The vague feeling of terror inspired by this tent was a part of its fascination, for it seemed pregnant with potential tragedies suggested by the juxtaposition of helpless babies and wild beasts, the babies crying or staring in blank amazement at padding tigers whose phosphorescent eyes never left these morsels beyond the bars.  The two girls wandered about, their arms closely locked, but the strange atmosphere, the roars of the beasts, the ineffable, pungent odour of the circus, of sawdust mingled with the effluvia of animals, had aroused an excitement that was slow in subsiding.  Some time elapsed before they were capable of taking a normal interest in the various exhibits.

“`Adjutant Bird,’” Janet read presently from a legend on one of the compartments of a cage devoted to birds, and surveying the somewhat dissolute occupant.  “Why, he’s just like one of those tall mashers who stay at the Wilmot and stand on the sidewalk,—­travelling men, you know.”

“Say-isn’t he?” Eda agreed.  “Isn’t he pleased with himself, and his feet crossed!”

“And see this one, Eda—­he’s a ‘Harpy Eagle.’  There’s somebody we know looks just like that.  Wait a minute—­I’ll tell you—­it’s the woman who sits in the cashier’s cage at Grady’s.”

“If it sure isn’t!” said Eda.

“She has the same fluffy, light hair—­hairpins can’t keep it down, and she looks at you in that same sort of surprised way with her head on one side when you hand in your check.”

“Why, it’s true to the life!” cried Eda enthusiastically.  “She thinks she’s got all the men cinched,—­she does and she’s forty if she’s a day.”

These comparisons brought them to a pitch of risible enjoyment amply sustained by the spectacle in the monkey cage, to which presently they turned.  A chimpanzee, with a solicitation more than human, was solemnly searching a friend for fleas in the midst of a pandemonium of chattering and screeching and chasing, of rattling of bars and trapezes carried on by their companions.

“Well, young ladies,” said a voice, “come to pay a call on your relations—­have ye?”

Eda giggled hysterically.  An elderly man was standing beside them.  He was shabbily dressed, his own features were wizened, almost simian, and by his friendly and fatuous smile Janet recognized one of the harmless obsessed in which Hampton abounded.

“Relations!” Eda exclaimed.

“You and me, yes, and her,” he answered, looking at Janet, though at first he had apparently entertained some doubt as to this inclusion, “we’re all descended from them.”  His gesture triumphantly indicated the denizens of the cage.

“What are you giving us?” said Eda.

“Ain’t you never read Darwin?” he demanded.  “If you had, you’d know they’re our ancestors, you’d know we came from them instead of Adam and Eve.  That there’s a fable.”

“I’ll never believe I came from them,” cried Eda, vehement in her disgust.