A TRUE TALE OF A ZOO

Evening Star, Issue 23113, 12 November 1938, Page 8

A TRUE TALE OF A ZOO

The Budapest Zoo has a new attendant—a one-armed young man of 24 named Stephen Lehoczky; and thereby hangs a tale so curious that it makes one marvel at the things that go on in the hidden places of the human heart.

Twenty years ago a, little boy of four was taken to the zoo for the tost time. It was a tremendous event for him, for he was passionately fond of animals, although so far his acquaintance with them had been limited to horses and ;dogs. Unable to imagine that any animal could wish to do him hurt, he confidingly stretched his hand through tho bars of the hyena’s cage to pat the head! of a young hyena, with the ter-rible-result that he lost his hand. This little boy was Stephen Lehoczky. It might have been thought that the horror of this experience would make i the boy shrink for ever after from returning to the place where it had happened. But strangely enough the very opposite happened. As he grew older he began to spend all his spare time and all his pennies at the zoo. • And a peculiar fascination drew him ever oftener to the cage of the hyena which had bit him. He bore the animal no grudge for having maimed him for life; on the contrary, he seemed to feel a sort of bond between it and himself. Little by little he made friends with it, and the attendants, knowing his story, allowed him to feed it. The years passed, and the boy grew up. Always an excellent scholar, he finished his schooling with distinction and obtained a good post. He might have been content but for one /thing—his office hours no longer permitted him to visit the zoo, and his longing to return there grew stronger day by day. It was not the monkeys that drew him, nor the polar bears; it was his own particular friend the hyena. i The thought that it was waiting for him left him no peace till at last he threw up his job and applied for the post of attendant at the zoo. Socially it was a come-down in the world, but all he cares about is that already the hyena is so attached to him that it will take its food from no one else. One wonders—does it know ?