When Josephine got home she found a note which had been left for her, but which was not in Mr. Cromartie’s handwriting.

It ran as follows:

Infirmary, Zoo

DEAR JOSEPHINE,

Your note has come by the messenger. I shall not be free to see you this afternoon, which relieves me from making the decision not to do so. You say that the reason you behave cruelly to me is because you love me. It is because I know that, that I have tried to do without your love. I think you are a character who will always torture the people you love. I cannot bear pain well; that alone makes us unsuited to each other. It is the principal reason why I never wish to see you again.

You are mistaken when you say that you have something of the first importance to tell me. Unless it is something to do with the arrangements which the Zoo authorities make with regard to the Ape-house, it cannot be of importance to me.

Please believe that I bear you no resentment for the past; indeed I still love you, but I mean what I say.

Yours ever,

JOHN CROMARTIE

When Josephine had read this letter over twice and had realised that it must have been written after he had been bitten by the ape, and just before his finger was cut off, she gave up her hopes.

Everything she had been feeling was revealed as ridiculous folly. If John could write like that at the moment when he must have been most wishing to escape from confinement, she saw that her plans for his regeneration were impossible. She went up to her room and lay down. All was lost.

That morning Mr. Cromartie had taken his breakfast of rolls, butter, Oxford marmalade, and coffee as usual. When it had been cleared away he began to play ball with the Caracal.

For this purpose he used an ordinary tennis ball, and throwing it on the floor of his cage, made it bounce on to the netting and back to him. The game therefore resembled fives, the object, however, being, on his part, to prevent the Caracal intercepting the ball, which, by the way, he was rarely able to do more than three or four times running, for the cat was very quick on its legs and had a good eye.

After they had been playing for about ten minutes Mr. Cromartie slipped backwards in taking a ball which bounced high, and fell heavily against the wire netting wall of his cage. Before he could get his balance he felt himself taken hold of by the hair, and understood at once that it was his neighbour the Orang who had got him in its clutches. The brute then got a finger as far as Mr. Cromartie’s ear and slit it through, though not injuring the drum. Mr. Cromartie managed to turn his head then in order to see his assailant, and found his face was now exposed, and his forehead was scratched. To protect himself he put one hand in front of his face, and was pushing himself away from the netting with the other when the Orang caught hold of two of his fingers in its teeth. The pain of this made him jerk his head free, and the lock of hair by which the Orang held him came right out of his scalp.