A student, connoisseur and reverent lover of nature, he was as accustomed to the wild solitudes of the north as of the tropics. Indeed he never really felt solitary. That stirring life which had surrounded him from his youth in the forests of his native country, the turbulent life in Central Africa, in the Indian jungles or in the wilds of other lands, that wonderful, mysterious, eventful life to which all his senses were perfectly attuned, prevented him from ever feeling lonely. Now that he was responsible for this zoological garden and its inhabitants, he felt at times a desire to wander in the nearby woods, to seek there something which, even though it was supervised, yet seemed to approach a primitive state. He loved to tramp over hill and dale and through the thickets, to stand in the wind, to watch, to listen, as he had in his roving years. He was about to get into the automobile standing before the zoo gates. “Ah,” he thought, “freedom at last!”
