaged in death struggles with your crocodiles; and your boa constrictors gobbling down your natives—­or, if that is objectionable on the score of humanity, your monkeys.”

“Thank you for the hint; but the expense, and the necessity of completing the panorama at an early day, put it out of the question.  To paint accurate representations of these animals engaged in their innocent sports, would occupy the time of a first-class artist for months, and cost an enormous sum.”

“Ah, I see,” interrupted Overtop, who liked to show that he snatched the meaning; “you will put your animals in recumbent attitudes—­sleeping, perhaps, in the depth of jungles, shaded from the fierce rays of the equatorial sun.”

“You have guessed it,” said Tiffles, with a broad smile.  “Most of them will be just there—­out of sight.  The others will be suggested rather than introduced.  Elephants will be signified by their trunks appearing above the tops of the dense undergrowth.  Lions, tigers, and other quadrupeds, by the tips of their tails.  A boa constrictor will be expressed by a head, a coil, and a bit of tail showing at intervals.  The one horn of the rhinoceros will always tell where he is.  I shall have two small lakes (they are scarce in Africa) for my hippopotamuses and crocodiles.  If they exhibit only small portions of their heads above the surface, that is not my fault.  It is the nature of the beasts, you know.”

“Ha! ha!  That is what I call Art concealing Art,” said Overtop.

“So it is,” returned Tiffles; “and it will be appreciated, I doubt not, by those who affect the school of Severe Simplicity in painting.”

“One thing more,” said Marcus Wilkeson.  “Do you intend to take the panorama through the country, and lecture on it?”

“I do.  And here let me say, that I read up the law of false pretences long ago.  I shall style myself Professor Wesley on the bills.  That I have a right to do, as my full name doesn’t look well in type.  Actors and singers do the same thing every day.  I shall call myself a great traveller.  This is strictly true.  I have been North to Boston, West to Detroit, and South to Baltimore.  I shall not say that I have been in Africa, or that the sketches were taken on the spot.  If my audience choose to infer that, that is their business.  If any one doubts the accuracy of my panorama, I can say triumphantly, ‘Prove it!’”

“Excellent, but a little risky,” said Marcus Wilkeson, who could not help admiring the audacity of the plan.  “Your next great difficulty will be to satisfy audiences after you have got them together, as I dare say you will, by some brilliant system of advertising.  I have heard—­perhaps you have—­of audiences breaking furniture, smashing chandeliers, and tarring and feathering people.”