It really gave Philip a great deal of trouble to keep order among his domestics.  One day, while hoeing in the garden, he heard the Pup screaming miserably.  He said, “There’s that villain, Maggie, at him again,” and he ran up to the hut to drive her away.  But when he reached it there was neither Pup nor Maggie to be seen, only Joey in his cage, and he was bobbing his head up and down, yelping exactly like the Pup, and then he began laughing at Philip ready to burst, “Ha!  Ha!  Ha!  Who are you?  Who are you?  There is no luck aboot the hoose, There is na luck at a’.”

The native bear resided in a packing case, nailed on the top of a stump nearly opposite the hut door.  He had a strap round his waist, and was fastened to the stump by a piece of clothes line.  The boys called him a monkey-bear, but though his face was like that of a bear he was neither a monkey nor a bear.  He was in fact a sloth; his legs were not made for walking, but for climbing, and although he had strong claws and a very muscular forearm, he was always slow in his movements.  He was very silent and unsociable, never joined in the amusements of the other domestics, and when Philip brought him a bunch of tender young gum-tree shoots for his breakfast in the morning, he did not even say “thanks” or smile, or show the least gratitude.  He never spoke except at dead of night, when he was exchanging compliments with some other bear up a gum tree in the forty-acre paddock.  And such compliments!  Their voices were frightful, something between a roar and a groan, and although Philip was a great linguist he was never quite sure what they were saying.  But the bear was always scheming to get away; he was like the Boers, and could not abide British rule.  Philip would not have kept him at all, but as he had taken him into the family circle when a cub he did not like to be cruel and turn him out along in a heartless world.  Twice Bruin managed to untie the clothes line and started for the forty-acre.  He crawled along very slowly, and when he saw Philip coming after him, he stopped, looked behind him, and said, “Hoo,” showing his disgust.  Then Philip took hold of the end of the clothes line and brought him back, scolding all the time.

“You miserable Bruin, you don’t know what’s good for you; you can’t tell a light-wood from a gum-tree, and you’ll die of starvation, or else the boys will find you, and they will kill you, thinking you are a wild bush bear, for you don’t show any signs of good education, after all the trouble I have taken to teach you manners.  I am afraid you will come to a bad end.”

And so he did.  The third time Bruin loosed the clothes line he had a six hours’ start before he was missed, and sure enough he hid himself in a lightwood for want of sense, and that very night the boys saw him by the light of the moon, and Hugh Boyle climbed up the tree and knocked him down with a waddy.