All the animals in the Zoological Gardens have been killed except the monkeys; these are kept alive from a vague and Darwinian notion that they are our relatives, or at least the relatives of some of the members of the Government, to whom in the matter of beauty nature has not been bountiful.

In the cellar of the English Embassy there are three sheep.

Never did the rich man lust more after the poor man's ewe lamb than I lust after these sheep.

I go and look at them frequently, much as a London Arab goes to have a smell at a cookshop.

They console me for the absence of my ambassador.